REPUBLICANS IRATE AFTER TRUMP LAWYERS CLAIM THEY ARE IN ON ELECTION...

“Congressional Republicans are fuming after President Trump’s lawyers accused them of conspiring to manufacture votes and deny the commander in chief a second term.

In claiming a multinational, communist plot to oust Trump, his attorney Sidney Powell also questioned GOP victories in House and Senate races. To explain how Republicans won down ballot as Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden, Powell charged that congressional Republicans participated in a scheme to manipulate the vote. “We have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates in any state across the country paid to have the system rigged to work for them,” she said.

Congressional Republicans are fuming after President Trump’s lawyers accused them of conspiring to manufacture votes and deny the commander in chief a second term.

In claiming a multinational, communist plot to oust Trump, his attorney Sidney Powell also questioned GOP victories in House and Senate races. To explain how Republicans won down ballot as Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden, Powell charged that congressional Republicans participated in a scheme to manipulate the vote. “We have no idea how many Republican or Democratic candidates in any state across the country paid to have the system rigged to work for them,” she said.

Republicans said Powell’s unfounded statement was damaging to the democratic process and threatened to leave them under a cloud of corruption. Powell’s remarks even prompted Republicans not known to criticize Trump to suggest the time has come for him to concede to Biden.

“To insinuate that Republican and Democratic candidates paid to throw off this election, I think it’s absolutely outrageous, and I do take offense to that,” Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst told talk radio host Guy Benson. “To have that accusation just off-handedly thrown out there, just to confuse our voters across the United States, I think that is absolutely wrong.”

Added Texas Rep. Kay Granger, to CNN: “I think it’s time to move on.”

On Friday, Trump was still insisting that he won the election. “Big Pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign, which I won, by the way,” the president said during a news conference to announce a new initiative to cut the cost of prescription drugs. “But you know, we’ll find that out. Almost 74 million votes.”

Trump attributes his loss to voter fraud and malfeasance related to mail-in ballots, although his lawyers have yet to offer significant evidence.

But even as Trump lost, Republicans defied the odds to win nine House seats — and might capture more when all votes are counted. The GOP also finished the Nov. 3 elections with 50 Senate seats, positioning the party to hold the majority, pending the outcome of two Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia.

Republican insiders say the conspiracy floated by Trump’s legal team to explain the dichotomy is wholly unsupported by the facts.

“It’s patently absurd, on its face, and it’s dangerous to undermine confidence in our electoral system,” said a GOP strategist intimately involved in 2020 congressional races. “Moreover, the fact that down-ballot Republicans made gains should be considered compelling evidence that the system is not ‘rigged.’”

A second Republican strategist active in campaigns this past cycle said Trump is solely responsible for blowing a winnable race, citing the president’s misplaced suspicion of mail ballots. With his continued insistence that the election was stolen from him, the operative warned Trump was doing potentially irreparable harm to the GOP on his way out of office. Of immediate concern: If Republican voters should not trust the electoral process, why bother voting in the Georgia runoffs?

“First, the president convinced his voters not to trust mail-in voting, and overnight reversed years of Republican voter habits,” the GOP strategist said. “Now, he’s convincing his voters this election was rigged. If you believe our elections were a sham, why vote next time? It's maddening. And the long-term consequences could be significant for the country and the party.”