Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Trump-Backed Conspiracy Theorist Vies to Take Over Arizona Elections

      by

      PHOENIX — This spring, Mark Finchem traveled to Mar-a-Lago for the premiere of a documentary advancing the specious notion that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from President Donald J. Trump by an army of leftists stuffing drop boxes with absentee ballots. As a state representative and candidate for secretary of state in Arizona, Mr. Finchem was a minnow among the assembled MAGA stars, the likes of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.But he still got his face time.“President Trump took 20 minutes with me,” Mr. Finchem later recounted during a campaign stop. “And he said: ‘I want you to understand something. The Arizona secretary of state race is the most important race in the United States.’”Arizona, of course, occupies a special place on Mr. Trump’s map of election indignities — as the onetime Republican stronghold where President Biden’s narrow and crucial victory was first called by, of all networks, Fox News. Should Mr. Trump run again in 2024, a friendly secretary of state, as administrator of the state’s elections, could be in a position to help him avoid a repeat.Now, as Arizona prepares for its primaries on Tuesday, Mr. Finchem is the candidate of a Trump-backed America First coalition of more than a dozen 2020 election deniers who have sought once-obscure secretary of state posts across the country. While most of them have been considered extremist long shots, a recent poll gave Mr. Finchem an edge in Arizona’s four-way Republican race, though a significant majority of voters are undecided.Mr. Finchem’s campaign pronouncements are testament to the evolution of the “Stop the Steal” movement: It is as much about influencing future elections as it is about what happened in 2020.Mark Finchem, a proponent of the “Stop the Steal” narrative, appeared with former President Donald J. Trump at a rally this past month in Prescott Valley, Ariz.Ash Ponders for The New York TimesTo that end, Mr. Finchem, who has identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers militia in the past, may be the perfectly subversive candidate. Like his America First compatriots, he seeks, quite simply, to upend voting.He wants to ban early voting and sharply restrict mail-in ballots, even though the latter were widely popular in Arizona long before the pandemic. He is already suing to suspend the use of all electronic vote-counting machines in Arizona, in litigation bankrolled by the conspiracy theorist and pillow tycoon Mike Lindell. And he has co-sponsored a bill that would give the state’s Republican-led legislature authority to overturn election results.If he loses his own race, Mr. Finchem told a June fund-raiser, “ain’t gonna be no concession speech coming from this guy.”Mr. Finchem did not respond to requests for comment for this article, and one of his lawyers declined to comment. But in a May email he assured Republican supporters that if he had been in office in 2020, “we would have won. Plain and simple.” In the days after the election, he was co-host of an unofficial hearing at a downtown Phoenix hotel where Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, aired bogus stolen-elections claims. He was instrumental in trying to advance a slate of fake Trump electors in Arizona — part of a scheme to overturn the elections in a number of states that is being investigated by the Justice Department — and he is helping gather signatures to petition to decertify the state’s election results, even though that is not legally possible.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      2016 Campaign Looms Large as Justice Dept. Pursues Jan. 6 Inquiry

      by

      Top officials at the department and the F.B.I. appear intent on avoiding any errors that could taint the current investigation or provide ammunition for a backlash.As the Justice Department investigation into the attack on the Capitol grinds ever closer to former President Donald J. Trump, it has prompted persistent — and cautionary — reminders of the backlash caused by inquiries into Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is intent on avoiding even the slightest errors, which could taint the current investigation, provide Mr. Trump’s defenders with reasons to claim the inquiry was driven by animus, or undo his effort to rehabilitate the department’s reputation after the political warfare of the Trump years.Mr. Garland never seriously considered focusing on Mr. Trump from the outset, as investigators had done earlier with Mr. Trump and with Mrs. Clinton during her email investigation, people close to him say.As a result, his investigators have taken a more methodical approach, carefully climbing up the chain of personnel behind the 2020 plan to name fake slates of Trump electors in battleground states that had been won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.That has now led them to Mr. Trump and his innermost circle: Justice Department lawyers are questioning witnesses directly about the actions of Mr. Trump and top advisers like his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, appears to be proceeding with caution in hopes of armoring the bureau against future attacks by making sure his agents operate by the book. Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAs prosecutors delve deeper into Mr. Trump’s orbit, the former president and his allies in Congress will almost certainly accuse the Justice Department and F.B.I. of a politically motivated witch hunt.The template for those attacks, as Mr. Garland and the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, well know, was “Crossfire Hurricane,” the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia, which Mr. Trump continues to dismiss as a partisan hoax.The mistakes and decisions from that period, in part, led to increased layers of oversight, including a major policy change at the Justice Department. If a decision were made to open a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump after he announced his intention to run in the 2024 election, as he suggests he might do, the department’s leaders would have to sign off on any inquiry under an internal rule established by Attorney General William P. Barr and endorsed by Mr. Garland.“Attorney General Garland and those investigating the high-level efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election are acutely aware of how any misstep, whether by the F.B.I. or prosecutors, will be amplified and used for political purposes,” said Mary B. McCord, a top Justice Department official during the Obama administration. “I expect there are added layers of review and scrutiny of every investigative step.”Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

