Donald Trump’s campaign has privately threatened the careers of Republican electors who don’t vote for him next week.
A member of the Electoral College who requested to remain anonymous told Salon that “We have gotten reports from multiple people that the Donald Trump campaign is putting pressure on Republican electors to vote for him based on … future political outcomes based on whether they vote for Donald Trump or not.”
The elector said that the threats emphasized “career pressure.”
“It’s all political, basically,” the elector said. “If Trump becomes the president, he’s going to be able to put pressure on the state parties and they won’t be involved anymore.”
This is likely a reaction to the group of electors calling themselves the Hamilton Electors, who are currently attempting to recruit enough electors to keep Trump from reaching the required 270 votes in favor of selecting a less erratic Republican.
“This isn’t about getting a Democrat in. This isn’t even about getting a Republican in. This is about stopping Donald Trump,”said Hamilton Elector Bret Chiafalo. “This is about stopping the most unfit president we would have ever had by far.”
The Hamilton Electors are named after the Hamilton-penned Federalist Paper No. 68, which dictates that electors must obstruct any president whose victory was the result of “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.”
Trump is currently being accused of working with Russia to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Two Hamilton Electors joined eight other electors yesterday to write an open letter to the Director of National Intelligence:
“The Electors require to know from the intelligence community whether there are ongoing investigations into ties between Donald Trump, his campaign or associates, and Russian government interference in the election, the scope of those investigations, how far those investigations may have reached, and who was involved in those investigations,” the letter ended. “We further require a briefing on all investigative findings, as these matters directly impact the core factors in our deliberations of whether Mr. Trump is fit to serve as President of the United States.”
Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW
