He didn't abandon his principles, he never had any to begin with:
Shortly after the 2000 presidential contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, Cruz — then a 29-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School — received an urgent request: There was going to be a recount of the Florida vote and Bush’s campaign wanted his help.
Cruz rushed to Tallahassee and arrived that afternoon, and he said he believed that after a “quick, perfunctory legal proceeding,” Bush would be declared the winner. But there were serious questions about who had received the most votes in Florida. By Cruz’s account, he played a pivotal role, rewriting briefs and sleeping for “a total of seven hours” in his first six days in Florida. He wrote in his memoir that he and others on Bush’s team were convinced Gore “was trying to steal the presidency.”
Cruz wrote that he was “astonished” at Gore’s move to contest the outcome, recalling how Richard M. Nixon had lost to John F. Kennedy amid fraud allegations but had “resisted the urge to contest the results and divide the country indefinitely. I thought it was a rather petulant display by Vice President Gore.”
Five years after writing those words in his 2015 memoir, it would be Cruz leading the charge to challenge a presidential election in an effort that continues to divide the country.
Two days after the 2020 election, as absentee ballot counts in swing states piled up in Biden’s favor, Trump tweeted the falsehood that “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Around the time he sent that tweet, the president talked with Cruz on the phone, the senator from Texas has said.
Trump’s call underscored their remarkable reconciliation. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had called Cruz “the single biggest liar I have ever dealt with in my life” and attacked Cruz’s wife and father. Cruz called Trump an “arrogant buffoon,” and refused to endorse the nominee at the Republican National Convention, which got him booed off the stage.
But in September 2016, Cruz offered a quid pro quo: He would back Trump if the candidate agreed to select a Supreme Court justice from a Cruz-approved list. “The price of my endorsement was explicit,” Cruz later wrote in his book “One Vote Away.” Trump agreed, Cruz wrote. The nominee switched from calling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” to “Beautiful Ted,” while the senator stood by Trump after The Post revealed the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump talked in vulgar terms about women. Cruz became a staunch ally during Trump’s presidency.
When Trump talked to Cruz two days after the 2020 election, the senator’s allegiance was tested anew. That night, to the shock of some of his aides, Cruz amplified Trump’s stolen-election claims on the Fox News show hosted by Sean Hannity, who moonlighted as one of Trump’s most influential advisers. He told Hannity’s millions of viewers that Democrats were “defying the law” because they didn’t want GOP observers to see ballot counting.
“They are setting the stage to potentially steal an election not just from the president but from the media,” Cruz said. (The allegation that Republican observers were kept from seeing the vote count was rebutted by those who ran the ballot operation and rejected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.)
In the weeks that followed, as Trump allies lost a string of election cases, Cruz began suggesting he could lead a more effective legal strategy. He talked about his success in helping Bush’s legal team and how he had argued a total of nine cases before the Supreme Court, mostly as the Texas solicitor general. Two days later, he announced he had agreed to represent Pennsylvania Republicans in their effort to block certification of that state’s presidential results. The Supreme Court rejected that request, though, a near-fatal blow to efforts to overturn the election in the courts.
But the next day, Trump and Cruz focused on another avenue to put the matter before the Supreme Court: a case filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who argued his state had standing to ask the court to throw out election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
When Trump called on Dec. 8 as Cruz dined out, the president asked whether he was surprised about the loss of the Pennsylvania case, Cruz later recalled on his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” Cruz said he was unhappy but “not shocked” that the federal court did not take a case about state law: “That was a challenging hurdle.”
When Cruz agreed to Trump’s request to argue the Texas case, it shocked some who knew him best. One adviser said he called Cruz to express dismay, telling the senator it went against the principles on which he built his political brand.
“If you’re a conservative federalist, the idea that one state can tell another state how to run their elections is outrageous, but he somehow contorted in his mind that it would be okay for him to argue that case,” said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who had served as Cruz’s chief of staff and was a former first assistant attorney general in Paxton’s office, tweeted that the case “represents a dangerous violation of federalism” that “will almost certainly fail.” He did not respond to a request for comment.
Cruz’s spokeswoman said that he agreed to Trump’s request because “he believed Texas deserved to have effective advocacy” but said that “he told President Trump at the time that he believed the Court was unlikely to take the Texas case.”
Cruz’s cooperation was seen as crucial by Trump’s allies. They believed his experience and standing as a senator brought credibility in comparison to the much-criticized work of Trump’s other attorneys, like former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who would later have his New York state license suspended for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the election. (Giuliani could not be reached for comment.)
With Cruz’s commitment secured, Trump tweeted the next morning: “We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”
But the Supreme Court rejected the case — the second straight decision in which it turned down Trump’s allies.
So Cruz focused on a congressional plan. At least one member of the U.S. House and Senate was needed to contest a state’s presidential results. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) had announced his intent to do so, and he found his Senate partner on Dec. 30 when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) volunteered.
That got Cruz’s attention because Hawley is viewed as a possible competitor in the 2024 presidential contest they both might enter, especially if Trump doesn’t run. Cruz didn’t want to be outflanked on his right by Hawley, a Cruz adviser said.
Eastman and Cruz’s actions soon began to directly complement each other.
Eastman wrote in the first of his two memos about overturning the election that his plan relied on a senator delaying certification — and he specifically mentioned the possibility that Cruz could do it. A second version of that memo doesn’t mention Cruz, but the first line in the six-page document still argues that state legislatures have the power to choose electors — mirroring Cruz’s plan.
Cruz’s role in the Senate was crucial because it was not clear that any other senator would join Hawley, a freshman who had campaigned as an outsider without Washington relationships.
