Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue provided details to the Select Committee about his first meeting with President Trump on December 15th, the day following Barr's resignation. Donoghue said this meeting was primarily focused on the ASOG report auditing the voting machines in Michigan. Trump was adamant that it proved that the election was defective and the Department should be using that report to tell the American people that the election results were not trustworthy. These episod...
Feb 21, 2023•5 min
On December 14, 2020, Attorney General Barr submitted his resignation to President Trump. This section provides details about the reason why Barr turned in his resignation and his final Oval Office meeting with President Trump. Before Barr resigned, Trump pressed him to continue to investigate in Michigan after the Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG) released a report on Dominion voting machines in Antrim County. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find val...
Feb 20, 2023•4 min
After President Trump attacked the DOJ, Attorney General Barr decided to speak out. He invited an Associated Press reporter to lunch on December 1st. Barr told the journalist that the department had not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election. Trump called Barr into the Oval Office and the Attorney General offered his resignation. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find value in the effort to provide an open and avail...
Feb 17, 2023•12 min
On November 23rd, the Attorney General was called to the White House to meet with President Trump. President Trump didn't feel the Department of Justice was doing enough to investigate his election fraud claims. Barr explained to the President why he was wrong. DOJ, was willing to investigate any specific and credible allegations of fraud. The fact of the matter was that the claims being made had no merit upon further investigation. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model -...
Feb 16, 2023•6 min
Note: This is the first section of Chapter 4. Unlike the previous three chapters, Chapter 4 does not have an introduction. U.S. Attorney General William Barr knew there would be trouble before all the votes had been counted. As was expected, the early vote tally favored Republicans on election night because the mail-in ballots were not yet fully counted. This occurred in 2020 and in previous elections. The President knew of this phenomenon but exploited it on election night, as he and his allies...
Feb 15, 2023•5 min
As January 6th approached, there were members of the Republican party who expressed grave concerns about the fake elector effort. It was becoming clear that the Trump team wanted the fake electors’ votes to be considered on January 6th even without authorization the states. This section describes some of the last moment attempts to deliver some of the fake elector documents to Vice President Mike Pence shortly before the joint session of Congress. These episodes are created based on the value-fo...
Feb 14, 2023•12 min
On December 14th, using instructions provided by Kenneth Chesebro, the fake Trump electors gathered and participated in signing ceremonies in all seven States. All seven of these invalid sets of electoral votes were then transmitted to Washington, DC. This section describes how some were encouraged to maintain secrecy or even hide overnight to try and legally be in the proper place to sign the faked documents. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find value in t...
Feb 13, 2023•6 min
Not all of the Republican electoral college nominees were on board with the fake elector plan. Some expressed that they had been misled by the Trump team, while others had deep concerns and went ahead with the plan anyway. This section recognizes more than a dozen people who dropped out from participating in the plan. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find value in the effort to provide an open and available reading of this document, please support the podcas...
Feb 10, 2023•6 min
Campaign lawyers as well as the Office of White House Counsel expressed concern over the plan to have fake electors submit their votes for President Trump. Legal staffers reduced their involvement in the fake elector effort when they felt there wasn't a feasible scenario where the courts could decide that President Trump actually won any of the States he contested. This section explains how Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro led the effort to organize the fake elector plan at the direction of Pr...
Feb 09, 2023•10 min
In early December, the Trump Campaign took note of Kenneth Chesebro’s fake elector plan and began to put it into action. In early December, Mark Meadows forwarded a copy of Chesebro’s November 18, 2020, memo to Jason Miller to set up a meeting. By December 7th or 8th, it appeared that President Trump had decided to pursue the fake elector plan and was driving it. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find value in the effort to provide an open and available readi...
Feb 08, 2023•6 min
The plan to use fake electors emerged from a series of legal memos written by Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney based in Boston and New York recruited to assist the Trump Campaign as a volunteer legal advisor. Memos by Chesebro in November and December, discussed in this section, laid the foundation for the plan that Vice President Mike Pence would need to help enact on January 6th. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find value in the effort to provide an open and...
Feb 07, 2023•8 min
December 14, 2020, was the date when certified electors met to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who won the popular vote in their respective states. However, groups of fake electors also met on this same date to cast electoral votes for President Trump in states that he had lost. This was part of a coordinated scheme that took shape as ‘President of the Senate’ strategy discussed throughout this chapter. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find valu...
Feb 06, 2023•7 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.7 - The Harm Caused by Demonizing Public Servants President Trump and his team’s practice of naming and viciously criticizing people had real consequences. Governors, secretaries of State, State legislators, State and local election officials, and frontline election workers were subjected to public demonization and subsequent spamming, doxing, harassment, intimidation, and violent threats. The final section of chapter two details some of the harm ca...
Feb 03, 2023•21 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.6 - The Final Outreach to State Legislators President Trump’s Campaign team, advisors, and volunteers generally acted in accord with a “Strategic Communications Plan” when engaging with State officials. Pieces of the plan had been in place for some period of time before the document was created, but it may have been the “catalyst” for memorializing the plan as the deadline of January 6th approached. These episodes are created based on the value-for-...
Feb 02, 2023•13 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.5 - Some Officials Eagerly Assisted President Trump With His Plans This section focuses primarily on President Trump's coordination with Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano and their efforts leading up to January 6. By coordinating a group of Pennsylvania State senators to meet with President Trump in the Oval Office, they were able to persuade an estimated 20 members toward overturning the election in the state. It also details how Pennsylvan...
