{"id":9088,"date":"2026-07-18T00:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T19:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=9088"},"modified":"2026-07-18T00:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T19:42:17","slug":"report-on-trump-and-2020-election-fairly-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=9088","title":{"rendered":"Report on Trump and 2020 election fairly, please"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2023\/08\/11\/080823-twt-promo-editor-900x542_s900x542.jpeg?c0c047c263be1cb79d987d8cb70e60b4836e6ba6\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"article-category\"><strong>OPINION:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have noticed in recent news reporting the use of phrases such as \u201cfalsely claimed,\u201d \u201cfalse claims\u201d and \u201cunproven claims\u201d in reference to President Trump\u2019s longtime assertion that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/2020-elections\/\">2020 elections<\/a> lacked integrity.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes these statements have been accompanied by the qualifier, \u201cwithout any evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After looking at the bylines on these stories, I have been surprised that they were not from the Associated Press (a news service from which I would expect such statements of opinion purporting to be statement of \u201cfact\u201d). These, however, have been Washington Times pieces.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the 2020 election was \u201crigged\u201d or \u201cstolen,\u201d the 2020 election was, by any reasonable standard, a mess. There were problems with mail-in ballots, drop-boxes, the Philadelphia vote counting center being closed to Republican observers in blatant violation of election law and a commonwealth court order, first-hand accounts of photocopied ballots being counted and a host of other problems.<\/p>\n<p>All are recounted in Mollie Hemingway\u2019s excellent book, \u201cRigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fact that it took weeks for Joe Biden to be declared the winner is indicative of the election not being smoothly run. The oft-cited defense that none of the court cases surrounding the election succeeded means little, since most of these cases were ultimately either dismissed for \u201cmootness\u201d or with the blanket claim that any fraud found would not have been sufficient to change the outcome of the election.<\/p>\n<p>When a reporter is writing a news story on this topic, good journalistic practice should allow for the statement such as \u201cPresident Trump claims that the 2020 election was stolen\u201d \u2014 without editorial comment on his claim. Even \u201cPresident Trump asserts the unproven claim\u201d that the election result was invalid would be preferable.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<\/aside>\n<p>To state that someone \u201cfalsely\u201d makes a claim implies that he or she knew the claim to be false the claim was made. Such is not the case here, since President Trump strongly believes his claims about the 2020 election to be true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SAM SLAYMAKER<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>                        <a name=\"pagebreak\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lancaster, Pennsylvania<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OPINION: I have noticed in recent news reporting the use of phrases such as \u201cfalsely claimed,\u201d \u201cfalse claims\u201d and \u201cunproven claims\u201d in reference to President Trump\u2019s longtime assertion that the 2020 elections lacked integrity. Sometimes these statements have been accompanied by the qualifier, \u201cwithout any evidence.\u201d After looking at the bylines on these stories, I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2023\/08\/11\/080823-twt-promo-editor-900x542_c0-8-900-533_s1200x700.jpeg?6c7ae6d0d431bca000e8f19777d5764712e38326","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}