Legal expert predicts the 'little secret' between Donald Trump and Mike Johnson

30 October 2024

During his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, October 27, Donald Trump told MAGA supporters that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have a "secret" that the former president can't reveal yet.

"I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a little secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over," the GOP nominee said.

In a Wednesday, October 30 column, The Nation's Elie Mystal explained what he believes the MAGA hopeful and Republican House leader may be hiding.

"Most educated guesses assume that Trump and Johnson are 'secretly' talking about installing Trump as president through a 'contingent election,' whereby the House of Representatives, not the Electoral College, determines the president," the justice correspondent writes, before laying out "key language" in the 12th Amendment of the Constitution:

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote[.]

"What the amendment means is that, if no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College, the House gets to decide who the president is," Mystal noted. However, "I don’t think the Republican plan even requires them to get to a contingent election where the House chooses the president,'" he emphasized.

"I think the plan is to steal the Electoral College outright by getting states Trump loses to refuse to certify the results of their election."

He notes that "Republicans just have to delay long enough to pass those deadlines. They don’t have to win; they just have to stall."

Additionally, if all electors are not submitted by the due date — December 11 — Johnson will "likely declare the process 'over' and say that the electors appointed by that date are the only ones allowed to vote for president," the legal expert emphasizes.

Mystal also notes:

Crucially, Johnson can do this even if Republicans lose the House and Johnson is removed from power. The new House isn’t sworn in until January 3. As the violent MAGA people in your family already know, January 6 is when the House certifies the results of the Electoral College, but that is just a ceremonial day. By the time we get to January 6, the electors are supposed to have voted. December 11 is the deadline for appointing electors, December 25 the deadline for voting. Mike Johnson will still be in charge on both of those days.

"Preventing this scenario requires Republicans to act in good faith and certify the results of elections that go against their guy," Mystal continues, but "we cannot be sure that Republicans of good faith still exist, and we certainly can’t assume that they exist in key battleground states or on the Supreme Court," he contends.

"I think this plan explains why Trump, Johnson, Elon Musk, and a bunch of other Republicans have been stomping around the country, looking smug and confident and willing to piss off Puerto Ricans (while doing jumping jacks, in Elon’s case), even though every person with a brain will tell you that the election is a toss-up," Mystal concludes. "Trump and his people really don’t think they have to win. They think they can stop certification of states they lose long enough to let Mike Johnson shut the door on democracy."

Mystal's full column is available at this link.

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