(RightWing.org) – Joe Biden may have shocked the nation when he suddenly announced his decision to withdraw from the presidential race, but Republican lawmakers and watchdog groups quickly mobilized to address the situation — some by speaking out and others by taking action.
Former President Donald Trump quickly weighed in on the situation on his Truth Social page, accusing Biden and his accomplices of perpetrating fraud on the nation. He wrote that “everyone around Joe, including his doctors,” knew he wasn’t capable of running for or being president.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) echoed that sentiment on his X/Twitter page, writing that Democrats were “complicit in the largest political cover-up in history.” He also warned them that any attempt to replace Biden with another nominee would likely face legal challenges. “It’s not possible to […] just switch out a candidate,” he explained.
Others, like the Heritage Foundation, are planning to oppose current Democratic efforts to replace Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Heritage Foundation to Challenge Biden’s Withdrawal From the Race
The Heritage Foundation’s legal arm, The Oversight Project, quickly engaged the situation by issuing a nationwide call for “any potential plaintiff,” preferably a county clerk or presidential elector from Ohio, to step forward so the group could launch a civil complaint to ensure that Democrats comply with the state’s election laws regarding replacing Biden on the ballot.
The Oversight Project hasn’t indicated what legal strategy they might use, but it’s well-known that Ohio’s current statutes provide a potential avenue for mounting an effective legal challenge to Biden’s untimely withdrawal from the race. However, the Heritage Foundation has worked on the strategy for a few weeks. The organization released a lengthy memorandum on June 24 discussing its plan to hold Democrats’ feet to the fire if they tried to replace Biden.
Winning Isn’t Everything
Legal experts like the now infamous Mark Elias claim there’s a zero-point-zero percent chance that anyone can prevent the Democratic National Committee from nominating the candidate of their choice. Others, like the head of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA Law School, say Democrats can do what they want since Biden wasn’t the party’s nominee when he stepped down.
However, a “senior source” involved with Trump’s campaign effort and another person working with the Heritage Foundation recently told Rolling Stone that winning those cases wasn’t necessarily the point of filing those legal challenges. They said filing lawsuits and other quasi-legal actions would burden the Democratic National Committee, the party’s nominee, and political allies with fighting novel court battles.
As a result, the Democrats would waste valuable time, money, and resources in the nation’s courtrooms instead of on the campaign trail at a time when they needed to be “laser-focused” on their outreach efforts in battleground states.
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