Attorneys close to Donald Trump are urging the president to declare a national emergency that would allow him to take sweeping powers over the crucial midterm elections.
The president has railed against ‘rigged elections’ and still refuses to concede the 2020 race to Joe Biden while pushing the SAVE Act to force citizens to show ID at the polls, against the wishes of Congressional Democrats.
Peter Ticktin, who has known Trump since they attended New York Military Academy together and represented him in court, is part of a group of pro-Trump lawyers in communication with the White House over the election plan.
Ticktin and his allies argue in a 17-page draft of a presidential executive order that supposed Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election allows Trump to declare such an emergency.
‘There is now clear and compelling evidence from court cases and forensic analysis that these threats have not been mitigated but instead have intensified,’ reads the draft.
‘This constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.’
However, no such evidence currently exists and a 2021 review by multiple intelligence agencies claimed China considered interfering in the election, but did not go through with it.
The proposed order would go even further than the SAVE Act without having to go through Congress.
Trump would effectively mandate voter ID nationwide, ban vote by mail and mandate ballots counted by hand.
Attorneys who support Donald Trump are lobbying the president to declare a national emergency to allow him to take sweeping powers over the midterm elections
The president has long railed against ‘rigged elections’ since his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020 and has pushed the SAVE Act to force citizens to show ID to vote, against the wishes of Congressional Democrats
Ticktin told The Washington Post that he understands Congress and the states traditionally have legal authority over elections.
‘But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,’ he claimed.
‘That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.’
In his opinion, mail-in ballots and voting machines have been the conduit for foreign meddling.
Ticktin also represents Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years in prison on for her role in a 2021 security breach in the elections office she was supposed to oversee.
Trump has reviewed the document himself, ABC News reported, while Ticktin said he has had ‘certain coordination’ with the White House.
‘President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,’ White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
‘The President has urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting.’
Peter Ticktin (pictured center), who has known Trump since they attended New York Military Academy together and represented him in court, is part of a group of pro-Trump lawyers in communication with the White House over the election plan
Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and a ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that there is no reason for any of this.
‘We’ve been raising the alarm for weeks about Trump’s attacks on our elections — now we’re getting details about how they might be planning to do it,’ Warner said in a statement.
‘Let’s be clear: there’s no national emergency. This is a plot to interfere with the will of voters.’
Ticktin and his allies believe that their words will find their way into an executive order issued soon.
The president wrote on Truth Social February 13 that he would be ‘presenting’ an executive order ‘shortly.’
Trump allies and the president himself have stressed the importance of holding on to the House of Representatives into 2027.
Speaker Mike Johnson said a Democrat majority in either chamber of Congress ‘would be the end of the Trump presidency in a real effect,’ while Trump has warned followers he’ll be impeached again.
The president hammered home the importance of the SAVE Act during his record long State of the Union address Tuesday.
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat, said that there is no reason for any of this
He called it important to ‘stop illegal aliens and others, who are unpermitted persons, from voting in our sacred American elections’ and insisted ‘the cheating is rampant.’
Trump also said that there is ‘overwhelming’ agreement between Republicans and Democrats on the policy.
‘Congress should unite and enact this common-sense, country-saving legislation right now and it should be before anything else happens.’
He said that the reason Democrats in Congress are against the law is simple: ‘They want to cheat. They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat and we’re going to stop it.’
However, the bill appeared to have stalled yesterday in the Senate despite the president’s pleas.
Trump’s push for the bill, backed by House conservatives and his most loyal supporters ahead of the midterm elections, has put new pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune as he tries to navigate an effort from inside and outside Congress to bypass normal Senate procedure.
Thune has said he supports the legislation and that his GOP conference is still discussing how to pass it.
Senate Republicans ‘aren’t unified on an approach,’ Thune said on Wednesday after Trump’s speech.
Ticktin (pictured right) and his allies believe that their words will find their way into an executive order issued soon
The president hammered home the importance of the SAVE Act during his record long State of the Union address Tuesday
In an effort to get around Democratic opposition, Trump and others have pushed a so-called ‘talking filibuster,’ which would bring the Senate back to the days of the movie ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’ when senators talked indefinitely to block legislation.
Thursday, the Senate mostly skips the speeches and votes to end debate, which takes 60 votes in the Senate where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.
Republicans wouldn’t have to change the rules to force a talkathon. They could simply keep the Senate open and make Democrats deliver speeches for days or weeks to delay taking up the legislation.
But Thune would still need enough support from his caucus to move forward with that approach, and he said this week that ‘we aren’t there yet.’
Even if Republicans managed to break the first filibuster, Democrats could then offer an unlimited number of amendments on anything they wish, forcing Republicans to take hard votes in an election year and potentially adding some of their own priorities to the legislation if they have some bipartisan support.
Each amendment would bring a new round of speeches as well.
The tension has put the affable, well-liked Thune in a tough spot with Trump and many of his voters who argue that the legislation is necessary for a GOP victory in the midterm elections.
As Thune has discussed the possibility with his conference in recent weeks, some Republicans have expressed worry that the process could lead to rules changes that could lead the Senate to ‘go nuclear’ and eventually vote to erode the legislative filibuster.
Trump’s push for the bill, backed by House conservatives and his most loyal supporters ahead of the midterm elections, has put new pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (pictured center)
Trump said that the reason Democrats in Congress are against the law is simple: ‘They want to cheat. They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat and we’re going to stop it.’
Most Senate Republicans have said they do not want to lower the 60-vote threshold for ending debate on legislation, even though it has been lowered for presidential and judicial nominations.
‘I agree with the SAVE Act,’ Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said after Trump’s speech. ‘But I’m not going to nuke the filibuster.’
Other Republicans could also block the process. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has said she opposes the SAVE Act, and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the former GOP majority leader, has opposed similar legislation in the past.
The House approved it earlier this month on a mostly party-line vote, 218-213.
Trump has already made clear that he will blame Democrats, and potentially Thune, if they lose their majorities in Congress in November — even though Republicans won control of Congress and the White House in 2024 without the bill’s requirements.
