No. 2 Senate Republican praises election official for standing up to Trump 

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday praised former acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli for rebuffing a request from former President Trump to seize voting machines following the 2020 presidential election.

Thune said he was relieved that Cuccinelli and other officials pushed back against Trump’s effort to seize voting machines in an attempt to change the outcome of the election, which President Biden won by 74 electoral votes and more than 7 million votes nationwide.

“I’m just glad that there were people in the right places and that the system worked,” he said. “People who had positions of responsibility held their ground even when being asked to do things that they knew they shouldn’t do. Things may have bent a little bit, but they didn’t break.”

Thune made his comments when asked about a story published by The New York Times reporting that Trump wanted his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states. The report cited three people “familiar with the matter.”

The Times reported that Cuccinelli said Homeland Security officials could not take part in the plan.

It also reported that Trump asked Cuccinelli in another meeting about the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate election fraud, with Cuccinelli replying that it was not a good idea. The report cited “two people briefed on the conversation.”

Thune was one of several Republican senators who pushed back against the former president’s reported actions and statements about the outcome and aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday broke with Trump’s suggestion made at a Texas rally over the weekend that people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol may received pardons if he’s elected president again.

“I would not be in favor of shortening any of the sentences for any of the people who pleaded guilty to crimes,” McConnell told reporters when asked about Trump’s statement over the weekend that he would consider pardons for people who tried to stop the certification of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.   

“The election of 2020 was decided Dec. 14 of 2020 when the Electoral College certified the winner of the election. What we saw here on January the 6th was an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which has never happened before in our country,” he said.