Murkowski finally takes aim at Trump's attack on election; Sullivan stays silent and complicit

Better late than never.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski always operates as if the yellow caution flag is flying, but at last she has started to call out the efforts by President Trump to steal the election.

Trump is abusing the powers of the presidency and destroying faith in institutions that are far more vulnerable than many of us realize. The wall of silence in response to this from Senate Republicans, punctured only by Murkowski and a handful of others, is a national disgrace.

Murkowski said Trump should “begin the full and formal transition process” and halt his pressure campaign to overturn the results of the election.

“President Trump has had the opportunity to litigate his claims, and the courts have thus far found them without merit,” Murkowski said in a tweet Sunday night. “A pressure campaign on state legislators to influence the electoral outcome is not only unprecedented but inconsistent with our democratic process.”

It has been the obsequious silence of Republican senators, Republican representatives and Republican governors that has allowed Trump to think he can get away with a coup.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, who never crosses Trump, has raised no objections about Trump’s attempt to steal the election. Sullivan’s continuing silence makes him complicit in a serious attack on the democratic process that has damaged our national security.

There is no evidence of widespread fraud. Trump, his lawyers and his Senate sycophants are lying.

Questioned by the Washington Post for his views on Trump’s baseless claims, Sullivan refused to answer, the standard practice of those who live in fear of Trump.

Sullivan could have defended the losing pack of lies that Trump’s “elite strike force” of TV lawyers have been peddling. Or Sullivan could have described the pack of lies as desperate attempt by a man who will do anything to avoid being called a loser.

Instead, Sullivan puts his lack of political courage on full display by saying nothing of substance.

Sullivan told the Anchorage Daily News there is a “distinct possibility” that Trump wasn’t re-elected. There is a distinct possibility that Sullivan, loyal soldier to the end, will keep this nonsense going for as long as the party belongs to Trump.

For the past four years, Sullivan has made silence his reflexive response when faced with an uncomfortable question about Trump, one that demanded an honest answer that would put him on the wrong side of Trump’s Twitter finger.

Murkowski, to her credit, has shown signs of independence, offering mild criticism of Trump on occasion.

Even her mild rebukes have set her apart from Sullivan and nearly ever other senate Republican. Hapless lackeys, they have allowed Trump to weaken or destroy checks and balances vital to the nation.

Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg writes that a serious political party “would walk away from this burning septic tank en masse. Instead it spends its days lobbing Molotov cocktails of flaming B.S. from its windows.”

“And I don’t care if ‘the Republican base’ believes this bilge or wants to believe it. The party has a higher obligation to the country, to future Republicans, and—as quaint as it sounds—to its principles than to a lame duck president.”

Murkowski has started to deal with that higher obligation with her latest words of caution. Sullivan may not even understand that the obligation exists.

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