title:  BREAKING: Trump Is Now Directly Threatening Electors Who Don’t Vote For Him
text: If you want to know what kind of President Donald Trump will be, if he will execute the powers of his office in a manner that is fitting for an American President. look no further than his team s recent threats against electors who might be considering voting against our first Russian-installed President-elect.The Electoral college votes on December 19   so while Donald Trump may have kinda-sorta  won  the election by losing the popular vote by a historic margin, there is still a chance that he will not be our next President. Unfortunately for Trump, they seem to be taking the Russian hacking thing seriously, demanding a full briefing before they vote. We intend to discharge our duties as Electors by ensuring that we select a candidate for president who, as our Founding Fathers envisioned, would be  endowed with the requisite qualifications,  the open letter from electors to U.S. Director Of National Intelligence.  [T]he Constitution envisions the Electoral College as a deliberative body that plays a critical role in our system of government   ensuring that the American people elect a president who is constitutionally qualified and fit to serve. According to reports in the Washington Post, New York Times, and other outlets, the United States intelligence community has now concluded definitively that the Russian interference was performed to help Donald Trump get elected, yet even today Mr. Trump is refusing to accept that finding,  the letter continues.  Separate from Mr. Trump s own denials of Russian involvement in the election, the confirmed communication between Trump s aides and those associated with the Russian election interference activity raise serious concerns that must be addressed before we cast our votes. This may present a problem for a guy whom the CIA confirmed had a lot of help from a foreign power via hacking and propaganda, but Trump s solution is simple (terrifyingly simple): threaten them into compliance. We have gotten reports from multiple people,  an elector told Salon under condition of anonymity,  that the Donald Trump campaign is putting pressure on Republican electors to vote for him based on . . . future political outcomes based on whether they vote for Donald Trump or not.  These reports, the elector says, come from Republican electors who say that violence was not threatened   instead, the Trump camp threatened to ruin careers and livelihoods. It s all political, basically,  the elector said.  If Trump becomes the president, he s going to be able to put pressure on the state parties and they won t be involved anymore. Let s think about this for a moment: the expected incoming President of the United States was revealed to have been effectively installed by a foreign power after asking them to hack his political opponents. The intelligence community has confirmed that Russia heard his plea for help and stepped up to get him into office. Now, instead of even feigning surprise, Trump is attacking and threatening anyone and everyone who says anything negative about it   the media, electors, even those same intelligence agencies whose investigations proved inconvenient for him.Keith Olbermann recently pointed out that if Trump assumes office, the chances of us ever having a free election again diminish severely. With Trump now threatening those whose job it is to ensure that a tyrant like him doesn t get into office, he seems to be right.Featured image via Getty Images/Steve Pope