On a near-daily basis, Donald Trump continues to cling to conspiracy theories about his 2020 election defeat like a life preserver for his ego. At a White House event this week, for example, the president told a group of children that the race from nearly six years ago was “rigged,” which came on the heels of a social media message in which he declared that Democrats are “human garbage” who “RIGGED the 2020 Presidential Election.”
The president also recently declared that the results of the 2020 election “should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect” as part of a truly head-spinning theory tangentially related to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The conspiratorial nonsense became the background noise of our civic lives several years ago, to the point that few even bother to notice when the president peddles these obvious absurdities. But while it’s relatively easy to shrug off what Trump and his team are saying about his failed re-election bid, it’s important not to lose sight of what they’re doing.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:
A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent interviewed a high-ranking state election official in recent days about the 2020 presidential election, according to sources with knowledge of the conversation.
The agent sat down with Wisconsin Elections Commission deputy administrator Robert Kehoe earlier this week and discussed with Kehoe how elections are carried out in Wisconsin and various election theories. Kehoe debunked false claims and clarified how elections work, according to the sources.
The Journal Sentinel’s report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that the FBI’s newfound interest in the state’s 2020 results comes at a time when Wisconsin and Milwaukee election officials “are bracing for potential action from federal authorities over their administration of the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump falsely claims he won.”
For those keeping score, in recent months, Trump administration officials have launched investigations in Puerto Rico, Georgia and Arizona. If the Journal Sentinel’s reporting is correct, Wisconsin has joined the growing club.
Unfortunately for those who support democracy, this is just the start of a larger crusade. We learned in late March, for example, that Trump’s Justice Department tapped a far-right former congressman to pursue probes related to the 2020 election across the country.
What’s more, the Republican team is waging an aggressive campaign to acquire voter rolls from states where Democrats won; organizing an unnecessary FBI elections “briefing” for state officials; and providing Kurt Olsen, one of Trump’s highly controversial former campaign lawyers, with classified information as he tries to advance election conspiracy theories.
All of this, of course, stems from the president’s obsession with relitigating the election he lost, and it coincides with evidence of his ongoing interest in a possible federal takeover of the nation’s electoral system. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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