True Left

Joe Biden says Russia, Iran, and China may be trying to meddle in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. He's been briefed on the subject by the U.S. intelligence community.

CNN's Erin Burnett talks with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.), who is part of a bipartisan group that has been meeting to game out scenarios if President Trump loses the election in November and refuses to concede. Trump has suggested delaying the November election because the pandemic complicates the voting process.

After gaming out various scenarios, the group said its conclusions were "alarming:" In an election taking place amid a pandemic, a recession and rising political polarization, the group found a substantial risk of legal battles, a contested outcome, violent street clashes and even a constitutional impasse.

"We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November's elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape," the Transition Integrity Project, which organized the "war games," said in a report this week.

"The winner may not, and we assess likely will not, be known on 'election night' as officials count mail-in ballots," the report said. "This period of uncertainty provides opportunities for an unscrupulous candidate to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the process and to set up an unprecedented assault on the outcome."
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In the six weeks since the tabletop exercises, the group's organizers said their fears of a messy outcome have only grown. Last week, Trump floated the idea of delaying the election, though he was quickly rebuffed by both Democrats and Republicans. And as several states look to expand mail-in voting because of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has repeatedly warned of fraud, suggesting this year's presidential race will be the "greatest election disaster in history."

"He's trying to create as many possible pre-narratives for claiming that the results are not legitimate," said Nils Gilman, who co-founded the Transition Integrity Project last fall along with Rosa Brooks, a professor of law and policy at Georgetown University.
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They divided into groups – representing the Biden campaign, the Trump campaign, the media, the federal bureaucracy including military, Democratic officials and Republican officials – and forecast how they thought each might react after the election.

Each scenario except for a Biden landslide win ended in violent protests and a constitutional crisis.
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Describing one of the more dire scenarios, the group said a constitutional impasse could result if either the Trump or Biden campaign were to exploit legal ambiguities in battleground states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina that have Democratic governors and Republican-controlled state legislatures.

If opposing state branches certified competing slates of electors, it would lead to a situation with no precedent in modern U.S. history.

“We’ve never seen such faithlessness to the ideas and ideals of the country.” Steve Schmidt reacts to the ODNI’s findings and certain Republican senators who seem to be helping disseminate Russian talking points.