From CNN:
A group of conservatives, including prominent lawyers and retired federal judges, issued a 72-page report on Thursday categorically rebutting each of the claims made in court by former President Donald Trump and his supporters over the 2020 election results.
The report, "LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election," looked at more than 60 court cases Trump and his supporters filed and lost in six key battleground states. It reached the "unequivocal" conclusion that the former Republican president's claims were unsupportable -- which Trump's own Department of Homeland Security as well as election officials nationwide debunked days after the 2020 election.
In case you missed it, the link to the report is here.
And this is how they define themselves:
We are political conservatives who have spent most of our adult lives working to support the Constitution and the conservative principles upon which it is based: limited government, liberty, equality of opportunity, freedom of religion, a strong national defense, and the rule of law.
We have become deeply troubled by efforts to overturn or discredit the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. There is no principle of our Republic more fundamental than the right of the People to elect our leaders and for their votes to be counted accurately. Efforts to thwart the People’s choice are deeply undemocratic and unpatriotic. Claims that an election was stolen, or that the outcome resulted from fraud, are deadly serious and should be made only on the basis of real and powerful evidence.
And the signatories of the report:
- Senator John Danforth
- Benjamin Ginsberg
- The Honorable Thomas B. Griffith
- David Hoppe
- The Honorable J. Michael Luttig
- The Honorable Michael W. McConnell
- The Honorable Theodore B. Olson
- Senator Gordon H. Smith
Not a left in the bunch.
Anyway, the report.
This is from the report's Introduction:
We therefore have undertaken an examination of every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by former President Trump and his advocates, and now put the results of those investigations before the American people, and especially before fellow conservatives who may be uncertain about what and whom to believe. Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states. Biden’s victory is easily explained by a political landscape that was much different in 2020 than it was when President Trump narrowly won the presidency in 2016. President Trump waged his campaign for re-election during a devastating worldwide pandemic that caused a severe downturn in the global economy. This, coupled with an electorate that included a small but statistically significant number willing to vote for other Republican candidates on the ballot but not for President Trump, are the reasons his campaign fell short, not a fraudulent election.
Donald Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. We do not claim that election administration is perfect. Election fraud is a real thing; there are prosecutions in almost every election year, and no doubt some election fraud goes undetected. Nor do we disparage attempts to reduce fraud. States should continue to do what they can do to eliminate opportunities for election fraud and to punish it when it occurs. But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate. [Emphases added.]
But wait, there's some more subtle charges in the Executive Summary:
This Report takes a hard look at the very serious charges made by Trump and his supporters. The consequences of a president and a major party candidate making such charges are monumental. If true, our electoral system is in desperate need of repair. If not true, that must be said because such false charges corrode our democracy and leave a significant share of the population doubting the legitimacy of our system, seriously weakening the country.Let me interject here. So the politicians pushing the big lie are seriously weakening the country by spreading doubt in the electoral system integrity and yet they're the same politicians (I'm looking at you PA State Senator - and now GOP Candidate for PA Gov - Doug Mastriano) who are also pushing legislative corrections as a necessary counter to the very doubt that they are pushing.
Anyway, back to the report - the Pennsylvania part (pg 56). Here's the report's opening:
Pennsylvania was one of two states whose Electors were formally challenged during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, and was also the focus of a number of lawsuits and public claims. Donald Trump and his supporters brought nineteen cases with over 45 counts challenging the results showing that he lost Pennsylvania. Putting aside the claims challenging, wholesale and without evidence, millions of ballots cast, the number of votes challenged was significantly smaller than Joe Biden’s official margin of victory; thus, even if every challenge were meritorious, this would not have been enough to produce a different outcome. No lawsuits brought by the Trump Campaign or its supporters focused directly on voter fraud and, in many instances, as described below, plaintiffs acknowledged their challenges were not the product of or even a signpost for fraud. An Associated Press survey of county elections officials in 2021 found just 26 potential cases of voter fraud in the 2020 election, representing 0.03% of Biden’s margin of victory.And:
Legal challenges in Pennsylvania largely focused on procedural defects, such as absentee- voting procedures, extended deadlines, or technically deficient ballots, rather than direct allegations of fraud. These challenges fall into three (sic.) categories of claims described below [Extending Election Deadlines, Inadequate Observation of Ballot Processing, Counting Deficient—But Not fraudulent—Absentee Ballots, Pre-Election Challenges to Changed Voting Procedures, and Voter Fraud]. None succeeded and every court to review these claims determined that there was no fraud that would have altered the outcome of the election. [Italics in original - also edited for space]
And from finally the summary:
Contrary to public claims, Trump made no formal allegation of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, and there was no widespread fraud. The Associated Press identified just 26 potential cases of voter fraud, but these represent just 0.03% of Biden’s margin of victory, far, far too few to have any impact on the result. Procedural claims, not based on fraud, met with some success, but none impugned the outcome of the election.
So no voter fraud and those pushing the big lie are the ones who are sowing doubt in the electoral integrity and therefore hurting the country.
I'd say that's spot on.
Wouldn't you agree, Doug?