James Comer mocked for eye-popping claim on Fox News: 'Not even trying to mask it'

And speaking to Blaze TV on Tuesday, pro-Trump lawyer Will Chamberlain came up with a wild theory of how to punish California for this idea: have House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) literally stop the count and refuse to seat any member of Congress from California who was not leading the initial returns on Election Night.

"Here's my basic idea: Mike Johnson in the House when it comes time to actually seat the representatives from California — any representative who wasn't ahead on election day, you don't even provisionally seat them," said Chamberlain. "And you refer them to the committee that evaluates these things ... And they have to show up and prove that they've won legitimately. And if they can't do that, then they don't get seated, and California can go back and do a special election again."

Chamberlain's idea is flagrantly illegal for multiple reasons. For one, Johnson wouldn't even be Speaker during the initial seating of members elected to the next Congress on January 3, 2027, and a Speaker won't be elected until the newly seated members do. Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Powell v. McCormack that the House cannot arbitrarily impose new disqualifications to exclude duly elected members.

Responding to the post on X, Stephen Richer, the former GOP recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, had nothing but disdain for the idea.

"Just casually suggesting that Speaker Johnson should refuse to seat elected representatives from the most populous state despite having... 0 cases of widespread fraud or error," wrote Richer. "The shame is that Will Chamberlain was a legitimate attorney with a good head. But he heard the call of the siren song of clickbait nonsense just like all the unsavory folks at Article III Project."

He argued that only American citizens should be allowed to live in HUD-funded housing, punctuating the point by remarking, "American taxpayers' dollars are meant to be for American people only."

Turner was met unkindly on X, where commentators let him have it for going after immigrants and not backing his claim up with evidence.

"Scott Turner is not the worst member of Trump's cabinet. But he is an embarrassment to the office he holds and the oath he took," Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and contributing editor for The Atlantic, posted.

"Immigrants have added $3.7 trillion in housing wealth for U.S. homeowners," political strategist Sawyer Hackett pointed out.

"A cabinet of toadies and serial liars," wrote Dennis Kavanaugh, the chair of the Industrial Commission of Arizona. "Ask him to produce evidence to support his claim."

The popular political account Wu Tang is for the Children brought back a wild Trump claim by joking, "And eating their cats and dogs too?" in reaction to Turner's claim.

They described Paxton's efforts as a "clear First Amendment violation," given that the state passed a law criminalizing acts such as volunteering to help the elderly and disabled complete their voter registration paperwork.

Kabateck said the scheme likely set the GOP back by "generations" with Latino voters in the state. Karnikian described the scheme as "crazy stuff."

Kabateck noted that a federal court found the scheme illegal in late January, but Paxton appears to have taken a page from the Trump playbook and defied the order.

"Paxton doesn't care," Kabateck said. "He goes out, and he says, 'That's fine. I'm going to keep doing it. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing,' because the ultimate goal here isn't the individual who's served with an indictment or a search warrant or whatever. It's the chilling effect."

Paxton recently defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Texas Republican Senate primary, a move that sent shockwaves through the Republican Party because Cornyn is known for his fundraising prowess. Paxton will face Texas state lawmaker James Talarico, a Democrat, in the November election.