>[!SUMMARY] Table of Contents
>- [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#My Synopsis.|My Synopsis.]]
>- [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Overview|Overview]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Introduction (pp 2-3) (pc1,1:20-6)|Introduction (pp 2-3) (pc1,1:20-6)]]
>- [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Section 1 - Factual Proffer (pp3 - 85)|Section 1 - Factual Proffer (pp3 - 85)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I# Opening remarks (pp 3-5) (pc1,6:00-9:48) | Opening remarks (pp 3-5) (pc1,6:00-9:48) ]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Formation of the Conspiracies (pp 5-10)(pc1 9:48-19:14)|Formation of the Conspiracies (pp 5-10)(pc1 9:48-19:14)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#The Defendant Knew His claims of Outcome-Determinative Fraud were false. (pp 10-16) (pc1 19:15-29:06)|The Defendant Knew His claims of Outcome-Determinative Fraud were false. (pp 10-16) (pc1 19:15-29:06)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#The Defendant Aimed Deceit at the Targeted States to Alter Their Ascertainment and Appointment of Electors (pp16-47)(pc1 28:56 - )|The Defendant Aimed Deceit at the Targeted States to Alter Their Ascertainment and Appointment of Electors (pp16-47)(pc1 28:56 - )]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Arizona (pp17-21) (pc1 30:44 - 37:12)|Arizona (pp17-21) (pc1 30:44 - 37:12)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Harassment of Bower. |Harassment of Bower. ]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Georgia (pp21-31) (pc1 37:27 - 53:26)|Georgia (pp21-31) (pc1 37:27 - 53:26)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Trump's attacks on twitter.|Trump's attacks on twitter.]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#False Claims about Georgia in Court |False Claims about Georgia in Court ]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Michigan (pp31-35) (pc2 1:27-8:05)|Michigan (pp31-35) (pc2 1:27-8:05)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Nevada (pp35-37) (pc2 8:08 - 11:05 )|Nevada (pp35-37) (pc2 8:08 - 11:05 )]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Pensylvania (pp37-41) (pc2 11:06-16:07)|Pensylvania (pp37-41) (pc2 11:06-16:07)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Wisconsin (p41) (pc2: 16:25 - 18:03)|Wisconsin (p41) (pc2: 16:25 - 18:03)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Claims about Voting Machines (pp41-47)(pc2: 18:04 - 27:23 )|Claims about Voting Machines (pp41-47)(pc2: 18:04 - 27:23 )]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#D. The Defendant Organized and Caused His Electors to Submit Fraudulent Certificates Creating the False Appearance that State Submitted Competing Electoral Slates (pp47-59) (pc2 27:24 - 45:28)|D. The Defendant Organized and Caused His Electors to Submit Fraudulent Certificates Creating the False Appearance that State Submitted Competing Electoral Slates (pp47-59) (pc2 27:24 - 45:28)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#E. The Defendant Attempted to Persuade Pence to Reject Votes Cast by Duly- Appointed Electors and Choose the Defendant's Fraudulent Ones (pp59 -72 )(pc2 45:40 -1:06:00)|E. The Defendant Attempted to Persuade Pence to Reject Votes Cast by Duly- Appointed Electors and Choose the Defendant's Fraudulent Ones (pp59 -72 )(pc2 45:40 -1:06:00)]]
> - [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#F. The Defendant Caused Unlawful Conduct on January 6 and Tried to Take Advantage of the Riot That Ensued. (pp 72 -85)(pc2 )|F. The Defendant Caused Unlawful Conduct on January 6 and Tried to Take Advantage of the Riot That Ensued. (pp 72 -85)(pc2 )]]
>- [[Jack Smith Immunity Brief (Jan 6th case), Section I#Footnotes|Footnotes]]
# My Synopsis.
The following is **not** part of Jack Smith's brief, this is entirely my take on what the evidence presented in that brief says. The brief itself will start after the '===' sign
Section I is the **factual proffer.** In this part Jack Smith tells what evidence he intends to present in his _case in main_ and what that evidence proves.
As you will see, the through line of this narrative is **deceit, manipulation and intimidation**, all with one goal: to stay in power after he'd lost the 2020 election. To do that he would lie, intimidate, create fake documentary evidence, lie about what he said and when, then lie about what others said, and when, and obstruct governmental functions. Ultimately, the goal was to **disenfranchise millions of voters**.
The timeline presented in the **factual proffer** starts from months before the election and ends with the events of Jan 6. (although there are parts continue past Jan 6, that serve as evidence of Trump's continued lying)
The main points are...
1. Trump laid the groundwork for his through line of fraud claims months before the election, claiming that he could **only lose if there was massive fraud**. Section I will detail multiple times he this claim.
2. Additionally, he continually railed against mail-in voting (even though he voted by absentee ballot). As will become clear as you read the brief, he did this because he knew that Democrats favored mail in voting, and he was trying to set up the circumstance where he could claim that those votes were fraudulent. The effect of his actions in this line would be to **disenfranchise the Democrates who voted by mail.**
3. Having planted those seeds, when election night came, even though he'd been advised by members of his campaign staff that the **red mirage** would make his lead among people who voted in person disappear as the mail in ballots (which usually skewed toward the Democrats), he nevertheless decided (against the advice of his staff), to declare victory. Having lied that he could only lose from massive fraud, and part of that fraud would be because of mail-in voting, he lied about winning before the votes had been counted.
4. From this point he, and his co-conspirators, did nothing but lie about supposed _election fraud_, even though in every case, when he discussed this with people who knew the facts, he was corrected that there was no evidence of _outcome-determinative fraud_. **But he continued to lie about it, and has continued to this day*
5. Next he tried to influence various people in the targeted battleground states to change the outcome. He did so by repeated the same lies, even though each time he did so the people in the states he targeted told him he was wrong. He talked to people in the executive branch **and** the legislature in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. (apparently he decided to skip New Mexico where he'd lost by more than 10%) In each and every case, the people he talked to told him there was no evidence of _outcome-determinative fraud_. **No one can argue that he didn't know the truth without admitting that Trump is isane**
6. When his attempt to influence state officials to change the outcome didn't work, he and his co-conspirators hatched and implemented a scheme to substitute **fake electors**, in a bid to so muddy the waters and muck up the proceedings that the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives, where Trump was certain he would win.
7. In pursuit of the [[Fake Electors Scheme]], he tried to convince [[Mike Pence|Pence]] to ignore the legitimate slates of electors the states had sent **according to the law** and select these, or, failing that, to say that the battleground states had sent competing slates, and he couldn't select which to count, and therefore these should be sent back to the states for them to decide. Both of these actions are **illegal**, as one of his co-conspirators [[John Eastman]] admitted when confronted by some of Trump's staff.
8. Continuing the pressure on [[Mike Pence|Pence]], both **personally** and **publically**, at one point seemingly threatening him on twitter, to act in this illegal manner, right up to the early morning before the Joint session where the certification would occur.
9. When it became clear that Pence wouldn't do his bidding, he marshalled a mob and, through rhetoric which he and his co-conspirators knew would ignite a tinderbox, aided and abetted their subsequent attack on the Capitol, as a last ditch effort to stall the proceedings. During that attack Trump tweeted out a message he knew would further inflame the mob. Then he sat back and did nothing for 3 hours, despite desperate pleas from his staff to say something to calm the crowd
10. And even after the crowd left the Capitol, Trump and his team were pleading with Republican Senators and Representatives to delay the certification in **any way**, even lying to them about the states **wanting their slates of electors back** when they knew full well that was a lie.
===
# Overview
## Introduction (pp 2-3) (pc1,1:20-6)
Quoting directly from the introductory remarks, giving the outline of the brief
> Section I provides a detailed statement of the case that the Government intends to prove at trial. This includes the conduct alleged in the superseding indictment,as well as other categories of evidence that the Government intends to present in its case-in-chief. This detailed statement reflects the Supreme Court's ruling that presidential immunity contains an evidentiary component , id., which should be “addressed at the outset of a proceeding,” id. at 2334.
> Section II sets forth the legal principles governing claims of presidential immunity. It explains that, for each category of conduct that the Supreme Court has not yet addressed, this Court should first determine whether it was official or unofficial by analyzing the relevant “content, form, and context,” id. at 2340, to determine whether the defendant was acting in his official capacity or instead “in his capacity as a candidate for re-election.” Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F.4th 1, 17 (D.C. Cir. 2023). Where the defendant was acting **“as office-seeker, not office-holder," no immunity attaches.** Id.(emphasis in original). For any conduct deemed official, the Court should next determine whether the presumption of immunity is rebutted, which requires the Government to show that "applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch." Trump, 144 S. Ct. at 2331-32 (quoting Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 754 (1982)).
> Section III then applies those legal principles to the defendant's conduct and establishes that nothing the Government intends to present to the jury is protected by presidential immunity. Although the defendant's discussions with the Vice President about “their official responsibilities” qualify as official, see Trump, 144 S. Ct. at 2336, the Government rebuts the presumption of immunity. And all of the defendant's remaining conduct was unofficial: as content, form, and context show, the defendant was acting in his capacity as a candidate for reelection, not in his capacity as President. In the alternative, if any of this conduct were deemed official, the Government could rebut the presumption of immunity.
> Finally, Section IV explains the relief sought by the Government and specifies the findings the Court should make in a single order—namely, that the defendant's conduct set forth in Section I is not immunized, and that as a result, the defendant must stand trial on the superseding indictment and the Government is not prohibited at trial from using evidence of the conduct described in Section I.
(whd: Most of the 'action' in this document will be in Section I. For me, under the understanding of the nature of SCOTUS ruling in [[US v Trump]], hereinafter simply rendered as _Trump_, the explanation in Section I goes a long way to rebutting the claims of immunity because most of the actions of Trump and his co-conspirators was **private** and where there is some element of *official* conduct, I think the *presumptive immunity* is easily rebutted. These rebuttals occur in _Section III_. I will touch upon it somewhat, but I don't think I'll be doing quite as much work in that section -- which is roughly the last half of the brief -- as I've done in here in _Section I_)
# Section 1 - Factual Proffer (pp3 - 85)
## Opening remarks (pp 3-5) (pc1,6:00-9:48)
Resorted to crimes to stay in power. *Private coconspirators*. Increasingly desperate plans to overturn the election in 7 states he lost. AZ, PN, MI, WI, AZ, NV, MN and GA These plans included
1. Lying to state officials to induce them to ignore true vote counts
2. Manufacturing slates of fake electors
3. trying to enlist Pence in his role as Pres of Senate to obstruct Congress' certification of the election by using the defendants fraudulent electoral votes
4. and when all these had failed, on Jan 6, directing an angry crowd to the U.S. capitol to obstruct the certification.
**The through line of these efforts was deceit**: The knowingly false claims of election fraud.
> At its core, the defendant's scheme was a private criminal effort. In his capacity as a candidate, the defendant used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process, which through the Constitution, ECA, and state laws includes the states' notification to the federal government of the selection of their representative electors based on the popular vote in the state ; the meeting of those electors to cast their votes consistent with the popular vote; and Congress's counting of the electors' votes at a certification proceeding As set forth in detail below, the defendant worked with private co-conspirators, including private attorneys [[Rudy Giuliani]], [[John R. Lott, Jr.]], [[Sidney Powell]] and [[Kenneth Chesebro]] and private political operatives [[Boris Epshteyn]] and [[Steve Bannon]], and volunteers, like Campaign Manager [[Bill Stepien]] and Deputy Campaign Manager [[Justin Clark]], Senior Campaign Advisor [[Jason Miller]] and Campaign operative [[Mike Roman]]
The conduct set forth in this section includes Trump's and Trump's personal and private advisors formation of conspiracies leading up to and following the 2020 election and...
> certain information regarding his knowledge that there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election as he persistently claimed; and his increasingly desperate efforts to use knowingly false claims of election fraud to disrupt the electoral process.
> The Government does not consider any of the following conduct to be subject to immunity for the reasons set forth in Section III.
## Formation of the Conspiracies (pp 5-10)(pc1 9:48-19:14)
His criminal conspiracies started after the election, but he had laid the groundwork for them long before that. This groundwork consisted mostly of him *seeding* the idea that the only way he would lose the election would be if there were massive fraud. Leading into the election several private and campaign advisors told him that it was **unlikely the result of the election would be known on election night.** These advisors included [[Roger Stone]] and [[Bill Stepien]], Trump's then campaign manager. Although this effect had been known for years, it was known the effect would be pronounced because of the Covid19 measures states had taken to reduce the possibility of exacerbating the pandemic by increasing the use of mail-in ballots.
They also told Trump about the **red mirage**, whereby the Republicans lead at first, but that lead diminished or disappears as absentee and mail-in ballots (which Democrats favor) are counted. (whd: Trump will be reminded of this effect multiple times between Nov 4 and Jan 6, so no one can legitimately say that he didn't know about it.)
Privately, Trump told Roger Stone, and Marc Short and WH staffer P7 that, in such a scenario, he would simply declare victory "before all the ballots were counted and before any winner was projected" (p.5)
(whd: As a quick aside: It's important to realize that the *red mirage* **is in no way** a new feature of elections. It's been happening for **decades**. During WWII mail in voting was greatly expanded, in the 1978 California started *no-excuse* absentee ballots, with many other states similarly relaxing absentee ballot rules. In 1998 Oregon when to **all mail in voting** with Colorado and Washington soon following suit. See [this ChatGPT session](https://chatgpt.com/share/67070339-92dc-8003-a285-cf1832ff77df) for the particulars)
So it was a natural progression to further adapt to the exigencies of the pandemic by allowing even more mail-in balloting. Hardly nefarious at all, certainly when you consider that many of these measures happened in states controlled by the GOP (but never let it be said that conspiracy theorists won't try anyway)
(whd: So the **red mirage** is nothing new. The campaign knew about it, and they told Trump. So Trump knew it too)
At this point in the brief, Smith give a detailed synopsis of Trump lying about the election, starting **months** before the election, refusing 'to say whether he would accept the election results,[insisting] that he could lose the election only because of fraud, falsely [claiming] that mail-in ballots were inherently fraudulent, and asserted that only votes counted by election day were valid.' (pp 5-6)
(whd: There follows six (of the literally hundreds which exist in the wild) of quotes of him planting the seed of doubt about election integrity and spouting lie, after lie, after lie...)
Continuing....
For example, Steve Bannon started working for Trump's campaign on Oct 2020. Three days before election day, he said...
> "And what Trump's going to do is just declare victory. Right? He's going to declare victory. That doesn't mean he's the winner, he's just going to say he's the winner.” After explaining that Biden's supporters favored voting by mail, Bannon stated further, “And so they're going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump's going to take advantage of it—**that's our strategy. He's going to declare himself a winner.**" [emphasis mine] (p7)(pc1, 13:24)
(Which is **precisely** what Trump did, and has been doing since Nov 2020: **Lying** about who won the election.) (_The through line for this plan was deceit_)
As his advisors told him, his lead in certain states, notably the battleground states, evaporated as the mail in and absentee ballots were counted. At 11:20 PM, Fox declared Biden the winner in AZ. Trump and campaign staffer [[Jason Miller]] were **shocked and angry** (p7) (pc1: 14:18) (whd: I get the shocked, but why 'angry'? Actually, never mind. Trump always gets angry when things don't go his way, but why Miller?).
