Aaron Blake writes that two days after his “he could have overturned the Election!” remark, Trump is asking for a mulligan.
But if you drill down, what the statement really seems to be about, in large part, is walking back his comments on precisely what that scheme entailed.
Mr. Stable Genius may have realized he had clarified his criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt, or maybe not.
On January 6, Trump wanted Vice President Pence to take one of two options — either reject some states’ ballots outright — immediately giving the election to Trump — or declare that some states’ ballots were in dispute and had to be sent back to the states, where the outcome might be settled by (Republican) state legislators — eventually giving the election to Trump. Or, maybe it would have resulted in a vote in the U.S. House, with one vote per state. Any of those outcomes would have given the election to Trump. Pence didn’t act as instructed, either because of a momentary flush of principles or a loss of nerve.
In his Sunday statement, Aaron Blake said, Trump favored the immeciate option — Pence could have just tossed the “bad” ballots and given the election to Trump. Blake writes that by Tuesday he had changed his tune.
On Tuesday, though, Trump very conspicuously focused only on the latter option, mentioning it twice in the course of a characteristically false series of claims.
Trump said the Electoral Count Act reform effort shows that “the Vice President did have this right or, more pointedly, could have sent the votes back to various legislators for reassessment after so much fraud and irregularities were found.”
The “more pointedly” is doing a lot of work here. Trump’s use of it makes clear this is intended to suggest his goal might have been the supposedly more-benign option — no matter what he said Sunday.
Perhaps he’s thinking that “sending the contested ballots back to the states” is less obviously criminal than “overturning the election.”
To drive the point home, Trump returned at the end of his statement to the idea that sending it back to the states was what Pence should have and could have done — rather than, apparently, trying to overturn the election himself.
“Therefore, the Unselect Committee should be investigating … why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!” Trump concluded.
Of course, that hasn’t been shown at all, except in Trump’s head.
Also at WaPo, Philip Bump describes the sloppy, patchwork, spaghetti-at-the-wall effort to steal the presidency. This one shouldn’t be behind a paywall, so do read it.