    • 63 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      The Fake Electors Scheme, Explained

      by

      The plan to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election by creating slates of electors pledged to Donald Trump in states he had lost was expansive, long-running and often confusing.The brazen plan to create false slates of electors pledged to former President Donald J. Trump in seven swing states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. was arguably the longest-running and most expansive of the multiple efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.It was also one of the most confusing, involving a sprawling cast of pro-Trump lawyers, state Republican officials and White House aides in an effort that began before some states had even finished counting their ballots. It culminated in the campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the false slates to subvert congressional certification of the outcome on Jan. 6, 2021 — and in the violent attack on the Capitol that unfolded as he refused to do so.The scheme had a vague historical precedent and was rooted, at least in theory, in a post-Reconstruction Era law designed to address how to handle disputed elections. But it was deemed illegal by Mr. Trump’s own White House Counsel’s Office. Even some of the lawyers who helped come up with the idea referred to it as fake and acknowledged that it was of dubious legality, according to a cache of email messages brought to light by The New York Times.The fake electors tactic caught the attention of state law enforcement officials around the beginning of this year, and soon became a focus of the inquiry being conducted by the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6.The plan has also figured prominently in an investigation that an Atlanta-area prosecutor is conducting into Mr. Trump’s alleged election meddling. And it is at the heart of the Justice Department’s own wide-ranging Jan. 6 inquiry.Here is a look at the plan: where it came from; how it was meant to work; the various inquiries it has now become a part of; and the ways in which it could serve to implicate Mr. Trump in criminal activity.Vice President Richard M. Nixon campaigned in Hilo, Hawaii, during the presidential race of 1960. A dispute over the outcome there was cited by Trump allies in developing slates of so-called alternate electors after the 2020 race.Associated PressHawaii, 1960, Provided the Template In one of the first legal memos laying out the details of the fake elector scheme, a pro-Trump lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro justified the plan by pointing to an odd episode in American history: a quarrel that took place in Hawaii during the 1960 presidential race between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.The results of the vote count in Hawaii remained in dispute — by about 100 ballots — even as a crucial deadline for the Electoral College to meet and cast its votes drew near. A recount was underway but it did not appear as though it would be completed by the time the Electoral College was expected to convene, on Dec. 19, 1960.(The winner of the popular vote in nearly all of the states is allocated all of that state’s electors, which are apportioned based on population. Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions; they allocate their electors based on the winners in congressional districts. To win the presidency, a candidate has to win a majority of the 538 total electoral votes.)Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Correos inéditos detallan el plan de Trump para seguir en el poder

