PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia Congressman Rob Wittman says he is in “full support” of a Republican effort that seeks to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Wittman just won re-election in 2020 after defeating Democrat Qasim Rashid by 73,000 votes in Virginia’s 1st District, which includes the Middle Peninsula, Northern Neck and part of James City County.
He had previously signed a brief that asked the Supreme Court to throw out election results in several battleground states won by Joe Biden. Virginia, which Biden won handily, wasn’t one of those states.
Wittman and the Republicans however do not object to the swearing-in of congressional legislators who won their races via the same ballots that featured Biden and Trump.
“I am in full support of objecting to electors in order to debate and examine of election results in states where Constitutional questions have been raised,” Wittman wrote on Twitter on Monday morning. “In fact, in December I joined a majority of my Republican colleagues and Leadership in the House of Representatives in sending an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court in reference toTexas v. Pennsylvania, et al. relating to the November general election. Like many of my constituents, I have concerns that several states failed to follow the Constitution in conducting elections and deserve scrutiny to ensure a fair and free election.”
Wittman is one of at least 140 Republicans in the House, two-thirds of the House GOP members, to make baseless claims that the election was fraudulent. At least 12 senators have also voiced their support for the cause.
President Trump and his supporters have already filed and lost dozens of lawsuits in court, and have provided no new evidence of widespread fraud that could have swayed the election results since then. Election officials, both Republican and Democratic, as well as Trump’s Department of Justice have already said there was no widespread fraud.
Though the president was recorded on tape pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” thousands of votes to change the vote in the state in his favor. The phone call, first reported by the Washington Post, was a potential criminal act, legal scholars say.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”
The president continues to repeat unfounded and debunked conspiracy theories found online, many from far-right sources such as QAnon.
The Electoral College results are set to be counted and accepted on Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The objections have no chance of changing the election results with a Democratic-controlled House. Biden won November’s election, with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.