Federalist Society right-winger smacked with brutal fact-check for election conspiracies

A key figure in the right-wing Federalist Society is out with a new article trying to legitimize "Stop the Steal" conspiracy theories — but a Washington Post analyst quickly debunked it.

Steven Calabresi, who called for Trump's impeachment in 2020 for suggesting the election be delayed, pushed talking points this week in an article for the libertarian-leaning Reason magazine, accusing Democrats of manipulating voting rules to rig the election in 2020.

It's all nonsense, wrote Philip Bump.

"His essay begins by declaring that 'the Left in 2020 massively changed the way presidential elections are held in this country' because of the pandemic," wrote Bump. "He then juxtaposes numbers in Pennsylvania: that 'Donald Trump exceeded Barack Obama’s 2008 vote total in Pennsylvania by 101,311 votes' but still — scare quotes! — 'lost' the 'counted vote' because of the 'astonishing' 3.5 million votes Biden received in the state."

First of all, noted Bump, the expansion of absentee and mail-in voting in Pennsylvania had "nothing to do with the pandemic."

"It was signed into law in October 2019, and passed by the state House and Senate on the strength of Republican votes," Bump wrote. "It wasn’t the capital-L left sneaking around in their face masks. It was Republican legislators acting months before COVID arrived in the U.S."

Additionally, Pennsylvania's results were "not 'astonishing' or even particularly weird" when you consider the state had 900,000 more registered voters in 2020 than it did in 2008.

Ultimately, Bump argued, Calabresi's consternation that Trump could beat Obama's vote total in 2008 but still lose, is "a bit like being confused that you beat the 1996 100-meter Olympic record but somehow still lost to Usain Bolt in 2012."

"As it turns out, there were changes over time," he said.

"At its heart, Calabresi’s argument is a familiar one: that Biden supporters are dull sheep who were not sincere in their support," concluded Bump. "Since he can’t imagine that Biden could have gotten so many votes, it must be that Biden didn’t get so many votes. So the election was necessarily illegitimate, for reasons that he cobbled together after the fact. Some 'argument.'"