      by

      Un intercambio de correos electrónicos entre algunos asesores externos y asistentes de la campaña de Trump ofrecen una nueva perspectiva de sus esfuerzos para anular las elecciones en las semanas previas al 6 de enero.Unos correos electrónicos que no habían sido divulgados ofrecen una mirada de los esfuerzos cada vez más desesperados, y a menudo descuidados, de los asesores del expresidente de Estados Unidos Donald Trump para revertir su derrota electoral en las semanas que antecedieron al ataque del 6 de enero, incluidos algunos mensajes que reconocían que algunos elementos cruciales de su plan eran de dudosa legalidad, al punto de que se les llegó a calificar como “falsos”.Decenas de correos electrónicos entre personas vinculadas a la campaña de Trump, asesores externos y aliados cercanos del expresidente muestran una atención especial en reunir listas de personas que, en su nombre, afirmarían —sin fundamento— ser electores en estados clave que Trump había perdido en el Colegio Electoral.En los correos electrónicos revisados por The New York Times y autentificados por personas que trabajaban con la campaña de Trump en ese momento, un abogado que participó en las conversaciones usó en repetidas ocasiones la palabra “falsos” para referirse a los supuestos electores, que pretendían proveer una justificación al vicepresidente Mike Pence y a los aliados de Trump en el Congreso para entorpecer el proceso de certificación del resultado electoral. Y los abogados que trabajaron en la propuesta dejaron claro que sabían que era posible que los electores pro-Trump que estaban presentando no resistirían el escrutinio legal.“Simplemente estaríamos enviando votos electorales ‘falsos’ a Pence para que ‘alguien’ en el Congreso pueda presentar una objeción cuando se empiecen contar los votos, y argumentar que los votos ‘falsos’ deben ser contados”, escribió Jack Wilenchik, un abogado con sede en Phoenix que ayudó a organizar a los votantes a favor de Trump en Arizona, en un correo que le envió a Boris Epshteyn, asesor estratégico de la campaña de Trump, el 8 de diciembre de 2020.En un correo electrónico de seguimiento, Wilenchik escribió que “votos ‘alternativos’ probablemente es un mejor término que votos ‘falsos’”, agregando un emoji de cara sonriente.Los correos brindan detalles inéditos sobre cómo un ala de la campaña de Trump trabajó con abogados y asesores externos para organizar un plan electoral y buscar una variedad de otras opciones, a menudo sin pensar en su practicidad. Un correo electrónico revela que muchos de los principales asesores de Trump fueron informados de los problemas que tenían para nombrar a los votantes de Trump en Michigan —un estado que había perdido—, porque las normas pandémicas habían forzado el cierre del edificio del Capitolio estatal, donde los supuestos electores se habrían reunido.Las comunicaciones muestran que los participantes en las discusiones informaron detalles de sus actividades a Rudolph Giuliani, el abogado personal de Trump y, en al menos un caso, a Mark Meadows, el jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca. Casi al mismo tiempo, según el comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero, Meadows envió un correo a otro asesor de campaña en el que advertía: “Solo necesitamos a alguien que coordine a los votantes de los estados”.Muchos de los correos electrónicos están dirigidos a Epshteyn, quien coordinaba a las personas dentro y fuera de la campaña de Trump y la Casa Blanca y sigue siendo un colaborador cercano de Trump.Epshteyn, según muestran los correos, era un contacto usual para John Eastman, el abogado que diseñó el plan adoptado por Trump para entorpecer la certificación del resultado del Colegio Electoral en el Congreso el 6 de enero de 2021.Epshteyn no solo le presentó y envió a Giuliani la propuesta detallada para el 6 de enero que Eastman preparó, sino que también se encargó de cómo pagarle a Eastman e hizo los arreglos necesarios para que asistiera a la Casa Blanca el 4 de enero de 2021, según los correos electrónicos.Ese fue el día de la reunión en el Despacho Oval en la que Trump y Eastman presionaron sin éxito a Pence para que adoptara el plan, un intercambio del que fueron testigos los dos principales asesores de Pence, Marc Short y Greg Jacob, quienes testificaron la semana pasada frente al jurado federal que investiga el asalto al Capitolio, y las decisiones que provocaron ese incidente.Los correos destacan la actuación de Mike Roman, director de operaciones del día de las elecciones para la campaña de Trump, quien se encargó de buena parte del trabajo preliminar para encontrar las formas de desafiar las derrotas de Trump en los estados clave.Epshteyn y Roman estuvieron en coordinación con otras personas que tuvieron un rol en asesorar a Trump, según muestran los correos electrónicos. Entre esas personas estaban los abogados Jenna Ellis y Bruce Marks; Gary Michael Brown, quien fue subdirector de operaciones