No, Democrats Aren’t Trying to Overturn the 2016 Election
The White House’s messaging throughout the impeachment process has been wildly inconsistent on nearly every count save one: Democrats are trying to overturn the 2016 election.
Other ideas have come and gone. President Donald Trump has insisted that he wasn’t pressuring foreign countries to intervene, and then done so again publicly. He has flip-flopped on what kind of trial he wants in the Senate. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney even changed his mind on whether there was a quid pro quo in the course of one afternoon.
Yet the claim after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry, in late September. In a reply brief over the weekend, the president’s lawyers Democrats of a “brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election” and of “nullifying an election and subverting the will of the American people.” The White House team made the same point on the Senate floor yesterday during debate on the rules for the trial.