In succeeding days, In discussions with advisors about how to handle these developments, and what should be said, they advised restraint. But two other advisors, [[Rudy Giuliani]] and [[Boris Epshteyn]] told Trump he should just declare victory. (And we already know that Bannon had advised Trump to do just that, and said 3 days before the election that that it what Trump would do.)
> At 2:20 am, on Nov 4th Trump claimed to his campaign supporters that he had won the election, but that “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election.” (video of WH statement) (p8) (pc1 14:34)
Immediately after the election, Trump operatives (and some conspirators, e.g. [[Mike Roman]]), sought to sow confusion rather than seek clarity. When a colleague at the [[TCF Center]] in Detroit said that it looked like the ballots for Biden were 'right', Roman said....
>find a reason it isnt,” “give me options to file litigation,” and “even ifit bis[sic].” When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot,19 a violent effort to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, Roman responded, "Make them riot” and “Do it!!!" (The Brooks Brother riot was an attempt by the GOP operatives to stop the vote count in FL in 2000 election) (p8)
Trump than used such events to claim that his observers were denied access (false) which served as a continuing predicate for claims that fraud was committed during the observer's absence. (again, false)
> Contrary to the defendant's public claims of victory immediately following election day, his advisors informed him that he would likely lose. On November 7, in a private Campaign meeting that included [[Bill Stepien]] [[Jeffrey Clark]] [[Jason Miller]] and WhiteHouse staffer [[Eric Herschmann]] who came to serve as a conduit for information from the Campaign to the defendant, Campaign staff told the defendant that he had only a slim chance of prevailing in the election , and that any potential success was contingent on the defendant winning **all ongoing vote counts or litigation in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin**. Within a week of that assessment, on November 13, the defendant's campaign conceded its litigation in Arizona —meaning that based on his Campaign advisors' previous assessment , the defendant had lost the election. (p9) (pc1 16:31)
So, as of Nov 13, according to 4 members of Trump's campaign staff, there was **no chance** for Trump to win the election.
Savor that for a moment, because this is the point where Trump's crimes really start to get going.
That same day, Trump in an implicit acknowledgement that he'd lost the election, he sidelined these advisors. (whd: this group has come to be known as *Team Normal*) and brought in the people who were willing to go whole hog in to commit election fraud, now known as *Team Crazy*, namely people like Giuliana, Powell, Jenna Ellis, and others. )
(whd: so it's clear that at this point Trump has shifted from trying to win legally to trying to win at all costs. Sure, he's still pursuing cases in the court, losing 60 of them (and no, he didn't lose them solely on standing, but even that really doesn't mean anything: for example, TX didn't have standing to dispute the results in PA, and that is as it should be.)
> As the defendant placed alternating phone calls to Jeffrey Clark and Rudy Giuliana throughout November 13,25 Steve Bannon informed Boris Epshteyn another private Campaign advisor, of the change, Jeffrey Clark writing, "Close hold don't tell anyone Trump just fired and put Rudy Giuliana in charge” and “You are tor eport to Rudy Giuliana When Boris Epshteyn asked if P2 was "gone too?", Steve Bannon replied that "they all report to Rudy Giuliana and that Steve Bannon had " made a recommendation directly that if Rudy Giuliana was not in charge this thing is over[.] Trump is in to the end."
(whd: sounds all above the board, doesn't it? The following is my commentary, until you see the '===')
In addition to the people list below, there are a few others, but we'll get to them later in this missive.
| Name | Fate |
| ------- | ------- |
|Rudy Giuliani | disbarred in D.C. and NY. Owes $150 million for slander of Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, election workers in GA|
| Sidney Powell | Indicted in GA RICO case, pleaded guilty to election fraud, in particular to breaching election machines.|
| Jenna Ellis | Reached a cooperation agreement in the AZ fake electors case, for which all charges were dropped. However, if her cooperation is less than complete, she may still be charged and prosecuted|
| Joe diGenova | so far, has avoided any punishment |
| Victoria Toensing | Same for his wife here |
===
Continuing....
## The Defendant Knew His claims of Outcome-Determinative Fraud were false. (pp 10-16) (pc1 19:15-29:06)
From this point out, the phrase 'Outcome-Determinative Fraud' will be rendered as ODF.
This section gives multiple instances of White House advisors, campaign advisors and Republican state officials from the battleground states telling Trump that his claims about ODF were false. These were not 'one off' encounters. Trump repeatedly talked to these advisors and state officials making the same claims again and again, and they were rebutted each time.
These rebuttals occurred multiple times through the course of the conspiracy period, running roughly from Nov 5 2020 through Jan 6 2021. Each and every one of the claims that Trump and various team members (notably **Team Crazy**, to be defined below) made had been rebutted multiple times.
For example, Trump and Giuliani claimed, on the basis of a dishonestly edited video, that pole workers [[Ruby Freeman]] and [[Shaye Moss]] pulled illegal ballots from a suitcase after the GOP poll watchers had been led out of the room. The entire video was watched by various members of the Georgia GOP, including [[Brad Raffensperger]], who said that, viewed in context, nothing illegal or untoward happened. Trump and Giuliani were told this **multiple times**, yet the continued to make that claim.
He continues these same or substantially similar false claims even to this day.
One private advisor, [[Eric Herschmann]], brought in to act as a 'communication conduit' between Trump and the campaign told him in no uncertain terms on multiple occasions that the claims of ODF were false.
These included Herschmann telling Trump that
1) The campaign had hired outside experts to look into the claims of fraud, but they could find no evidence to support the claims.
2) When Trump told Herschmann that he was going to hire Rudy Giuliani to handle the post-election litigation, but only pay if he won, Herschmann responded that "then he'd never have to pay him", at which Trump laughed.
3) That Giuliana would not be able to support any claims of fraud in court, to which Trump replied "the details don't matter"
4) and that Giuliana would 'get slaughtered' and that the claims were all "bullshit"
Even [[Mike Pence]] who Trump had directed to assess the allegations of fraud, told him (gently, at first), that his claims had little success of succeeding in court. Conversations to this effect occurred 11/4, 11/7, 11/11, 11/12, 11/16, an 11/23 phone call, an 11/21 private lunch (where he 'encouraged' Trump to look at the election 'not as a loss -- just an intermission' (p 13)), and dicussions with Trump where Pence told him of his discussions with the Governors of AZ and GA, both of whom said they didn't see the evidence Trump was claiming and were unwilling to take actions to convene their state legislators.
In all of these cases Trump disregarded the information, just as he disregarded the, by that point in the post-election process, dozens of court cases he lost claiming fraud. (whd: and **no**, they weren't all lost because of a lack of 'standing', although most of them did mention that. But quite a few also said that the claims about fraud were speculative and lacking in evidence.), as well as multiple officials in the targeted states (including those in his own party) who stated publicly that Trump had lost (whd: and when they did that, he targetted them for [[Stochastic Terrorism]] by publishing their contact details. See what happened to Doug Doucey below)
> At one point long after the defendant had begun spreading false fraud claims, [[Nick Luna]] a White House staffer traveling with the defendant, overheard him tell family members that "**it doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell**.” (pp 14-15) [emphasis mine]
There is also the demonstration of their knowledge of the falsehood of their claims because they kept changing their numbers. For example, when discussing claims about non-citizen voters in AZ, the numbers were 36,000, then 5 day later the
> bare minimum was 40-50,000, but in reality it was about 250,000
then days after that it was 32,000 and, finally, it was back to 36,000, the first number which they never verified or corroborated. (p15)
Basically, Trump and his team were simply making numbers up on the fly
Ultimately, this lie-fest culminated on Jan 6th, where Trump incited a mob to attack the capital, in his last, final bid to overturn the election.
> Ultimately, the defendant's steady stream of disinformation in the post-election period culminated in the speech he gave at a privately- funded , privately- organized rally at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6, 2021 , in advance of the official proceeding in which Congress was tocertify the election in favor of Biden.In his speech, the defendant repeated the same lies about lection fraud in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that had been publicly, or directly, debunked. The defendant **used these lies to inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding.** (pp 15-16) (emphasis mine)
## The Defendant Aimed Deceit at the Targeted States to Alter Their Ascertainment and Appointment of Electors (pp16-47)(pc1 28:56 - )
> Shortly after election day, the defendant **began to target the electoral process at the state level** by attempting to deceive state officials and to prevent or overturn the legitimate ascertainment and appointment of Biden's electors. As President, the defendant had no official responsibilities related to the states ' administration of the election or the appointment of their electors , and instead contacted state officials in his capacity as a candidate. Tellingly, **the defendant contacted only state officials who were in his political party and were his political supporters, and only in states he had lost.** The defendant's attempts to use deceit to target the states' electoral process played out in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as across these and other states that used certain voting machines. (emphasis mine)
This section details the attempt by Trump, his co-conspirators and his allies to fraudulently pressure states to take some action to decertify the election. In all cases the state officials, many of them members of Trump's own party, many who had voted for Trump, resisted his attempts, repeatedly pointing out that 1) there was no evidence of ODF, and the actions Trump, his co-conspirators and allies were requesting were illegal. Nevertheless, Trump continued to spout the **exact same lies about ODF**, even after those lies had been **repeatedly** debunked by his campaign staff, multiple lawyers in the White House (private lawyers all), the state officials he attempted to co-opt into his illegal conspiracy, and high-ranking members of his own administration, in both the DoJ and Homeland Security.
His lies were always the same.
1. Many dead people voted.
2. More people voted than existed
3. Illegal aliens voted
4. Out of state people voted
5. Ineligible people voted.
6. And, finally, that the machines used to tabulate votes switched votes from Trump to Biden.
When confronted by the falsehood of these lies (by the very republican officials tasked with supervising the elections, and by multiple members of his campaign staff and administration) he, as well as certain members of a his 'elite strike force' of lawyers (whd: hereinafter **Team Crazy**, a moniker given them by members of the campaign staff Trump replaced because they wouldn't _toe the party line_) that he had tasked with putting forward his claims of election fraud, lashed out at the people resisting him, particularly those in the targeted battleground states, namely WI, MI, NV, AZ, GA, PA. Frequently these attempts to intimidate included 'dox'ing them, i.e. publishing their contact information. At trial, the Government will elicit testimony from election officials in the targeted states who would know the most about whether or not election fraud had happened. Tellingly, Trump never called them to ask.
In several cases (to be detailed below), the claims of fraud resulted in implicit or direct threats of violence, but in all cases these constituted Trump's attempts at [[Stochastic Terrorism]] by such means as publishing home addresses, telephone numbers, twitter handles and email addresses.
This included, but was in no way limited to
1. GA Gov [[Brian Kemp]], Secretary of State [[Brad Raffensperger]] and Attorney General [[Chris Carr]]
2. AZ Gov [[Doug Doucey]]
3. Two guiltless precinct workers in the Georgia State Farm Arena who, through the repeated lies by Trump and Rudy Giuliani, caused to be harassed with death threats.
Detailed below is one particularly sad encounter the Arizona Governor had at his home with a man wearing Trump campaign merchandise and carrying a gun.
The section will proceed state by state
### Arizona (pp17-21) (pc1 30:44 - 37:12)
Trump knew there was no fraud in Arizona within a week of the election.
On 9 Nov, Trump called Arizona Governor [[Doug Doucey]] to ask what was happening at the state level with the election. Doucey walked Trump through the 'margins' describing it in the end using a baseball metaphor, saying you're in
> “the ninth inning, two outs, and [the defendant] was several runs down.” (p 17)
Trump raised claims of fraud. Doucey asked him to provide evidence for this claim. Trump said "we're packing it up", but no evidence ever made it to Doucey.
Doucey directly contradicted a claim that was circulating that a
> substantial number of non-citizens had voted in Arizona (p17)
Nevertheless, this claim of non-citizens voting in states was a staple of Trump's false claims about voter fraud, and has been **even to the current day** [[2024-10-18]]
That same day, Trump Campaign attorneys conceded that the remaining lawsuits in AZ were moot.
Trump and his minions on **Team Crazy** continued trying to influence Doucey to overturn the election. [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] tried to contact [[Doug Doucey|Doucey]] on 11/22. On 11/30, when Doucey sienged the _certificate of ascertainment_ formally declaring Biden's electors as the legitimate electors for Arizona, he got a call from Trump and [[Mike Pence|Pence]]. He advised them that he'd certified the election. Trump once more brought up fraud claims, once more Doucey asked for the evidence, and once more Trump didn't send any evidence.
Instead, later that evening, Trump started his harrassment and intimidation campaign against Doucey (as well as [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]] and [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]]) on twitter, retweeting posts like
> Watching the Arizona hearings and then watching Gov. Doucey sign those papers, why bother voting for Republicans if what you get is Doucey and Kemp.
-- and --
> Kemp 'My state ran the most corrupt election in America history.' Doucey: 'Hold my beer'
-- and --
> Why is Doucey still pretending he's a member of the Republican Party after he just certified fraudulent election results in Arizona that disenfranchised millions of Republicans?”
(p18)
(whd: This type of characterization will be a theme throughout the post election period: you can't be a **real Republican** unless you slavishly follow Donald J. Trump's dictates)
Trump and allies also tried to subvert political allies in the Arizona legislature. On 11/22 Trump and [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] called [[Rusty Bowers]], Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives. [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] did most of the talking. In that call he made the same set of false claims about voter fraud, namely that there was ODF resulting from
- non-citizens (whd: Remember, Doucey rebutted this claim directly to Trump on 11/9, just 11 days before)
- non-residents
- dead voters
voting in the election. Giuliani asked Bowers to use these claims as a justification for calling the legislature back into session to replace the slate of electors.
Bowers was deeply skeptical, but Giuliani said ...
> "well, you know, we're all kind of Republicans and we need to be working together.
(whd: Again, the theme that you can only be a **true** _Republican_ if you do what Trump wants)
Bowers asked to see the evidence supporting these claims of fraud, but it never came. One week later, when Bowers met with Giuliani in person, he still had no evidence to back up his claims.
On 11/30, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[Jenna Ellis]] came to Arizona for a 'hotel hearing', an unofficial meeting with GOP legislators, to push the narrative of election fraud and to make the case that they should come back into session to overturn the legally certified results. Giuliani admitted that, even at this late date (whd: **25 days after the election!**), that
> "[w] e don't have the evidence, but we have lots of theories ." (p19)
(whd: Sound familiar? something like having a "Concept of a plan?")
The next day, the legislators pressed for evidence and [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] ...
> expressed surprise at the way he was being treated, stating "Man, I thought we were all Republicans....[T]his is a little more hostile a reception. I'm amazed at the reception I'm getting here." (pp19-20)
On 12/4, Bowers released a public statement saying that he didn't have the authority to use the legislature...
> “to reverse the results of the election" and that doing so would constitute an attempt "to nullify the people's vote based on unsupported theories offraud." (p20)
He made clear that he was disappointed in the results of the election, saying he voted for Trump and worked for his re-election, but, nevertheless...
> would not “violate current law to change the out come of a certified election." (p20)
At this point, the intimidation campaign started for Bower. [[Christina Bobb|Bobb]] tweeted that Bower is
>“is intentionally misleading with the people of Arizona to avoid the inevitable.”
Trump both retweeted this tweet, but praised Bobb
(whd: delicious irony, someone on **Team Crazy** talking about _intentionally misleading_ people)
A month later, on 1/4 [[John Eastman]] called Bower and tried to get him to call the legislature into session to decertify the legitimate electors. Bowers told Eastman there was
> here was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona, and that he could not legally call the legislature in to session. (p20)
Eastman kept pushing, saying that he
> [didn't] know enough about the facts on the ground” regarding fraud in Arizona, and said that P18 should nonetheless falsely claim that he had the authority to convene the legislature and “ let the courts sort it out.”
