After Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) was elected Speaker of the House on Wednesday, Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries presented him with the gavel but not before taking a few shots at Johnson first.
“Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election,” Jeffries said in reference to Johnson’s past efforts to challenge the 2020 election results over allegations of fraud in various battleground states. “He’s doing a great job under difficult circumstances — and no amount of election denialism will ever change that reality.”
Strong words from a man who was denying election results before any Republican dared to ask questions about the 2020 presidential election. It’s true. For years, Jeffries has accused Donald Trump of stealing the 2016 election and being an illegitimate president.
“With [the] legitimacy of Trump’s presidential election in doubt, his lifetime appt to Supreme Court can wait,” Jeffries tweeted in March 2017 in reference to the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Nearly a year later, he claimed without evidence that “The more we learn about [the] 2016 election the more ILLEGITIMATE it becomes. America deserves to know whether we have a FAKE President in the Oval Office.”
Jeffries repeatedly doubled down on his election denial. In September 2018, he claimed that Republicans cheated in the 2016 presidential election.
LIE (more than any administration in the history of the Republic). CHEAT (2016 election/Russian Interference). STEAL (one or two Supreme Court seats). When will Republicans put country ahead of party? #CleanUpCorruption
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) September 28, 2018
His election denialism wasn’t limited to the 2016 presidential election either. In December 2018, he claimed that a congressional seat in North Carolina was “stolen” after a Republican won the seat.
Is the North Carolina congressional seat the only one stolen by rogue Republican operatives? We may need a comprehensive criminal investigation to figure that out #CleanUpCorruption
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) December 7, 2018
In 2019, Jeffries suggested during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Trump was an “illegitimate president” or a “Russian asset.”
Is Donald Trump?
A. a legitimate President
B. a Russian Asset
C. an organized crime boss
D. a useful idiot
The American people deserve to know #MuellerReport. pic.twitter.com/YTnUqhJIj7
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) March 24, 2019
That same year, he claimed without evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, “artificially placing” Trump in the presidency, adding that a “cloud of illegitimacy that continues to hang over” the Trump White House and that we need “to try to figure out what the heck happened” in the 2016 election.
Related: What Happens to the Democrats Who Claimed They Had Evidence of Collusion?
Remember how Democrats claimed that the 2020 election was the most secure election in history? Well, they say that now, but before the election, Jeffries was one of many Democrats who claimed that Trump was trying to steal the election with Russia. “Let’s be clear donald [sic]. The only person trying to steal the election is YOU. (and your buddies in the Kremlin),” he tweeted.
Even after the 2020 election, when questioning the results was suddenly taboo, Jeffries doubled down on the Trump/Russia collusion hoax.
“Keep pouting,” Jeffries said in a tweet directed at Trump. “History will never accept you as a legitimate President.”
There has never been any evidence that Trump colluded with Russia or that Russia ever managed to alter election results. No investigation, including the Mueller investigation, ever found any. The reason? It never existed.
In fact, the CIA has evidence suggesting that Hillary Clinton was the one behind the creation of the false narrative. That explains why high-ranking Obama officials all testified that they never saw any empirical evidence of collusion. Yet throughout the entirety of Trump’s presidency, Jeffries and many other Democrats insisted not only that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election but also that they had personally seen evidence of it. Also, intelligence declassified in April 2020 also suggested that Obama’s CIA director John Brennan suppressed evidence that Russia actually wanted to help Hillary Clinton “and put forward lower quality intelligence to claim the Russians backed Trump.”
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