del día de las elecciones para la campaña de Trump, y Christina Bobb, quien en ese momento trabajaba para One America News Network y ahora trabaja con el comité de acción política de Trump.Al parecer, los correos electrónicos no se compartieron con los abogados de la Oficina del Abogado de la Casa Blanca, quienes informaron que el plan de “electores falsos” no era sólido legalmente, ni con otros abogados en la campaña.Algunos de los involucrados también expresaron en los correos electrónicos su anuencia para mantener algunas de sus actividades fuera del ojo público.Por ejemplo, después de que Trump recibió a los legisladores del estado de Pensilvania en la Casa Blanca a finales de noviembre para discutir la restitución del resultado de las elecciones, Epshteyn celebró cuando la noticia del encuentro no fue filtrada con rapidez. “La reunión en la CB no se ha hecho pública, lo cual es impactante y grandioso”, le escribió a Ellis.Jenna Ellis, a la izquierda, Rudolph Giuliani y Boris Epshteyn, a la derecha, participaron en el esfuerzo coordinado para anular el resultado de las elecciones de 2020.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersEl 8 de diciembre de 2020, Wilenchik escribió que Kelli Ward, una de las republicanas de Arizona que participaron en el plan de los electores falsos, recomendó tratar de “mantenerlo en secreto hasta que el Congreso cuente los votos el 6 de enero (para que podamos intentar ‘sorprender’ a los demócratas y a los medios con eso), y me inclino a estar de acuerdo con ella”.Epshteyn, Wilenchik, Roman, Eastman, Bobb y James Troupis, otro abogado involucrado en el plan, se negaron a comentar o no respondieron a los correos electrónicos o llamadas para solicitar sus comentarios.Marks, en un correo electrónico, cuestionó que hubiera algo inapropiado o indebido en su trabajo.“No creo que haya nada ‘falso’ o ilegal en las listas alternas de delegados, y particularmente en Pensilvania”, dijo. “Había un historial de listas electorales alternativas en Hawái en 1960. Nada sobre esto era secreto: se proporcionaron a los Archivos Nacionales, según entiendo que fue el procedimiento, y luego le correspondía al Congreso decidir qué hacer”.Marks agregó: “No estuve involucrado con el consejo del profesor Eastman con respecto al papel del vicepresidente, del cual me enteré después del hecho y no respaldo”.El comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero al Capitolio ha recopilado pruebas de que Trump tenía conocimiento del plan sobre los electores. Ronna McDaniel, la presidenta del Comité Nacional Republicano (CNR), dijo en una declaración que Trump la había llamado y puso a Eastman al teléfono “para hablar de la importancia de que el CNR ayude a la campaña para reunir a estos electores contingentes”.El panel también escuchó el testimonio de Jacob, quien fue abogado de Pence en la Casa Blanca, quien indicó que Eastman reconoció en la reunión del Despacho Oval del 4 de enero —donde Trump estaba presente— que su plan de que Pence obstaculizara la certificación electoral violaba la Ley de Conteo Electoral.En ocasiones, los correos electrónicos muestran poca precisión en las conversaciones entre los abogados. Marks se refirió en repetidas ocasiones a Cleta Mitchell, otra abogada que ayudaba a Trump, como “Clita” y “Clavita”, lo que ocasionó que Epshteyn replicara: “Es Cleta, no Clavita”.En otra ocasión, Epshteyn le escribió a Marks: “¿Cuando dices Nevada quieres decir Arizona???”.Para principios de diciembre, Epshteyn parecía estar ayudando a coordinar los esfuerzos, al deliberar repetidamente con Marks y otros. Wilenchik le dijo a sus colegas abogados que había estado discutiendo una idea propuesta por otro abogado que trabajaba con la campaña, Kenneth Chesebro, un aliado de Eastman, para enviar listas de electores leales a Trump.“Su idea básicamente es que todos nosotros (Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pensilvania), hagamos que nuestros electores envíen sus votos (aunque los votos no son legales bajo la ley federal, porque no están firmados por el gobernador), de modo que los integrantes del Congreso se peleen sobre si deben contarse el 6 de enero”, escribió Wilenchik en un correo electrónico enviado a Epshteyn y a otras personas, el 8 de diciembre de 2020.“Medio loco/creativo, me encantaría conversarlo”, continuó Wilenchick. “Lo que le comentó fue que supongo que no hace daño, (al menos legalmente), es decir, solo estaríamos enviando votos electorales ‘falsos’ a Pence para que ‘alguien’ en el Congreso pueda presentar una objeción cuando empiecen a contarse los votos y empiecen a defender que los votos ‘falsos’ deben contarse”.Seguidores del presidente Donald Trump protestaron en Phoenix dos días después del día de las elecciones. Arizona fue uno de los estados escogidos para el esquema de falsos electores.Adriana Zehbrauskas para The New York TimesAl organizar el esquema de falsos electores, los abogados nombraron a una “persona de enlace” en siete estados para organizar a los electores dispuestos a firmar documentos falsos. En Pensilvania, ese enlace era Douglas V. Mastriano, quien ahora es el nominado republicano a la gubernatura y fue partidario de las mentiras de Trump sobre el robo de las elecciones.Pero incluso Mastriano exigía garantías para seguir el plan que otros republicanos le decían era “ilegal”, según un correo electrónico enviado por Bobb que también apuntaba a Giuliani, exalcalde de la Ciudad de Nueva York, el 12 de diciembre.