Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) appeared to destroy his own party’s argument against former President Donald Trump by saying that he would honor the election result — if it were “free and fair.”
Democrats’ closing argument against Trump in the 2024 election has been that Trump is a “wannabe dictator,” and their evidence is — once again — the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
But now Raskin, and others, seem to be saying that they, too, would be open to challenging election results if they believed the election had been “stolen.”
Raskin appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday.
“No, we’re not going to allow them to steal it in the states, or steal it in the Department of Justice, or steal it with any other election official in the country,” he said. “If it’s a free and fair election, we will do what we have always done — we will honor it.”
Maher agreed that that was the “Democrats’ history” — though, of course, it was not, and certainly not in Raskin’s own case.
In 2017, Raskin proudly joined other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in objecting to the certification of the 2016 election results in which former President Donald Trump won the presidency.
Raskin even linked from his congressional website to an article in the left-wing publication The Nation (now only available in archived form) titled “ Courageous House Progressives Raise ‘Justice and Fairness’ Objections to Certifying Trump.”
The article noted that members of the caucus raised constant objections throughout the certification: “ Newly elected Congressman Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor from Maryland, rose to question the process.”
In his comments to Maher, Raskin left himself a giant loophole: he would accept the results — if they were “free and fair.”
In so doing, he repeated a dodge that he used earlier in the year, when he declined to say in advance that he and fellow Democrats would honor the 2024 results.
Axios reported that some Democrats, including Raskin, were leaving the door open to object to the results again.
If Trump “won a free, fair and honest election, then we would obviously accept it,” Raskin said, then added: “I definitely don’t assume that.”
Raskin’s argument is no different than those used by President Donald Trump in 2020-1, when he — and many others — believed that the elections were neither free nor fair.
Raskin then led the second impeachment effort against Trump, and sat on the one-sided January 6 Committee to probe those who had engaged in a so-called “insurrection,” even though he himself had raised objections to the 2017 election and is prepared to do so in future.
Raskin also drew attention earlier this year when he described a scenario in which Democrats could refuse to certify Trump as president by citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to disqualify him from office on the argument that he had engaged in “insurrection.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.