Mike Pompeo erroneously asserted that the Department of Justice will decide whether the presidential election is held on Nov. 3.
At the beginning of the Senate hearing on the State Department’s funding requests for next year, the secretary of state was asked to address President Trump’s Thursday tweet suggesting that the presidential election should be moved because of voter fraud related to the enormous amount of mail-in votes that will be issued because of concerns surrounding the coronavirus.
“Senator, I’m not going to enter a legal judgment on that on the fly this morning,” Pompeo told Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, when asked whether the president has the authority to delay an election. “In the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination. We all should want, and I know you do too, Sen. Kaine, that we have an election we’re all confident in.”
Pompeo was then pressed by Kaine but dodged answering by saying the election should “happen lawfully.”
On Thursday morning, Trump tweeted that “2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
“It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” he wrote. Trump has since pinned the tweet to his profile, fueling concern from both Republicans and Democrats that he is prepared to overstep his constitutional authority.
Former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has repeatedly speculated that Trump might try to move the date of the election if he thinks he will be defeated. Polls both in swing states and nationally show Biden with a significant lead over the president.
“Mark my words,” Biden said in April. “I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held.”
The Trump campaign called Biden’s words at the time “a conspiracy theory,” and Trump has previously dismissed accusations that he’d attempt to move Election Day.
“Those are the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in April. “President Trump has been clear that the election will happen on Nov. 3.”
Virtually no legal scholar believes the president has the authority to move Election Day, which is set by federal law. Only Congress, according to the Constitution, may “determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their votes.” And per the Constitution, Trump’s term as president ends on Jan. 20, 2021, at 12 p.m.
