By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Correspondent
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was adamant that neither the people nor the House of Representatives should have the final say in who would be president in 2020.
After losing to Trump in the GOP primaries during the 2016 campaign, the Texas senator wildly expressed his reluctance to leave the decision of the 2020 contest between Trump and Joe Biden to the Electoral College.
Cruz, who once labeled Trump a “liar who can’t accept defeat,” proved no different from the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol, which led to the deaths of five police officers.
He wanted Trump to remain in office and was willing to set up a fake commission to do it. Just two days before the January 6, 2021, riot, Cruz attempted to aid Trump by giving an unsupported evaluation of accusations of election fraud.
Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer, recorded all of this.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith is reportedly looking for the tapes as he continues investigating Trump’s actions following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The recording from Jan. 2, 2021, with parts aired on national television by MSNBC’s Ari Melber and afterward supplied to publications like The Washington Post by Grossberg’s attorney, significantly revealed an overall scheme to overturn the election results.
Clarifying the full extent of Cruz’s plotting to aid Trump in overturning Biden’s election win, the audio features a previously secret conversation between Cruz, Grossberg and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on the campaign to refuse the certification of Biden’s victory.
In the transcript, Cruz brags that he convinced 11 senators to vote against using electoral certification to form a panel.
After Arizona Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R) challenged the state’s electoral certification, Cruz became the first senator to object to the Electoral College results.
Cruz proposed delaying certification of the electoral college results to initiate a 10 -day “audit” that could allow GOP state legislatures to overturn the election results.
“You need an adjudicatory body with fact-finding and investigative authority to consider the facts, examine the record and make determinations — that’s how they did it in 1877,” Cruz told Grossberg and Bartiromo, referring to the commission established to investigate voter fraud in the 1876 Hayes-Tilden election.
Cruz said he would have liked to see “these facts developed in a court of law,” but then he cast doubt on the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision to dismiss the lawsuits filed to contest the election Trump had lost.
Unfortunately, the courts that handled these cases “did not give us a full and thorough consideration,” Cruz stated.
In response to Melber’s broadcast of the video, Cruz tweeted: “This [MSNBC clown] is breathlessly reporting that I ’secretly’ said in a phone call… the EXACT same thing I said on national television the next morning! Repeated on the Senate floor four days later.”
Cruz suggested to Fox News that an electoral commission be established promptly, which would conduct a 10-day evaluation and report back by Inauguration Day, in case the majority of the House and Senate objected to the certification of the Electoral College on January 6, 2021.
If the panel finds “credible evidence of fraud that undermines confidence in the electoral results in any given state,” then the state would call a special session and recertify the results, as Cruz proposed.
“Is there any chance you can overturn this?” Bartiromo asked Cruz, to which he replied, “I hope so.”
Cruz presented his concept for an electoral commission to Fox News the same day he announced it to Republican members in Congress.
Despite criticism from some of his loyal supporters and Cruz’s aides, Trump noticed the panel and tweeted his approval of Cruz’s plan.
Melber claims the recording proves Cruz’s plans to aid Trump in seizing power and overthrowing the election if the previous president’s legal objections are dismissed.
“He literally explains it that way,” Melber said of Cruz. “Basically, they would hijack the certification and use their own made-up, fake commission to declare that the Biden win was fraudulent, and then that would decide who was inaugurated.”
