The first time I saw the idea that a sitting President might work the system to keep himself in office was on a social media post from a friend whom I knew was quite politically conservative. He was suggesting that President Obama had a plan in place, when Hillary Clinton lost, that would include declaring some kind of national emergency in order to cancel or postpone the inauguration and that his administration was planning to go to court to manipulate the ballots in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, where Trump eked out narrow wins and get the results overturned before the Electoral College certification deadline. As soon as I saw that post on twitter, I thought that must be coming from some right wing "news" outlet. Turns out it was Breitbart, of course, who else?
No Plans Existed For Obama to Refuse to Leave office
Apparently the same rumor made the rounds of other social media, enough to prompt ABC news to do some investigating and find out where it was coming from. The story, which was completely false, was circulating on mostly obscure sites, but made it to twitter and facebook. Missing from the list in the ABC news story is any mention of Breitbart. Breitbart apparently pulled all of its references to this bit of fake news. But it was there originally, and was apparently the source of many of the false quotes attributed to Obama, Pelosi or Trump mentioned in the social media posts. That's how they do this. That's the way this works.
The idea that a sitting President would refuse to participate in the constitution's peaceful transition of power was unthinkable until the hard line, winner-take-all, refuse to compromise hatred of any idea or concept that isn't right wing conservative, pushed by Rush Limbaugh. He's the one that should get the most credit for the evil divisiveness that is the real threat to the constitution and the rule of law. Projecting that falsehood on President Obama is the kind of dirty politics we've come to expect of Limbaugh and his ilk. But they had to have explored the possibility and determined that it could actually be done at some point in order to try to make their point.
The Idea Resonated With Trump
Trump was vocally opposed to the fact that he was running for an office that was term limited and started babbling about changing the constutution after he got in so that his adoring followers could continue electing him. Fortunately for the whole country, there weren't enough of them to win re-election, but he was ready by then to make a serious try to put in place all of those possibilities that right wingers were claiming Obama was planning. Executive Order 3603--the National Defensive Resources Preparedness Order and declaring a national emergency was the "last resort" for Trump if his challenges to election results failed but even that order would not have permitted the sitting, unelected President to remain in office after January 20th.
The fact that those on the right were even discussing the possibility that a sitting President might resist the peaceful transfer of power is a huge clue into the fact that a Trump challenge to the constitution on this very point was planned from the moment he took the oath of office. It may look like just another right wing "fake news" story designed to bash Obama for their gullible, mindless audience but one of the masters of the fake news industry, Steve Bannon, was in a key position in the Trump White House and I'd be really surprised if he wasn't already directly involved in planning to overturn the election shortly after Trump got the reins of power in his little hands. His fingerprints are all over the whole insurrection.
What better way to test the various theories than to float the idea that the sitting President at the time was planning to stick around and then see what kind of response that got in order to plan for actually doing it if the election went south in 2020?
This Helps Make The Case Against the January 6 Conspirators
This might not be evidence that would hold up in court, though some of those obscure right wing extremist sites that posted it are still visible on the internet. It looks like Breitbart, though, has erased any trace of the fake news it had posted on this subject. It's probably on some server somewhere. But it's the court of public opinion that needs to see this and understand just how evil and devious these people are. They built the whole Trump administration on lies and "fake news." And they are trying to walk away from something they did when there is evidence they tested the waters four years earlier.
How is it possible, for anyone who now knows the truth, to ever want to put any of these crooks and criminals anywhere but prison where they belong? Believing that a majority of Americans are still reasonable, sensible, educated, thinking people, and that they want the country to remain free, democratic and a constitutional republic means getting out and voting to prevent anyone who had anything to do with January 6th from getting into any position of power. Do your homework. Don't elect Republicans to statewide office.
The Constitution Provides Absolutely No Options Other Than a Peaceful Transfer of Power Following Elections
It remains to be seen how the constitution would be defended during martial law or the defense executive order, but there is no provision in the law for a sitting President not elected or at the end of his second term to remain in office or, as the conspiracy theory mill falsely predicted, be "reinstated." In hindsight, following this first genuine attempt at a coup, it appears that the task of defending the constitution would fall to the military. It also appears that they were prepared to make sure that the transition that was inevitably going to take place on January 20 would be as peaceful as possible, but it was going to take place.
President Obama never spoke a word about remaining in the office after his time was done. I'm sure he was sincerely grieved at the thought of a demagogue and pathologically lying con artist like Trump becoming President of the United States, but the Trumpie liars exposed themselves here. No one among the Democratic leadership, including Obama, Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, ever said anything about conspiring to keep Trump from getting in after he was elected, and their actions prove their intentions and their integrity. Trump and his cronies, on the other hand, were babbling about election fraud and about how to stay in office in the event the voters said "NO!" and testing the waters before they even got to Washington. This is proof, if more were even needed, that these people are crooks and criminals and need to be sent to prison.
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