Federal agencies should not interfere with elections. But in 2020, some did just that by attempting to propagate false stories (“Russian collusion”) and by pressuring media outlets to suppress information embarrassing to the Biden campaign. The House Judiciary Committee probed this issue. “On July 17, 2023, the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government conducted a transcribed interview of Laura Dehmlow, the Section Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF). During her transcribed interview, Dehmlow revealed that the same FBI personnel who were warning social media companies about a potential Russian “hack and leak” operation in the run-up to the 2020 election knew that the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was not Russian disinformation. After the New York Post broke a story based on the contents of the laptop about Biden family influence peddling, the FBI made the institutional decision to refuse to answer direct questions from social media companies about the laptop’s authenticity—despite months of constant information sharing up to that time. Put simply, after the FBI conditioned social media companies to believe that the laptop was the product of a hack-and-dump operation, the Bureau stopped its information sharing, allowing social media companies to conclude that the New York Post story was Russian disinformation…The FBI’s failure to alert social-media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and not mere Russian disinformation, is particularly troubling. The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social-media companies to look for a “hack and dump” operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election. Even after Facebook specifically asked whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, Dehmlow of the FBI refused to comment, resulting in the social-media companies’ suppression of the story. As a result, millions of U.S. citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020 election.”
National pollingreveals that “ A whopping 79 percent of Americans suggest President Donald Trump likely would have won reelection if voters had known the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop—that it was real and not ‘Russian disinformation,’ as intelligence officials aligned with Joe Biden falsely led the public to believe….”
It is clear that federal manipulation of the media altered the results of the 2020 election, and that Trump’s claim about an unfair election is supported by facts.
The final allegation is that Trump incited the use of violence at the Capitol on January 6. The case remains pending. The Senate has already acquitted him of the charges. There is no specific language by the former president urging violence at the Capitol. But consider the argument that his words could be misinterpreted by some as urging illegal actions. Under that questionable theory, many elected officials could also be charged, indeed, with far greater and more specific evidence, of inciting violence. Many encouraged and supported the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots which burned buildings, looted stores, assaulted innocents, invaded police stations, and attacked federal court houses. Indeed, some connected to the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris provided financial support for the perpetrators. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer threatened Supreme Court Justices in the aftermath of the Dobbs case, and, indeed, there were instances of threatening actions taken against several members. Several members of Congress have supported the antisemitic, illegal actions taken on university campuses and city streets throughout the nation. There is neither a precedent nor a legal argument for convicting Trump of the January 6 matter.
A careful review of the claims that Trump is a “Threat to Democracy” Indicate that the charge is without legal or precedential merit.