“Mastriano necesita una llamada del alcalde. Hay que hacerlo. Hablarle de la legalidad de lo que están haciendo”, escribió. Y añadió: “Los electores quieren que los tranquilicen de que el proceso es * legal * y esencial para la estrategía general”.Los correos mostraban que, al principio, el grupo esperaba que las legislaturas estatales republicanas o los gobernadores se unieran a sus planes para darles un sello de legitimidad. Pero para diciembre, estaba claro que ninguna autoridad iba a aceptar participar, así que los abogados de Trump se propusieron presionar a Pence, quien debía presidir una sesión conjunta del Congreso el 6 de enero.El 7 de diciembre, Troupis, que trabajaba para la campaña de Trump en Wisconsin, le escribió a Epshteyn que no había “necesidad de que los legisladores actuaran”. Invocó el análisis jurídico de Chesebro de que la clave para las esperanzas de Trump no era bloquear la certificación estatal de los electores el 14 de diciembre, sino crear un motivo para que Pence bloqueara o dilatara la certificación del Congreso de los resultados del Colegio Electoral el 6 de enero.“La segunda lista solo se presenta al mediodía del lunes y vota y luego transmite los resultados”, escribió Troupis sobre la organización de las listas de electores republicanos para que emitieran votos por Trump el 14 de diciembre. “Le corresponde a Pence abrirlos el 6 de enero. Nuestra estrategia, que pensamos se puede replicar en los 6 estados en disputa, es que los electores se reúnan y voten de modo que una decisión interina de una corte certifique a Trump como ganador pueda ejecutarse por la corte y ordenar al gobernador que emita lo necesario para nombrar a los electores. La clave sería que los seis estados lo hagan de modo que la elección siga en duda hasta enero”.Los documentos también mostraron que el equipo legal se había apoyado en información muy desacreditada para los reclamos de fraude electoral. El 17 de diciembre, Epshteyn escribió a Giuliani que un documento de fraude electoral creado por el asesor de Trump en materia de comercio, Peter Navarro — que ha sido desacreditado por informes periodísticos, funcionarios estatales y tribunales— “parece ser el resumen más completo de fraude de votantes de esta temporada electoral”.Los abogados estaban conscientes de que sus esfuerzos jurídicos eran motivo de sorna El 23 de diciembre, Marks escribió: “A ustedes los están matando en los medios por su estrategia de litigio, incluso en Fox y entre los conservadores”.Pero no se amilanaron.Para la víspera de Navidad, Eastman parecía querer aprovechar el poder de los millones de seguidores de Trump.Esa noche, a las 8:04 p. m. Eastman le envió a Epshteyn un correo electrónico que había recibido en el que una mujer le rogaba pedirle a Trump que “le dijera a sus 74 millones de seguidores lo que quiere que hagan para ayudar”. Y añadió: “Tenemos que ser una sola voz, con precisión láser, EXPRESÁNDOSE CON LA FUERZA DE 74 MILLONES”.Un video de John Eastman, a la izquierda, acogiéndose a la Quinta Enmienda durante una declaración ante el comité de la Cámara el 6 de enero.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn su correo electrónico a Epshteyn, Eastman escribió, “Pensé en reenviarte esto. La fuerza de 74 millones. Averigüemos un modo específico de desplegarlos. ¿Estruendo vibrante? ¿Una legislatura a la vez? Los demás podrían darse cuenta”.Días antes, Trump les había dicho a sus seguidores que fueran a Washington el 6 de enero para una “protesta” que prometía sería “salvaje”.El 27 de diciembre, Epshteyn escribió que a Trump le “gustaba” el enfoque agresivo que proponían los abogados y que Eastman sería el “rostro de la estrategia de medios” junto con Giuliani.“Necesitamos una voz allá”, escribió Epshteyn sobre Eastman, diciendo que a él “ya lo había dado a conocer/apoyado POTUS”.En ese momento, solo faltaban días para el 6 de enero.Maggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y formó parte de un equipo que ganó un Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores de Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. @maggieNYTLuke Broadwater cubre el Congreso de Estados Unidos. Fue el reportero principal de una serie de artículos de investigación en The Baltimore Sun que ganó un premio Pulitzer y un premio George Polk en 2020. @lukebroadwater More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Justice Dept. Asking Witnesses About Trump in Its Jan. 6 Investigation

