My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Bruce Ledewitz: Democrats: Call Trump’s bluff on investigating the 2020 election

Special to the Post-Gazette

Nov 17, 2025

4:30 AM

President Donald Trump has been insisting that there be a full investigation into voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. On Oct. 26, he again called on the Department of Justice to act. He claims Democrats stole that election from him.P

Democrats should agree to this investigation. In fact, they should demand it.

A crime against democracy

Of all the threats to American democracy, the fact that millions of Americans believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is the most damaging. Stealing that election would have required massive crimes involving many people.

These crimes would go to the heart of our democracy. It would be, just as Trump says, the biggest scandal in American history.

If the 2020 presidential election was stolen, former President Joe Biden should be in jail. The necessary coordination could not have occurred without his involvement. Former presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed before becoming President.

If the 2020 presidential election was stolen, those convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol deserved to be pardoned. At least those who did not commit violence.

If the 2020 presidential election was stolen, former Vice President Mike Pence was a naïve fool not to try to block the result. He should not have certified a stolen election.

Most important, if the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the Democratic Party should not be trusted with power until all of its current leadership is purged. You don’t do political business with traitors to the Constitution.

That is how serious the allegation of a stolen election is. This charge is precisely akin to the stab in the back myth in Germany after WWI that Germany had not been defeated on the battlefield, but had been betrayed by Jews, liberals and others. That myth helped bring Hitler to power.

The charge that Democrats stole the 2020 election cannot be allowed to just linger. It will destroy our democracy. That is why Democrats must join with Trump in demanding a complete and transparent accounting of any allegations that Trump wishes to make.

America needs a final reckoning

The 2020 presidential election was either stolen or it was not. There must be a final reckoning that convinces the American people once and for all.

Why do Democrats resist further investigation? Do they fear exposure of wrongdoing? Or, is it that an investigation by Trump’s Department of Justice would not be fair?

The latter is not an idle fear. When a professional prosecutor refused to indict James Comey on the charge that he lied to Congress, Trump fired him and appointed Lindsey Halligan, his former personal attorney, who, in the words of a federal Magistrate, appeared to “indict first” and investigate second.

So what? Democrats have nothing to worry about. The 2020 presidential election is probably the most investigated election in American history. At the time, Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, did investigate claims of voter fraud and found no evidence of anything substantial. 

There undoubtedly was some illegal voting in 2020 — there is in any election — but there was no organized illegal activity that could have changed the result. Biden just won a narrow election.

At the time, the Trump campaign spent millions of dollars investigating claims of illegal voting. The campaign failed to find any and, on several occasions, admitted this failure in court.

At the time, Trump asked the Georgia Secretary of State, fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, to find thousands of ballots that Trump claimed had been illegally suppressed. Subsequently, that call was falsely characterized as Trump asking Raffensperger to commit a crime. That is not what happened. Trump was asking him to investigate and prevent a crime. Raffensberger responded that there had been no election fraud.

Most revealingly, FOX News had to pay a massive settlement to a voting machine company for allowing guests to say that the voting machines in 2020 had been rigged to switch Trump votes to Biden. If there had been any evidence backing up this claim, FOX would not have been liable.

The lie must be revealed

Unfortunately, despite all this, if the Department of Justice opens an investigation into allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, there will be indictments. Trump will insist on that and his Department of Justice is partisan and corrupt.

That means that innocent people will be falsely accused of crimes they did not commit. That means that innocent mistakes will be falsely characterized as criminal. That means that there will be court cases that should not have been brought.

Nevertheless, these innocent defendants will be vindicated by honest judges and juries. The trials will be open and the American people will finally hear the evidence. They will see for themselves that Trump’s claims are all false.

That result will not only definitively lay Trump’s terrible election lie to rest, it might even convince a part of Trump’s base that he is unfit for his office.

These criminal defendants will be heroes. Their defenses will be in service to our country. When they triumph, America can finally begin to heal from the Trump nightmare.

Bruce Ledewitz is professor of law emeritus at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University and a contributing writer for the Post-Gazette. He writes every other Monday. His previous article was “Originalism is a mirage. Judges must exercise political judgment.”

First Published: November 17, 2025, 4:30 a.m.