Didn’t Stacey Abrams Deny Losing Her Election Too?

Fulton County Georgia DA Fani Willis’ 100 page indictment of former President Donald Trump, and 18 people involved in Trump’s re-election campaign is all based on one, central allegation; “Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined (a) conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

All charges and allegations made in this indictment descend from this key assertion.

The same can be said for the federal indictment brought in Washington DC by Special Counsel Jack Smith. That document also states that “(t)he Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election… (d)espite having lost…for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.”

We have discussed the difficulty in establishing that Trump knew he had actually lost (especially when so many of his fellow citizens also think Trump actually won), and in proving that the former President knew that his complaints of being cheated were false.

Yet, the unswerving position of the majority of the Democratic party and their supporters in the legal and legacy media establishments is that “election denial” is a crime in and of itself. For instance, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, Smith’s “indictment amounts to another in a series of emphatic rejections of election denial since the 2020 election…(a) federal prosecutor has now weighed in, charging that the actions Trump took under the pretext of election denial were criminal…(o)ver the last two years, election denial has been proven false so many times that another debunking is unremarkable – this one, however, is historic in that it comes with charges against a former president.”

Then there is the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), “an independent nonprofit think tank that provides rigorous research, insight and communications that help speed equality and opportunity for all,” which has issued a report entitled How Election Denialism Threatens Our Democracy and the Safeguards We Need to Defend It. The report “measures the level of risk to each state posed by election denialism, (and) the resulting threats when the proper safeguards are not in place…(t)he report includes MAP’s new National Election Denial Risk Index, which shows that more than two in three American voters (157 million voters) live in states with at least a moderate risk of election denialism jeopardizing future elections. Of those, 29 million voters live in high-risk states for election denial.” MAP asserts that their Index “is a tool for lawmakers, journalists, and the public that can be used to examine the range of ways that election denialism poses a threat to each state and which policies can strengthen a state’s ability to combat these threats.”

One of MAP’s recommended solutions to the “crime” of election denial? “(L)imiting partisan involvement in post-election processes, increasing penalties for election subversion, and limiting frivolous recount requests.”

Sure, who needs more free speech and participation in the democratic process? Certainly not the people at MAP!

And certainly not Jack Smith or Fani Willis.

But both seem to have their sights set on only one particular election denier and his followers. Aren’t there other targets out there – others who denied they lost their election and refused to concede, causing the “threat” of “election denialism?”

The report concludes tomorrow

Judge John Wilson served on the bench in NYC

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.