      by

      Federal prosecutors sought information about the former president’s role in the efforts to overturn the election as the inquiry accelerates.Federal prosecutors have directly asked witnesses in recent days about former President Donald J. Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse his election loss, a person familiar with the testimony said on Tuesday, suggesting that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has moved into a more aggressive and politically fraught phase.Mr. Trump’s personal role in elements of the push to overturn his loss in 2020 to Joseph R. Biden Jr. has long been established, both through his public actions and statements and evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.But the Justice Department has been largely silent about how and even whether it would weigh pursuing potential charges against Mr. Trump, and reluctant even to concede that his role was discussed in senior leadership meetings at the department.Asking questions about Mr. Trump in connection with the electors plot or the attack on the Capitol does not mean the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into him, a decision that would have immense political and legal ramifications.The department’s investigation into a central element of the push to keep Mr. Trump in office — the plan to name slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in battleground states won by Mr. Biden — now appears to be accelerating as prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington ask witnesses about Mr. Trump and members of his inner circle, including the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the person familiar with the testimony said.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Emails Reveal Details of Trump Fake Electors Plan

      by

      Previously undisclosed communications among Trump campaign aides and outside advisers provide new insight into their efforts to overturn the election in the weeks leading to Jan. 6.Previously undisclosed emails provide an inside look at the increasingly desperate and often slapdash efforts by advisers to President Donald J. Trump to reverse his election defeat in the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack, including acknowledgments that a key element of their plan was of dubious legality and lived up to its billing as “fake.”The dozens of emails among people connected to the Trump campaign, outside advisers and close associates of Mr. Trump show a particular focus on assembling lists of people who would claim — with no basis — to be Electoral College electors on his behalf in battleground states that he had lost.In emails reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who had worked with the Trump campaign at the time, one lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called electors, who were intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome. And lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny.“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,” Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign.In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” adding a smiley face emoji.The emails provide new details of how a wing of the Trump campaign worked with outside lawyers and advisers to organize the elector plan and pursue a range of other options, often with little thought to their practicality. One email showed that many of Mr. Trump’s top advisers were informed of problems naming Trump electors in Michigan — a state he had lost — because pandemic rules had closed the state Capitol building where the so-called electors had to gather.The emails show that participants in the discussions reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and in at least one case to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. Around the same time, according to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, Mr. Meadows emailed another campaign adviser saying, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.”Many of the emails went to Mr. Epshteyn, who was acting as a coordinator for people inside and outside the Trump campaign and the White House and remains a close aide to Mr. Trump.Mr. Epshteyn, the emails show, was a regular point of contact for John Eastman, the lawyer whose plan for derailing congressional certification of the Electoral College result on Jan. 6, 2021, was embraced by Mr. Trump.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      What in the World Happened to Elise Stefanik?

