Raskin: ‘A bad faith actor like Donald Trump can plant booby traps’ in the electoral system

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, said on Monday that people such as former President Trump “can plant booby traps” in the U.S. electoral system to skew the results their way.

Speaking ahead of the Jan. 6 panel’s next public hearing on Tuesday, Raskin said that the Electoral College is “an actual danger to the American people” when someone like Trump is in power and refuses to concede.

“A bad faith actor like Donald Trump can plant booby traps in all of the nooks and crannies,” he told The Baltimore Sun.

Raskin said that the full evidence collected by the committee, which has been holding publicly televised hearings for the past few weeks, will be undeniable even to supporters of the former president.

“I think the cumulative effect of this will be devastating for those who wanted to try to dismiss the meaning of Jan. 6 and sweep it under the rug,” said Raskin, who was also involved in the House’s efforts to impeach Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol breach.

Raskin said that Tuesday’s hearing will deal with a tweet from Trump on Dec. 19, 2020, that read, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

The Maryland representative said he believes that tweet was “the pivotal moment for the mobilizing of the domestic violent extremist groups.”

“People dismiss that it’s just a tweet, but it was a tweet that went to 70 million people, calling on them to come join a wild protest against the government,” said Raskin.