Bowers again refused.
(whd: **I want you to linger on this exchange for a moment.** Here is [[John Eastman]], one of the main architects of the [[Fake Electors Scheme]], whose main justification were the claims of massive fraud. Yet here the very same [[John Eastman]], saying that he doesn't know whether or not there has been fraud in Arizona, but that Bower should still call the legislature into anyway, and let the courts sort it out! What a lying **sack of shit** Eastman is. I'm glad he's been professionally disgraced as a 'constitutional scholar' and disbarred.)
### Harassment of Bower.
With the exception of the included quote below, the following is my commentary and is not in the brief. My synopsis of the brief continues at the '===' marker
Because of Trump's (and allies) [[Stochastic Terrorism]] Bowers was harassed. On several occasions crowds
> gathered outside [his house] with bullhorns and screamed and honked their vehicle horns to create noise. Once, an individual in visible possession of a pistol and wearing a t-shirt in support of a **militia group** came onto [his] property and screamed at him. At the time of these events, daughter was at home and was very ill, and the noise caused her “disruption and angst.” (p21)
Although the outcome of her illness has nothing to do with Trump and the election, nevertheless I feel compelled to relate that, in 2022, Bowers' daughter died of cancer. So during the time these inhuman **assholes** were sic-ing the mob on Bower, in the attempt to frighten him into going along with their illegality, he was dealing with an extremely sick child.
=== Continuing with the brief
### Georgia (pp21-31) (pc1 37:27 - 53:26)
Trump had been told early on in the conspiracy period that his claims about ODF in Georgia were false. Around mid-November, [[Jason Miller]], a campaign aid, told Trump that the claim that a large number of dead people had voted in GA were false. Trump continued to make this claim, including
> including in a press appearance on November 29, when he suggested that a large enough number of dead voters had cast ballots to change the outcome of the election in Georgia. (p21)
(whd: Trump made this claim about dead voters as recently September 2023 as a campaign rally in Nevada.)
Four days later on 12/3, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] gave a _presentation_ to a Judiciary Subcomittee of the GA Senate. The day before he spoke on the phone with Trump for 20 mins. At the hearing, Giuliani had co-conspirators and agents repeat the claims about _dead voters_.
> The claim was so patently false that everyone around the defendant knew it: during the hearing, [[Mark Meadows|Meadows]] and [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] changed text messages on their personal phones confirming that a Campaign attorney P22 had verified that Giuliani's claims of more than 10,000 dead voters were false and that the actual number was around 12 and could not be outcome-determinative. (pp21-22)
It was in this 'hearing' that Giuliani and his co-conspirators...
> set in motion a sensational and dangerous lie about election workers at State Farm Arena that would result in the defendant's supporters harassing and threatening those workers. First, P23, one of the defendant's private attorneys, claimed that more than 10,000 dead people had voted in Georgia. 100 Next, P24, an agent of the defendant, played misleading excerpts of closed- circuit camera footage from State Farm Arena and insinuated that it showed election workers committing misconduct -- counting"suitcases”of illegal ballots. Lastly,based on the false fraud allegations, [[John Eastman|Eastman]], who had already been engaged as a private lawyer, for the defendant but did not disclose that at the hearing encouraged the Georgia legislators to decertify the state's legitimate electors (p22)
(whd: savor that for a bit: Eastman did not disclose to the Judiciary Committee that he was one of Trump's private lawyers. )
While this hearing was ongoing, Trump was tweeting about it in real time, amplifying the claims, as if it were news to him!
> Wow! Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia. Ballot stuffing by Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room. Plenty more coming, but this alone leads to an easy win of the State!” He did this just after re-tweeting two of his Campaign account's Tweets that promoted the false claim about election workers at State Farm Arena.
(whd: A bit of foreshadowing here. It is now **beyond dispute** that Giuliani and his co-conspirators **dishonestly** edited that video so as to suggest misconduct. We know this because, as will become clear in a bit, when the entire video was viewed by the Secretary of State for Georgia, [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]] said that there was nothing more than standard ballot processing. Thus Guiliani was *lying* about the video and, therefore Trump did too)
The claims of misconduct about [[Ruby Freeman]] and [[Shaye Moss]] were disproven publicly, and directly to Trump. The day after the 'hearing', [[Gabriel Sterling]] posted a tweet explaining that the Secretary of the State had watched the **entire video** and that it shows 'normal ballot processing'.
On 12/7, [[Gabriel Sterling]] gave a press conference in which he explained at length that the workers innocent conduct depicted in the CCTV footage, saying...
> And what's really frustrating is the President's attorneys had this same videotape. They saw the exact same things the rest of us could see. And they chose to mislead state senators and the public about what was on that video. I'm quite sure that they will not characterize the video if they try to enter it into evidence because that's the kind of thing that could lead to sanctions because it is obviously untrue. They knew it was untrue and they continue to do things like this. (p23)
(whd: See [[URLs to Use in Jack Smith's Immunity Brief#Gabriel Sterling, COO of GA SoS|Gabriel Sterling, COO of GA SoS]] for a video of him debunking Trump's manifestly false claims)
(whd: Trump continued to make these claims up to Nov 2023. See: [[URLs to Use in Jack Smith's Immunity Brief#ChatGPT link: Trump's recent claims about State Farm Arena|ChatGPT link: Trump's recent claims about State Farm Arena]]. Since then he has switched to more _vague claims_ that offer little to no **specifics**, but still *suggest* that there was fraud in all the target states, particularly GA, particularly in Fulton County and the [[State Farm Arena]])
On 12/8 Trump called [[Chris Carr]], GA Attorney General. Ostensibly this was about the lawsuit _Texas v. Pennsylvania_ filed by the Texas Attorney General [[Ken Paxton]] wherein Texas was suing several states (including GA), seeing to prevent the certification of the election. [^1] Trump had heard through the then (whd: but soon not to be) Senator from GA that Carr had been _whipping_ other state AGs not to file amicus briefs in this case. Carr told Trump that he
> was not affirmatively calling other state attorneys general , but that if they called him, he was telling them what he was seeing in his state—which was something that the defendant probably did not want to hear: Carr was just not seeing evidence of fraud in Georgia. The defendant nonetheless raised The defendant nonetheless raised various fraud claims. Carr told him that state authorities had investigated the State Farm Arena allegations and found no wrongdoing, and that he thought another claim the defendant raised about Coffee County, Georgia, had been similarly resolved, but would check. Trump told him to look again, "because we're running out of time" (p24)
The day after this call, Trump, acting as a candidate, intervened in support of _Texas v. Pennsylvania_. His attorney in this matter was [[John Eastman|Eastman]]
On the same day as the 12/8 call,
> ... the defendant's Campaign staff acknowledged that the State Farm Arena claim was unsupported, emailing one another about the fact that television networks may decline to run Campaign advertisements promoting it. In frustration regarding the claim and others like it, [[Jason Miller]] -who spoke with the defendant on a daily basis and had informed him on multiple occasions that various fraud claims were false—wrote, “When our research and campaign legal team can't back up any of the claims made by our **Elite Strike Force Legal Team**, you can see why we're 0-32 on our cases. I'll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership." (p25) (emphasis mine)
(whd: The reference there is to **Team Crazy**, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Sidney Powell]], and others.)
Nevertheless, after having been repeatedly told that the claims about [[State Farm Arena]] were false, on 12/10 [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], at **another 'hearing'**, this time before the Georgia House of Representatives Government Affairs Committee, continued to lie about fraud. During this meeting, he displayed some of the **same footage** as had been used at the 12/3 hearing that had been repeatedly debunked by GA officials, but ...
> nonetheless claimed that it showed " voter fraud right in front of people's " He then named eyes." two election workers- [[Shaye Moss]] and her mother,[[Ruby Freeman]] -- and baselessly accused them of "quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine ,”
(whd: The **vile racism** of this comment is **beyond comprehension**!)
> and suggested that they were criminals whose “places of work, their homes , should have been searched for evidence of ballots, for evidence of USB ports, for evidence of voter fraud."(p25)
As these claims spread, these two women were barraged by racist death threats. As [[Ruby Freeman]] explained to the Jan 6th committee
> when someone as powerful as the President of the United States eggs on a mob, that mob will come. They came for us with their cruelty, their threats, their racism, and their hats. They haven't stopped even today."121 Indeed, to this day, the defendant has never stopped falsely attacking [[Ruby Freeman]] and [[Shaye Moss]] Although none of the false claims against them were ever corroborated, the defendant has continued to levy them on social media, including when the defendant attacked [[Ruby Freeman]] in January 2023 just after her testimony to congressional investigators was made public. (p26)[^2]
(whd: again, this is simple [[Stochastic Terrorism]])
#### Trump's attacks on twitter.
In addition to attacking the [[Shaye Moss]] and [[Ruby Freeman]], Trump attacked Governor [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]] on twitter with particular ferocity. In 35 days between 11/30 and 1/3 2021, Trump tweeted about [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]], by name or title, 40 times. Somem of the tweets attacked both Kemp and [[Doug Doucey|Doucey]], Arizona's Governor discussed above.
Examples:
> "Why won't Governor@Kemp the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes. It will be a ' goldmine ' of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state" (p26)
> I will easily & quickly win Georgia if Governor@Kemp or the Secretary of State permit a simple signature verification. Has not been done and will show large scale discrepancies. Why are these two ‘Republicans' saying no? If we win Georgia, everything else falls in place!"
> "The Republican Governor of Georgia refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What's wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?"
> "How does Governor @ Kemp allow certification of votes without verifying signatures and despite the recently released tape of ballots being stuffed? His poll numbers have dropped like a rock. He is finished as governor!" [^3] (pp26-27)
#### False Claims about Georgia in Court
On 12/4, the Trump team filed the lawsuit _[[Trump v Kemp]]_, a federal lawsuit with [[Jack Kemp]] and [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]] as defendants.[^4] Trump signed a _verification of fraud_ claim that he and his lawyer [[John Eastman|Eastman]] **knew was inaccurate**. [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] spoke with Trump and [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[Cleta Mitchell]] in late December about regarding 'the proposed verification' telling them that they couldn't verify any of their claims[^5].
He told Trump that
> any lawyer that signed the complaint that the verification supported would get disbarred (p27)[^6]
>
Both [[Eastman]] (in a 12/31 email) acknowledge the problems with this _verification of fraud_. [[Eastman]] went on to say that ...
> that in the time since the defendant signed a previous verification in the case, he “had been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate" and that signing a new affirmation “with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference ) would not be accurate." Nonetheless, on December 31, the defendant signed the verification, and [[John Eastman|Eastman]] caused it to be filed. (whd: see this footnote)[^7]
On 1/2 [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]] appeared on Fox News to rebut claims of fraud. He said...
> Our office has been very busy with what I call the rumor whack-a-mole. Every day,a rumor will pop up and then we whack it down. What we do is, we basically whack it down with the truth. And people can't handle the truth sometimes because they're very disappointed in the results. And I get that. I voted for President Trump also, but at the end of the day, we did everything we could. **We did an audit of the race; President Trump still lost. Then we did a full recount; President Trump still lost... we had a safe, secure process** (p28) (emphasis mine)
Again, [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]], like [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]] was on the receiving end of Trump's Twitter-borne ire.
> “Why isn't the @GASecofState Brad Raffensperger a so-called Republican, allowing us to look at signatures on envelopes for verification? We will find tens of thousands of fraudulent and illegal votes”;
> “RINOS @ [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]] and [[Goeff Duncan]] & Secretary of State [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]]Georgia, @ will be solely responsible for the potential loss of our two GREAT Senators from [[David Purdue|Purdue]] and [[Kelly Loeffler]]. Won't call a Special Session or check for Signature will be solely responsible for the potential loss of our two GREAT Senators from Verification! People are ANGRY!; ”
> “Georgia, where is signature verification approval? What do you have to lose? Must move quickly! @ [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]] and [[Goeff Duncan]]" @GaSecofState.”[^8]
Shortly after the 1/2 interview on Fox, Trump set up a call with [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]] to discuss _[[Trump v Kemp]]_[^9] which names him as a defendant.[^10] [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]] included his lawyer (named Berlin) in the call, as well as recorded the call.
Trump repeated the same claims which had been rebutted time and time again, and Raffensperger continued to contradict him directly and forcefully. Then this happened.
> Throughout the call, the defendant continued to state that he had won and referenced Biden's margin of victory that he needed to overcome to prevail in the state, including by asserting that “I just want to find 11,780 votes"
At no time did he reference **any other races on the same ballot** as having suffered from any sort of fraud. He was only focused on **his race**.
After listening to this, Raffensperger said...
> Well,I listened to what the President has just said. President Trump, we've had several lawsuits, and we've had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don't agree that you have won. (p29)
Trump then kept raising the same claims, including claims about the [[State Farm Arena]] Raffensperger directly confronted Trump on this claim, saying ...
> "You're talking about the State Farm video. And I think it's extremely unfortunate that [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]" or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context." He then offered the defendant a link to a video disproving the claim, to which the defendant responded, “I don't care about a link, I don't need it. I have a much, I have a much better link.”
(whd: So, here Trump is being confronted directly with a rebuttal, offered to look at the unedited video, and he **refuses** to even consider looking at it!)
At this point, Trump becomes frustrated and, basically, starts threatening Raffensperger and German, saying ...
> And you're gonna to find that they are which is totally illegal—it's, it's, it's more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal, you know, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Germany your lawyer. That's a big risk" (p30)
On 1/3, Trump falsely tweeted ...
> I spoke to Secretary of unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table' scam, ballot destruction, out of state 'voters', dead voters, and more. He has no clue!"
>
> Raffensperger promptly responded in a Tweet of his own: "Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true. The truth will come out."
(whd: and it has)
### Michigan (pp31-35) (pc2 1:27-8:05)
On 11/20, 3 days before the MI Gov signed the certificate of ascertainment, Trump met with [[Mike Shirkey]] (MI Senate Majority Leader) and [[Lee Chatfield]] (MI Speaker of the House) in the oval office.
Trump had initiated the meeting by asking RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniels to reach out to them to gauge their receptivity. He also asked her to participate, but she declined, saying that her lawyers had advised her that such a meeting would be seen as **lobbying**.
The same day he contacted them to set up the meeting, Trump issued a false Tweet, saying ...
> In Detroit, there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan!" (p32)
When Trump contacted them, he didn't tell them the reason for the meeting, but they knew it would be about his claims of voter fraud. They ..
> wanted to be firm that they had not seen evidence that would change the outcome of the election. (p32)
They also prepared materials to discuss matters **other** than Trump's claims of voter fraud, mostly regarding COVID-19, and planned, in advance, to release a public statement saying they'd seen no evidence of anything that would change the election.
During the meeting, Trump dialed Ronna McDaniel into the conversation, despite the fact that she'd asked not to participate. [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[Mark Meadows]] were also present for some, but not all of the meeting.
(whd: As the reader should now be aware...)
The meeting started off with a harangue by Trump about fraud and misconduct, mostly about Wayne County, which contains Detroit.
Shirkey and Chatfield **corrected** Trump, Giuliani and Meadows and ...
> told him that he had lost primarily because in two routinely Republican counties, the defendant had underperformed with educated females, and if he had received the same number of votes there as the two winning local sheriffs, he likely would have won Michigan."
Shirkey could tell by Trump's body language that Trump didn't like that assessment.
(whd: which means that Trump got the point.)
Again, notably, Trump only ever raised concerns regarding his own race, never anyone else's.
After Shirkey and Chatfield assured Trump that they were looking into fraud claims, Trump dialed Giuliani into the call. Trump said "Giuliani, tell them what's going on".
He then launched into a fraud _monologue_.
> Finally, Shirkey interrupted and asked, "So when are you going to file a lawsuit in Michigan?”—a question that Giuliani ignored and did not answer.
Immediately after the meeting, Shirkey and Chatfield released a public statement stating that they had
> “not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan." (p33)
On 11/21, Trump tweeted and acknowledgement of that statement. And then said...
> statement when he tweeted, "This is true, but much different than reported by the media” and implicitly conceded that he had not provided evidence of fraud yet when he added, “We will show massive and unprecedented fraud !”
(whd: notice the **future** tense in that sentence.)
Thereafter, the Trump campaign declined to request a state-wide recount, which they would've had to pay for unless it changed the result of the election.
(whd: **Biden won MI by > 145,000 votes!**, which makes the next bit of the brief utterly astonishing)
Despite having failed to produce evidence for **any valid claims of fraud** in Michigan, Giuliani nevertheless followed up with Shirkey and Chatfield, pressing them to use the MI legislature to overturn the valid election results. On 12/3 Giuliani messages [[Lee Chatfield|Chatfield]] claiming that Georgia was going to do some 'factual hearing' into the claims of fraud,
> based on CC1 and CC2 false advocacy there in the December 3 hearing (p34)
saying...
> Looks like Georgia may well hold some factual hearings and change the certification under Art II sec 1 cl 2 of the Constitution." As Giuliani explained they don't just have the right to do it but the obligation. .. . Help me get this done in Michigan."
On 12/7 Giuliani tried to text [[Mike Shirkey|Shirkey]] (but got the number wrong), saying ...
> “So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the Michigan legislature that states that, * the election is in dispute, * there's an ongoing investigation by the Legislature, and * the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official Electors of the State of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline of Dec 8 under Michigan law. (p34)
(whd: Keep in mind, both of these legislators had **already told Giuliani and Trump these claims of fraud were false**!)
All of these efforts to influence or intimidate legislators failed. On 12/14, [[Mike Shirkey|Shirkey]] and [[Lee Chatfield|Chatfield]] issued public statements ...
> confirming that the defendant had lost Michigan and the legislators still had not received evidence ofoutcome-determinativefraud in their state public statement included, “[W]e have not received evidence of fraud on a scale that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan .' [[Lee Chatfield|Chatfield]] stated, in part:
> We've diligently examined these reports of fraud to the best of our ability. . . I fought hard for President Trump. Nobody wanted him to win more than me. I think he's done an incredible job. But I love our republic, too. I can't fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because some think there may have been enough widespread fraud to give him the win. That's unprecedented for good reason. And that's why there is not enough support in the House to cast a new slate of electors. I fear we'd lose our country forever. This truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the Electoral College. And I can't stand for that. I won't. (pp34-35)
On 1/3 Trump's campaign publicly posted [[Mike Shirkey|Shirkey]] phone number. He got 4000 texts in 2 hours, forcing him to change his number.
They tried to post [[Lee Chatfield|Chatfield]]'s , but missed by 1 digit.
### Nevada (pp35-37) (pc2 8:08 - 11:05 )
On 11/17 in [[Law v Whitmer]], a lawsuit filed by [[Sidney Powell]], claims about [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] were made about votes by non-resident/dead voters and issues with the 'ballot matching' machines. Trump approved a press conference announcing the lawsuit.[^11]
on 11/19 [[Justin Riemer]] emailed to an RNC spokesperson (whd: the brief has the redaction number P44, but the podcast doesn't know who it is), warning about inaccuracies in the lawsuit.
> “Just FYI that I don't believe the claims in the contest regarding dead voters, those voting from out-of-state, etc. are substantiated. We are working with the campaign on a data matching project and those numbers are going to be a lot lower than what the NV people have come up with. They are also targeting our military voters. To be frank, the contest has little chance of succeeding. Happy to discuss this stuff if you want more info." (p 36)
The RNC spokesperson (P44) send this email (from their **personal** account) along to [[Dan Scavino]] who also volunteered for the campaign.
However, Trump continued to retweet and amplified news about the lawsuit, exclaiming "Big News" that a Nevada court had agreed to hear the case on 11/24. However, he didn't promote the fact that within two weeks [[Law v Whitmer]], on 12/4, the case dismissed for lack of evidence and standing. (whd: The judge used quite strong language in his ruling) [^12] Four days after that, the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the lower court's ruling, noting that despite its
> “earlier order asking appellants to identify specific findings with which they take issue, appellants have not pointed to any unsupported factual findings, and we have identified none" (p37)
However, later, in the Ellipse speech on Jan 6 Trump continued to make the same claims as had been made in this case and had been explicitly rejected by Nevada Courts.
On 12/18 the Nevada Secretary of State's office released document titled "Facts vs. Myths" to combat the misinformation Trump and allies were spreading, including false claims that the SoS office had not investigated claims of fraud even though it ...
> had been presented with evidence of wide-spread fraud.
The office responded....
> “While we are pursuing action in a number of isolated cases, we have yet to see any evidence of wide-spread fraud.”(p37)
**Facts vs. Myths** also stated publicly that the courts had universally rejected claims of fraud.
> Four separate cases were heard by Nevada judges including the NV Supreme Court. After examining records presented, each case was discounted due to a lack of evidence." [^13]
### Pensylvania (pp37-41) (pc2 11:06-16:07)
Two days after election, on 11/6, Trump called [[Laurence Tabas|Tabas]], Chairman of the PA GOP and asked how,
> without fraud, he had gone from winning Pennsylvania on election day to trailing in the days afterward.
As the campaign had already told Trump, the **red mirage** would see his lead diminish as the mail-in and absentee votes (overwhelmingly expected to favor the Democrates) were counted. [[Laurence Tabas|Tabas]] told him this too, saying that
> there were roughly 1,750,000 mail-in ballots still being counted in Pennsylvania, which were expected to be eighty percent for Biden. (p38)
Over the next 2 months, Trump lied about the results anyway.
In an early Nov Campaign meeting, when Trump suggested that more people in PA had voted then had checked in to vote, Deputy Campaign Manager [[Justin Clark]] corrected him (whd: in line with previous discussions of the **red mirage**). Disregarding that correction, Trump continued to spread lies about voting fraud in PA
Around the same time, Philadelphia [[Al Schmidt]] appeared on television and stated that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in Philadelphia. Trump targeted [[Al Schmidt]] in a tweet.
> "A guy named [[Al Schmidt]] Philadelphia Commissioner and so-called Republican (RINO), is being used big time bythe Fake News Media to explain how honest things were with respect to the Election in Philadelphia. He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty. We win!"193
As a result of this tweet, [[Al Schmidt|Schmidt]], who was already receiving threads, had the threads become more detailed and targeted, **including his address and the names of his family members.**
On Trump's behalf, [^14][[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] spread patently false claims about PA. On 11/25, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[Jenna Ellis|Ellis]] attended an unofficial hearing with GOP state legislators in a Gettysburg hotel conference room. Trump called in, claimed to have been watching[^15] and demanded that the election be "turned around".
At this event, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] claimed that 1.8 million absentee ballots had been mailed out, but 2.5 million had been returned. This claim was based on a **mistake**, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] had confused the number of ballots sent out for the **primary** with the number of ballots recieved for the **general election** . After seeing [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] say this, RNC Chief Counsel [[Justin Riemer|Riemer]] tweeted "That is not true!"
In the following days, the Campaign staff was lying. When one Campaign staffer wrote in an email that [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]'s claim was
> “just wrong” and “[t]here's no way to defend it," [[Justin Clark]] responded, “We have been saying this for awhile. It's very frustrating." Likewise, in late November or December, [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] informed Trump directly that a claim [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] was spreading that PA got 700K more ballots back than were mailed out was "**bullshit**" and explained the error. (whd: **again**, for the, what?, fourth time?)
[[Justin Riemer|Riemer]] also sent an email on 11/28 to 'an RNC spokesperson (P44 in the brief)', stating his concern about [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[Jenna Ellis|Ellis]] spreading disinformation.
> ""I'm really not trying to give you a hard time but what CC1 and P12 are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court. It's setting us back in our fight for election integrity and they are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.”
When [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] learned about Riemer's tweet and email, he sent him a threatening voicemail.
> I really do need an explanation for what you said today because if there isn't a good one, you should resign. Got it? So call me or I'll call the boss and get you to resign. Call me. It'd be better for you if you do."(p40)
[[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] subsequently called [[Ronna McDaniel]] demanding she fire [[Justin Riemer|Riemer]], and she subsequently did.[^16]
On 12/3, 4 GOP leaders of the PA legislature issued a public letter stating that the General Assembly lacked the authority to overturn the popular vote, saying
> doing so would violate the state Election Code and violate the Constitution. (p40)
[[Bernie Kerik]] -- an agent[^17] of [[Giuliani]] (whd: and disgraced former Commissioner of the NYPD, as well as a federal felon), tweeted out the four legislators names and signatures and wrote...
> These are the four cowardice Pennsylvania legislators that intend to allow the Democrat machine to #StealtheVote! On #Cowards #Liars #Traitors” while linking to the legislators' Twitter accounts.
>
Sunday December 6, at 12:56 a.m. , from the White House residence having just returned from a political rally in Valdosta, Georgia—the defendant re-tweeted and amplified [[Bernie Kerik|Kerik]] tweet
### Wisconsin (p41) (pc2: 16:25 - 18:03)
On 11/29, a recount Trump had asked and paid for confirmed Biden as the winner, and, in fact, increased Biden's margin of victory. On 12/14, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the Campaign election lawsuit there.[^18]
On 12/21 Wisconsin's Governor signed the documents making Biden the winner in that state.
(whd: of course ...)
Trump then issued a series of tweets attacking [[Brian Hagadorn]].
> Two years ago, the great people of Wisconsin asked me to endorse a man named [[Brian Hagadorn]] for State Supreme Court Justice , when he was getting destroyed in thePolls against a tough Democrat Candidate who had no chance of losing. After my endorsement, Court Decision on voter fraud (of which there was much !) , despite many pages of dissent from three highly respected Justices. One thing has nothing to do with another, but we ended up losing 4-3 in a really incorrect ruling! Great Republicans in Wisconsin should take these 3 strong decisions to their State Legislators and overturn this ridiculous State Election. We won in a LANDSLIDE![^19]
After this twee, state marshals responsible for [[Brian Hagadorn]]'s safety arranged to increase his protection, 'based on social media traffic and other threatening communications' (whd: [[Stochastic Terrorism]]!) (p41)
### Claims about Voting Machines (pp41-47)(pc2: 18:04 - 27:23 )
(whd: Most of this section deals with [[Sidney Powell]]'s bizarre claims about voting machines, which even Trump throught were crazy, as you'll soon see. Moreover, Powell lost *every case* she filed and in at least one she was sanctioned for bring the case at all)
Throughout the period between the election up to Jan 6 (whd: well, even to this day), Trump and his co-conspirators repeatedly made claims about the accuracy and security of the voting machines used in multiple states, despite the fact that they had been informed, multiple times, that the claims were false.
As early as 12 November...
> National Association of Secretaries of State, the National Association of State Election Directors, and other coordinated federal, state, and private entities issued a public statement declaring that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history” and that there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." (p42)
On 11/14, in the tweet announcing [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] would be leading the Campaign's legal efforts, Trump also named [[Sidney Powell]], a private attorney was fixated on voting machines, and [[Joe diGenova]], another private attorney. On 11/16, Trump's executive assistant [[Molly Michael]] sent [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] an email, titled 'From POTUS,' and attaching a document containing bullet points critical of [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]][^20] with the instruction
> “See attached – Please include as is, or almost as is, in lawsuit.”
[[Sidney Powell|]] responded nine minutes later, saying
> IT MUST GO IN ALL SUITS IN GA AND PA IMMEDIATELY WITH A FRAUD CLAIM THAT REQUIRES THE ENTIRE ELECTION TO BE SET ASIDE in those states and machines impounded for non-partisan professional inspection." (p42)
On 11/17, [[Chris Krebs|Krebs]]. director of [[Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - CISA]] publicly tweeted that ...
> that a group of private election security experts concluded that claims of computer-based election fraud “either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent. " (p43)
(**whd**. the groups he's referencing there are the [[National Association of Secretaries of State]] and [[National Association of State Election Directors]])
Two days later (11/19), on Trump's behalf [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] and [[Joe diGenova|diGenova]] and others helps a press conference at RNC headquarters and made false and, in some cases, **factually impossible** claims regarding [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] machines.
That night [[Tucker Carlson]], because of the incendiary comments [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] had made in the press conference, he had invited her on air (whd: this is the same day, 11/19) He further stated
> “[b]ut she never sent us any evidence,despite a lot of requests, polite requests. Not a page. When we kept pressing, she got angry and toldus to stop contacting her. When we checked with others around the Trump Campaign, people in positions of authority, they told us [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] has never given them any evidence either . . . she never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one." (p43)
Trump had watched this press conference and the [[Tucker Carlson|Carlson]] interview and acknowledged to [[Jason Miller]] that [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] appeared "unhinged" in the press conference. On 11/20, Trump made similar comments to a White House staffer (whd: P7, as yet unidentified) and [[Dan Scavino]]. In casual conversation, [[Dan Scavino|Scavino]] said that [[Tucker Carlson|Carlson]] had '**evicerated**' or '**destroyed**' [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] (emphasis mine) (p43)
Trump then had a call with [[Powell]] on speakerphone, while P7 and [[Dan Scavino|Scavino]] listened in and mentioned the [[Tucker Carlson|Carlson]] interview. While [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] responded, Trump muted the calls and mocked her to P7 and [[Dan Scavino|Scavino]]. called her claims '**crazy**', and made a reference to **Star Trek** when describing her claims. (emphasis mine) (p44)
In the same time period [[Eric Herschmann]] told Trump that [[Sidney Powell|Powell]]'s claims were unreliable and should not be included in lawsuits and that he'd seen nothing to substantiate her claims.
On 11/22, notwithstanding Trump announcing that [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] was on the legal team dealing with voting machines, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] issued a statement on the behalf of the campaign distancing itself from [[Sidney Powell|Powell]], saying that
> "Sidney Power is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity" (p44)
Nevertheless, Trump continued to support and publicize [[Sidney Powell|Powell]]'s knowingly false claims.
For example, within days of [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] announcement, Trump promoted a lawsuit that [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] was about to file, tweeting on 11/24
> “BREAKING NEWS: @[[Powell]] says her lawsuit in Georgia could be filed as soon as tomorrow and says there's no way there was anything but widespread election fraud. #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs ." 227
She filed the lawsuite the next day agains the governor of Georgia falsely alleging 'massive election fraud' caused by [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] machines. The case was dismissed 12/7[^21]
[[Chris Krebs]], [[CISA]], the director Trump fired (whd: because of his claims that the election was the 'most secure in history'?), appeared on [[60 Minutes]], saying he was confident in the security of the election. In response, Trump tweeted
> "@60Minutes never asked us for a comment about their ridiculous , one sided story on election security, which is an international joke . Our 2020 Election, from poorly rated [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] to a Country FLOODED with unaccounted for Mail-In ballots, was probably our least secure EVER![^22]
A few days later, [[Joe diGenova]] appeared on a radio program as Trump's agent and said that [[Chris Krebs]] should be
> "should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot."
Thereafter, [[Krebs]] was subjected to death threats.
On 12/1, in a press conference Trump acknowledges watching, [[Gabriel Sterling]], a Georgia election official decried [[Joe diGenova]]'s and Trump's spreading disinformation saying that "someone is going to get killed"[^23]
On 12/1, Attorney General [[William Barr]] stated publicaly that the DoJ had not seen evidence of [[ODF]]. With respect to voting machines, Barr said...
> There's been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results . And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven't seen anything to substantiate that.
[[Rudy Giuliani]] and [[Jenna Ellis]] immediately issued a formal Campaign statement attacking [[William Barr|Barr]]'s statement, saying
> “With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn't been any semblance of a Department of Justice Investigation . . . his opinion appears to be without any "knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud.”[^24]
In mid-December, Trump tried to get [[Ronna McDaniel]] to release a report by a private investigator that preported to have identified flaws in [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] voting machines in Antrim County, MI. [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] refused, saying she'd already discussed this report with [[Lee Chatfield]] MI's SotH, who told her the report was "**fucking nuts**" (emphasis mine)(p46)
On 1/2, during Trump's call to [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]] in Georgia, Trump repeated the claims about [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] voting machines. Raffensperger replied...
> "I don't believe that you're really questioning the [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same esult. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table" (pp46-46)
In reply, Trump said that "in other states, we think we found tremendous corruption with [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]]machines, but we'll have to see.”"
(whd: **spoiler alert**. They didn't (find _tremendous corruption_, so they never _saw_)
During the Ellipse speech, Jan 6, Trump and his co-conspirators continued to lie about [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] voting machines, as they did about all of the other multitude of lies they'd been spreading since well before the election.
For example [[Rudy Giuliani]] claimed that, during the Senate runoff in Georgia on 1/5/2021...
> the votes were deliberately changed by the same algorithm that was used in cheating President Trump and Vice President Pence."
[[John Eastman]] continued the false attack:
> We now know because we caught it live last time in real time, how the machines contributed to that fraud. ... They put those ballots in a secret folder in the machines sitting there waiting, until they know how many they need. And then the machine after the close of polls, we now know who's voted. And we know who hasn't . And I can now in that machine match those unvoted ballots with an unvoted voter and put them together in the machine . . . .
(whd: **spoiler alert**. No, they didn't. This is just a bold-faced lie. **no one** has **ever** produced one scintilla of evidence for this claim. [[John Eastman]] is just **lying** through his teeth to inflame the mob!) We saw it happen in real time last night and it happened on November 3rd as well."
>
Trump amplified these comments in his own speech, raising the false spector of
> “the highly troubling matter of [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] "
and lied about machines _flipping votes from Trump to Biden_ and an
> astronomical and astounding” error rate in the machines' ballot scanning. (p47)
## D. The Defendant Organized and Caused His Electors to Submit Fraudulent Certificates Creating the False Appearance that State Submitted Competing Electoral Slates (pp47-59) (pc2 27:24 - 45:28)
> By late November 2020, every effort—both legitimate and illegitimate—that the defendant had made to challenge the results of the election had been unsuccessful. The defendant, his Campaign, and their allies had lost or withdrawn one election lawsuit after another in the seven targeted states. And the defendant and co-conspirators' efforts to overturn the legitimate vote count through a pressure campaign on state officials, and through false claims made directly to state legislators in formal or pseudo-hearings, continued to fail. So in early December, the defendant and his co-conspirators developed a new plan regarding the targeted states that the defendant had lost (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan , Nevada, New Mexico , Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin): to organize the people who would have served as the defendant's electors had he won the popular vote, and cause them to sign and send to Pence, as President ofthe Senate, certifications in which they falsely represented themselves as legitimate electors who had cast electoral votes for the defendant. Ultimately, the defendant and his co-conspirators would use these fraudulent electoral votes mere pieces of paper without the lawful imprimatur of a state executive? to falsely claim that in his ministerial role presiding over the January 6 certification, Pence had the authority to choose the fraudulent slates over the legitimate ones, or to send the purportedly "dueling" slates to the state legislatures for consideration anew. (p47-48)
(**whd**: In this part of the history of Trump's attempts to stay in power, the main co-conspirators are [[Kenneth Chesebro]] -- a lawyer in WI working on the Trumip campain, who came up with the idea initially regarding only the election results in WI, but who, upon requests from White House lawyer [[James Troupis]], generated the same plan for the other battleground states -- [[John Eastman]] who, because he had some _cachet_ as a putative _constitutional scholar_ , entirely obliterated by his actions in this conspiracy; and a political operative [[Mike Roman]], a particularly nasty piece of work who urged a colleague to get the Republican's at the Detroit convention center to riot in order to serve as a pretext to the claim that the vote counting there was hopelessly marred. Others, e.g [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Jenna Ellis|Ellis]]), etc... come and go, but those three are the major conspirators. **Back to the brief**)
[[Kenneth Chesebro]] wrote a series of memos on the plan in late November and early December. The first memo, dating 11/18 [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] advocated that Trump electors in WI meet and cast votes on the date required by the [[Electoral Count Act|ECA]] (12/14),
> in the event that an ongoing recount in the state reversed the defendant's loss there (p48)
However, the contingent nature suggested in this memo was quickly abandoned and the plan ...
> quickly transformed into a corrupt strategy to overturn the legitimate election results. [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] quickly revealed this obstructive plan in two additional memoranda , dated December 6 and December 9
> which proposed that the defendant's elector nominees in six of the targeted states—all but New Mexico, a state the defendant lost by more than ten percent of the popular vote, sparsely referenced in his false claims of voter fraud , and did not envision challenging at the inception of the elector scheme -- meet on December 14, sign fraudulent certifications, and send them to the Vice President to manufacture a fake controversy during the January 6 congressional certification . (p49)
Trump set this fraudulent plan in motion in early Dec, ensured it was carried out by his co-conspirators, and monitored its progress.
By 12/5 Trump was already thinking about how to Congress' role in the election process; he mentioned to Pence possibly challenging the results in the [[USHoR]].
On 12/6, Trump and [[John Eastman]] called [[Ronna McDaniel]]. She didn't know [[John Eastman|Eastman]]. Trump introduced him as a professor and lawyer.[^25] Eastman did most of the talking. He told [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] he wanted the [[RNC]] ...
> to help the campaign assemble the electors in the states where we had legal challenges, or litigation that was ongoing . . . in case any of that litigation changed the result of a state so that it would meet the constitutional requirement of electors meeting.'
After the call, [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] called [[Just Clark]] (one of Trump's campaign managers); after he assured [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] that the campain was 'on it', she called Trump back and told him so.[^26]
On the same day [[Mark Meadows]] forward from his **personal account**[^27] to Campaign staff the 11/18 [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] memo saying...
> “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states." (p50)
On 12/7, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] texted [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] saying
> “I have lawyers assigned in each state working on Dec14 electors meeting and what they need. I will send you a list.” (p50)
Trump's co-conspirators worked with his existing Campaign apparatus to execute this plan. Trump communicated with [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[John Eastman|Eastman]] about the plan, who then communicated with [[Boris Epshteyn]] and [[Kenneth Chesebro]]. [[Mike Roman]], [[Christina Bobb]] and other Campaign staff and agents helped implement the plan.
On 12/8 [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] spoke with [[Jack Wilenchick]], an Arizona lawyer involved in the [[Fake Electors Scheme]][^28] who recounted the conversation in an email:
> I just talked to the gentleman who did that memo, [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]]. His idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our electors send in their votes (even though the votes aren't legal under federal law – because they're not signed by Governor); so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6th. (They could potentially argue that they're not bound by federal law because they're Congress and make the law, etc.) Kind of wild/creative – I'm happy to discuss. My comment to him is that I guess there's no harm in it, (legally at least) - i.e. we would just be sending in “fake” electoral votes to Pence so that "someone" in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the “fake” votes should be counted. (p51)[^29]
12/9 [[Boris Epshteyn]] contacts [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] to get copies of the certificates from the previous election[^30]. She responded that the Campaign employees are already assiting in the effort and refered him to [[Justin Clark]]. 12/10 at [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]'s direction,[[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] generated directions to the 'electors' in all the targeted states except WI (because they already had his first memos) and New Mexico (because he hadn't been asked to) on how best to
> **mimic the manner in which valid electors were required by state law** to gather and vote, along with fraudulent certificates of vote for the defendant's electors to sign. (p52) (emphasis mine)
12/13: Trump asks [[Jason Miller]] for an update on the plan, and asked him to issue a statement. [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] asked [[Jason Miller]] to take part in a _messaging conference call_ (emphasis mine), [[Jason Miller]] discussed this in a text thread with [[Justin Clark]] and another campaign staffer (P54) and [[Eric Herschmann]] After [[Jason Miller]] proposed a plan, [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] wrote to [[Justin Clark]]
> “I'll call soon and we'll talk with boss.
The participants[^31] discussed attribution of the public message. [[Justin Clark]] wrote (whd: on a text thread?)
> "Here's the thing the way this has morphed it's a crazy play so I don't know who wants to put their name on it.” [[Jason Miller]] then shared with those on the text thread the invitees to the call [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] was convening: [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]], [[Jenna Ellis]], [[Christina Bobb]] and two other campaign lawyers (whd: identified in the brief as P55 and P56) and referred to the deragatorially as the "Star Wars bar"[^32] The participants in this text thread agreed that the message should go out without attribution
> because they "can't stand by it." (p53)
The co-conspirators deceived the fake electors, just as [[John Eastman]] had deceived [[Ronna McDaniel]], by
> falsely claiming that their electoral votes would be used only if ongoing litigation were resolved in the defendant's favor (p53)
Only a few of Trump's co-conspirators knew the truth, and their actions showed their duplicity, that their plan was
> to use the fraudulent elector certificates to disrupt the congressional certification on January 6.
In several states, they (meaning Trump and all his co-conspirators and agents) were unable to convince all of the Trump's electors to take part in the scheme. For example, [[Thomas Marino]], a former member of the U.S. House and U.S. Attorney refused to take part
> "because the plan did not follow the proper process and was illegal." (p54)
When electors like [[James Marino|Marino]] declined, the conspirators had to find replacements[^33]
Some electors who only participated because the conspirators assured them that their votes would only be used contingently were surprised to learn they'd been used, and said they wouldn't have participated had they known this and the conspirators 'had been truthful about their plan' (p54)
In PA, the conspirators ran into a problem. on 12/11 and into 12/12 [[Mike Roman]] and [[Kenneth Chesebro]] exchanged text messages discussing the fact that [[Laurence Tabas]], the state GOP chairman was
> 'winding up the electors' Telling them if the[y] sign the petition they could be prosecuted. Need a counterargument or someone has to call him and tell him to stop." [[Boris Epshteyn]] responded, "Have someone who knows him call him to tell him to stop .' [[Mike Roman]] replied, “That's the plan. PA is squishy right now. Going to need a call with [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]
12/12: [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]], [[Boris Epshteyn|Ephshteyn]] and others had a conference call, organized by the campaign to placate the PA electors
> [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] **falsely assured** them that their certificates of vote would be used only if the defendant succeeded in litigation.During the call, some of the defendant's conspirators and agents exchanged text messages expressing frustration at the electors' concerns. [[Mike Roman]] wrote, "Whoever selected this slate should be shot." [[Jenna Ellis]] responded, “These people are making this so much more complicated than it needs to be omg” and “We couldn't have found 20 people better than this???” [[Mike Roman|Roman]] agreed, writing, “We need good substitutes.” (p55)
When the idea was floated the idea of 'conditional language,' making clear the contingent nature of the electoral slate, [[Mike Roman|Roman]] wrote
> “The other States are signing what CC5 prepared - if it gets out we changed the language for PA it could snowball. ” (p55)
On 12/13, the eve of the electors vote, Trump tweeted (**whd** a **long rant**)
>"Swing States that have found massive VOTER FRAUD, which is all of them , CANNOT LEGALLY CERTIFY these votes as complete & correct without committing a severely punishable crime. Everybody knows that dead people, below age people, illegal immigrants, fake signatures, prisoners, and many others voted
illegally. Also, machine ‘glitches” (another word for FRAUD), ballot harvesting, non-resident voters, fake ballots, ‘ stuffing the ballot box', votes for pay, roughed up Republican PollWatchers, and sometimes even more votes than people voting, took place in Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere. In all Swing State cases, there are far more votes than are necessary to win the State, and the Election itself. Therefore, VOTES CANNOT BE CERTIFIED. THIS ELECTION IS UNDER PROTEST!" (pp 55-56)
(**whd**: I've been trying to keep my commentary in the footnotes -- once I discovered how to do them easily -- but I feel compelled to put a comment here in the body of this synopsis. **EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE CLAIMS IS FALSE!** And Trump **knows** they are false. He's been told **multiple times by multitudes of people** that each of these claims are false: End-of-Rant)
Ultimately the PA electors put language in that their votes were contingent, to avoid falsely asserting that they were **duly appointed**. New Mexico (which [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] hadn't even addressed), filed a lawsuit at the **last moment** so as to have a pretext of ongoing litigation.[^34]
Trump and his co-conspirators 'successfully' organized their **fake electors** to gather on 12/14 and case **fraudulent votes** on his behalf, and send those slates to D.C. in order to
> falsely claim at the congressional certification that certain states had sent competing slates of electors. (p56)
Trump and the co-conspirators tried to have the fake electoral votes **appear** to comply with state law. For example, in some states the law required that the electors meet in state capitol buildings. But, in some cases yhey weren't allowed in, so they voted elsewhere.[^35] In PA the law requires that the Governor give notice when an elector is replaced, so when [[James Marino|Marino]] (and others), opted out the PA slate is in doubt because the then governor[^36] hadn't announced the change. So they 'brainstormed'[^37]
> fake excuses for their failure to follow state law, writing, “maybe we can use Covid19 as an excuse for the Governor not giving notice. (p57)
Finally 12/14 came and the fake electors met and voted. [[Ronna McDaniel]] followed up with Trump after she received a memo entitled "Electors Recap - Final". She sent it along to [[Molly Michael]], Trump's executive assistant, who responed
> "It's in front of him!"
She also called Trump and [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] to tell them the news.
At the same time as the fraudulent electors were casting their votes, Trump's co-conspirators were planning what to do next. On 12/13 [[Kenneth Chesebro]] sent [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] a memo detailing a 'scenario'...
> in which Pence would use the fraudulent slates **as a pretext** to claim that there were dueling slates of electors from the targeted states and negotiate a solution to defeatBiden. On the same day, the defendant resumed almost daily direct contact with [[Steve Bannon]],
who routinely disseminated Trump's many false fraud claims.
On 12/14 Bannon started
> spreading lies about the defendant's fraudulent electors—including the false claim that their votes were merely a contingency in the event the defendant won legal challenges in the targeted states.
On 12/16, [[Kenneth Chesebro]] went to D.C. for a photo-op with Trump and some other lawyers. During the meeting, Trump complained about WI Chief Justice [[Brian Hagadorn]], who wrote the majority opinion dismissing Trump's election challenge[^38]
Even as late as the beginning of January, the conspirators attempted to keep secret what they were trying to do with the **fake electors**. For example, and 1/3, the following text exchange between [[Boris Epshteyn]] and [[Kenneth Chesebro]] occured
> "Careful with your texts on text groups. No reason to text things about electors to
anyone but [[John Eastman]] and me." [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] responded, "K," and [[Epshteyn]] followed up, "I'm probably a bit paranoid haha." [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] wrote,"A valuable trait!”
## E. The Defendant Attempted to Persuade Pence to Reject Votes Cast by Duly- Appointed Electors and Choose the Defendant's Fraudulent Ones (pp59 -72 )(pc2 45:40 -1:06:00)
As Trump's various plans (the lawsuits, targeting lawmakers in battleground states) failed, and the 1/6 congressional certification approached, Trump and his co-conspirators turned to pressuring Pence o fraudulently alter the results of the election during the certification ceremony. Once again, they used deceit. They lied to Pence, telling him there was substantial evidence of fraud, but they concealed
> heir orchestration of the plan to manufacture fraudulent elector slates, as well as their intention to use the fake slates to attempt to obstruct the congressional certification. (p59)
(whd: perhaps more importantly...)
> And they lied to the public, falsely claiming that Pence had the authority during the certification proceeding to reject electoral votes, send them back to the states, or overturn the election- and that Pence agreed he had these boundless powers. [^39](pp 59-60)
1/19, at 1:42a.m., Trump posted on twitter a copy of a 'report'
> falsely alleging fraud and wrote," ... Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"
[[Chesebro]] sent a link to a WI attorney amplifying this claim.[^40]
Trump later told Pence of the plans for a rally, saying it would be a 'big day' with lots of supporters in town.
Because of Pence's role in the [[Fake Electors Scheme]] was so pivotal, on 12/23 [[Kenneth Chesebro]], with [[John Eastman]]'s assistance,
> outlined a plan for Pence to “gavel" in the defendant as the winner of the election based on the false claim that "7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President ofthe Senate," and proposed that Pence announce that “because ofthe ongoing disputes " 322 in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States.[^41] (p60)
(whd: and on the 'deceit' front...)
> [[John Eastman|Eastman]] emphasized concealment, writing that “the main thing here” was that Pence act without “asking for permission—either from a vote of the Joint Session or from the Court.” (p60)[^42]
This memo directly contradicted [[Eastman]]'s statements from October 11, where he had written to a colleague that
> the Vice President with discretion in the counting of electoral votes or permitted him to “make the determination on his own.” (p61)
>
And the previous day, 12/22, when asked by a private attorney, when asked to comment on a draft of a complaint that might raise questions as to the authority of the Vice President during the certification process, he wrote...
> He wrote that “the risk of getting a court ruling that Pence has no authority to reject the Biden-certified ballots [is] very high."[^43]
On 12/23, after [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] shared [[John Eastman|Eastman]]'s and [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]]'s plan with him, Trump tweeted a document called "Operations Pence Card", which advocated Pence block lawful certifications of legal electoral votes. The same day, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] emailed [[Molly Michael]] (whd: Trump's personal assistant), asking to speak to Trump in order to 'update him on our overal strategic thinking' (p61)
On 12/15 there was some back and forth between [[John Eastman|Eastman]], [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] and [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] about proposing to Pence that
> Pence permit an unlimited filibuster of the certification, in violation of the ECA, and ultimately gavel in the defendant as president.330 When [[John Eastman|Eastman]] asked, “Is Pence really likely to be on board with this?” [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] answered "Let's keep this off text for now."[^44]
From here on out, [[Rudy Guilliani]], [[John Eastman|Eastman]], [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] and [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] worked together to enlist Pence in their plot, and to **rachet up public pressure from Trump's supporters that he do so** Trump began to **directly and repeatedly** pressure Trump.
On 12/25, when Pence called Trump to wish him a merry Christmas, Trump brough up the certification and told him he had discretion in his role as President of the Senate[^45]. Pence disagreed **emphatically**
> “You know I don't think I have the authority to change the outcome. ”
12/16: Trump tweeted about the Jan 6th rally, and then tweeted more false claims
> “Time for Republican Senators to step up and fight for the Presidency, like the Democrats would do if they had actually won. The proof is irrefutable! Massive late night mail-in ballot drops in swing states, stuffing the ballot boxes (on video), double voters, dead voters, fake signatures, illegal immigrant voters, banned Republican vote watchers, MORE VOTES THAN ACTUAL VOTERS (check out Detroit & Philadelphia), and much more. The numbers are far greater than what is necessary to win the individual swing states, and cannot even be contested. Courts are bad, the FBI and 'Justice' didn't do their job, and the United States Election System looks like that of a third world country. Freedom of the press has been gone for a long time, it is FakeNews, and now we have BigTech(withSection230)to deal with. But when it is all over, and this period of time becomes just another ugly chapter in our Country's history, WE WILL WIN!!![^46]
On 12/28, [[John Eastman|Eastman]], [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]] and [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]], were on a text thread where [[John Eastman|Eastman]] expressed concern about the case [[Gohmert v Pence]] in which [[Louie Gohmert|Gohmert]] and a group of lawyers from Arizona argued that the [[ECA]] was unconstitutional and, therefore, Pence could do whatever he wanted.[^47] [[Eastman]] was worried that a federal court would weigh in on substantive question of whether Pence had the authority to reject slates of electors. (**whd**: this didn't happen, but [[Eastman]] didn't know that at the time)
On 1/2 Trump called Pence and berated him because he'd filed a brief in [[Gohmert v Pence]] opposing the relief sought.
> When Pence explained, as he had before, that he did not believe that he had the power under the Constitution to decide which votes to accept, the defendant told him that “hundreds of thousands” of people “are gonna hate your guts” and “people are gonna think you're stupid,” and berated him pointedly, “You're too honest.” (p63)
Earlier that day, Trump spoke with [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]]. He did so again later that afternoon, also speaking with [[Eastman]]. Within hours of the call with Pence, Trump reminded his supporters
> “The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!"
1/2: [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[John Eastman|Eastman]] and [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] appeared on [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]]'s show. When asked whether
> the January 6 certification would be “a climactic battle," [[John Eastman|Eastman]] responded that “a lot of that depends on the courage and the spine of the individuals involved"
Trump spoke with [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] shortly after this. That afternoon, [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] arranged a meeting with [[John Eastman|Eastman]] and Pence trying to get Pence to 'misuse his role' in the certification process. Messages went back and forth between Trump, [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] and [[John Eastman|Eastman]] on getting Pence onboard.
Later that day, Trump called Pence and told him
> “that he had spent the day speaking to a secretary of state, state legislators, and members of Congress"
(whd: this was the **infamous** "I just want 11,780 votes" call to to [[Brad Raffensperger|Raffensperger]]).
In the call, Trump told Pence that
> a U.S. Senator was going to propose a ten-day delay in the certification proceeding, and told Pence, "you can make the decision" to delay the count for ten days.347 The defendant then referred Pence to [[John Eastman|Eastman]] for the first time and asked if Pence would meet with him.[^48] (p64)
Again, on 1/3 Trump told Pence he had the
> absolute right to reject electoral votes and overturn the election (p65)
Pence responded that wasn't so, and that a federal appeals court had rejected that claim the day before[^49]
Trump then took to twitter to again falsely claim fraud.
> "Sorry, but the number of votes in the Swing States that we are talking about is VERY LARGE and totally OUTCOME DETERMINATIVE! Only the Democrats and some RINO'S would dare dispute this - even though they know it is true!”[^50]
That day, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] circulated a 2nd memo that included a new plan, also in violation of the [[ECA]], whereby Pence could send the 'competing slates' back to the state legislatures to determine which slates to count.
[[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]]'s meeting was scheduled for the afternoon of 4, Jan, where Trump and [[John Eastman|Eastman]] could enlist [[Mike Pence|Pence]] in the [[Fake Electors Scheme]]. Before this meeting [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Electoral Count Act|ECA]], [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] and [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] met at the Wilard Hotel, near the White House, and from there [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] spoke with Trump.
When [[John Eastman|Eastman]] arrived for the meeting with [[Mike Pence|Pence]], [[Eric Herschmann]] confronted him and went line by line through his second memo.
[[John Eastman|Eastman]] then
> conceded that no court would support it; in response, [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] warned [[John Eastman|Eastman]] that pressing his admittedly unlawful plan would cause"riots in the streets." [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] then spoke to the defendant , telling him that the theory that [[Eastman]] and others were promoting would not work, and that [[John Eastman|Eastman]] had acknowledged that it was "not going to work"; the defendant responded, "other people disagree” but did not identify those other people
> [[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] also pointed out to the defendant that [[John Eastman|Eastman]] 's theory regarding a strategic Democratic plan to subvert the election was inconsistent with other allegations that had been floating around about [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] and foreign interference. (p66)[^51]
The meeting with [[John Eastman|Eastman]], [[Mike Pence|Pence]], Pence staffers [[Marc Short]] and [[Greg Jacob]], Pence's Chief Counsel[^52] began at 4:45pm. No one from the White House Counsel's Office attended.[^53] Trump asked [[John Eastman|Eastman]] to explain the plan. [[John Eastman|Eastman]] presented 2 options.
1. [[Mike Pence|Pence]] could unilaterally decide objections to electors
2. He could send the electors slates back to the states[^54]
(whd: option 2 was from [[Eastman]]'s second memo from 1/3 discussed above)
In Trump's presence, and in response to questioning from Pence, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] admitted that the [[Electoral Count Act|ECA]]
> forbade what he proposed and that no one had tested [the] new plan to send elector slates to state legislatures for review. Nonetheless , the defendant repeatedly expressed a preference that Pence unilaterally reject valid elector slates. (p67)
Throughout this meeting, Trump repeated is false claims about fraud as a proported basis for Pence to act illegally. Pence's five pages of contemporaneous notes have Trump saying things like;
> “when there's fraud the rules get changed";
> "bottom line - won every state by 100,000s of votes";
> "this whole thing is up to MP”;
> “has to do w/you - you can be bold"; and "r[igh]t to do whatever you want to do.”
The meeting ended with Pence saying to Trump
> 'I'm not seeing this argument working' (p67)
Although he agreed to meetings between his staff and the conspirators.
The Conspirators were undeterred. [[John Eastman|Eastman]], [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]] and [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] went back to the Willard Hotel. Over the next few days, they strategized on how to keep the pressure on Pence. [[John Eastman|Eastman]] was to try to influence through [[Greg Jacob|Jacob]] while [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] was to work the 'media' side of the assault by trying to normalize the idea that [[Mike Pence|Pence]] had the power to choose electors or send the slates back to the states.[^55]
Meanwhile, Trump continued to work on Trump publically.
Immediately after the meeting Trump went to a rally in Dalton Georgia for the two Republican Senators [[Kelly Loeffler]] and [[David Purdue]][^56]. At this rally Trump repeated all of the falsehoods about the election he'd previously been told were untrue. He also personally attacked [[Brian Kemp]] and [[Brad Raffensperger]] for not doing his bidding and overturning the election
Then he moved to the pressure campaign on Pence, saying
> I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great Vice President, our great Vice President comes through for us ... Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much."(p68)
1/5: Trump spoke on the phone with [[Steve Bannon]]. Less than 2 hours later, on his podcast, [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] said
> "All Hell is going to break loose tomorrow"[^57]
Also on 1/5 [[John Eastman]] participated in a federal court hearing for [[Trump v Kemp]], the Georgia lawsuit against [[Jack Kemp|Kemp]] and [[Brad Raffensperger]] in which Trump had signed false verification days earlier [^58] In this hearing, [[John Eastman]] on behalf of Trump,
> asked the federal court to decertify the presidential election in Georgia and declare that the state legislature may choose the state's electors.[^59]
Immediately after this rejection, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] went to a meeting with members of Pence's staff: [[Greg Jacob]] and [[Marc Short]]. Here [[Easman]] changed his tack: where the day before he had suggested that [[Mike Pence|Pence]] send the slates back to the states, he now recommended that he simple reject the slates outright (p69). This was consistent with Trump's preferences.
[[John Eastman|Eastman]] also agreed that
> that the Supreme Court would unanimously reject his proposed action, consistent historical practice since the Founding was that the Vice President never asserted authority to reject electors , no reasonable person would want the Constitution read that way because the office would never switch political parties, no state legislature appeared poised to try to change its electors, and if Democrats were to claim the same authority, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] would not credit it.[^60]
[[Jacob]] told [[John Eastman|Eastman]] that his plan would result in a 'disastrous situation' where ...
> might "have to be decided in the streets." Having failed to enlist [[Greg Jacob|Jacob]] in the criminal conspiracy, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] told him that the “team” was going to be "really disappointed.”
>
And this was most certainly the case, when [[John Eastman|Eastman]] updated 'the team', [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], [[Boris Epshteyn]], who told [[Steve Bannon]] that the 'Pence lawyer' ([[Greg Jacob|Jacob]]) was 'totally against us', prompting [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] to reply: '**Fuck his lawyer**'
That same day [[John Eastman|Eastman]] received an email confirming what he'd already said to [[Greg Jacob|Jacob]], that
> no chamber of any legislature in any state, including Arizona , Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, was requesting that its electoral votes be returned to the state for review.[^61]
Meanwhile, [[Kenneth Chesebro]] who had traveled back to D.C.. obtained duplicates of the fraudulant certificates signed by the **fake electors** of MI and WI, which they believed had not bee delivered by mail to the President of the Senate (whd: i.e. [[Mike Pence|Pence]]), or Archivist. [[Kenneth Chesebro|Chesebro]]
> received these duplicates from Campaign staff and surrogates, who flew them to Washington at private expense.[^62] (p71)
He hand delivered them to staffers of U.S. Representatives as part of the plan to deliver them to Pence.
Not leaving the pressure campaign to his surrogates, on 1/5, at 11:06am, shortly before [[John Eastman|Eastman]]'s meeting with [[Greg Jacob|Jacob]], Trump tweeted...
> “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors" [^63]
That afternoon, Trump met **privately** with Pence in the Oval Office and said to him "I think you have the power to decertify". When Pence disagreed, Trump threatened to criticize him publicly ('I'm going to have to say you did a great disservice)[^64]
This concerned [[Marc Short]] so much that he relayed the threat to Pence's Secret Service detail.
Next, Trump initiated a phone call with Pence. [[Marc Short|Short]], [[Greg Jacob|Jacob]], [[John Eastman|Eastman]] and likely [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] and one or two other private attorneys were also present, and again raised the scenario of Pence sending the slates back to the state legislatures. [[Greg Jacob|Jacob]] again pointed out that this violated the [[Electoral Count Act|ECA]] and Pence said he didn't have the authority to do so[^65]
Shortly after that call, Trump tweeted ath 5:43pm
> "I will be speaking at the SAVE AMERICA RALLY tomorrow on the Ellipse at 11AM Eastern . Arrive early - doors open at 7AM Eastern. BIG CROWDS!"
Trump continued his pressure campaign through the evening. After a _New York Times_ article appeared that night which related details from that private conversation, including that Pence had refused to act unlawfully, Trump told [[Jason Miller]] to issue a statement rebutting the claim and approved its release at 9:28 pm[^66]
Minutes later, Trump called Pence and told him
> you gotta be tough tomorrow
and shortly after that, Trump spoke with [[Steve Bannon]] and [[John Eastman|Eastman]]. at 10:pm, Trump issued the public statement...
> the Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act"[^67] -- a statement that the defendant knew was a lie from Pence's repeated and firm rejections of his efforts, but that gave false hope to the defendant's supporters arriving in the city at the defendant's request, and maximized pressure on Pence.
## F. The Defendant Caused Unlawful Conduct on January 6 and Tried to Take Advantage of the Riot That Ensued. (pp 72 -85)(pc2 )
(**whd**: Unless specifically indicated otherwise, all times listed in this section should be assumed to have happened on 1/6)
**Reference Dalton speech here too! p68**
Trump continued his pressure campaign against [[Mike Pence|Pence]] into the wee hours of 1/6, tweeting (falsely)...
> “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us , we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!”[^68]
At 8:17, Trump tweeted....
> States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. **Do it, Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!**"[^69] (emphasis mine)
Later that morning [[Kenneth Chesebro]] worked with another attorney for Trump, who contacted a U.S. Senator[^70] who asked him to get the MI and WI documents from the U.S. Representatives office and hand deliver them to Pence. When one of the U.S. Senator's staffers contacted one of Pence's staff by text to arrange for delivery of what he's been told were
> [a]lternate slate[s] of electors for MI and WI because [the] archivist didn't receive them,” Pence's staffer rejected them. (p73)[^71]
Shortly before Trump left for the Ellipse to give his speech, he called Pence one last time. When Pence again refused, and told Trump he intended to make a statement to Congress confirming that he lacked the authority to do what Trump wanted, Trump became **incensed**. Trump decided to reinsert into his **Campaign** speech at the Ellipse remarks targeting Pence for his refusal to **misuse** his role. [^72]
And Trump set in motion the last act in furtherance of his conspiracies.
> if Pence would not do as he asked, the defendant needed to find another way to prevent the certification of Biden as president. So on January 6, the defendant sent to the Capitol a crowd of angry supporters, whom the defendant had called to the city413 and inundated with false claims of outcome-determinative election fraud, to induce Pence not to certify the legitimate electoral votes and to obstruct the certification. (p74)
At the rally, [[Giuliani]] spoke. He tried to 'cloak the conspiracies in the air of legitimacy' (p75), assuring the crowd that
> defendant's supporters that “every single thing that has been outlined as the plan for today is perfectly legal," (p75)
He introduced [[John Eastman]] as a "preeminent constitutional scholar[]" who would explain the plan.
> He falsely claimed that legislatures in five states were"begging" to have their electoral ballots returned. [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] then asserted that Pence could “decide on the validity ofthese crooked ballots" and told the crowd, “[1] et's have trial by combat." [^73]
[[John Eastman]] in his speech claimed...
> ... that Pence must send electoral votes to state legislatures for “the American people [to] know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not,” and decried that “[w]e no longer live in a self-governing republic if we can't get the answer to this question (p75)
When Trump took the stage, he know that Pence had refused to use Trump's fake electors. So, for more than an hour, Trump
> delivered a speech designed to inflame his supporters and motivate them to march to the Capitol.
He told them the same lies he'd been telling everyone for the last 3 months (and variants of those he'd told for 6 months before the election), that ...
1. In Arizona, more than 36,000 ballots had been cast by non-citizens.
2. that in Georgia, 10,300 dead people had voted
3. and raised the publicly disproven claims about the [[State Farm Arena]].
4. Made more baseless claims about dead voters in Nevada and Michigan
5. false claims about illegally counted votes in Wisconsin
6. and that more ballots had been returned in Pennsylvania than had been sent out.[^74]
7. and, like [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] before him, he lied that states wanted their ballots back so they could 'recertify' their votes.
Of this last, he said...
> to reconsider or recertify their duly appointed electors. For instance, he said, “By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn't know because it was so quick. They had a vote. They voted. But now they see all this stuff, it's all come to light . Doesn't happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agreet o send it back.” In response to this lie about Pennsylvania, the defendant's crowd began to chant , " Send it back ! Send it back!"[^75]
Again, Trump lied about what Pence **could** do, and also about what Pence **would do**.[^76]
Trump said that "Pence could still do the right thing"[^77]
He says further: including the indirect threat,
> “Mike Pence, I hope you're gonna stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm gonna be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories." [^78]
Trump raised the stakes of the whole situation, saying that 'history [was] going to be made'[^79],
> calling on them to 'fight' and to "take back" their country through **strength** while suggesting that _legal means were antiquated and insufficient_ (p77)
> [w]hen you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules.” (p77)
Throughout the speech, from 15 minutes in until twice in its final lines, Trump directed his 'supporters' (sneer quotes mine) to go to the Capitol, and suggested he would go with them.
The overall impact of the speech
> particularly in light of months of statements and Tweets falsely claiming election fraud and following on the heels of [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]'s and [[John Eastman|Eastman]]'s speeches was to fuel the crowd's anger. For instance, when the defendant told his supporters that “[w]e will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen,' the crowd chanted, "Fight for Trump," in response. (p77)
When, shortly after this, he told them
> "we're going to walk down to the Capitol,' that they would never take back our country with weakness," and that they had "to show strength members of and [had] to be strong,' the crowd shouted, "Invade the Capitol building!” and, “Take the Capitol!" (pp 7-78)[^80]
Thousands of Trump's supporters obeyed his directive and marched on the capitol, where the certification process began around 1pm. Minutes earlier, Pence had issued his public statement,
> explaining that his role as President of the Senate did not include “unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not." On the floor of the House of Representatives, Pence opened the certificates of vote and certificate of ascertainment from Arizona, consistent with the ECA. After an objection from a Senator and Representative, the House and Senate retired to their separate chambers to debate it.[^81]
Outside, rioters had already broken through the police barriers and advanced on the building. Among these was [[Kenneth Chesebro]], lead author of the [[Fake Electors Scheme]]
At 1:30 pm, Trump was in the White House Dining room, watching the events on Fox News and scrolling through twitter on his phone. (**whd** GA 1902, which means 'Grand Jury Appendix 1902, so this is part of the Grand Jury evidence)
At 2:13, the crowd entered the building[^82] which forced the Senate to recess.
> Within minutes, staffers fled the Senate chamber carrying the legitimate electors' physical certificates of vote and certificates of ascertainment.[^84] Next to the Senate chamber, a group of rioters chased a U.S. Capitol Police officer up a flight of stairs to within forty feet of where Pence was sheltering with his family. As they did so, the rioters shouted at the officer, in search of public officials, "**Where the fuck they at? Where the fuck they counting the votes at? Why are you protecting them? You're a fucking traitor.**” On the other side of the Capitol, the House was also forced to recess." [^83](p79) (emphasis mine)
On the other side of the Capitol, the House was also forced to recess.
Fox News[^85] is carrying these events in real time.
- At 2:12 they reported that the Capitol had been put on lockdown
- At 2:20, it showed videos of crowds on the Capitol lawn and West Terrace, along with a chyron saying 'CERTIFICATION VOTE PAUSED AS PROTESTS ERUPT ON CAPITOL HILL
- At 2:21 p.m., an on-the-street reporter interviewed a protester who says that he had come to Washington
- > “because President Trump told us we had something big to look forward to, and I believed that Vice President Pence was going to certify the electorial [sic] votes and, or not certify them, but I guess that's just changed , correct? And it's a very big disappointment . I think there's several hundred thousand people here who are very disappointed. But I still believe President Trump has something else left."
- At 2:24 the reported that a police officer had been injured ant that 'protesters ... had made their way inside the Capitol'[^86]
At 2:24, Trump was alone in the dining room and he issued this tweet
> “Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set off acts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth[^87]
>
A rioter using a bullhorn read the tweet to the crowd 'trying to gain entry to the building'[^88](p80)
> The defendant issued the incendiary Tweet about Pence despite knowing as he would later admit in an interview in 2023—that his supporters "listen to [him] like no one else." (p81)
> One minute later, at 2:25 p.m. , the Secret Service was forced to evacuate Pence to a secure location. At the Capitol, throughout the afternoon, members ofthe crowd chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!";"Where is Pence? Bring him out!”;and“Traitor Pence!"
The apparel of the rioters shows their allegiance.
In the years since this riot, Trump has refused to take any responsibility for the events, and instead blames Pence.
> On March 13,2023,he said, “Had Mike Pence sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn't have had a problem with Jan. 6, so in many ways you can blame him for Jan. 6. Had he sent them back to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, the states, I believe, number one, you would have had a different outcome. But I also believe you wouldn't have had ‘Jan. 6' as we call it.”[^89] (p81)
Rioters breached the Senate chamber, rifled through papers and stood on the Senate dais where minutes early Pence had stood. In the house rioters watched as police evacuated lawmakers, smashing glass to get at them and the fleeing staffers. At least one rioter recorded video showing Members leaving while the growing crowd screamed at the police officers guarding the locked door to the _Speakers Lobby_[^90]
On the side of the Capitol building facing the Ellipse, where Trump gave his speech, some of the worst violence happened. After forcing their way past temporary barriers, the rioters **attacked law enforcement officers**,
> with flag poles, bear spray, stolen police riot shields, and other improvised weapons. (p82)
One of the Metropolitan Police Officer described it this way...
> I feared for my life from the moment I got into that—we were walking into the crowd, when the Capitol Police officer was leading us into the front line. And especially when I got sprayed in the middle ofthe crowd. I- at that point, honestly, I thought, this is it. Yeah, multiple times . . . You know, you're getting pushed, kicked, you know, people are throwing metal bats at you and all that stuff. I was like, yeah, this is fucking it.476
He also said that some rioters were wearing 'tactical gear' and were acting in 'pure, sheer anger'
In the years since Jan 6, Trump has described these people as 'patriots' and 'hostages' and provided them financial support, and called Jan 6 a 'beautiful day'©[^91]
> At a rally in Waco, Texas, on March 25 , 2023 , the defendant started a tradition he has repeated several times- opening the event with a song called “Justice for All," recorded by a group of charged and in many cases, convicted January 6 offenders known as the "January 6 Choir" and who, because of their dangerousness, are held at the District of Columbia jail.482 At the Waco Rally, of the January 6 Choir, the defendant said, "our people love those people, they love those people.” The defendant has also stated that if re-elected, he will pardon individuals convicted of crimes on January (p83)
On the evening of Jan 6, Trump and [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] attempted to **exploit** the violence by having the latter call Senators arguing that they should **delay the certification**. At ~7pm, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] called 5 U.S. Senator and on U.S. Representative. In a voicemail intended for one Senator, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] said...
> I'm calling you because I want to discuss with you how they're trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends , to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you. And I know they're reconvening at eight tonight, but the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we can. He then asked get ourselves into tomorrow- ideally until the end of tomorrow." [^92](p84)
In another voicemail to another Senator, [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] told more lies, claiming that Pence's
> decision not to use the defendant's fraudulent electors' certificates **had been surprising**, and that in light ofthe surprise, “we could use a little time so that the state legislatures can prepare even more to come to you and say, 'Please give this back to us for a while so we can fix it.' (p84)(emphasis mine)
[[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] continued with the standard set of lies that Trump had been using for months, all of which had been debunked multiple times, many of them in his and Trump's presence.
At 11:35pm the Joint Session resumed. At 11:44 [[John Eastman]], who earlier wrote to [[Greg Jacob]] that
> “[t]he 'siege' is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary" (p85)
now emailed him and
> urged him to convince Pence to violate the law, writing, “I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation [of the ECA] and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount ofi llegal activity that has occurred here."(p85)
At 3:41 am, Jan 7, as President of the Senate, Pence announced the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election in favor of Biden.
# Footnotes
[^1]: The case was dismissed for _lack of standing_ on 12/11 and did not progress beyond the initial filing at SCOTUS. See https://chatgpt.com/share/67159bb3-5d18-8003-be0f-9622b458e010
[^2]: Actually, Trump repeated these lies about [[State Farm Arena]], [[Shaye Moss]] and [[Ruby Freeman]] as recently as November 11, 2023. Since then he's adopted more vague statements about fraud lacking specifics. See [[URLs to Use in Jack Smith's Immunity Brief#ChatGPT link: Trump's recent claims about State Farm Arena|ChatGPT link: Trump's recent claims about State Farm Arena]]
[^3]: Despite Trump's bluster, Kemp wasn't 'finished'. He won re-election as Governor in 2022 with 53.4% of the vote, to Stacey Abrams 45.9%. So hardly 'finished'.
[^4]: The suite alleged , Trump's standard litany of fraud, as well as claiming that the procedures used violated state laws and the U.S. Constitution and asking for the court to decertify the election. It was dismissed 12/7 for lack of standing and for unsubstantiated and speculative claims of fraud.
[^5]: Given that [[_Trump_v_Kemp]] was dismissed on 12/7, this must be part of some other ongoing litigation.
[^6]: And, true to his prediction, Giuliani and Eastman have been.
[^7]: This statement has a footnote (130) which lists this document as "Complaint at 33-34 , Trump v. Kemp, No. 1:20-cv-5310 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 31, 2020), ECF No. 1." However, this case had been dismissed on 12/7, so Trump (and presumably Eastman) signed one false _verification of fraud_ before 12/4 when the case was filed, then 23 days **after** the case had been dismissed filed **another** false _verification of fraud_ and replaced the first one. One wonders why?
[^8]: These tweets are 11/24/20, 12/08/20 and 12/11/20, respectively. And it's clear why his tone is getting more and more shrill and desperate: he's running out of time. 12/12 is the end of the 'safe harbor' time frame within which all states are supposed to have finalized their slates of electors. According to Kemp, Georgia state law does not allow the Governor to call a special session to replace the certified electors.
[^9]: There seems to be some issues with the timing of these lawsuits, and it may have to do with the fact that there were multiple lawsuits happening simultaneously. There was [[Trump v Raffensperger]] [[Trump v Kemp]] and a lawsuit filed by [[Sidney Powell]], [[Pearson v Kemp]]. One bit of reporting from ChatGPT says that [[Trump v Kemp]] was dismissed on 12/7, others in Jan 2021. The latter must be the case, since the discussion in this section is about actions taken well after 12/7. Probably these are appeals being discussed, but I lack the knowledge and expertise to chase this information down.
[^10]: My understanding is that it is **extremely irregular, verging on unethical, if not illegal** for two parties to a litigation on opposites to have conversations about the case _ex parte_, i.e. outside of the courtroom. But then Trump was never one to follow the law, now was/is he?
[^11]: You, dear reader, will soon learn that Trump thought [[Sidney Powell]] was batshit crazy, that her claims bordered on **science fiction** (reference was made to _Star Trek_) and he mocked her in the presence of several of his campaign staff. Nevertheless, that didn't stop from echoing her claims about [[Dominion Voting Systems]] machines.
[^12]: ChatGPT, in answer to the question "Please quote the judgement in Law v. Whitmer regarding claims of fraud", responded "“Plaintiffs’ claims are based on nothing but speculation and conjecture. While there are serious allegations of fraud and violations of the Constitution, the Court finds that Plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is disconnected from the actual facts of the case and the reality of how elections operate. They seek an extraordinary remedy – disenfranchising millions of Michigan voters – but provide no basis in fact or law to justify the relief they request.” Moreover, [[Sidney Powell]] was sanctioned for bringing the suit.
[^13]: This information comes directly from a footnote in the brief: Compare Order at 18-20, Law v. Whitmer, No. 200C001631B (Nev. Dist. Ct. Dec. 4, 2020) available at: https://electioncases.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Law-v-Gloria-Order-Granting-Motion-to-Dismiss.pdf (finding no support for claims of double ballots, non-resident, and deceased voters) with GA 1134-1135 (Ellipse Rally Speech Draft Tr. 01/06/2021) (“There were also more than 42,000 double votes in Nevada" ; " 1,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Nevada residents who died in 2020 prior to November 3rd election. More than 8,000 votes were cast by individuals who had no address and probably didn't live there." ).
[^14]: The footnote in the brief refers to the _Pennsylvania Hotel Hearing_. Trump appeared telephonically at the event, see [Trump takes his fraud claims to a hotel ballroom — by phone](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/25/trump-giuliani-fraud-claims-pennsylvania-440628), so it's clear that the use of the phrase 'On his behalf' is perfectly justified.
[^15]: Yeah, right!
[^16]: In a bit of delicious irony, [[Ronna McDaniel|McDaniel]] was subsequently fired as RNC Chairwoman, to make way for [[Michael Whatley]] and [[Lara Trump]] (co-chair, but the real power in the RNC)
[^17]: Kerik was the police commissioner in New York City. Bush II nominated Kerik to lead Homeland Security in 2004, but Kerik withdrew when he admitted he'd employed an undocumented worker. This started a spate of Federal and State investigations. In 2006 he pleaded guilty in Bronx Supreme Court to two unrelated ethics violations and was ordered to pay $221,000 in fines. In 2009 he pleaded guilty to 8 federal felony charges in the Southern District of New York for tax fraud and making false statements. In 2010 he was sentenced to 4 years in prison, serving 3 before his release. In 2020 Trump pardoned him of federal crimes. In short, Kerik is **Trump's sort of guy**!
[^18]: [Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion](https://law.justia.com/cases/wisconsin/supreme-court/2020/2020ap002038.html); See also a [ChatGPT session, which is a bit shorter](https://chatgpt.com/share/67184b41-8188-8003-af8b-22f7e9c67bb6). A quick quote: Justice Brian Hagedorn (a Republican who Trump supported in his election bid) stated that the campaign’s attempt to invalidate the "indefinitely confined" ballots “as a class without regard to whether any individual voter was in fact indefinitely confined has no basis in reason or law.” Furthermore, the court held that other challenges were barred under the doctrine of laches, meaning the campaign had waited too long to raise these issues, prejudicing the Biden campaign and voters who relied on established procedures.'
[^19]: so many things off about this tweet! It positively **stinks** of megalomania and narcissism
[^20]: Dominion sued Fox News and got a $787 million verdict, it settled with [[One America Network|OAN]], but we don't know what the details are. The suit against [[Newsmax]] goes to trial in Sept 2024
[^21]: This case was [[Pearson v Kemp]], dismissed because of lack of evidence, lack of standing and the fact that the state had already certified the vote.
[^22]: Two lies in one: 1. About [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]], 2. About mail-in ballots
[^23]: [Sterling addressing Trump directly](https://youtu.be/Zz9RwR7XZNg?si=lGKRoP8C0AU_g--C) shows a video of this press conference that was played when [[Gabriel Sterling]] wastestifying before the Jan 6th committee. He goes on to relate the story of an employee of [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] receiving death threats on twitter, which is what he said caused him to make his remarks to Trump.
[^24]: Which is hilarious, since neither [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]], nor [[Jenna Ellis|Ellis]], not [[Sidney Powell|Powell]] **ever** produced any evidence for their claims that [[Dominion Voting Systems|Dominion]] voting machines systematically changed or deleted votes.
[^25]: But did not mention that he was working as a lawyer for Trump. This is something like what [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] did in GA, introducing [[John Eastman|Eastman]] as a 'constitutional scholar and law professor' but keeping secret his connection to the campaign.
[^26]: This exchange is a bit unclear. Was she asking Clark to _vet_ [[Eastman]]?
[^27]: The fact that it's from his **personal** account is important here. It's also important (IMO), that this is the 11/18 memo, where the plan is still a **contingent** plan, and not the 12/6 or 12/8, where they drop the notion of contingency.
[^28]: In addition to the quote in the body of the brief, there is this from [the wikipedia article on the fake electors scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot): "Wilenchik wrote of a strategy by Kelli Ward, the Arizona Republican Party chair, "to keep it under wraps until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6th (so we can try to 'surprise' the Dems and media with it) – I tend to agree with her."[[quote from](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot#cite_note-Haberman_Broadwater_7/26/2022-2), which links to a [NY Times (paywall protected) article at](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html)
[^29]: As the previous footnote demonstrates, [[Jack Wilenchick]] was quite happy to go along with the plan, and was quite willing to keep it secret.
[^30]: Perhaps to maintain the **semblance** of compliance?
[^31]: I've lost track of who the participants were. Is this still part of the _messaging plan_ conference call?
[^32]: "meaning a motley assortment of characters, and in this case specifically ones whose professional competence [[Jason Miller]] doubted and whom he personally would not choose to hire.[[Eric Herschmann|Herschmann]] responded, "Certifying illegal votes!" This is in the body, but I thought I'd move it here.
[^33]: This causes a problem for them. As will be related soon, in PA the Governor has to announce a replacement. Since the conspirators were trying to 'fly under the radar', they couldn't involve the Governor, so they tried to come up with excuses whey the law wasn't observed. You'll see that their excuses are pretty lame.
[^34]: Trump lost NM by > 10%
[^35]: for example, in Michigan the fake electors were prevented from entering the capitol building. So they voted in an RNC office down the street. That single act invalidates that slate of electors.
[^36]: [[Tom Wolf]], a Democrat. This is in line with Trump and his conspirators only ever involving Republicans in their plots. Clearly, they couldn't go to [[Tom Wolf|Wolf]] to get him to 'give notice' of a change in electors when the electors were **fake**
[^37]: Dicey use of that word, but then this is a case of 'Oh what webs you weave, when first you practice to deceive!'
[^38]: This is [[Trump v Biden]]. Hagadorn's reasons were 1) the bulk invalidation of ballots because Trump questioned whether the people satisfied the definition of 'indefinitely confined' was unjustified and other claims were rejected because ot the principle of _laches_, which bars claims raised too late in the process under question.
[^39]: This part is important, because without it, Trump and his co-conspirators don't have a **plan** to sell to the mob
[^40]: Patently false claim
[^41]: Aside from the fact that the claims of Pence's authority, what he can and can't do are false, there weren't 7 states anyway, but only 6: New Mexico didn't have an alternative slate of the **fake electors**
[^42]: Indeed, as we'll shortly see, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] was keen on **not** bring any matter on the question of Pence's authority before **any** court, knowing he would lose.
[^43]: This is what I was speaking of in the previous footnote.
[^44]: Again, hiding their intent from the people they're trying to manipulate
[^45]: Even though everyone, including [[John Eastman|Eastman]] knew he didn't
[^46]: Notice that, as we get closer to Jan 6, his tweets become more and more desperate, more and more shrill and unhinged. He knows time is running out. And, as time has shown, he did not win, nor had he ever won, not from 11/7 through until today.
[^47]: This **laughible** suit failed its initial run, the appeal to the U.S. District Court (_per curiam_) and an emergency stay at the SCOTUS by unanimous vote where it was summarily dismissed with a one sentence order. All of the dismissals were on the question of standing, so, in a sense, the [[Fake Electors Scheme]] was still alive, as of Jan 2.
[^48]: Interesting that the **first time** Pence is introduced to [[John Eastman|Eastman]] was Jan 2. [[John Eastman|Eastman]] had been involved with the campaign since back in the days [[Rudy Giuliani|]] was trying to pressure the GA legislature to overturn the election, and certainly since early days in the [[Fake Electors Scheme]]!
[^49]: I don't know for certain, but I think this is [[Gohmert v Pence]]
[^50]: Sorry, 1) they aren't, 2) it isn't, 3) not just Democrats or RINOs and 4) no, they don't know it's true, because it isn't.
[^51]: This exchange is notable because it's one of several where [[John Eastman|Eastman]] acknowledges that his legal 'theories' are bunk, yet he continues with them. These moments, where [[John Eastman|Eastman]] acknowledges the threadbare line of his legal arguments, as well as the times he counsels **secrecy** and and acting *preemptorily*, without sanction (the old "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" defense) all point to his _mens rea_ : he knows he's acting illegally, that he **knows** what he was doing was both unethical, and llegal, but his **goal** had overcome his **moral scruples** and professional ethics. Like I said before, I'm glad he is now **disgraced** and has been disbarred, or will be shortly.
[^52]: Jacob kept notes, and submitted a memo to Pence about [[Eastman]]'s plan. See https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22058340-greg-jacob-jan-5-memo for the actual memo and [# Pence-world’s final takedown of Trump’s Jan. 6 bid to remain in power revealed in his lawyer’s memo](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/11/pence-trump-jan-6-lawyer-memo-00038996) for a news article on his testimony before the [[Jan 6th Select Committee]], sepcfically where it says : '[In the three-page document](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22058340-greg-jacob-jan-5-memo), attorney Greg Jacob concluded that if Pence were to embrace Trump’s demand that he single-handedly block or delay the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, he would be breaking multiple provisions of the Electoral Count Act, the law that has governed the transfer of power since 1887.' This memo was basically what pushed Pence over the edge to say 'no' to Trump.
[^53]: The fact that no one from the WH Counsel's office enforces the claim that this is a **private** meeting with the participants acting in **private** capacities as **office seekers**, and not **office holders**. This rebuts the _presumption of immunity_.
[^54]: Neither of these two options is legal, [[John Eastman|Eastman]] knows this, because he's already admitted it to [[Eric Herschmann]]
[^55]: The work that [[Steve Bannon|Bannon]] was doing was seminal to the plan because it was the basis upon which the mob that would subsequently storm the capitol got their idea that, somehow, [[Mike Pence|Pence]] had betrayed Trump (and them), by not doing so.
[^56]: Who both lost
[^57]: [[Stochastic Terrorism]]
[^58]: See p27 of brief, passim. Also see, in this document, footnote [^7]
[^59]: His claims were rejected. See [[Trump v Kemp]] for the details of the arguments and decision in this appeal.
[^60]: this man's mendacity (and lack of self-awareness) is beyond measure!
[^61]: You'd think that would be the end of it. But these liars can't stop!
[^62]: That is, **completely outside** the normal method these things are done
[^63]: As he, [[Eastman]], [[Boris Epshteyn|Epshteyn]], [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] all knew, this claim is utterly false.
[^64]: [[Stochastic Terrorism]], which, we'll see, plays a big role in the next part of this drama
[^65]: for the umpteenth time
[^66]: Important, because it shows Trump lying about the events of that day
[^67]: Aside from being a bald-faced lie, this helps set up the [[Betrayal Narrative]] that Trump will use the next day, setting up the storming of the capitol.
[^68]: 1) Well, he's partly right, if [[Mike Pence|Pence]] acts illegally, they may **gain** the presidency, but he won't have **won** it; 2) this is utterly false, as we seen in the previous section and acknowledged by [[John Eastman]], no state legislature had asked for their elector slates to be sent back, and 3) utterly false, as Trump has been informed many, many time.
[^69]: all claims about the states wanting to correct the slates are false, and Trump knows this. The last sentence is Trump, ratcheting up the pressure
[^70]: This is probably Sen [[Ron Johnson]]
[^71]: This is an important bit of evidence here, because the **only way** slates of electors are delivered to the President of the Senate, [[Mike Pence]], in this case, is *through the Archivist of the United States*. Hand delivering them is illegal.
[^72]: Thereby setting in motion the **last** act of his months long campaign of deceit and manipulation the entire intent of which was to stay in power illegally
[^73]: Nothing [[Rudy Giuliani]] was true, he was lying form the first word out of his mouth to the last. And, as a final touch, inflaming the crowd with violent rhetoric. More [[Stochastic Terrorism]], a la Team Trump
[^74]: Trump **knew** that each and every one of these claims was false.
[^75]: Aside from Trump **knowing this claim is false**, by this point, Trump knows that Pence is not going to do what he's suggesting here, so the only purpose for those lines is to inflame the crowd.
[^76]: Trump is very clever here (in the sense that malignant narcissists are clever): he put the onus of action on the crowd, linking, in their minds Pence's decision to the fervency of their feelings. so much as saying 'If you believe enough, if you chant loud enough, and you make your will known sufficiently clearly, Pence has no choice but to do *your* bidding!
[^77]: Again, the emotional implication is that the spur to Pence doing the right thing lies in the hands of the crowd.
[^78]: In for a penny, in for a pound. Trump already knows Pence isn't going to do what he wants. Trump's **sole purpose** here is to generate rage. [[Stochastic Terrorism]]
[^79]: Well, he was certainly right about that!
[^80]: I have several right-wing acquaintances say that Trump did not intend for this mob to **invade** the Capitol. It's hard to square that claim in the light of the incendiary nature of [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]'s, [[John Eastman|Eastman]]'s and Trump's speech. Particularly when the crowd is shouting back at Trump "Invade the Capitol"
[^81]: According to ChatGPT and Wikipedia, the police cordon around the Capitol was breached at 12:53 (**before Trump had finished his remarks**), and the building itself at 2:06. Trump's pathetic attempt to control the riot by tweeting 'Stay peaceful' was sent at 2:38. [[Ashli Babbitt]] was shot and killed while trying to break into the Speakers private chambers at 2:44, 6 minutes later, so Trump's tweet was powerful as a fart in a gail.
[^82]: Wikipedia (previous footnote), gives 2:06 as the time of entry. and the National Security Archive gives 2:00 pm as the time of entry. See [[URLs to Use in Jack Smith's Immunity Brief#Timeline of the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol|Timeline of the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol]]
[^83]: "**Where the fuck they at? Where are they counting the votes? Why are you protecting them? You're a fucking traitor!**" _res ipsa locquitur_
[^84]: There is a footnote to this line in the brief, making reference to a federal case: United States v. Hale-Cusanelli. Hale-Cusanelli was one of the people who broke into the capitol. The document referenced, ECF 89, pp 38-39. In this section Daniel Schwager, the person in charge of controlling the ballots used in the certification process, is testifying to the events of Jan 6, particularly to the movement of these boxes. The point here is that those boxes had to be controlled, and moved, because of the riot. This is an **obstruction** of the Government's buisiness.
[^85]: Which we **know** Trump is watching in the White House dining room
[^86]: As we'll soon see, this is the time Trump issued the **infamous** tweet.
[^87]: Trump **knows** that rioters have entered the capitol, because Fox News has just showed reported it.
[^88]: Identified as [[Rachel Powell]]], _Bullhorn Lady_ and _Pink Hat Lady_. She has a sad, but instructive life arch. See linked file.
[^89]: Like all **malignant narcissists**, it's never their fault, it's **always** someone else's!
[^90]: This is probably where [[Ashli Babbitt]] was shot and killed.
[^91]: And as recently as Oct 17, 2024 Trump called Jan 6 a 'day of love' [Trump calls 6 January 'day of love' when asked about Capitol riot](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgnxej1dn0o?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_link_origin=BBCWorld&at_medium=social&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_type=web_link&at_format=link&at_link_id=9631D1D0-8C81-11EF-B0CF-E1A0F20C8454&at_campaign_type=owned) Before that, on May 10, 2023, he called it a 'beautify day' [Trump Says Capitol Rioters Had 'Love In Their Heart:' Jan 6 A 'Beautiful Day'](https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/05/32331989/trump-says-capitol-rioters-had-love-in-their-heart-jan-6-a-beautiful-day)
[^92]: [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]] is lying in this voicemail: we know that **no legislatures** wanted their slates back and **none** of them wanted the slates to be returned to them.