Friday, July 10, 2026

Donald Trump Has Absolutely No Legal Authority Over Federal Elections

 Not in the Constitution. Not at law.

The “boyhood pal” in question is Peter Ticktin, an 80-year-old Florida lawyer who first met Trump in the 1950s at the New York Military Academy. Ticktin was in the Oval Office as recently as last week according to Taylor, and has vigorously pushed Trump to declare a national emergency over unsubstantiated claims of foreign election interference in the 2020 election.

“Ticktin insists the proof of the grand conspiracy is coming any day now, once [Venezuelan President] Nicolás Maduro starts talking from federal custody. And some have speculated that the Trump administration is trying to induce the Venezuelan leader to go along with such an admission in exchange for leniency,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published on his Substack Thursday.

“Trump’s pal also claims Democrats are plotting to steal enough seats in November to impeach both Trump and Vance and install Hakeem Jeffries in the Oval Office. I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it too. This man sounds like a quack. Well, yes. He sure seems to be a quack. And that’s actually why I’m taking him seriously.”

Ticktin has already helped draft an executive order “to declare a national emergency based on alleged 2020 foreign election interference,” CNN reported earlier this week. And, with Trump having already attempted to impose limits on mail-in voting, Taylor feared that the president could very well follow through on Ticktin’s calls to place the midterm elections “under federal control” by declaring a national emergency.

“It's our expectation that the president will undertake more illegal and unconstitutional actions to steal the midterms. He will dispute the outcome if his side loses, even if the loss is decisive and beyond dispute,” Taylor wrote.

“And he will – in all likelihood – try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to the political opposition. After all, he’s done it before. But this time we’re better prepared to fight it. And we need to stand together.”
So trying to challenge, or even stop, the 2026 midterms on the basis of a baseless conspiracy theory about the 2020 election, is a non-starter. Trump went to court over 60 times in 2020 to overturn his election. Even the Sinister Six wouldn’t hear it.  This would be 468 elections in 50 states (unless he only wants to challenge the ones where Republicans lose. That’s a good look, too.). None of that will “cancel” the elections.  (And how does he block the “peaceful transfer of power” in Congress? Send in the National Guard?)

This, however, is real: It’s the danger in front of us right now I’m worried about. 
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