Poor Marco Rubio. After Trump relentlessly humiliated him in the 2016 GOP presidential candidate debates, the sycophantic Senator from Florida eagerly snapped a Golden Youth collar around his own neck, declaring Trump to be his leash-holding Wez.
Since then, Rubio has spent much of his time on Twitter posting self-owning passages from the Bible and servile praise of his owner.
In response to yesterday's news that Trump had been charged with attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, the toadying politician took to Twitter to express his frustration. He tweeted, "Apparently it is now a crime to make statements challenging election results if a prosecutor decides those statements aren't true. So when should we expect indictments of the democrat politicians who falsely claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election?"
Unfortunately for Rubio, Twitter users were quick to point out that his tweet was a fabrication. A Community Note revealed that "the criminal indictments of Trump explicitly state that it is not a crime to challenge elections or to make false statements about them. The indictments allege that Trump and his co-conspirators took actions to commit fraud and impede government functions."
The Grand Jury indictment document is here. If Rubio had bothered to get past the title page of United States v. Donald J. Trump, he would have read the following:
The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.
Rubio might just be the dumbest living U.S. Senator. But he's smart enough to know that being caught in a lie defending his Wez is better than inciting the wrath of his owner.
