Elise Stefanik buried for attempt to 'shrug' off Trump's abuses: op-ed

Republican Conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press" if she'd commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election — to which she replied, “We will see if this is a legal and valid election."

“What we’re seeing so far is that Democrats are so desperate, they’re trying to remove President Trump from the ballot," she added, referring to state-level efforts to disqualify him under an insurrectionist clause in the Constitution.

Stefanik went on to say that she voted against accepting Pennsylvania’s submitted electors in the hours following the Capitol riot “because, as we saw in Pennsylvania and other states across the country, there was unconstitutional acts circumventing the state legislature and unilaterally changing election law.”

According to The Washington Post's Philip Bump, this would be a decent argument, "if it weren’t both disingenuous and dangerous."

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"The reality is that, in Pennsylvania, there was no such question," Bump writes. "The claim that Pennsylvania conducted its general election illegitimately was contrived after the fact to give cover to those who wanted to align with Trump’s rejection of his loss in that state but not have to claim that rampant voter fraud occurred, since it obviously didn’t."

Bump then points to Stefanik's comment where she referred to Jan. 6 rioters who are being prosecuted by the government as "hostages."

“I have concerns — we have a role in Congress of oversight over our treatments of prisoners," Stefanik said. "And I believe that we’re seeing the weaponization of the federal government against not just President Trump, but we’re seeing it against conservatives.”

Bump contends that Stefanik's comments run parallel to her hinting at election denial and are a rationalization of Jan. 6 violence.

"You can see why she does it. Trump wants to present his various indictments as one part of a broad effort to target the right rather than as a specific response to his actions," Bump writes.

"And Stefanik is eager to continue to ingratiate herself with Trump — and to help Trump regain power for their party. But the effect is to shrug at a process by which people attempt to make presidential power dependent on physical power."

Read the full op-ed over at The Washington Post.