This ridiculous plot will get Trump laughed out of court — but Fox News is salivating

Despite repeated judicial rulings rejecting Trump’s 2020 election claims, he persists. Proving that his ego burned through his prefrontal cortex and seared his last shard of reasoning capacity, after his attempt to extort Minnesota voter rolls failed, Trump’s FBI raided an election center in Georgia and seized them directly. Both acts were preludes to a dangerous fantasy, one that ends in ‘taking over’ national elections.

The illegality is glaring. Not only are U.S. taxpayers funding his well choreographed partisan theater, violating the Hatch Act, Trump is misappropriating intelligence resources by expending national security capital on political exploits. Instead of meeting escalating cyber, espionage and infiltration threats from China and Russia, Trump is spending national security resources to keep himself in power.

After snatching all Fulton County’s voter data, there’s little doubt that Trump lackeys will “find” the “missing” 11,780 votes he urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “look for.” Even after Raffensperger affirmed that the 2020 election was the most secure in Georgia’s history, Trump will manufacture outcome-changing evidence, “find” stolen votes, and demand that democratic poll workers be prosecuted.

Preparing allegations

The FBI procured a court order allowing them to copy Fulton County’s election records, but officials instead took physical custody of originals, including in-person, absentee, and provisional ballots, along with voter rolls. Filling a convoy of trucks, they seized ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data and voter rolls, leaving no reliable chain of custody for those materials.

In normal criminal cases, every officer who handles a physical piece of evidence signs a “chain of custody“ affidavit affirming that the item was locked, kept secure and otherwise untouched. But Trump’s FBI created no chain of custody for Georgia’s seized materials; his lawyers have been caught lying so many times such affidavits would be suspect in any event.

The upshot is that Fulton County Democrats will be unable to “disprove” the election crimes Trump’s FBI is manufacturing against them. Even though the story won’t hold up in court, it will dominate Fox News and Sinclair media-owned headlines, and the 39 percent of the country that believes Trump’s manufactured claims will become the scaffolding that supports his federal takeover.

Aspiring authoritarians

Trump has been trying to discredit U.S. elections, along with the rule of law, ever since he became financially indebted to Russia in the 1990s. Because he has relied on habitual deception for so long, he seems to toggle back and forth between lying and believing his own propaganda.

Hannah Arendt observed that, “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer … And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind … And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

Hitler understood this too well. Before transitioning to an overt campaign of terror, Nazi power expanded through lies, propaganda, and censorship orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

Current authoritarians do the same. Putin in Russia and Orban in Hungary butcher the truth to such an extent that the media has no credibility; everything they report is suspect. In result, dictators are free to execute rivals, silence journalists and hold sham elections as Trump aspires to do.

An obvious plan

Discussing his blunders in Minnesota, Trump recently said on Dan Bongino’s show that he had “won Minnesota three times,” but “got no credit for it. I won that state three times, but it’s a rigged state. Really rigged badly.” Minnesota hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1972.

Continuing the delusion, Trump also expressed his hope that Republicans would “take over” national elections, saying,“We should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

The illegality, once again, is glaring. Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution vests election powers with the states, who prescribe the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding federal elections. If Trump had any grasp of U.S. history or the Constitution, he’d know the federal government has no legal authority to “take over” state-run election systems.

Trump’s overreach is galling. Federal courts have consistently ruled that Presidents have no constitutional role in administering elections. Even if there were statutory support for his takeover fantasy, Trump’s call for “Republicans” to nationalize elections ignores the separation of powers by, once again, disregarding the legislative role of Congress.

Time for arrests

Since Trump Republicans are demonstrating more affinity for power than the Constitution and their oaths to protect it, Democrats are on their own. They need to hit Trump hard and pre-emptively, before he sends tanks for their voter rolls.

It’s time for Attorneys General in all 23 Democratic-controlled states to file a class action or multistate action to prohibit Trump, his DOJ and the FBI from seizing confidential voter materials from any county election offices. Trump’s stated desire to take over federal elections establishes standing for states to sue for injunctive relief. State prosecutors should also start bringing state criminal charges against every Trump official who breaks state law, from murder to a conspiracy to interfere with elections and every state felony in between.

With his admitted intention to stop fair elections, Trump has shown his cards. Whether he serves Putin, dementia, or greed, he is an enemy to America and legal accountability is no longer optional. It’s the only way our democracy will survive.

• Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.