President Trump issued a statement Saturday afternoon responding to a New York Times article on Republican and conservative groups fundraising on the issue of election reform in the wake of the contested 2020 presidential election. Trump defended the fundraising, standing by his claim the election was “Illegitimate” and criticizing the Supreme Court for refusing to hear cases challenging illegal election law changes in several swing states that Trump and many of his supporters believe effectively stole the election from him.
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Trump’s statement was released by his Save America PAC.
Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
The New York Times did a story today saying that various Republican groups, many of them outstanding, are rallying on false claims that conservative activists are finding that the best way to raise money and keep voters engaged is to make Donald J. Trump’s biggest fabrication, Election Fraud, their top priority. Sadly, the Election was Rigged, and without even going into detail, of which there is much, totally game changing. Democrats could not get Republican Legislatures in Swing States to approve many of the voting changes which took place before the Election, which is mandated under the Constitution of the United States. For that reason alone, we had an Illegitimate Election. The Supreme Court and other Courts were afraid to rule, they were “gutless,” and will go down in history as such. No wonder so much money is being raised on this issue, and law-abiding people have every right to do so!
Excerpt from New York Times article, headline and subhead:
In Restricting Early Voting, the Right Sees a New ‘Center of Gravity’
Donald Trump is no longer center stage. But many conservative activists are finding that the best way to raise money and keep voters engaged is to make his biggest fabrication their top priority.For more than a decade, the Susan B. Anthony List and the American Principles Project have pursued cultural and policy priorities from the social conservative playbook, one backing laws to ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat could be detected and the other opposing civil rights protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people. From their shared offices in suburban Virginia, they and their affiliated committees spent more than $20 million on elections last year.
But after Donald J. Trump lost his bid for a second term and convinced millions of Americans that nonexistent fraud was to blame, the two groups found that many of their donors were thinking of throwing in the towel. Why, donors argued, should they give any money if Democrats were going to game the system to their advantage, recalled Frank Cannon, the senior strategist for both groups.
“‘Before I give you any money for anything at all, tell me how this is going to be solved,’” Mr. Cannon said, summarizing his conversations. He and other conservative activists — many with no background in election law — didn’t take long to come up with an answer, which was to make rolling back access to voting the “center of gravity in the party,” as he put it.
Passing new restrictions on voting — in particular, tougher limits on early voting and vote-by-mail — is now at the heart of the right’s strategy to keep donors and voters engaged as Mr. Trump fades from public view and leaves a void in the Republican Party that no other figure or issue has filled. In recent weeks, many of the most prominent and well-organized groups that power the G.O.P.’s vast voter turnout efforts have directed their resources toward a campaign to restrict when and how people can vote, with a focus on the emergency policies that states enacted last year to make casting a ballot during a pandemic easier. The groups believe it could be their best shot at regaining a purchase on power in Washington…