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Does Mr. Trump Intend to Remain President If He Loses the Election? Dr. Tim S. Stuart President, Stuart Analytics Draft: December 14, 2019 Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 I. Introduction 6 II. Motive, Opportunity and Means 15 III. A Possible “Scheme” 16 IV. Conclusion 31 Appendixes: A. Discussion of Motivation, Opportunity and Means with a Focus on 36 Three Known Norm-breakers: Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell, and Mr. Barr B. Additional Information: Likely Reaction to Scheme Implementation 53 Contact Information: Dr. Tim S. Stuart Phone: 703.850.7478 e-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.stuartanalytics.com © 2019, 2020. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license. 1 Does Mr. Trump Intend to Remain President if He Loses the Election? Executive Summary I. Introduction: This paper describes a number of “actions and inactions” by Mr. Trump and others that indicate Mr. Trump may be preparing a scheme to stay in power if he loses the 2020 election. This description of a possible “scheme’ is my effort to “connect the dots” between certain curious “actions and inactions” by Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell and their allies, with a focus on foreign election interference. Connecting the dots led to the possible scheme described here. My concern that the possible scheme might indicate an actual scheme was increased by my later reading of Geltzer’s article, including his discussion of Mr. Trump’s tweet implying that Mr. Trump might allege foreign interference in the 2018 mid-term election and how this behavior might preview Mr. Trump’s effort to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election. The paper reviews some of the expressed concerns that Mr. Trump may not transfer power peacefully and builds upon this work to suggest a possible scheme that would be very difficult to detect, would only require the cooperation of a few key allies, i.e., Mr. McConnell, and Mr. Barr, and would be very difficult to stop. Based upon their actions to date, discussed in Appendix A, all three of these individuals are known norm-breakers and apparently place party (and the GOP tribe) before country and the Constitution. It appears likely that Mr. McConnell and Mr. Barr would be quite open to participating in a scheme to help Mr. Trump remain in office if he lost the 2020 election. We also know that Mr.Trump will stop at nothing to win a second term. Recent actions by Mr. Trump and his Republican allies related to impeachment indicate a willingness to both ignore reality and repeat Russian misinformation in an attempt to protect the President. Even though each Senator, as a juror, takes a special oath to “do impartial justice” in an impeachment trial, Mr. McConnell has stated that Mr. Trump, the defendant, will control the design of the trial. Therefore, we appear to be dealing with tribal behavior rather than genuine differences over policy and ideology. The paper discusses how tribal levels of political polarization are incompatible with democracy, since the tribe becomes before the law, and why tribal behavior therefore works against the peaceful transfer of power. II. Summary of the Scheme: The purpose of the effort is to at least extend his time in office if he loses the 2020 election, the optimal outcome for Mr. Trump would be a new vote tally leading to his “winning” the 2020 election. The Scheme basically involves the President encouraging (or causing) extensive election interference, and then, if he loses the election, declaring that the election results are invalid due to this same extensive interference. This “scheme” thus may be an actual scheme or it may be an unplanned series of “actions and inactions,” that set the stage for later possible developments. A. Preparations for Implementing a Possible Scheme are Almost Complete: These preparations have been underway for some time and all of the preparations should be complete by the 2020 election. The preparations seem to include the following ten items, 2 which can be divided into three broad groups: 1. Assemble the Key Players and Prepare the Ground: This includes build a stronger White House bubble; installing a pliable Director of National Intelligence (DNI); installing a pliable Attorney General; continue to keep the GOP message machine strong and united; continue to install very conservative judges to high levels in the judiciary, including the Supreme Court; continue to endorse and support federal and state efforts to restrict voter participation, including the adoption of voter suppression, and carrying out partisan redistricting (gerrymandering); 2: Prepare for “Scheme” Implementation: Continue to invite or force election interference by other countries, and possibly other organizations in the 2020 presidential election; work with Mr. McConnell to welcome foreign interference in the 2020 election; prevent or undercut work on election security by his Administration; continue to have “off the record” meetings and communications with Mr. Putin and others. 