Inauguration Committee Republicans Block Measure To Declare Biden Election Winner
At a time when the results of the presidential election remain in dispute, there is one vote that presumptive President-elect Joe Biden clearly did not win.
The campaign of President Donald Trump has insisted that there has been voter fraud in states that include Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania.
Numerous affidavits testifying to various types of election fraud have been filed in courts in several swing states. These affidavits constitute evidence of fraud, but those allegations have yet to be proven by those courts. The legal action remains ongoing.
With that as the backdrop, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies considered a resolution affirming that the six-member committee was preparing for Biden’s inauguration.
It failed, according to Axios.
A miffed House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced the results of the vote on Tuesday.
“The extent to which Republicans are refusing to accept the outcome of the election and recognize Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president is astounding,” said Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, according to CNN. “Their continued deference to President Trump’s post-election temper tantrums threatens our democracy and undermines faith in our system of elections.”
The panel was split along party lines. The three Republicans — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California — opposed the resolution.
Hoyer, along with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, voted to effectively recognize Biden as president-elect.
Blunt said the committee does not decide who in fact won the election.
“It is not the job of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies to get ahead of the electoral process and decide who we are inaugurating. The JCCIC is facing the challenge of planning safe Inaugural Ceremonies during a global pandemic. I would hope that, going forward, the members of the JCCIC would adhere to the committee’s long-standing tradition of bipartisan cooperation and focus on the task at hand,” he said in a statement.
Republicans in Congress have generally avoided jumping on the Biden bandwagon. A survey by The Washington Post found that only 27 of 249 Republicans on Capitol Hill said Biden won the 2020 election.
On Monday, Trump did not appear to be backing away from his fight over how the election was conducted.
“If you look at the polls, it was a rigged election,” Trump said in response to a question during a White House event.
“You look at the different states. The election was totally rigged. It’s a disgrace to our country. It’s like a third-world country — these ballots pouring in from everywhere, using machinery that nobody knows ownership, nobody knows anything about,” he said.
“They have ‘glitches,’ as they call them. Glitches. The glitches weren’t glitches. They got caught sending out thousands of votes — all against me, by the way.
“No, this was like from a third-world nation. And I think the case has been made. And now we find out what we can do about it. But you’ll see a lot of big things happening over the next couple of days,” Trump said.
On Tuesday, during a White House vaccine summit, Trump was asked about the “next administration.”
“[H]hopefully the next administration will be the Trump administration, because you can’t steal hundreds of thousands of votes,” the president replied. “You can’t have fraud and deception and all of the things that they did, and then slightly win a swing state. And you just have to look at the numbers. Look at what’s been on tape. Look at all the corruption. And we’ll see.
“You can’t win an election like that,” Trump said, adding that his achievements in office were “rewarded with a victory.”
“Now, let’s see whether or not somebody has the courage — whether it’s a legislator or legislatures, or whether it’s a justice of the Supreme Court or a number of justices of the Supreme Court. Let’s see if they have the courage to do what everybody in this country knows is right,” he said.
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