Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has doubled down on threats President Donald Trump made against states that defy his demands for election reform. In his Friday speech, Mullin largely reiterated what Trump said the night before: that the administration would pursue a hardline agenda to reshape US elections.
Borrowing a term from Trump's foreign policy platform, Mullin pledged to pursue a campaign of 'maximum pressure' to ensure compliance. He also hinted at repercussions for those Trump accused of misleading the US public during the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claims he won. 'This isn't about rehashing the 2020 election. This is just exposing what took place and to make sure it never happens again,' Mullin said.
He added that his department is looking at individuals within the intelligence community and the administration of former President Joe Biden as possible targets. 'Everybody that purposely misled the American people, abused their power and their authority and decided not to continue doing their job will be held accountable,' Mullin explained.
However, while Trump repeatedly alleged a 'deep state' cover-up about election vulnerabilities in Thursday's primetime speech, the declassified documents his White House released failed to substantiate his sweeping claims. Like Trump, Mullin zeroed in on four states as targets: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. Mullin claimed those states have 250,000 non-citizens on their voting rolls, offering no basis for the statistic.
Experts warn that non-citizen voting is exceedingly rare. An analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice found that non-citizen voting accounted for 0.0001 percent of ballots in the 2016 elections. Despite this, Mullin threatened to withhold federal funds from states that fail to comply with Trump's demands on election security.
California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to Mullin's remarks on social media: 'California has free, fair, and secure elections and we will fight for them. Try us.' Mullin also took aim at major TV networks that did not broadcast Trump's speech live, calling them 'shameful'. The sole Democratic FCC commissioner, Anna Gomez, rejected Trump's threat to revoke broadcast licenses as unconstitutional, stating the FCC has no authority to punish stations for editorial decisions.
Source: www.aljazeera.com