Republicans serving in Minnesota's congressional delegation remained silent Friday as President Donald Trump forged ahead on a last-ditch effort to nullify the outcome of the Nov. 3 election and overturn Democrat Joe Biden's victory.
The push from Trump and his allies, which includes repeatedly raising unsubstantiated claims of fraud and pressuring local officials to decertify results, has drawn intense skepticism from election experts.
State and local election officials have said there is no evidence of widespread fraud or election irregularities. Some prominent Republicans, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, have publicly condemned the president's legal strategy and urged him to allow for an orderly transition of power.
Minnesota Republican Reps. Tom Emmer, Jim Hagedorn and Pete Stauber and GOP Rep.-elect Michelle Fischbach have not weighed in on the latest developments. Staff for all four did not respond to requests for comment on the president's efforts Thursday and Friday. Calls to some members' personal phones also went unreturned.
Biden won the presidency by a comfortable margin both in the Electoral College and the popular vote. Trump has yet to concede and has vowed to pursue all claims that widespread fraud swayed the results.
With court challenges pursued by the president's lawyers proving unsuccessful so far, the president and his allies have stepped up other efforts to subvert the election. Much of the recent focus has been on Michigan, a state Trump lost by about 155,000 votes.
Trump has reportedly pressured officials in Michigan to rescind certification of results in heavily Democratic Wayne County. On Friday, he invited two of Michigan's top Republican lawmakers to the White House to discuss his concerns. A White House spokesman denied on Friday that the president was trying to pressure local officials but defended his refusal to concede.
The delegation has previously provided a range of responses to the outcome of the presidential race. Fischbach echoed many of the president's unverified allegations of fraud in an interview with Fox News just days after the election, while Hagedorn warned on his Facebook page of "suspicious" vote-counting patterns.
Stauber limited his comments at the time to saying every vote should count. "I'm not a lawyer and I'm not going to play one in any conversation," he told the Star Tribune.
Emmer sidestepped questions about the potential impact the president's questions could have on faith in the democratic process in a Nov. 10 interview with NPR, instead urging patience as vote tallies were completed.
"Let's allow the votes to be counted and make sure that everybody — and not everybody is going to be comfortable with the outcome, somebody wins, somebody loses — but let's allow the votes to be counted," he said.
States will certify their results before a Dec. 14 meeting of the Electoral College.
Torey Van Oot • 651-925-5049
