This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 17 episode of “The ReidOut.”
On Tuesday, electors from all 50 states met in their capitals to cast their official votes for the next president of the United States. This is known as the meeting of the Electoral College and the process is laid out in Chapter 1, Section 7 of the United States Code:
The electors of President and Vice President of each State shall meet and give their votes on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment at such place in each State in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day.
For as long as this process has been on the books, and in Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, it has been nothing more than a ceremonial step to the White House for the winner of an election. It has been a day that most Americans probably did not know existed, one lacking any drama.
That is until four years ago, when Donald Trump, in his efforts to try and subvert his 2020 election loss, had fake electors in seven states gather to sign certificates to state and federal officials falsely claiming that he had won their states’ electoral votes.
It was all part of Trump’s and his allies’ plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence choose not to certify those states’ results during the formal, and largely ceremonial, reveal of the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, 2021.
Everyone remembers what happened next: The storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters and Pence’s refusal to break the law despite that violent mob.
Even though this year’s electoral process has gone smoothly so far, the stench of what happened four years ago remains.
Perhaps that’s because even though many of those fake Trump electors have faced – and continue to face – criminal charges in connection with their actions. At least 13 of them were present Tuesday, picked by their state Republican parties to be real electors this year and sign the authentic certificates of their states that will make Trump president for a second time.
These aren’t the only people who partook in Trump’s big lie who have returned to haunt us. Many are poised to join the president-elect in his administration, like his second pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, if confirmed by the Senate.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, is someone who has largely gone under the radar. However, she was one of the earliest promoters of Trump’s baseless election fraud claims in 2020.
The Washington Post laid out how deep her involvement went, including how Bondi was reportedly involved in convincing Rudy Giuliani to join the effort to overturn the election — a legal and rhetorical bullying campaign that has only brought professional sanctions, disbarment and financial ruin for the former mayor of New York. (Bondi did not respond to the Post’s request for comment. Neither NBC News nor MSNBC has confirmed the report.)
Trump has reportedly said he wants the Justice Department to revive its examination of the 2020 election and wants those who were involved with the Jan. 6t committee to be put in jail.
In the days after the 2020 election, Bondi was on the ground and on TV, pushing the unfounded allegations of cheating and fake ballots.
“We need to fix this,” she said during a news conference in Philadelphia. “We need to remedy this now because we’ve won Pennsylvania and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way.” “We are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania,” Bondi said on Fox News. “That means all the good residents who are all supporting us in Pennsylvania, their votes don’t count [because of] these fake ballots that are coming in late.” And while Bondi did not speak at the event, she was reportedly spotted helping to set up the infamous news conference outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping, where Giuliani continued to falsely claim that Trump had won the election. Bondi remained involved in the background throughout that post-election period, to the point that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the House Jan. 6 committee about how Bondi tried to influence her testimony. “Pam texted me that night and said something to the effect of: ‘Susie, Matt Schlapp, and I had dinner with POTUS at Mar-a-Lago tonight. Call Matt next week. He has a job for you that we all think you’d be great at — that you all — we all think you would be great in. You are the best. Keep up the good work. Love and miss you,’” Hutchinson alleged in her testimony. Now, with just weeks to go until Trump retakes the White House, the president-elect has reportedly said he wants the Justice Department to revive its examination of the 2020 election and wants those who were involved with the Jan. 6 committee to be put in jail. That process would be left to Bondi, as his attorney general, to see it through. Like I said, four years and the stench still remains. Allison Detzel contributed.
Joy-Ann Reid
Joy-Ann Reid is host of “The ReidOut” at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC. “The ReidOut” features one-on-one conversations with politicians and newsmakers while addressing provocative political issues both inside and outside of the beltway. Recommended
