Former President Donald Trump has turned his anger on the state of Indiana, accusing officials there of conspiring to rig the election to help former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley defeat him — and state officials there are unnerved by it, reported Politico.
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Moreover, said the report, they fear this could morph from a “bizarre subplot” of the primary season into a test run for Trump to once again try to obstruct election results — something he did in 2020, which led to multiple criminal indictments.
Essentially, Trump — relying on claims by his close ally in the state, Rep. Jim Banks — has been claiming that Haley does not qualify for the Indiana ballot because she missed the deadline to collect enough signatures. However, he appears to be confused; while the signatures deadline has already passed, the deadline to file the collected signatures comes later, and Haley is reportedly still on track to make that deadline with the required amount of signatures.
But Trump continues to claim that the only way Haley makes the ballot is if there is funny business with state officials intervening or breaking the law on her behalf. He’s even challenging the validity of the signatures, said the report: “Over the weekend, an attorney for Trump sent a letter, obtained by POLITICO, to Marion County’s Democratic clerk, Kate Sweeney Bell, accusing her of improperly accepting petition signatures for Haley and demanding she preserve all evidence during the certification process.”
“The complaints are baseless, elections officials say,” reported Adam Wren. “Worse, they and Trump’s opponents warn, with the former president raising alarms even in a state like deep-red Indiana, they look like a test run by Trump and his allies to undermine confidence in the election in November.”
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“Trump is reinforcing a narrative where the only acceptable outcome is his victory, thus preemptively delegitimizing any electoral defeat,” said Evansville attorney Joshua Claybourn, who has previously served as a delegate to the GOP convention from the state. “It sets the stage for yet another crisis of legitimacy in the November general election.”
“Why put out the effort to challenge the Haley effort ahead of time when the ex-president knows he’s going to win Indiana no matter what?” former state Rep. Mike Murphy told Politico. “The bottom line is he’s completely unhinged. He is literally off his rocker.”
