November 18, 2020

CNN has one of those weird personality pieces up from sources who must be very close to Emily Muphy, the General Services Administrator who is in charge of signing off on the election result. So far, she's refused to do what in most other years has been routine. But it's 2020, and that means nothing is routine anymore.

Instead, we get this perverse story of a tortured soul caught in a "terrible situation", "a consummate professional" who's "a deeply moral person" but also "a scrupulous attorney", who thinks she's doing her "honest duty as someone who has sworn true allegiance to the Constitution."

And other horseshit.

Source: CNN

"She absolutely feels like she's in a hard place. She's afraid on multiple levels. It's a terrible situation," one friend and former colleague of Murphy's told CNN. "Emily is a consummate professional, a deeply moral person, but also a very scrupulous attorney who is in a very difficult position with an unclear law and precedence that is behind her stance.

"She's doing what she believes is her honest duty as someone who has sworn true allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and the laws that govern her position," the friend added.

Murphy declined an interview request for this story, and GSA declined to comment.

Sources close to Murphy describe her as a technocrat and policy wonk, with a lengthy career as a congressional aide and at GSA. It's not clear what specific actions Murphy is waiting on before granting ascertainment. Sources tell CNN she is basing her decision on what she sees as the precedent set by the 2000 election, where there was not a clear winner for more than a month.

The 2000 election was decided by one state, Florida, that ended up with 537 votes separating George Bush and Al Gore. The comparison with the 2020 election is just nonsensical twaddle. A reminder that Hillary Clinton conceded the next morning in the 2016 election, an election that was closer than this one.

Since Emily Murphy refuses to do her damn job she can expect increasingly invective hurled at her, with good cause, like the ad from MeidasTouch above.

Suffice it to say, Twitter had no sympathy.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon