Washington Post Gift Article – “Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans. “Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” said Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. “But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin went on. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.” The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued. The idea of claiming emergency executive powers based on allegations of foreign interference attaches new significance to the administration’s actions to reinvestigate the 2020 election. Trump has never accepted defeat, while never finding evidence of widespread fraud. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is leading a review of election security that officials said focuses on foreign influence. A 2021 intelligence review concluded that China considered efforts to influence the election but did not go through with them…”

• See also TMP Gift Article – Time for the States to Gear Up for Trump’s Fake Elections Exec Order – “…Two points merit saying on this. The first is that these are the rehashed, insane theories that were literally and figuratively laughed out of court in 2020. These are all absurd. Everybody knows they are absurd and false. The legal theory is what demands our attention. The authors of the order believe that if something is an emergency the president can invoke a kind of hidden dictator clause in the Constitution which allows him to assert powers which the Constitution explicitly forbids to him. This is not so. They secondarily believe in what we might call a “because” or “therefore” logic or clause. So because we have found that Threat X exists, the president can do whatever he wants to combat that threat. And as commander-in-chief, he can do anything he wants. This is also not so…”
• See also The New York Times – Trump’s Push for Election Power Raises Fears He Will ‘Subvert’ Midterms. “During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Trump suggested that “it should be my third term” and falsely declared that the “only way” that Democrats “can get elected is to cheat.” The president appears to be undermining Americans’ faith in the outcome, at a moment when Republicans face an uphill climb to keep control of Congress. Ahead of the midterm elections, an emboldened President Trump has shown an increased eagerness to leverage the full investigative, prosecutorial and legislative powers of the federal government to bend election mechanics to his will. With his words and deeds, the president — who pushed to overturn his 2020 defeat but declared his 2024 victory legitimate — appears to be undermining Americans’ trust that the midterms will be free and fair. As the political environment darkens for his party, Mr. Trump is again warning Republicans that Democrats are going to rig the results. At the same time, he is taking actions that make Democrats fear that Republicans are actually going to subvert the election. Mr. Trump has shown himself unbound by precedent in his second term, and with prominent election deniers in powerful federal posts and top cabinet officials on the hunt for evidence of voter fraud, his moves have heightened anxieties about potential interference…”