As the president’s lawsuits to contest the election results grow more and more absurd, Republicans’ rhetoric surrounding the soft putsch is becoming more and more worrisome. On Thursday, 106 GOP representatives signed an amicus brief sent to the Supreme Court in support of a petition by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. (By Friday, the figure had grown to 126, according to New York Times reporter Nick Corasaniti.) The petition requests that the Supreme Court grant an emergency order that would nullify presidential election results declaring Joe Biden the winner in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin based on a bogus claim about mail-ballot rules.
That means that more than half of all House Republicans have now endorsed Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election and stay in power for another four years.
After the brief was filed, another Republican says she wants in (and was left out by mistake):
Like other Trump lawsuits slated to overturn an election in which there has been no substantial evidence of voter fraud, the Texas filing is extremely unlikely to succeed. (Election-law expert Rick Hasen on Wednesday described the attempt as “a press release masquerading as a lawsuit.”) Nevertheless, 17 Republican attorneys general filed their own amicus brief in support of the Texas lawsuit. Paxton’s suit will almost surely be dismissed from the high court as soon as it gets there, but it’s still an effective tool to understand that Trump’s demand to “#OVERTURN” the election has significant purchase among Republican lawmakers and appointees still willing to bow to his orders.
