Jago Times "English Edition" Best Online Newspaper
Related Articles
AUSTIN — Former President Donald Trump is pushing an election audit in Texas, diving into down-ballot races and hectoring top GOP state leaders as they try to wrap up nearly a year’s worth of legislating.
Randomly, with no head’s up, Trump drops open letters on his Save America PAC letterhead to his vast email list.
Among Republicans at the Texas Capitol, the 45th president’s musings and demands are of great concern. Why the recent flurry, on highly granular topics of interest mainly to political junkies in the Lone Star State?
No one outside of Trump’s inner circle can say for sure.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, asked what prompted the former president’s five pronouncements about Texas in the past three weeks, responded late Tuesday that it’s all part of an urgent rescue.
“President Trump is committed to saving America, and that includes rooting out election fraud in all of its forms,” Budowich said. “As the most influential force in American politics, President Trump will continue to actively support candidates and causes that will advance his America First agenda.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Allen Blakemore, his top political strategist, prompted Trump to issue at least one of the letters and statements – an endorsement of San Antonio-area Republican Pete Flores’ comeback attempt in a state Senate race next year.
As for the other Texas topics Trump’s been tackling of late, Blakemore acknowledged “these are all things on the lieutenant governor’s mind and I’m sure he speaks about them early and often.” But although Trump and Patrick are close, the former president has other Texas conduits of information, insisted Blakemore, who disavowed any knowledge of how the other four Trump statements arose.
Former Trump national campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson could be another influence, some speculate. On Tuesday, Pierson, of Garland, deflected questions about her own possible sway over Trump’s recent messages.
“President Trump has many friends and supporters in Texas and he understands that our state is critical to the nation,” she said in an email, calling the state the “conservative firewall in the Union.”
Asked why Trump last week endorsed Flores and another state Senate hopeful, Kevin Sparks of Midland, Pierson replied, “all politics start local.” Trump is “unlike any president in our lifetime” and supporters love that, she said.
Pierson has endorsed – and is consulting for – former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas in his uphill battle to oust Gov. Greg Abbott in next year’s GOP gubernatorial primary.
‘Something different’
Two of the five recent Trump statements have goaded the incumbent governor to add election audits legislation to the agenda of the current special session. And in her emails to The Dallas Morning News, Pierson disparaged the audit of four counties that the secretary of state’s office, controlled by Abbott, is doing. Still, in early June, Trump endorsed Abbott for a third term – and has given no hint he’ll retract it.
Corbin Casteel, who was state director for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, said everyone knows Trump is “vocal and opinionated.” In that sense, no one should be surprised, he said. Still, the recent spray of Trump statements has been unusual, Casteel said.
“Any time a former president specifically gets involved in your state legislature, it’s definitely something different,” he said.
Trump is pressing Abbott to let legislators in the year’s third special session debate and pass election audits legislation, including a specific demand for an audit of the 2020 general election, even though Trump carried Texas by 6 percentage points.
The Republican continues to say last year’s presidential election was rigged, even after audits, dozens of judges and his own justice department dismissed the allegation as baseless. The Texas secretary of state’s office has called the election here “smooth and secure.”
Pierson, though, said Trump is pushing “solely out of principle” for forensic audits, “not this nonsense Governor Abbott is pushing.”
Hours after Trump on Sept. 23 released on Save America PAC’s letterhead an open letter to Abbott demanding he place election audit legislation on the lawmakers’ agenda, the secretary of state’s office announced a 2020 election audit of Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties. Most of the work will be done early next year, sparking protests from Trump last week that it is “a weak, risk-limiting audit that is being slow-walked.”
Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze, asked whether the governor resents Trump’s prodding to “follow” the examples of Patrick and Houston GOP Sen. Paul Bettencourt, author of the election audits bill, downplayed any tensions.
“Governor Abbott and President Trump have frequent, friendly conversations about a variety of topics, including election integrity,” Eze said in a written statement. “They both agree that the integrity of elections is crucial to the future of our democracy, and Governor Abbott continues his work to achieve that goal.”
Eze said the secretary of state’s four-county review is “the largest forensic audit in the country to ensure the integrity of the 2020 election and all elections going forward.” She noted Abbott successfully pressed, despite Democrats’ walkouts, for “election integrity” legislation she called “the nation’s strongest,” one that will “prevent illegal voting and cheating at the ballot box.”
‘Mar-a-Lago brain trust’
Trump’s behavior departs from examples set by recent White House occupants, who would “retire to quietly lick their wounds,” said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson. Still, it’s not unprecedented, he said. Former presidents Andrew Jackson in 1824 and Herbert Hoover in 1932 complained bitterly after their defeats in presidential races. Both kept up steady criticism of the victors, Jillson noted.
Speculation that Patrick, who was Trump’s top supporter in Texas in both of his White House bids, is guiding his hand intensified after two of last week’s Trump bombshells: In one, which came shortly after maverick Amarillo GOP Sen. Kel Seliger joined Democrats to vote against Patrick’s elections audit bill and the chamber’s new map of Texas Senate districts, Trump praised challenger Sparks. Trump called Seliger a “Texas version of Mitt Romney.” Blakemore said he’s not sure how that statement originated. He suggested big Midland donors to Trump may have bent the former president’s ear on their townsman Sparks’ behalf.
On Saturday, Trump disparaged Speaker Dade Phelan for “weak RINO leadership” and demanded that he advance the Senate-passed election audits bill to House passage immediately. Trump suggested the Beaumont Republican could face a primary challenge if he doesn’t. He called Phelan “another Mitch McConnell,” a jab at the U.S. Senate minority leader.
A Phelan spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Blakemore said he didn’t know what prompted Trump to go after Phelan, a rookie speaker. Patrick, a former Houston sportscaster and talk-radio host, just completed his fourth regular session as the Senate’s presiding officer, after serving several sessions as a senator.
SMU’s Jillson said Blakemore may be correct to downplay how much sway Patrick had over Trump’s letters and statements about Texas.
“Trump and his Mar-a-Lago brain trust have lots of lines into Texas, certainly including Dan Patrick, but also including Fox News and the morning paper,” he said.
There may be danger for Patrick, though, in his embrace of a former president who pokes – and even trashes – the other members of the “Big 3″ at the Texas Capitol, Jillson said.
“While I do think that Patrick is closer to Trump than anyone else in Texas, it is probably not wise for him to end-run the state’s normal politics too frequently,” he said. “Abbott and Phelan certainly won’t like it. And Patrick would be well-advised to keep in mind that Trump is fickle and [Patrick] could find himself without an umbrella when the rains come.”