Trump blasts Cornyn as ‘RINO’ for saying that objecting to Biden’s win ‘would be a violation of my oath’

WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn affirmed Tuesday that he will vote to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when Congress reviews the Electoral College results — and distanced himself from fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s demand for a 10-day delay pending an emergency “audit” of the election.

President Donald Trump attacked him as a “weak and ineffective RINO,” lumping him with the Senate’s two top leaders as a “Republican in name only” for rejecting his last-ditch effort to overturn the will of voters and allow him to cling to power.

“Allegations alone will not suffice. Evidence is required,” Cornyn wrote in an open letter to Texans, laying out his stance ahead of Wednesday’s joint session of Congress. “Unless substantial, new evidence is presented during the challenges to each state’s ballots, I will not object to the certification of that state’s election results based on unproven allegations.”

Behind the measured language, Cornyn’s message was unmistakable.

Like every Democrat and Republicans such as Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, he views the effort to block Biden’s ascension as anti-democratic given the lack of evidence to back up President Donald Trump’s claims that the election was stolen through widespread fraud in at least four states.

“To state the obvious, I — along with millions of Texans — hoped President Trump would be elected to a second term,” Cornyn wrote. “Any one person’s disappointment, however, cannot and should not override the legitimate votes of millions of Americans and our duty to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. Doing so would be a violation of my oath, do irreparable harm to our great democracy, and set a dangerous precedent for future elections.”

As for the demand from a group of 11 senators led by Cruz to delay certification to allow creation of an “Election Commission” to investigate claims of fraud, Cornyn said he is “dubious.” He cited the “timing and practicality.”

“A vote not to certify the electoral votes of a state based on an emergency audit that is designed to fail is not a vote on the merits. It is not a vote based on evidence,” he wrote, noting that Cruz’s gambit is doomed because Democrats believe Biden won, and since they control the House they obviously won’t agree to it.

In any case, the delay would not be tenable, Cornyn added. “Inauguration Day is set by the Constitution to occur in roughly two weeks. It cannot be changed, even by an act of Congress.”

The stance did not sit well with the president, who will address a protest near the White House on Wednesday that will be attended by, among others, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who tried unsuccessfully to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to nullify Biden’s victories — and more than 20 million votes — in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

“The `thousands of people pouring into D.C. … won’t stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen,” Trump tweeted Tuesday evening, aiming his ire at Cornyn, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip John Thune, who have all said they see no valid or lawful reason for Congress to overturn the Electoral College outcome.

Trump made the same implausible claim that he’d won by a landslide Monday night at a rally in Georgia ahead of two U.S. Senate runoffs Tuesday, insisting he couldn’t possibly have lost because he collected more votes than any incumbent president in history.

He did set a record for an incumbent. But Biden set an even bigger record, collecting more votes than any nominee in history. He topped Trump by 7 million votes, and scored a decisive 306-232 win in the Electoral College based on certified tallies from every state.

Even so, a dozen GOP senators and scores of House members have vowed to object to Biden’s victory. Some House Republicans say about 140 will vote to reject electors from some states.

But without majorities in both chambers tossing out Biden electors, the Democrat’s victory will stand.

“Every lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign has failed to change the outcome. And multiple states have conducted recounts to confirm the results — in Georgia, three times,” Cornyn wrote.

“None of the legal arguments or evidence presented by the president’s legal team convinced the more than 50 state and federal courts that sat in judgment. Every single lawsuit was ultimately rejected, some on the merits, some on procedural grounds, both equally dispositive. These lawsuits were heard by well-respected jurists — many of whom were nominated by President Trump himself. Appeals ensued in some cases, but the president’s team ultimately came up empty-handed.”

Cruz has cited the contested Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 as precedent in demanding that Congress form a commission to investigate irregularities.

But the circumstances are drastically different, and historians call Cruz’s comparison deeply misleading.

In that Reconstruction-era race, three Southern states sent two sets of electors, forcing Congress to find a way to sort out the mess. In 2020, every state certified only one set of electors.

Under the Constitution and federal law, Congress only has a role if there is a dispute.

Cornyn does agree that some sort of postmortem inquiry is in order, just not the sort suggested by Cruz.

He pointed to the bipartisan commission created in 2005 to propose improvements after the 2000 Florida recount debacle and irregularities in the 2004 Ohio election.

“I believe the call for an independent commission to examine the irregularities during this election is an excellent start. The Commission on Federal Election Reform, otherwise known as the Carter-Baker Commission, provides an obvious, useful precedent,” Cornyn wrote.