U.S. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) — who is also chair of the House Republican Conference since 2021 — released an official statement when former President Donald Trump was arrested on Thursday in Georgia, where he faces 13 criminal counts and his fourth indictment of 2023. Stefanik claims the indictments are “unconstitutional.”
(Note: Stefanik was elected chair of the House Republican Conference after incumbent Liz Cheney was removed due to her opposition to Trump.)
Stefanik writes about Trump’s arrest in Georgia:
“President Trump is being arrested for rightfully challenging the results of the election, something he had the legal authority to do. The stenographers in the mainstream media refuse to report that Democrats objected to presidential election results in 2001, 2005, and 2016 – every Republican President in this century.”
My full statement on the fourth unconstitutional and unprecedented arrest of President Trump: pic.twitter.com/jRXmHbZIwi
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) August 24, 2023
Stefanik’s assertions are belied by the fact that the candidates she references, unlike Trump, all conceded, squelching further media scrutiny.
Even so it’s no secret that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore objected strenuously to the 2000 presidential election results. After a 36-day Florida recount battle — which was exhaustively documented by mainstream media — and a Supreme Court settlement (Bush v. Gore), which famed lawyer and Trump supporter Alan Dershowitz said was “the single most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history,” Gore conceded to his Republican opponent, George W. Bush, on December 13, 2000.
Further countering Stefanik’s claims, Democrats argue that the aforementioned candidates (Gore, Kerry, Clinton) not only conceded their races, but that none of them attempted to illegally overturn the election results as Trump is accused of doing.
The 13 charges Trump faces in Georgia include: “allegedly attempting to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in Georgia in 2020”; “conspiring with several others around his campaign for the use of fake electors in Georgia”; and “several counts of soliciting a public official to violate their oath.”
