(Ken Silva, Headline USA) CBS reported Tuesday that House Democrats are secretly “gaming out” various scenarios that could take place when Congress meets on Jan. 6, 2025, to certify the winner of the upcoming presidential election.
“I don’t want to get into a lot of specifics because it’s pretty sensitive. And frankly, I don’t want to give people ideas,” Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., told CBS.
CBS painted the Democrats’ secret plans as election fortification efforts—reporting that they’re working to prevent “any attempt to interfere with the Electoral College certification.” One such scenario Democrats are game-planning is if the House doesn’t have a Speaker, CBS reported.
“Keeping in mind the memories of the violence and chaos that engulfed Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and the worsening political fractures that followed, the committee’s Democrats have researched and discussed plans to ensure security is tight, and they’ve begun efforts to debunk emerging conspiracy theories about undocumented migrants voting in federal elections,” CBS reported.
“One vulnerability is proving particularly difficult to measure: What happens if the U.S. House fails to select a speaker by Jan. 6, 2025? … the panel’s Democrats are researching precedent and undertaking tabletop exercises to prepare for efforts by supporters of former President Donald Trump to use such a scenario to overturn election results,” CBS added.
However, CBS’s report should be read in the context of what top House Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said earlier this year, when he remarked that “it’s going to be up to us on Jan. 6, 2025, to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified.” He then claimed that lawmakers who refuse to certify Trump’s Electoral College win would need “bodyguards” afterwards.
BREAKING NOW: Jamie Raskin claims Congress will STOP TRUMP on J6, 2025 and create “civil war conditions.”
Will use the 14th Amendment..
PAYING ATTENTION NOW.. pic.twitter.com/83KvVxYGkV
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) August 5, 2024
Raskin was quoted in CBS’s Tuesday report: “The House rules cannot override the constitutional directives. And we just need to make sure that the Constitution is being followed.”
Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has designated the upcoming Jan. 6 as a “National Special Security Event” for the first time ever, allowing for significant resources from the federal government, as well as from state and local partners, to be utilized in a guarding the Capitol. The Secret Service will be in charge of security for that day, as per Mayorkas’s order.
Mayorkas’s move follows the Pentagon announcing on Aug. 29 that it will assist the Secret Service for the presidential and vice-presidential campaigns through Inauguration Day 2025.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.