COUNTING ON CHAOS

First-Term Trump Lawyer Makes Dire Election Prediction

Ty Cobb warns how far the 80-year-old president will go to avoid a midterms catastrophe.

Donald Trump will meddle in the midterms even after ballots are cast next week, a former White House lawyer has warned.

Ty Cobb, who served as special White House counsel during Trump’s first term, appeared on NBC News’ Meet the Press NOW on Wednesday to discuss the administration’s desperate attempt to avoid a GOP electoral wipeout on Nov. 3.

This would include an effort to block the certification of Alaska’s Senate race if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, he says. Trump has called for Alaska’s Democratic Senate candidate, Mary Peltola, to be removed from the ballot amid claims that her campaign helped another Dan Sullivan enter the race to confuse voters and siphon votes from the incumbent.

“They are doing everything they can to interfere with the elections, and they will continue that effort, sadly, probably likely, beyond the elections,” Cobb, who represented Trump in the White House during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, said.

The Trump administration also had a failed attempt to block California from counting mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters whom Trump’s Department of Justice claims may be noncitizens.

Cobb added that the attempt to block the counting of 20,000 ballots in California was “meritless.”

TOXIC TRUMP

Nate Silver Lays Out Case for Landslide That Buries Trump

Martha McHardy

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected the request and condemned the Trump administration’s attempts to “coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch.”

The Alaska Senate race, one of the crucial midterm contests Democrats hope to win to flip the upper chamber, has been overshadowed by a bizarre situation in which two people named Dan Sullivan are running on the same ballot.

Sen. Dan S. Sullivan will appear on the ballot as the Republican incumbent, while Dan J. Sullivan will be listed with no party affiliation. The second Dan Sullivan has already battled through the courts to keep his name on the ballot and has denied being a spoiler candidate.

This week, The New York Times reported that the Peltola campaign sought to track down another Dan Sullivan and persuade him to run in the Alaska Senate race, hoping voters would accidentally cast their ballots for the wrong candidate.

In response, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate election if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses his re-election bid. Trump has also demanded that Peltola “suffer the Legal and Political consequences” and be blocked from running in the Senate race, alongside the second Sullivan.

Cobb believes Trump will ultimately fail to intervene in the Alaska Senate results, with the state’s courts already ruling on issues involving both the Sullivans being on the same ballot.

“Their effort is really just one to try to sow chaos, confusion, and ideally maybe keep some enthusiastic Democrats away from the polls,” Cobb said.

“So we’ll see how all this plays out. But there will be additional legal challenges, and I’m sure that the government will invade other states with subpoenas and demands as we go forward.”

DON’T COUNT ON IT

Judge Shuts Down Trump’s Brazen Blue State Power Grab

Ewan Palmer

Later in his NBC News appearance, Cobb added that the “fundamental aspect” of democracy is voters being able to select who they want to represent them, a principle that “will not be corrupted the way that the president is corrupted virtually every other aspect of the rule of law.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Ewan PalmerReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.