CNN –
Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to nullify the 2020 election and restore him to power on Saturday in a continuation of his election denialism and push of fringe conspiracy theories.
“Do you throw out the results of the 2020 presidential election and declare the WINNER READ, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows the extinction of all rules, regulations and articles, even those that found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a post on the Truth Social social network, accusing “Big Tech” of working closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not approve, false and fraudulent elections!”
Trump’s post came after the release of internal Twitter emails showing a 2020 deliberation over a New York Post story about material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Saturday that Trump’s remarks are “anathema to the soul of our nation and should be universally condemned.”
“You can’t just love America when you win,” Bates said in a statement. “The American Constitution is a sacrosanct document that for more than 200 years guarantees that freedom and the rule of law prevail in our great country. The Constitution binds the American people together, regardless of party, and elected leaders swear to uphold it. It is the ultimate monument to all Americans who have given their lives to defeat self-serving despots who abused their power and trampled on fundamental rights.”
Employees in Twitter’s legal, policy and communications teams debated, and sometimes disagreed, over whether the article should be restricted under the company’s pirated material policy. The debate took place weeks before the 2020 election, when Joe Biden, Hunter Biden’s father, was running against then-President Trump.
Trump’s Constitution Statement Makes Georgia Election Officially Laughable
Trump announced his third presidential bid last month and is still widely considered the frontrunner of the Republican Party. Party leaders had hoped the former president would drop his electoral denial rhetoric after lackluster results in the midterms.
Earlier this week, Trump expressed his support for the rioters behind the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, saying in a video played during a fundraiser that “in my opinion, the people have been treated unconstitutionally and very, very unfairly, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it.
In a September interview, Trump said he was “financially supporting” some of the Jan. 6 defendants and promised to issue pardons and a government apology to those prosecuted if re-elected.
He has also come under fire for dining at his Mar-a-Lago resort with well-known white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West, who has recently made a series of anti-Semitic comments.