Schumer calls Trump election lies ‘the biggest threat’ to Capitol and democracy

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said the litany of lies about the 2020 election that emanate from former president Donald Trump and his supporters remain the biggest threat to the safety of the US Capitol and the health of American democracy.

The New York Democrat on Wednesday offered a blunt indictment of Mr Trump’s continued impact on US politics in remarks made at the outset of a Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing on progress of efforts undertaken to bolster Capitol security in the year since a pro-Trump mob perpetrated the worst attack on the US legislature since 1814.

While he lauded the efforts of the US Capitol Police chief Thomas Manger and the House and Senate sergeants at arms at ensuring a repeat of the 6 January insurrection does not occur, Mr Schumer said Mr Trump’s “big lie” – his continued assertion contrary to all evidence that he won the 2020 election – is “undermining faith in our political system and making our democracy [and] our country less safe”.

“The biggest threat to our capitol, our capitol police, and our democracy is the insidious motive stemming from the big lie, propagated by the former president and many of his Republican allies across the country,” Mr Schumer said.

“We can and will continue to make sure the capital is saved from a security standpoint, but without addressing the root causes of the violence on January 6 the insurrection will not be an aberration — it could well become the norm”.

Continuing, Mr Schumer said the upper chamber “must act” to head off a potential wave of political violence that could befall the country at the hands of Mr Trump’s supporters, citing a record number of threats against election workers and state election officials.

Such threats have become part and parcel of American political life in the 14 months since Mr Trump began claiming to have won the 2020 election despite receiving fewer popular and electoral votes than President Joe Biden.

Fostering a climate of fear and antagonism for election workers was a key part of a communications strategy championed by the former president’s allies in the days leading up to last year’s attack on the Capitol.

A document laying out the plan, authored by ex-New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik and provided to the House select committee investigating the causes of the 6 January insurrection, called for “rallies and protests” to be organised in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, including protests at the homes of “local officials,” secretaries of state, and “weak members”.

Armed pro-Trump protesters ultimately did target the home of at least one Secretary of State, Michigan’s Jocelyn Benson, surrounding it the night of 6 December 2020.

Mr Schumer noted that “election administrators – basically people who are almost like civil servants, just trying to count the elections accurately – are facing harassment, even death threats, for carrying out their duty” in the climate brought about by Mr Trump’s lies.

“By one measure, nearly a third of those who count the votes say they feel less safe on the job and many of them are quitting because they fear for their safety. What has this country come to when that happens, when the wellspring of our democracy, the fair, unbiased counting of the votes – which has been the hallmark of this country since we have started, which is the root of democracy – when people who do that are threatened with violence, what has come of our country? We must act,” he said, adding that such threats are “symptoms of an illness festering deep within the bones of our democracy”.

“Unless we confront the big lie, unless all of us do our part to fortify and strengthen our democracy, the political violence of January 6 risks becoming little more than a taste of dangers to come,” he said.