Will he stay or will he go?
by digby
pic.twitter.com/JDS4zUXXJG— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019
Everyone is scoffing at these concerns by Democrats but maybe they shouldn’t:
In 2016, Donald Trump waffled over whether he would accept the election results if he lost.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly joked about staying in office beyond the two terms the Constitution allows. Jerry Falwell Jr., Trump’s most prominent evangelical supporter, has suggested Trump should get two years tacked on to his first term as “pay back” for the Mueller investigation. The president’s own former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has warned that “there will never be a peaceful transition of power” should Trump fail in his reelection bid.
The scenarios all seem far-fetched — “It’s almost a question for science fiction movies,” cracked a former top Secret Service official — but the constant drumbeat nonetheless has people chattering in the halls of Congress and throughout the Beltway: What if Trump won’t accept defeat in 2020?
And one scenario in particular has Democrats nervous: the lawsuit-happy Trump contests the election results in court.
“It’s been a worry in the back of my mind for the last couple years now,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat. California Rep. Ted Lieu, a frequent Trump critic and early impeachment inquiry supporter, acknowledged the same concern but said he trusted law enforcement “would do the right thing” and “install the winner” of the election. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told her party to prepare for the possibility that Trump contests the 2020 results.
Constitutional experts and top Republican lawmakers dismiss the fears as nonsense, noting there are too many forces working against a sitting president simply clinging to power — including history, law and political pressure.
“That is the least concern people should have. Of all the silly things that are being said, that may be the silliest,” said Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt, who presided over the 2016 inauguration ceremony and expects to do so again in 2020. “The one thing we are really good at is the transition of power.”
Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley said a lingering incumbent would simply become irrelevant once the new and duly elected president is sworn in. At that point, the defeated president is nothing more than a guest, “if not an interloper,” in the White House, the George Washington University professor noted.
“The system would make fast work on any president who attempted to deny the results of the election,” he said.
But a court battle over a presidential election is not unprecedented. And Trump has shown a willingness to tie up his disputes in winding litigation. The Democratic National Committee and Trump’s campaign were in court all the way up to Election Day 2016, fighting over charges of voter intimidation and ballot access.
“All candidates have a right to contest results in federal court,” Turley said. “It’s not up to the candidate to decide if an election is valid. It’s not based on their satisfaction or consent. They have every right to seek judicial review.”
Even so, contesting the results of the election in more than one state would be “a massive undertaking,” said Bradley Shrager, a lawyer specializing in election litigation who has worked with several Democratic campaigns. He added that “given the time frames to launch recounts and election contests, you’d have to be preparing months in advance to be able to do that.”
There are also deadlines for submitting an official electoral vote tally, Shrager said, so a legal battle wouldn’t drag out indefinitely.
Still, Pelosi’s comments nodded to the Democratic suspicion that Trump will put up a fight. She argued the Democrats’ must win by a margin so “big” that Trump can’t challenge the results.
The sentiment, Democrats say, is fueled by Trump’s cavalier attitude toward presidential term lengths.
Trump continues to talk up the prospect that he could serve past the constitutionally mandated period. On Twitter last weekend, Trump pondered, “do you think the people would demand that I stay longer?” The line mirrored language he used at a rally in Pennsylvania last month where he talked about living in the White House for 20 years.
“We ran one time and we’re 1-and-0. But it was for the big one. Now we’re going to have a second time. And we’re going to have another one. And then we’ll drive them crazy,” Trump said. “And maybe if we really like it a lot — and if things keep going like they’re going — we’ll go and we’ll do what we have to do. We’ll do a three and a four and a five.”
I suspect he will leave — and spend the rest of his life ginning up the cult to believe it was stolen from him. He’ll enjoy that more than being president.
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