Republican senator blasts ‘institutional arsonist’ GOP colleagues for backing Trump’s bogus election fraud claims

‘Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government,’ writes Senator Ben Sasse in critique of Republican colleagues

Senator Ben Sasse blasted his Republican colleagues in a stinging 2,200-word critique in which he accuses those going along with Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election of being engaged in a “dangerous ploy”.

In his unvarnished criticism of the actions of some in his party, posted in six parts on Facebook, he wrote: “Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage.”

“But they’re wrong — and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions,” Mr Sasse bluntly continued. “Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”

He said that those entertaining the notion of electoral fraud don’t actually believe it to be true and are simply worrying about their political careers being dependent on Trump supporters.

“When we talk in private, I haven't heard a single Congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent — not one,” the senator wrote. “Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will 'look' to President Trump's most ardent supporters.”

The senator penned his assessment of the state of the GOP following the announcement by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that he intended to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania.

Mr Sasse took aim at the House Republicans that had already said they would challenge Mr Biden’s win, claiming the election was stolen. He calls them “institutional arsonist members of Congress”.

In just one week, a joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate is to certify Mr Biden’s victory in what is traditionally a ceremonial meeting. Any objection to the results requires both a House member and a Senator to back it, both of which are now lined up, but all this will do is delay the inevitable when the objection is set to be rejected by both chambers.

While some Democrat lawmakers have attempted to challenge Republican presidential victories in the past, such attempts were not encouraged either by losing candidates nor outgoing administrations.

However, in 2020 the president is leading efforts to overturn Mr Biden’s substantial victory and encouraged members of Congress to join him in his quest, despite there being nor evidence to back up his allegations of electoral fraud.

“For President-elect Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College victory to be overturned, President Trump would need to flip multiple states. But not a single state is in legal doubt,” Mr Sasse reminded his colleagues, including a breakdown of the many unsubstantiated claims of fraud made by Mr Trump and his team and how they had been dismissed by courts or state leadership. He called the attempted lawsuits a “fundraising strategy”.

The senator also lambasted the Trump legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, for making grand claims to the public and to donors, but not daring to make the same claims in front of a judge.

“That’s not a surprise. Because there are no penalties for misleading the public,” Mr Sasse wrote. “But there are serious penalties for misleading a judge, and the president’s lawyers know that — and thus they have repeated almost none of the claims of grand voter fraud that the campaign spokespeople are screaming at their most zealous supporters.”

Mr Sasse conceded that while specific cases of electoral fraud should be investigated, “we shouldn’t burn down the whole process along the way”.

“We have good reason to think this year’s election was fair, secure, and law-abiding,” the senator wrote. “That’s not to say it was flawless. But there is no evidentiary basis for distrusting our elections altogether, or for concluding that the results do not reflect the ballots that our fellow citizens actually cast.”

Near the close of this lengthy critique, Senator Sasse opines on the dangers of deep intractable partisan division.

“All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party. We ought to be better than that,” he wrote.

“If we normalise this, we’re going to turn American politics into a Hatfields and McCoys endless blood feud – a house hopelessly divided.”