3: Prepare to Avoid Detection and Accountability: Work with Mr. Barr to develop legal strategies to avoid or stop any investigation of Mr. Trump’s activities by Congress or the Courts; also develop legal strategies to stop any investigation, including Congessional oversight that Mr. Trump considers “unfair;” and work with the Supreme Court to end the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions. The Department of Justice is likely already preparing legal strategies needed if the 2020 election is significantly “compromised” by interference. Some of those strategies just might happen to be consistent with the “scheme” described here. Also, continue to keep the Federal Election Commission inactive. B. The following six items likely play a dual role: to build support if needed to implement the scheme and also to support Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign, i.e. continue to: 1. Abuse and discredit the independent press; 2. Drive tribalism, division, fear and hate in the electorate; 3. Carry out his disinformation campaign; 4. Provide Republican donors and the wealthy with financial windfalls; 5. Block Congressional oversight; 6. Carry out an aggressive “deterrence” punishment of immigrants and asylum seekers. C. Initial Implementation Steps: 1. Announce the Scheme: Rather than conceding the election, announce from the Oval Office that the votes are “contaminated” and not suitable for use. To ensure a “fair” election, he will “clean up” the existing votes prior to a necessary recount or, if a “clean up” is not feasible, set up a new election after “improved” voting procedures are in place. 2. Crank up the GOP messaging machine: Move forward with both pushing the scheme and responding to attacks. One can assume Mr. Trump would favor the usual mix of misinformation, lies, distortions, exaggerations, and “alternative facts” mixed in with bits of truth spread using Tweets; right-wing and mainstream social and broadcast media; personal appearances/news conferences/gaggles; written position papers; “technical” 3 reports; endorsements and testimonials from GOP donors, GOP Congressional leaders, business leaders, celebrities, legal “experts,” evangelicals; and right-wing security/cyber- war “experts/conspiracy theorists.” 3. Attempt to Delay the Certification of the Electoral Vote: Before the Joint Session of Congress held for certifying the electoral vote on January 6, 2021, Mr. Trump would likely make another announcement that, as he had announced earlier, the votes in the 2020 election were too contaminated to use. At the same time, his allies in the House and Senate could present information from our intelligence agencies on the amount of “contamination” of votes due to foreign interference and lodge formal objections against counting votes for all or some of the states. Although the House or Senate might not agree with the President’s objections, the objections would allow Mr. Trump and his allies to damage public confidence in the election results. Also, the President, perhaps joined by the one or both houses in the Congress, would likely file a legal action with the Supreme Court requesting that the certification of the electoral vote be delayed until the existing votes are “cleaned up” or, if necessary, new and improved procedures are implemented and a new election held. 4. Delay the Inauguration of the President and Vice-President: The President would also presumably request a delay of the inauguration on January 20, 2021 pending the result of the vote “cleaning” or, if necessary, a new election. 5. Immediately Proceed with an In-depth Analysis of the Existing Votes: Using the information from the intelligence agencies, do an analysis to determine if the existing votes can be cleaned up and, if this is not feasible, recommend new procedures to reduce voter “contamination” in a “redo” election. Also lay out a detailed schedule showing how all of this work would proceed. This flurry of activity need not be particularly productive but would likely add weight to any legal action the Congress and Mr. Trump might want to use to delay the certification of the electoral vote and the inauguration of the new President and Vice-President. D. The Likely Reaction if Mr. Trump Implements the scheme: Appendix B descibes how the Congress, the states, the Supreme Court, and other parties might react if Mr. Trump were to implement the scheme described above. E. The Result Could be Long-Term Delay and Possibly a Reversal of the Outcome of he Election: If either the delay of the certification of electoral votes or the delay of the inauguration of the new President and Vice-President were successful, Mr. Trump will have extended his stay in office. If he wins approval for the “clean-up” of the existing votes or a “re-do” of the 2020 election (with newly developed and implemented procedures), the extension of time would likely be measured in months if not years.
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