And Then What?

Trump’s wish list:

"[Pulte] may find out some things about the rigged elections," Trump told reporters this month. "I think he wants to do it very much."

Reuters reported Friday that the White House has suppressed an ODNI report on voting machine vulnerabilities for months.

Some officials believe the report doesn't go far enough to validate Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Pulte has already been briefed on it, two sources told Reuters.

Trump has told the Wall Street Journal he wants Pulte to fire "a lot of people." Pulte's acting status is the point, Trump said: "You're less shackled."

Those firings would gut the career analysts most likely to push back on the ODNI report's findings, and on any action taken aimed at midterms.

Reuters and Foreign Policy have reported that the CIA has already stopped contributing to some ODNI assessments because of friction under outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and that top analysts are avoiding the National Intelligence Council for fear of political pressure.

"DNI Gabbard spent 18 months and untold taxpayer dollars trying to give substance to lies about the 2020 election and found absolutely nothing," election law expert David Becker said, adding that Pulte was "hand-picked to replace her precisely because he too embraces the lies and conspiracy theories while ignoring the evidence."

Pulte is the guy who convinced Trump to sic the DOJ on Letitia James and Comey(?) for allegedly messing about with mortgage loans (?). It was so stupid I’m not even sure I’m remembering it correctly. Anyway, it withered in the sunlight (rather than blooming like algae).

Pulte is one of the unmatched idiots of the Administration, IOW.

If he gets information that there’s “foreign interference” in the elections, what does he do with it? The purpose of the DNI investigating such questions is to block it, the same way that FBI is supposed to conduct counter-terrorism investigations: stop the terrorists from setting off the bombs, the scenario of almost every “thriller” movie of the last quarter century. What the FBI (or whoever in the movies) don’t do is, is shut down the entire city and evacuate millions so the bomb can go off, but can’t kill anyone.

Which, apparently, is what Pulte is expected to do: suspend the elections because he can’t guarantee there is no “interference.” Or, rather, because he’s supposed to guarantee there is.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

Art. I, Sec. 4, cl. 1. The regulation of elections can be made by Congress. That all Representatives and 1/3rd of the Senate are up for election every two years, however, cannot be regulated by Congress. (I will freely grant that I don’t know what was done in the Union during the Civil War, but this ain’t that.) So Congress has not given the President the power to suspend Article 1, sections 2 and 3, on the report of the DNI. If Trump wants to do that, he’s got to go to court.

Against what? A federal district where the Democrat won? The state of Texas, say, if Paxton loses? I don’t think the DNI’s report is going to be coincidentally that specific. Proactively against all 50 states? Or whichever ones are identified by the DNI? ( All the “blue” ones?) And even then, the courts will ask why the DNI didn’t report to Congress and get Congress to “regulate” a solution in accordance with Art. I, Sec. 4.  Because courts don’t have the power to toss out elections, or declare a new winner (even Bush v Gore didn’t do that; it just said the Florida recount was running up against the Electoral Count Act deadline) sua sponte, or, for that matter, suspend elections nationwide (or just in the “blue” ones). If this is a serious problem (it’s Pulte; it won’t be), it’s up to Congress to fix it. But that “fix” will have to apply to 2028, since there isn’t time for Congress to act now, (Pulte hasn’t made his report, Congress hasn’t reviewed it, there isn’t time to draft and pass legislation since Congress makes its rules (Article I), and is effectively through as of July 31) until after the election in November.

Sorry to be so bluntly tedious, but this whole matter makes as much sense as Trump claiming he’d take Iran as easily as he took Venezuela. The U.S. ain’t Iran; but it’s not Venezuela, either.

And Bill Pulte is just another administration idiot with no clue and no authority.