Legal scholar Jonathan Turley pushed back at CNN host Jake Tapper for suggesting that the Republicans planning to object to the Electoral College results were staging a “bloodless coup.”
“I had some concern about CNN’s host, Jake Tapper, referring to this as an attempted ‘bloodless coup,’” Turley said on Fox News. “It’s not a coup of any kind. It is the very same law used in the same way as Democrats in past elections.”
Professor @JonathanTurley weighs in on the electoral challenge:
“I had some concern about CNN host [@JakeTapper] referring to this as an attempted ‘bloodless coup…’
It’s not a coup of any kind.
It is the very same law used in the same way as Democrats in past elections.” pic.twitter.com/QApvQEPQ3K
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 4, 2021
Turley’s comments came in response to a Tapper segment criticizing Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz over an effort in the Senate to object to the Electoral College results.
“With around 3,000 Americans dying every day, what are the president and a big chunk of congressional Republicans focused on?” Tapper asked during a segment of his show on Sunday. “Undermining the results of the election — essentially a bloodless coup leading the Republican Party to a state of turmoil.”
Tapper said that he invited the 12 senators involved in the objection to come on his shows and explain their “disgraceful effort,” but none of them responded, prompting Tapper to invoke the words of former President Ulysses S. Grant.
“There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots,” Tapper said. “How would you describe the parties today?”
Turley pointed out that though he does not agree with the GOP effort, the move is legal and has been used by Democrats after previous elections.
“It is being done under this federal law. Now, there’s a separate issue as to whether that law is itself constitutional,” Turley said. “That debate has raged literally for decades.”
The last time lawmakers objected to Electoral College certification was 2005, when Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Sen. Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, objected to Ohio’s electoral votes due to claims of voting irregularities. After the House and the Senate went into separate sessions to debate the objection, both chambers overwhelmingly rejected it, certifying the reelection of former President George W. Bush.
The GOP effort to object to the 2020 presidential election results also has the support of at least 140 House Republicans, setting the stage for a repeat of the 2005 joint session.