More at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/ted-cruz-john-eastman-jan6-committee/
Shortly after the 2000 presidential contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, Cruz — then a 29-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School — received an urgent request: There was going to be a recount of the Florida vote and Bush’s campaign wanted his help.
Cruz rushed to Tallahassee and arrived that afternoon, and he said he believed that after a “quick, perfunctory legal proceeding,” Bush would be declared the winner. But there were serious questions about who had received the most votes in Florida. By Cruz’s account, he played a pivotal role, rewriting briefs and sleeping for “a total of seven hours” in his first six days in Florida. He wrote in his memoir that he and others on Bush’s team were convinced Gore “was trying to steal the presidency.”
Cruz wrote that he was “astonished” at Gore’s move to contest the outcome, recalling how Richard M. Nixon had lost to John F. Kennedy amid fraud allegations but had “resisted the urge to contest the results and divide the country indefinitely. I thought it was a rather petulant display by Vice President Gore.”
Five years after writing those words in his 2015 memoir, it would be Cruz leading the charge to challenge a presidential election in an effort that continues to divide the country.
An allegiance tested
Two days after the 2020 election, as absentee ballot counts in swing states piled up in Biden’s favor, Trump tweeted the falsehood that “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Around the time he sent that tweet, the president talked with Cruz on the phone, the senator from Texas has said.
Trump’s call underscored their remarkable reconciliation. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had called Cruz “the single biggest liar I have ever dealt with in my life” and attacked Cruz’s wife and father. Cruz called Trump an “arrogant buffoon,” and refused to endorse the nominee at the Republican National Convention, which got him booed off the stage.
But in September 2016, Cruz offered a quid pro quo: He would back Trump if the candidate agreed to select a Supreme Court justice from a Cruz-approved list. “The price of my endorsement was explicit,” Cruz later wrote in his book “One Vote Away.” Trump agreed, Cruz wrote. The nominee switched from calling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” to “Beautiful Ted,” while the senator stood by Trump after The Post revealed the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump talked in vulgar terms about women. Cruz became a staunch ally during Trump’s presidency.
When Trump talked to Cruz two days after the 2020 election, the senator’s allegiance was tested anew. That night, to the shock of some of his aides, Cruz amplified Trump’s stolen-election claims on the Fox News show hosted by Sean Hannity, who moonlighted as one of Trump’s most influential advisers. He told Hannity’s millions of viewers that Democrats were “defying the law” because they didn’t want GOP observers to see ballot counting.
“They are setting the stage to potentially steal an election not just from the president but from the media,” Cruz said. (The allegation that Republican observers were kept from seeing the vote count was rebutted by those who ran the ballot operation and rejected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.)
In the weeks that followed, as Trump allies lost a string of election cases, Cruz began suggesting he could lead a more effective legal strategy. He talked about his success in helping Bush’s legal team and how he had argued a total of nine cases before the Supreme Court, mostly as the Texas solicitor general. Two days later, he announced he had agreed to represent Pennsylvania Republicans in their effort to block certification of that state’s presidential results. The Supreme Court rejected that request, though, a near-fatal blow to efforts to overturn the election in the courts.
But the next day, Trump and Cruz focused on another avenue to put the matter before the Supreme Court: a case filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who argued his state had standing to ask the court to throw out election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
When Trump called on Dec. 8 as Cruz dined out, the president asked whether he was surprised about the loss of the Pennsylvania case, Cruz later recalled on his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” Cruz said he was unhappy but “not shocked” that the federal court did not take a case about state law: “That was a challenging hurdle.”
When Cruz agreed to Trump’s request to argue the Texas case, it shocked some who knew him best. One adviser said he called Cruz to express dismay, telling the senator it went against the principles on which he built his political brand.
“If you’re a conservative federalist, the idea that one state can tell another state how to run their elections is outrageous, but he somehow contorted in his mind that it would be okay for him to argue that case,” said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), who had served as Cruz’s chief of staff and was a former first assistant attorney general in Paxton’s office, tweeted that the case “represents a dangerous violation of federalism” that “will almost certainly fail.” He did not respond to a request for comment.
Cruz’s spokeswoman said that he agreed to Trump’s request because “he believed Texas deserved to have effective advocacy” but said that “he told President Trump at the time that he believed the Court was unlikely to take the Texas case.”
Cruz’s cooperation was seen as crucial by Trump’s allies. They believed his experience and standing as a senator brought credibility in comparison to the much-criticized work of Trump’s other attorneys, like former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who would later have his New York state license suspended for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the election. (Giuliani could not be reached for comment.)
With Cruz’s commitment secured, Trump tweeted the next morning: “We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”
But the Supreme Court rejected the case — the second straight decision in which it turned down Trump’s allies.
So Cruz focused on a congressional plan. At least one member of the U.S. House and Senate was needed to contest a state’s presidential results. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) had announced his intent to do so, and he found his Senate partner on Dec. 30 when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) volunteered.
That got Cruz’s attention because Hawley is viewed as a possible competitor in the 2024 presidential contest they both might enter, especially if Trump doesn’t run. Cruz didn’t want to be outflanked on his right by Hawley, a Cruz adviser said.
Eastman and Cruz’s actions soon began to directly complement each other.
Eastman wrote in the first of his two memos about overturning the election that his plan relied on a senator delaying certification — and he specifically mentioned the possibility that Cruz could do it. A second version of that memo doesn’t mention Cruz, but the first line in the six-page document still argues that state legislatures have the power to choose electors — mirroring Cruz’s plan.
Cruz’s role in the Senate was crucial because it was not clear that any other senator would join Hawley, a freshman who had campaigned as an outsider without Washington relationships.
More at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/ted-cruz-john-eastman-jan6-committee/
