Conspiracy theories about the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania seem to make it the unfortunate ground level of much of the controversy the country has seen since President Donald Trump lost the November election.
Trump-backed rioters have cited false allegations of electoral fraud in Pennsylvania – shared by some of the state’s own Republican lawmakers, including Congressman Scott Perry and Senator Doug Mastriano – as a reason to “capitulate” on January 6 to storm ‘.
Now, state houses across the country, including the one in Pennsylvania, are making steel in the coming days for additional confrontations.
In the state where the state’s democracy was founded, Pennsylvania has seen members of Congress object to its constituents, even though broken glass hours after the riot ended, still sown on the floor of the Capitol, which casts doubt among Trump supporters over the integrity of the state’s election continues.
Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies said last week that they were preparing for possible violence in the state ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration in Washington, DC, and Gov. Tom Wolf appointed 450 members of the State National Guard to protect the Capitol of Pennsylvania. .
“I will not allow what happened in the country’s capital to happen here,” said Wolf, who also protected about 2,000 members of the State Guard for Washington.
Jack Thomas Tomarchio, who served as chief deputy secretary of intelligence under the Bush administration and helped establish domestic intelligence-gathering networks nationwide, said Pennsylvania – where he lives – is particularly threatened because of the number of militia groups in the state and its central role in conspiracy theories in election fraud.
Tomarchio, citing allegations that Pennsylvania Democrats stole the election, is an extreme hoax, ‘said the state faces manpower issues to protect state and federal buildings, and not be targeted by domestic extremists. not.
“Pennsylvania is definitely a sensational target because it is one of the states that has challenged these groups,” he said. ‘At the same time, Pennsylvania has the dubious distinction of having about 28 militia groups, especially in the northern level of the state. These places contain a lot of right-wing extremist groups, so that’s another reason why the state should be really careful. ”
However, the Republican legislature did little to lower the temperature.
A day before the riot in the Capitol, Republicans in Pennsylvania refused to oust Gov. Jim Brewster, a Democrat who won a tough race in the western part of the state by 69 votes. They also removed Lieutenant Government John Fetterman, a Democrat, as chairman of the Senate for trying to oust Brewster.
Brewster has since sat down after a federal judge joined Democrats, but some state republics are now trying to amend the Pennsylvania constitution and amend how the judges of the Supreme Court are elected in the state after lawsuits to overthrow the election and the security measures of the pandemic was denied by the state court. .
“What Republicans plan to do with the Supreme Court is reprehensible,” said Fetterman, who voted Republicans last week to remove him as president of the Senate in what Democrats call “an attempt at state capture.”
“My guys had no problem with the Supreme Court from 2002 to 2015, when it was in conservative control,” he said. “But then the Democrats chased, we take control of the Supreme Court and now they hate that Supreme Court. They are literally going to change the constitution to try to eliminate and alleviate the court. ‘
Currently, members of the Supreme Court of the state are elected for up to ten years in the nationwide election. Republicans want to limit the election to districts drawn by the state legislature.
The attempt to change the state constitution may take place in front of the Pennsylvania electorate, but Wolf, a Democrat, warned that the attempt was an attempt at control by ‘hyper-partisan’ Republicans.
“I strongly oppose giving the legislature the power to ease our legal system,” the governor said. ‘This constitutional amendment is just another attempt by the Republicans of Harrisburg to prevent the will of the people from being heard by preventing all Pennsylvania residents from voting in the election of judges to the highest courts in the state. ‘
The efforts of Republican lawmakers now have a months-long history: GOP-controlled legislation refused to allow state workers to vote early in the election, and party members shared false allegations in the election before and after the election. Trump and his lawyers.
Mastriano and Perry, both Republicans, are two Pennsylvania lawmakers who have pushed conspiracy theories in their state at two levels of government.
Both are military veterans: Mastriano served as a colonel in the Army and lectured at Army War College, and Perry served as a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania National Guard. They received numerous calls to resign because they used their positions to bring the allegations of election fraud to the mainstream.
Perry objected to Pennsylvania voters after the riot, along with seven other Republican members of the state congressional delegation. Mastriano met with Trump over the Pennsylvania election in the White House and held a trial for the president’s lawyers in Gettysburg to further legitimize the unsubstantiated allegations.
Mastriano attended the protest in Washington last week, though he said he and his wife left before it turned into a riot at the Capitol.
Fetterman and other Democrats laid the responsibility for the perpetuation of the false lies in Pennsylvania at the feet of Perry, Mastriano, and state republics.
“It’s amazing,” said Fetterman, who expressed concern about his family’s safety. “Last Tuesday, there were literally 200 crazy Trump protesters under my office balcony on the front steps of the state Capitol, and then we had the big fire in the Senate when they voted to oust me. There was no difference between Harrisburg and DC, for it could easily have gone the same way in Harrisburg, and they could have stormed the Capitol State. ”
“What I’m trying to say is that they fired, fired and fired, and then it happened Wednesday,” Fetterman added.
Neither Mastriano nor Perry responded to requests to comment on their active participation in spreading election fraud, their role in undermining voters in Pennsylvania or the calls to resign. Both made statements in which they condemned the violence.
Perry also issued a one-word statement in response to demands that he resign.
“No,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Mastriano has meanwhile requested on social media that his supporters “should not take part in marches or demonstrations for the next ten days. Let us concentrate on praying for our people during these difficult times. “The statement represents a sudden face in the rhetoric he used in the past, such as when he told a conservative radio presenter that Trump supporters are in a death knell with the Democrat. party “on the election results, according to Media Matters for America.
Mastriano, who became a right-wing celebrity and saw his social media rise from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands over his opposition to the state’s pandemic precautionary measures and the perpetuation of the president’s false lies, also used campaign funds. to rent buses for his supporters to travel from Chambersburg to Washington for the protest last week, according to the NPR subsidiary WHY.
The Facebook event shared by Doug Mastriano Fighting for Freedom asked for $ 25 for an adult and $ 10 for a child to travel by bus.
But the state senator – who was appointed by the Republican Senate leadership this week to chair the Senate’s Intergovernmental Operations Committee – told NewsMax that the riot by the Capitol was caused by only a few agitators and insinuated they were not Trump supporters. .
“We were peaceful there,” he said, “99, 9 percent of us, and they should not be blamed for anything.”