Trump’s childhood pal is pushing him to declare national emergency and seize control of midterms: report

Trump’s childhood pal is pushing him to declare national emergency and seize control of midterms: report Lawyer Peter Ticktin claims Democrats are conspiring to steal November’s vote, this time with a view to removing Trump and JD Vance from power and installing Hakeem Jeffries in their place - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments A Florida lawyer who describes himself as Donald Trump’s boyhood “best friend” is pushing the president to declare a national emergency to enable him to take control of November’s midterms, according to a report. Peter Ticktin, 80, is a long-time believer in the claim that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Trump by a vast voter fraud conspiracy told CNN in a new interview that the threat remains real. Ticktin believes that foreign states including China, Russia, Venezuela and Iran were involved in the plot to deprive Trump of victory six years ago by tinkering with voting machines and fears that the fix is in again at the upcoming midterms. He claims Democrats are this time plotting to steal enough House and Senate seats to be able to impeach Trump and Vice President JD Vance, remove them from power and install the current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in their place, he having ascended to the speakership after the midterms in place of the incumbent Mike Johnson. “The machines are still in play,” Ticktin warned CNN, insisting that, because of Republicans’ failure to get the SAVE Act passed by Congress, Trump declaring an emergency and empowering himself to take charge of voting is the only way to secure a fair outcome. His doing so would likely yield a fresh crisis, however, given that the Constitution clearly leaves the administering of elections in the hands of Congress and the states, not the president, who is excluded from the process on conflict of interest grounds. No evidence has ever emerged to prove Trump’s undying insistence that the 2020 vote was stolen and a joint report from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security published in March 2021 concluded that the claim that foreign governments had successfully conspired to hack the result were “not credible.” However, according to Ticktin, all that is about to change, with the January capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro the key to revealing what really went on in the shadows. “He’s gonna talk,” he said of Maduro. “He’s gonna sing like a canary. Maduro is one of the heads of the snake that caused all of this.” He predicted that the deposed president’s evidence would end all doubt on the matter and explain exactly how the machines were breached, characterizing Trump’s loss to Biden as “a surreptitious overtaking of a country.” Ticktin is well known in MAGA circles for his continued advocacy for January 6 rioters and for acting on behalf of Tina Peters, the county clerk jailed for her part in the attempt to overturn Biden’s victory who was freed last month after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis commuted her sentence. The lawyer claims to have first met Trump when they were enrolled together at New York Military Academy in the early 1960s. “We were very close,” he told CNN. “In fact, you could say we were best friends in our senior year of high school.” Ticktin claims to speak to the president several times a year and to have an open line of communication since representing him in a failed 2022 civil lawsuit against Hillary Clinton where Trump’s camp accused his former presidential rival of falsely attempting to tie him to Russia during his first term. However, an unnamed White House insider told the network Ticktin is considered “well-meaning” but prone to “overstate” the extent of his current relationship with Trump. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments