by Stu Cvrk
The political class has spoken: Joe Biden has been “certified” by the US Congress as the United States' next president. A staged break-in of the US Capitol was used as an excuse to avoid any discussion or debate on the massive evidence of election fraud that compromised the votes of electors in several swing states (at the very least). How convenient.
If President Trump has accomplished nothing else (and he definitely has, as reported here, here, and here), he has exposed the near-total corruption of our political institutions. From judges unwilling to look at the evidence of election fraud while hiding behind “standing” and “process” for their rulings, to gutless Republicans in Congress who have rolled over and willfully ignored and excused the overwhelming evidence of that fraud, to the Democrats who have fought all attempts at real audits of ballots cast tooth and nail, and to the legacy media who are nothing if not the hand-maidens of the Democrat Party who blatantly pushed a hologram candidate over the top on Election Day night and then blithely lied by conveying a false narrative that “no courts have found evidence of election fraud” (see above judicial corruption) – only the hyper-partisans on the Left and in the media believe that the election was “fair and secure and freely won by Joe Biden.”
There has been much post-election analysis outside the legacy media (the only place where truth can be found these days). One such excellent compilation of evidence of election fraud is entitled, “Yes, It Was a Stolen Election,” which details what happened in all of the battleground states, with 93 linked sources in the article supporting the analysis provided. What are the chances that any serving member in Congress who voted to certify the Hologram as president on Wednesday night actually read that article – let alone read any of the shocking evidence of massive and coordinated election fraud provided at those 93 linked sources – before they voted to certify the fraud in the middle of the night? Zip, zero, nada.
A flag with the word "treason" left at the U.S. Capitol after rioters stormed the building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Jan. 6. This photo was posted to Twitter by Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-SD, after rioters were evicted from the Capitol. Rep. Dusty Johnson via Twitter
Now that Biden has been “certified,” Republican members of Congress who voted “aye” are fanning out in their home states and districts to explain their votes to their constituents. If the Thursday night’s teleconference with Congressman Dustin M. (“Dusty”) Johnson (R-SD) was any indication, then Republican voters aren’t buying the obviously prepared talking points conveyed by representatives such as Johnson. Johnson (like many in the political class) is a smooth-talking prevaricator who dances around tough questions using rhetorical tricks like topic-shifting, blame-shifting, and “answering” questions with his own questions while actually avoiding direct answers. Let us examine some of what transpired.
Many of the questions asked during the call related to specific evidence of election fraud cited and why Congress rushed to certify Biden’s election without any examination of any of the evidence. Johnson pulled out his obviously prepared answer, which was a word-for-word reading of the single sentence in the 12th Amendment delineating Congress’s election certification responsibilities: “The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed.” Johnson hid behind the process by claiming his only job was to certify the votes that had been cast. He implied that Congress has no responsibility to determine whether the elector’s votes were fraudulent, and all they could do was vote on whether to certify the votes of the Electoral College as a simple procedural matter.
Isn’t it odd that Congress can write legislation for just about any issue not specifically delineated in the Constitution and also investigate virtually anything they wish if it suits them, but somehow Johnson figuratively throws up his hands and claims that he “did his job”? Since allowing fraudulent votes to determine the election outcome is apparently okay by him and can’t be challenged by Congress, would he also agree with the use of counterfeit currency to make purchases of merchandise at stores in his hometown of Mitchell, South Dakota? Ridiculous.
As an aside, about two years ago during a similar teleconference with South Dakotans, Johnson was confronted by angry constituents when he publicly announced he was against the President moving funds with the Executive Branch budget to build the southern border wall. In close questioning during that call, he claimed he was against the President’s actions because Article 2 of the Constitution made the President’s move unconstitutional. Never mind that all past presidents have used their discretion to move funds among federal accounts, that building the wall is absolutely the right thing to do, or that Johnson’s constituents overwhelmingly supported building the wall! That conference call interchange was an early sign of his rhetorical modus operandi in excusing his inexcusable actions – hide behind process.
Another questioner would not let Johnson escape with that answer. He pointed out that, while the 12th Amendment identifies the process to be followed by Congress in counting the votes, it is silent on any verification process for those votes. The U.S. Constitution is a mechanism for constraining the powers of the federal government. Those constraints and authorizations for congressional responsibilities are clearly delineated. When the Constitution is silent on a particular issue – such as the verification of the electoral college – Congress has the authority to act. For Congress to avoid investigating the blatant corruption of the Electoral College votes in this election is a shirking of their duty – which is what Johnson himself condones. He would have us believe that it is okay for Congress to count fraudulent votes and that he (and Congress) have no responsibility to the people to ensure those votes are not fraudulent.
