GOP lawmaker calls Trump’s election fraud allegations a ‘scam’

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) called on President Trump and his allies to drop their push to overturn the results of 2020 election, referring to the effort as a “scam” during an interview Sunday with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Speaking with host Dana Bash, the Illinois Republican took aim at allies of the president and so-called thought leaders on social media who have come up with different scenarios in which they believe Trump could overturn the election results and serve a second term.

“They’re getting retweets. They’re getting followers. They’re raising money off this scam. It is a scam,” Kinzinger said.

“It is going to disappoint the people who think this election was stolen,” he continued. 

“But instead of being upset with the people who led them on this grifting scam, they’re gonna somehow try to convince these people that it was, I don’t know, what’s the new word? The RINOs in Congress,” he said, noting the acronym for the pejorative phrase “Republican in name only.”

“We have to follow the Constitution, and I’m sorry if the outcome is not what you wanted,” said Kinzinger.

The congressman went on to say there is no constitutional mechanism for overturning the results of an election as determined by the Electoral College, which voted earlier in December to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

“The reality is there is no impetus to overthrow an election even if you want to,” he said.

His remarks are some of the strongest Trump and his allies have seen among a member of the GOP House minority. Most congressional Republicans have either remained silent on the issue or voiced support for efforts to examine unproven claims of voter and election fraud leveled by the president’s attorneys and others.

Despite many remaining publicly silent on the issue, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reportedly urged Senate Republicans not to bow to the president’s wishes and contest the election results during a special session of Congress in January to certify the election results.

Trump has continued to level his claims of voter fraud and electoral corruption in recent days, even as courts around the country have rejected a vast majority of his legal team’s efforts to halt the certification of election results.