Two of President Donald Trump’s top law enforcement nominees have been taking a new tack when talking about the 2020 presidential election: They’re not claiming Trump won that year, but they’re not saying he lost either.
Joe Biden was “duly sworn in” after the 2020 election, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, told senators at her confirmation hearing.
“President Joe Biden’s election was certified, he was sworn in and he served as the president of the United States,” Kash Patel, who has been tapped to lead the FBI, said at his confirmation hearing.
Neither would say Biden defeated Trump despite dozens of court rulings that upheld the results.
For years, Republicans have toyed with competing rhetorical approaches when discussing an election that Trump falsely insists he won. Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee for White House budget director, has taken a strident approach, telling the Senate in a written answer to questions that he believes the 2020 election was “rigged.” Bondi and Patel used their hearings to test a different strategy common among Republicans — one that avoids embracing lies about the election but doesn’t explicitly rule them out….