Carl P. Leubsdorf: Trump institutionalizes the ‘Big Lie’

It’s part of his campaign to retaliate politically for past grievances, real and perceived, and rewrite the history of the 2020 election. It ignores the fact that multiple state and federal courts rejected his false contentions that he won and, if he did lose, Democrats rigged the result.

With his encouragement, the Republican-controlled House last week passed legislation requiring that all voters in federal elections provide evidence of citizenship, though there is no evidence more than a handful of non-citizens ever sought to vote.

If the Senate agrees, it would enact one of the key steps Trump urged in a sweeping executive order. It directed states to require all voters to provide “documentary proof” of citizenship and demanded they refuse to accept mailed ballots received after Election Day, a practice he claims somehow enables Democrats to rig the results.

In addition, prospective administration officials have been questioned to ascertain they believe Trump’s false characterization of the 2020 election and his defense of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed effort to keep Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.

Recently, one nomination was withdrawn upon disclosure the prospective nominee — chosen to head the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management — had criticized the Jan. 6 demonstrators, many of whom Trump pardoned on his first day in office.

In a new low even for him, Trump directed his Justice Department to investigate possible treason charges against two former government officials whose primary offense seems to be having vouched for the honesty of the 2020 count.

Meanwhile, his choice as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. — himself the lawyer for some Jan. 6 demonstrators — launched an investigation of the prosecutors who brought the charges that produced the conviction of hundreds of demonstrators for assaulting law enforcement officers and damaging government property while rampaging through the Capitol.

An underlying irony is that the Trump administration is trying to infringe on the power of states to set election requirements at a time it is demolishing federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Federal Emergency Management Administration in the name of returning power to the states.

Trump’s order would require prospective voters to show a passport, driver’s license or other government-issued identification card, something millions of younger and poorer Americans don’t have. It would require states to show within 180 days they have taken steps to implement new requirements or face loss of federal election support.

Though non-citizens are already forbidden to vote, federal courts have blocked state efforts to add explicit citizenship requirements for voting.

Trump also would give Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” unprecedented access to voter files as part of the effort to eliminate alleged voter fraud. At least four lawsuits have already been filed to challenge Trump’s executive order, including one by a coalition of voting groups and another by 19 Democratic state attorneys general that termed it “an unconstitutional attempt to seize control of elections” that could disenfranchise millions.

In separate orders, Trump called on the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to probe possible prosecution of Christopher Krebs, who was DHS’ top cybersecurity official during the 2020 election. The order accuses Krebs, who rejected Trump’s fraud claims in the 2020 election, of “unauthorized dissemination of classified information.” Trump called him “a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his government authority.”

Meanwhile, Edward Martin, Trump’s choice as acting U.S. attorney in Washington, has been accused by critics of dismissing charges against a Jan. 6 defendant he represented as a lawyer and firing the prosecutors who brought many of the charges stemming from the Capitol insurrection.

Together, these steps constitute Trump’s institutionalization of the “big lie” that he really won the election he lost. It seems a long way from those days after the 2020 election when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saw “no reason for alarm” when Trump delayed acknowledging his defeat — and most other top Republicans agreed.