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‘What’s the crime?’: Bash presses Blanche over Alaska election lawsuit
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‘What’s the crime?’: Bash presses Blanche over Alaska election lawsuit
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Attorney General Todd Blanche this morning forcefully denied that the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s US Senate election if GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan loses amounts to President Donald Trump laying the groundwork to potentially overturn the election results.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Blanche said the lawsuit was filed preemptively to preserve ballots and allow a court to investigate further “if it’s clear that there was confusion” in the state’s Senate election, which features a candidate whose name is also Dan Sullivan, but with a different middle initial.
Blanche said last week that it was not his intention to get involved in the election certification process of the midterms, but left room for a possible “doomsday scenario” that would require Justice Department action.
On Sunday, Blanche pushed back when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if a potential contestation of election results could lead to a scenario — akin to what led to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection — where the president refuses to accept the outcome of the midterms.
“You set me up with the following question: Because the Department of Justice is concerned that there’s an absolute fraud happening in Alaska, and he wants to do something about it, you’re saying, ‘Mr. Attorney General, because the president of the United States wants to stop a fraud and confusion in Alaska, is he gonna do something crazy?’ That is not, that is not a real question,” Blanche said.
He added, “What I said is the groundwork that we are laying is for Alaska, for the state of Alaska, if it becomes an issue after the election, will have the ability to determine whether there was confusion that violates the law in determining who the senator should be. That is not Donald J. Trump. That is not our president.”
Trump last week took credit for the legal challenge.
“Well, I’m the one that said ‘do it,’” Trump told reporters in Florida on Friday when asked about the lawsuit.
Blanche would not say if Trump directly ordered him to file the lawsuit, asserting he does not publicly discuss his communications with the president. But he defended Trump’s questioning of the Alaska ballot, which Trump has said amounts to “cheating” by Democrats.
“He’s not admitting it’s political,” Blanche said. “He’s the executive. He’s supposed to make sure that there’s, everything in this country is running right, including elections.”