Analysis examines what happens if Biden clings to power regardless of election outcome
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
A new report examines the possible outcomes of the Nov. 5 election and the prospect of President Joe Biden’s using government force to hold onto power.
“President Biden is very well-positioned to hold the White House by force in the case of an unfavorable electoral outcome,” says the report from the 2024 Transition Integrity Project, which is led by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.
Looking at a scenario of a victory by Donald Trump, who lost the presidency to Biden in 2020, the report adds:
The lawlessness of the Biden administration—at the border, in staffing considerations, and in routine defiance of court rulings—makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.
The Transition Integrity Project included scenarios involving over 50 participants from politics, government, law, national security, media, and academia. The project looked at how mass illegal immigration and potential interference from Russia, China, and Iran could affect the 2024 election.
Election integrity shouldn’t be viewed through a partisan or ideological lens, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said at the end of a press conference Thursday about the report.
“This is neither a Left problem or a Right problem. It’s an American problem,” Roberts said. “As I have mentioned to members of the media, particularly left-of-center media outlets—whom we love and respect but disagree with—we have to aspire in this country to get back to an election cycle when every American wakes up and believes that their vote will be counted, that there will be a successful transition, that there are no longer any problems with election integrity.”
The name of the Heritage-led effort is similar to the 2020 Transition Integrity Project produced by a group of Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, but is unrelated to it. The 2020 project was founded by Georgetown University law professor Rosa Brooks and Nils Gilman, a vice president at the Berggruen Institute think tank. It included numerous political veterans who participated in “war games.”
One scenario in the 2024 report is a Trump victory after which Biden calls for Democrat governors to send alternate slates of electors if Trump carried their states.
Most of the information about “war games” conducted before the 2020 election came out through leaks to the press. In this case, Heritage’s Oversight Project released a report detailing the findings.
“We’re not like the 2020 shadowy Transition Integrity Project,” Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, said at the press conference before opening it up for reporters’ questions about the report.
During the event, several of those who participated in the 2024 scenarios discussed the report’s conclusions.
Howell brought up concerns about Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which put all federal agencies behind a voter mobilization effort.
“Right now, every single one of you here is actively supporting the reelection campaign efforts of the Biden administration with your taxpayer dollars,” Howell said of the implementation of Biden’s order. “They are particularly active in places that I frankly view as predatory.”
Scenarios in the 2024 report include Attorney General Merrick Garland’s ordering Trump’s arrest days after he wins the Nov. 5 election. In another scenario, Trump is victorious, but Biden and Garland’s Justice Department immediately launches a multistate investigation into voter intimidation and tells local officials to stop announcing vote tallies.
“If people accept the lie that a Trump win would be the end of the nation, some may feel justified in manipulating the process to ensure against such an outcome,” the report concludes. “TIP 2024’s exercises suggest that President Biden and his allies—with assistance from a weaponized governmental bureaucracy and loyal proxies in corporate media—are well-equipped to undermine electoral procedures or to challenge results that run counter to their interests.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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