When confronted by several callers about the evidence of election fraud in several states, Johnson claimed that there was no real evidence of sufficient fraud to overturn the presidential election. He claimed that he and his staff had spent “around 1000 hours” examining the evidence and came up empty. They didn’t read that article above of the sourced links (which might have taken an hour of their precious time), the signed affidavits in the various lawsuits filed on behalf of the Trump campaign, the many hours of sworn testimony on election fraud before various committees in swing state hearing on election fraud over the past two months, forensic evidence of fractional vote-counting and vote-switching by automated ballot marking devices, or expert analyses performed by independent experts that detail the fraud (for example, here, here, here, and here). Johnson and his staff had to be willfully blind not to have seen the evidence, and to claim during that conference call that there was “insufficient evidence” is an untruth (to put it politely).
Johnson further claimed that President Trump’s attorneys lost every lawsuit filed and were “0 for 60” in those court cases, which “proved” that there was insufficient evidence to overturn the electors in contested swing states. Except that Johnson conveniently “forgot” that only one court in Wisconsin has actually ruled on the evidence to date (a hand-picked Carter-appointed reserve judge ruled against the lawsuit), and all of the other cases were dismissed for lack of standing and/or process reasons, i.e., the evidence was not even examined. And that includes the US Supreme Court when they rejected the lawsuit filed by the state of Texas on process grounds. The overwhelming evidence of fraud has simply not been examined by the courts. By the way, as politicians always seem to do, Johnson grossly exaggerated his with his 0 for 60 comment, as the President’s team filed nowhere close to that number of lawsuits.
Johnson then blame-shifted by asking why no Trump-appointed US district attorneys filed lawsuits on behalf of the Trump campaign (as if that would somehow excuse him ignoring that evidence and doing nothing about it). He further claimed that, if there had been real evidence of fraud, Trump-appointed district attorneys would have filed lawsuits in various states, but because none have done so, that somehow also “proves” that there was insufficient election fraud to overturn the election and gives Congress an “out card” for not doing their own investigation. Except that Johnson glossed over the fact that the Constitution grants state legislatures the responsibility for writing election laws. State courts have jurisdiction on matters concerning state election law, and therefore the bulk of Trump campaign-related lawsuits were filed in the various state courts. And as discussed above, the state courts ruled on process and standing, not the evidence. And lastly, President Trump refused to employ federal district attorneys that he appointed to file election lawsuits on his behalf for conflict-of-interest reasons.
When queried about why he did not join with other Republicans to question the validity of the Electoral College votes in several contested states, Johnson flipped the question to ask the questioner whether he would rather have Nancy Pelosi determining the rules rather than simply following what the Constitution prescribed. Except he somehow “forgot” that South Dakotans didn’t elect Nancy Pelosi; we elected HIM to represent our collective interests and to stand on principle on behalf of his constituents when warranted. South Dakotans overwhelming voted for President Trump, and the majority of the callers (less the single Democrat questioner on the call) were outraged that Republicans voted to certify Biden in a transparently contested election while calling out Johnson for not properly representing the will of his own constituency by voting to certify Biden’s election.
Lastly, when questioned about why he bailed out on President Trump after the election, Johnson went through a laundry list of past examples of his support for the President, including his appointment as the leader for the President’s reelection campaign in South Dakota and key representative involved in helping to pass the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement. But he didn’t/couldn’t explain his public statements declaring Biden the “president-elect” before evidence presented in the Trump campaign lawsuits had been heard. While he was being hotly pressured by a caller on that point, Johnson made an offhand remark that he was elected to serve the people, was not a career politician, and took a 50% pay cut as a U.S. representative. Since representing the people was such an apparently tough and insufficiently remunerative job, the thought that perhaps he should resign passed through the mind of at least one caller (me) at that point!
Johnson claimed to be a conservative more than once on that call, which of course is a throw-away line in a state where voters are predominantly conservative and sensible. Yet, he abandoned his duty to support the head of his own political party, who is the most conservative Republican president in at least the last 30 years. He made excuses for voting to certify Biden as president while hiding behind process. He glossed over the massive evidence of voter fraud, read from prepared talking points in responding to callers during that teleconference, and couldn’t adequately explain why he failed to represent the will of his own constituents on possibly the most important issue of our time. Just how “conservative” is that Representative Johnson?
And rest assured, he is not alone in Congress. The other “Republicans” who voted to certify a fraudulent election during that joint session of Congress are equally gutless.
Stu Cvrk served 30 years in the US Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. An oceanographer and systems analyst through education and experience, Stu is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, where he received a classical liberal education. This functions as the key foundation for his political commentary. He threads daily on Twitter on a wide range of political topics, such as the military, foreign policy, government, economics, and world affairs. Twitter: @STUinSD
