Todd Blanche loses his cool under tough questioning on Alaska election lawsuit, and legal experts pan the case as having 'no realistic chance of success in courts"

(Purple Room Politics, Facebook)

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche had a tough day on the Sunday morning news programs, even calling a CNN journalist "crazy" for suggesting early signs of Donald Trump trying to intervene in an Alaska U.S. Senate race could lead to another Jan. 6.

Here is what's really crazy: That the nation's top law-enforcement officer doesn't seem to know that the U.S. Consitution places control over Congressional elections with the states, not the federal government. It's right there in Article 1, Section 4 for anyone who wants to check. In press reports about the Sunday news show, Blanche several times let language slip that indicates he really does know the law. But it appears his strategy is to act dumb in case a "doomsday scenario" plays out -- meaning Democrats take back both houses of Congress -- causing Trump to panic and demand that Blanche and his underlings launch a full-out assault on the courts in hopes of wearing down already weary Americans and wrangling a sliver of power for the GOP in the face of a Congress that is likely to be recalcitrant and bloodthirsty.

Blanche gave the distinct impression on Sunday that he is thinking ahead, and given his boss is the mercurial Trump, that's probably a wise move. We must hope that Americans have seen Blanche's slippery act enough to know that he is one of the most lawless, disingenuous characters to ever slither onto the American political stage. Heck, he makes his predecessor, Pam Bondi, look like John Adams by comparison.

How did Blanche fare under the white-hot lights of the Sunday morning studios. The UK Guardian provides insights under the headline "Blanche defends DOJ's pre-emptive suit to block Alaska Senate results certification; US attorney general calls CNN 'crazy' for suggesting Trump's attempts to overturn election could lead to January 6 repeat. Victoria Bekiempis writes:

Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s attorney general, lashed out during an interview on Sunday while defending the justice department’s pre-emptive lawsuit to block certification of Alaska’s US Senate results if the GOP incumbent loses, calling a TV host’s question “crazy”.

The testy repartee unfolded on CNN’s State of the Union over the DOJ’s unprecedented legal action, which alleges that there could be “voter confusion” due to two candidates named Dan Sullivan on Alaska’s ballot. Trump told reporters, “I’m the one that said do it” when asked about the suit. Dana Bash, State of the Union host, said “one of the big questions is whether or not “Trump tries to overturn the election, and the result of that could be, God forbid, what we saw after January 6”.

“Oh, stop it,” Blanche said. “Oh, you got to stop it with that. You are not being a real person. Come on, man.

“That is crazy!”

Bash said, “it is not crazy.”

“I would have said that before January 6,” Bash said, referring to election-denying Trump supporters’ shocking attack on the Capitol. A bipartisan Senate report said there were seven deaths in relation to this incident.

Is Blanche admitting that the actions of Trump and his supporters on Jan. 6 were crazy? That's how it sounds to me. If they already have acted crazy once regarding an election, why wouldn't Dana Bash, or anyone else, suspect they might do it again?"

This is the point in the story where Blanche starts dropping hints that he might not be as ignorant of the law as he sometimes sounds. Bekiempis writes:

“Because the president, because the Department of Justice, is concerned that there is an absolute fraud happening in Alaska, and he wants to do something about it, you’re saying, Mr Attorney General, because the president of the United States wants to stop a fraud and confusion in Alaska, is he going to do something crazy? That is not, that is not a real question.” (This is example No. 1 of Blanche suggesting that Trump has no authority to act in an area of law reserved for states.)

“We’re not laying any groundwork for the president to do that,” a fiery Blanche insisted. “What I said is the groundwork that we are laying is for Alaska, for the state of Alaska.” (Here, Blanche suggests that he knows this is an issue for the state of Alaska, not the feds.)

“If it becomes an issue after the election, we’ll have the ability to determine whether there was confusion that violates the law in determining who the senators should be.” (What law is he talking about here? It would likely be a state law in a situation where feds are required to butt out. This appears to be a case of Blanche slithering back to his slippery ways, which seem to come second nature to him.)

Dana Bash was not the only tough inquisitor that Blanche encountered Sunday. Margaret Brennan was waiting for him at CBS News' Face the Nation. Bekiempis writes:

Blanche also appeared irked during an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face the Nation after she summed up the litigation and asked whether Trump directed him to file suit.

“Well first of all, let me correct you, OK,” Blanche said. “You described facts that were just simply either at best misleading, but really a lie to your viewers."

While Trump’s DoJ has claimed there might be “voter confusion” on Alaskan ballots, potentially propelling Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola to victory, election experts maintain that this position is legally weak. 

“The legal claim is so absurdly thin, there’s essentially no likelihood of success,” said DeDerek Mueller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, in a blog post.

Another expert, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said this suit marked “an unprecedented intervention by the federal government” and noted that Alaska’s courts had “fully litigated” this issue.

The lawsuit, Becker said, “raises serious concerns about political interference” and that he could not remember “ever attempting to stop the certification of an election – and certainly not 11 days before polls close.”  

Richard H Pildes, a law professor at New York University who focuses on elections, told The New York Times: “It is one of the weakest election lawsuits I’ve ever seen.”

“It should have no realistic chance of success in the courts,” Pildes said.