      by

      There was a time in 2016 when Elise Stefanik, now the third-ranking Republican in the House, was so disgusted by Donald Trump, she would barely mention his name. Today he proudly refers to her as “one of my killers.”She proved that again last month. In an effort to undermine confidence in the select committee investigating the violent assault on the Capitol, Ms. Stefanik said, “This is not a serious investigation. This is a partisan political witch hunt.” The committee, she said, is “illegitimate.” The hearings did not change her mind. In mid-July, before the final session planned for the summer, she referred to the committee as a “sham” and declared that “it is way worse than the impeachment witch hunt parts one and two.”Maybe Ms. Stefanik was continuing to discredit the House committee because the evidence it has produced from Trump insiders — and the compelling way the evidence has been presented — has inflicted staggering damage on Mr. Trump, even though it might not prevent him from winning the Republican presidential nomination for a third straight time. Ms. Stefanik has failed in her efforts to sabotage the committee, but it’s not for lack of trying.Ms. Stefanik’s fealty to Mr. Trump is so great that some of his advisers are mentioning her as a potential vice-presidential candidate if he runs in 2024, which he and his advisers are strongly hinting he will do.The transformation of Ms. Stefanik, who is 38, is among the most dramatic and significant in American politics. Her political conversion is a source of sadness and anger for several people I spoke to who were colleagues of hers — as I was in the White House of George W. Bush although I did not work with her directly — and who were, unlike me, once close to her. To them, Ms. Stefanik’s story is of a person who betrayed her principles and her country in a manic quest for power.Born in upstate New York, Ms. Stefanik graduated from Albany Academy for Girls and Harvard, after which she joined the Bush administration as a staff member for the Domestic Policy Council and later in the office of the White House chief of staff. She worked for the 2012 presidential campaign of Tim Pawlenty before overseeing debate preparation for the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Paul Ryan.Ms. Stefanik was elected to the House of Representatives in 2014, becoming at the time the youngest woman elected to Congress. In January 2017, Ms. Stefanik became a co-chair of the Tuesday Group, made up of moderate Republicans who served as a counterbalance to the right-wing Freedom Caucus, which was co-founded two years earlier by Mark Meadows, who later became chief of staff to Mr. Trump when he was president. At the time, Ms. Stefanik was viewed as pragmatic and highly competent, a member of the establishment wing of the Republican Party and a person Democrats felt they could do business with.But within a matter of a few years, all that changed, with Ms. Stefanik referring to herself as “ultra-MAGA and proud of it.” Because of her previous beliefs, she had to reassure Trump supporters. So last year she appeared on the podcast of the right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon, a popular figure with the Republican base who served as Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, to make her case to replace Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference. Ms. Stefanik was supported in her effort to supplant Ms. Cheney by Mr. Trump, who issued a statement giving his “complete and total endorsement” to Ms. Stefanik. And understandably so. She voted to invalidate the 2020 election and has repeated his false claims about election fraud.I spoke to several people who have worked with Ms. Stefanik over the years — some who were willing to speak on the record, others who insisted on anonymity so that they could speak candidly to help me understand what had happened to her and what her rise to power and celebrity status says about the modern-day Republican Party.Those who know Ms. Stefanik well consider her smart and talented but hollow at the core. She is an individual of “ambition unmoored to principle,” as Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican who served in Congress with Ms. Stefanik, told me.Margaret Hoover, the host of “Firing Line,” who worked in the Bush administration with Ms. Stefanik and was consulted by her before her run for Congress in 2014, described her as a person of “sheer ambition and not principled at all.” Another Republican — a former member of Congress who served with Ms. Stefanik and worked closely with her — also spoke to me of her towering ambition, invoking Icarus, the Greek mythological character. “She’s flying too close to the sun,” said this person, who requested anonymity in order to speak openly about her transformation.People who worked with Ms. Stefanik say that during the 2016 campaign, her reaction to Mr. Trump was quite negative and that she was particularly disgusted by his attitude toward women. She considered Mr. Trump’s comments on the “Access Hollywood” tape sickening — and like many others, she assumed he would lose the election. He didn’t, of course, and Ms. Stefanik, like so many other Republicans, began the process of accommodation. Soon hers would be complete.When the Republican Party was a George W. Bush party, she was a Bush Republican. When the Republican Party became a Trump party, she was a Trump Republican. Former colleagues of hers will tell you she meant it then and she means it now. She’s a person who takes her views from the place she finds herself — and the place she finds herself today is in a pro-Trump district and in a thoroughly Trumpified party.Several people I spoke to about Ms. Stefanik mentioned a couple of key moments in her journey to MAGA world. The first was an August 2018 visit by Mr. Trump to Fort Drum, an Army base that has a substantial economic and political impact in New York’s 21st Congressional District, which she represents. The large crowd the president drew and the enthusiasm he generated registered with Ms. Stefanik, who welcomed him. “Elise stood in front of the MAGA Trump crowd and decided to shed her old self and follow instead of lead,” Ms. Comstock told me. “It was the beginning of the end.”But the most important inflection point was the first impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, in 2019. Ms. Stefanik accused Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the committee overseeing the impeachment trial, of trying to silence Republicans and clashed with the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie L. Yovanovitch, whose testimony about Mr. Trump was damning.Mr. Trump was thrilled by Ms. Stefanik’s performance; he called her a “new Republican star” on Twitter. Her life changed after that. She became much better known and was able to raise a lot of money from her new position and with her new posture.“She became a celebrity,” I was told by a Bush administration colleague of Ms. Stefanik’s who requested anonymity so this individual could speak freely about what is still a very sensitive subject. Until that point, this person said, “she hadn’t gotten fully on board the Trump train. Then she was put into first class, and she couldn’t get off. And first class is pretty plush.”I reached out twice to Ms. Stefanik’s communications director, seeking comment from the congresswoman, but received no response. Ms. Stefanik, in defending herself, has argued that she’s reflecting the views of a majority of the people in her district, and she is. Mr. Trump carried her district by 14 percentage points in 2016. “I represent farmers, manufacturers and hard-working families who want someone who stands up for them, and President Trump spoke to those people,” she told Mr. Bannon on his show.But even if you believe that the job of an elected representative is to vote according to the will of the voters rather than to owe voters one’s “judgment and conscience,” as the British parliamentarian and conservative political theorist Edmund Burke famously put it, at some point carrying out the will of the voters can become indefensible. That is certainly true if it requires a member of Congress to support a seditious president.Looking at what happened with Ms. Stefanik is sad and disturbing because people who know her say she knows better. She was willing to be shaped by circumstances, even when circumstances drove her to ugly places and to embrace conspiracy theories. Contrast this with Ms. Cheney, who was stripped of her position in the Republican leadership and replaced by Ms. Stefanik. Ms. Cheney represents the people of Wyoming on many issues that are important to them, but she drew a line when it came to a fundamental attack on our democracy. She wouldn’t cross that line. Ms. Stefanik did.Ms. Stefanik’s story is important in part because it mirrors that of so many other Republicans. They, like Ms. Stefanik, are opportunists, living completely in the moment, shifting their personas to advance their immediate political self-interests. A commitment to ethical conduct, a devotion to the common good and fidelity to truth appear to have no intrinsic worth to them. These qualities are mere instrumentalities, used when helpful but discarded when inconvenient.The politicians and former Bush administration officials I spoke to were worried that Republicans in Congress will conclude that Ms. Stefanik’s path to power is the one to emulate. The fast track to leadership is to enlist figures like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bannon and what one of my interlocutors called “the army of the base,” made up as it is of QAnon followers, Christian nationalists, right-wing talk radio aficionados and those who are determined to overturn elections.The Bush administration figure who worked with Ms. Stefanik told me that her move into MAGA-dom was illustrative because it was representative of a larger problem. “In isolation, Elise is not a particular malefactor. She’s more a symptom than a disease.” But, this individual said, she and other Republicans “could have made a difference if they had had collective courage.”They could have made the case against Mr. Trump’s malicious and unconstitutional conduct. They could have attempted to mold the sentiments of the Republican base in a healthy direction. But they refused.Never mind Ms. Stefanik. “I affix a lot of the blame on the dozens and dozens of Republican leaders who acquiesced in what they knew to be wrong,” this person said.During the Trump era, we saw a profound failure of leadership among Republican lawmakers when it came to calming down inflamed populist passions.Wise observers of politics have told me that what leadership does in a populist moment like ours is to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate grievances. Leaders speak to legitimate grievances and channel them in constructive ways through policies. Demagogues elevate illegitimate grievances and speak to them in reckless ways. In populist times, good leaders tamp down on the bad and elevate the good. Ms. Stefanik and many, many others chose to elevate the worst.This has inflicted a grave cost on the political profession, making Americans even more cynical about the whole political enterprise. I hate to think about the message it sends younger people who are thinking about running for office.Someone who takes the route to power Ms. Stefanik has chosen “degrades and demeans public service,” Ms. Hoover told me. “Anyone who cares about our political system should find what she’s done so deeply offensive. We deserve better. Our country deserves better, and those who came before us deserve better.”At the end of my conversation with Ms. Comstock, I asked for her assessment of the game Ms. Stefanik is playing.“I do believe this catches up with people,” she said. “There might be what appears as a short-term benefit, but situations like this often spectacularly fail.”“I don’t view Elise’s story as a success story,” she added. “It won’t end well. Stories like this never do.”Peter Wehner (@Peter_Wehner) — a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum who served in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — is a contributing Opinion writer and the author of “The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Marc Short Testifies to Grand Jury in Jan. 6 Investigation

