Trump's unique offer: Declare him president or redo the 2020 elections

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Former US President Donald Trump called on Monday for himself to be announced the “rightful winner” of the 2020 presidential election, or if not, for the votes to be recounted again. Trump’s tantrum came after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that he limited the spread of a story damaging to Joe Biden’s campaign on the advice of the FBI.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote "So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI buried the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election," adding that the agency did so deliberately “if they didn’t, ‘Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election’.”

“This is massive fraud and election interference at a level never seen before in our country,” Trump continued, stating that as a “remedy,” he should be declared the “rightful winner,” or that the government in this case should “declare the 2020 election irreparably compromised and have a new election, immediately!”

🚨🚨🚨President Donald Trump calls for the 2020 election to be nullified and for a new election to be held. pic.twitter.com/DH4KeLr5qx

— Gordo Stevens 🇺🇸 (@GordoCDA) August 29, 2022

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan last week that Facebook strived to limit the reach of a New York Post story concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Since having been independently verified as genuine, the laptop contained details of Joe Biden’s son’s drug use, activities with prostitutes, and foreign business transactions - some of which stood to benefit his father.

The FBI “came to us”, Zuckerberg noted, and warned that “there’s about to be some kind of dump” of “Russian propaganda.” The Biden campaign also falsely indicated that the laptop’s contents as “Russian propaganda” at the time, but not much could be done, regardless of Trump's objections, as he already pointed fingers at Biden for winning by fraud and referring to ballot harvesting (the practice of groups collecting and turning in individual voters’ completed election ballots, which sometimes implies voter fraud). 

Trump also accused Biden of alleged abuse of mail-in voting, and claims of late-night pauses in counting followed by “dumps” of ballots for Biden at voting locations in key swing states. Trump filed multiple lawsuits opposing his loss, but none were successful as of the few that courts agreed to hear. 

However, Facebook was not the sole platform limiting the spread of Hunter's laptop story, since Twitter banned any mention of the New York Post article and temporarily suspended it from its platform, while other media outlets, who now acknowledge that the laptop controversy was real, refused to cover the story.

In a statement released following Zuckerberg’s interview, the FBI disclosed that it "routinely notifies US private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats." But the agency noted that it “cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action.” and did not clarify why it classified the contents of the laptop as a “threat.”

Zuckerberg's revelation comes amid the FBI investigation into Trump's Mar-a-Lago home for his mishandling and hiding of top-secret documents. US Senator Lindsey Graham warned on Sunday of "riots in the streets" if the former president faces charges over this case, making the volatile prediction during an interview with Fox News' Sunday Night in America's host and former congressman Trey Gowdy, stressing, “If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle… there’ll be riots in the streets.” 

Later that evening, Trump shared a clip of the interview on Truth Social.