      by

      Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Greg Jacob, a lawyer for Mr. Pence, were subpoenaed in the Justice Department’s expanding criminal inquiry.Two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence testified last week to a federal grand jury in Washington investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the highest-ranking officials of the Trump administration so far known to have cooperated with the Justice Department’s widening inquiry into the events leading up to the assault.The appearances before the grand jury of the men — Marc Short, who was Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, who was his counsel — were the latest indication that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the events surrounding and preceding the riot is intensifying after weeks of growing questions about the urgency the department has put on examining former President Donald J. Trump’s potential criminal liability.The testimony of the two Pence aides marked the first time it has become publicly known that figures with firsthand knowledge of what took place inside the White House in the tumultuous days before the attack have cooperated with federal prosecutors.Both Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob played important roles in describing to a House select committee conducting a parallel investigation of the Capitol attack how Mr. Trump, working with allies like the lawyer John Eastman, mounted a campaign to pressure Mr. Pence into disrupting the normal counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, as part of an effort to keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Short’s testimony was confirmed by two people familiar with it, as was Mr. Jacob’s.The Justice Department has at times appeared to be lagging behind the House select committee, which has spoken to more than 1,000 witnesses, including some from inside the Trump White House. Much of that testimony has been highlighted at a series of public hearings over the past two months.It remains unclear precisely what Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob told the grand jury or what questions prosecutors may have asked them. But both previously gave recorded and transcribed interviews to the House committee, and Mr. Jacob served as a live witness at one of the panel’s public hearings that focused on the effort to strong-arm Mr. Pence.Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob were present in the Oval Office for a meeting on Jan. 4, 2021, at which Mr. Trump had Mr. Eastman try to persuade Mr. Pence that he could delay or block congressional certification of Mr. Trump’s Electoral College defeat.Mr. Eastman’s plan relied on Mr. Pence being willing to accept, as he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, that there were disputes over the validity of electors whose votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. had already been certified by the states — a baseless assertion that had been promoted by a number of Trump allies in the previous weeks as a last-ditch way to help keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Pence ultimately rejected Mr. Trump’s pressure on him to go along. But the so-called fake electors proposal has been one of the primary lines of inquiry to have become public in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation.Mr. Short also provided the House committee with testimony that highlighted the sense of threat that built from Mr. Trump’s efforts to derail the congressional proceedings on Jan. 6.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More