Feb 01, 2023•7 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.4 - An Outright Request for Victory Beyond asking State officials to not certify, to decertify, or to appoint Trump electors for consideration during the joint session, President Trump and some of his closest advisors inserted themselves directly into the counting of ballots and asked, outright, for enough votes to win. This section documents some of the communications that led to the widely reported call from President Trump to the Georgia Secretar...
Jan 31, 2023•8 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.3 (Intro) - Outreach and Implementation of the Plan Just one day after the State-focused plan came up in the Oval Office, President Trump started taking concrete steps aimed at State legislators. In the weeks that followed, the President led an outreach aimed at officials in States he lost but that had GOP-led legislatures, including in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona. The six sections provide further details regarding the efforts. Pres...
Jan 25, 2023•54 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.2 - The Plan Emerges An article published in The Atlantic in September 2020 reported that the Trump Campaign was discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint electors in battleground States where Republicans held the legislative majority. Pushing claims of rampant fraud, that's what the Trump team ultimately did. This section explains how the plan came together to reach out to State legislators to set aside the popular vote an...
Jan 24, 2023•13 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2.1 - The Electoral College, and President Trump’s Attempt to Subvert It President Trump and his advisors tried different ways to change the outcome of the election in different states. They pressured local and State elections officials to stop counting votes once it became clear that former Vice President Joseph Biden would prevail in the final count. They pressured Governors, secretaries of State, and local officials not to certify the popular vote ...
Jan 23, 2023•5 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 2 (Introduction) - “I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes” In a telephone call on January 2, 2021, President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about finding additional votes in the state. Trump’s phone call with Raffensperger received widespread coverage after it was leaked. However, Georgia was not the only State targeted by President Trump and his team. The call was one element of a larger and more comprehensive effort explain...
Jan 23, 2023•7 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 1.9 - President Trump’s January 6th Speech At noon on January 6, 2021, President Trump addressed thousands of his supporters at a rally just south of the White House. By the Select Committee’s assessment, there were more than 100 times during his speech in which President Trump said that either the election had been stolen from him, or discussed how votes had been compromised by a specific act of fraud or through major procedural violations. Note: The...
Jan 20, 2023•5 min
The January 6th Report: A reading of Chapter 1.8 - President Trump Repeatedly Promoted Conspiracy Theories This section of the report gets into some of the conspiracy theories generated following the election. The Department of Justice, state authorities, judges, experts, journalists, other Federal officials, and even members of his own legal team were forced to run down and try to debunk or explain a number of them. The President’s own campaign team ultimately believed that there was no signifi...
Jan 16, 2023•51 min
This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.7 - President Trump Had His Day in Court. In this section of the first chapter, the committee says that the Trump Campaign and allies of President Trump filed 62 separate lawsuits between November 4, 2020, and January 6, 2021. The chapter provides details from several of the cases, the political orientation of the courts and how contentions the votes were among the judges involved. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find ...
Jan 13, 2023•8 min
This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.6 - President Trump’s Campaign Team Told Him He Lost the Election and There Was No Significant Fraud. In this section of the first chapter, the committee shares the testimony from many of President Trump's staffers about how their attempts to find fraud in the election, but came up with nothing significant enough to overcome the votes they needed in several states. Instead, they developed several talking points that would be repeated in the following months...
Jan 12, 2023•14 min
This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.5 - Post-Election: President Trump Replaces His Campaign Team. This is the Select Committee's summary about the release of his campaign team that referred to itself as "team normal." In their place, Trump promoted Rudy Giuliani and several investigators and lawyers to assist him. As discussed later in the report, these players became key figures in President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Note: The complete first chapter is now available to Patro...
Jan 11, 2023•3 min
This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.4 - President Trump’s Launch of the Big Lie. The Select Committee provides the origin of President Trump's claim of election fraud as he often referred to “dumps” of votes that were injected into the counting process and that his supporters latched onto these false claims. These episodes are created based on the value-for-value model - if you find value in the effort to provide an open and available reading of this document, please support the podcast at go...
Jan 11, 2023•4 min
This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.3 - Trump’s Pre-Election Efforts to Delegitimize the Election Process. The Select Committee explains that it found dozens of instances in which President Trump claimed that mail-in voting would produce a "rigged" election. This short section is a precursor to President Trump’s launch of the Big Lie, explained in the following section, and provides context for future efforts to delegitimize the election.
Jan 10, 2023•6 min
This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.2 - Trump’s Pre-Election Plans to Declare Victory The following episodes will be released in subsequent days: 1.3 - Trump’s Pre-Election Efforts to Delegitimize the Election Process 1.4 - President Trump’s Launch of the Big Lie 1.5 - Post-Election: President Trump Replaces His Campaign Team 1.6 - President Trump’s Campaign Team Told Him He Lost the Election and There Was No Significant Fraud 1.7 - President Trump Had His Day in Court 1.8 - President Trump R...
Jan 10, 2023•5 min
On December 22, 2022, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol released their final report. This podcast is a reading of that document without any additional commentary. This episode is a reading of Chapter 1.1 - The Big Lie Reflected Deliberate Exploitation of the “Red Mirage” The following episodes will be released in subsequent days: 1.2 - Trump’s Pre-Election Plans to Declare Victory 1.3 - Trump’s Pre-Election Efforts to Delegitimize the Electio...
Jan 09, 2023•5 min
On December 22, 2022, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol released their final report. This podcast is a reading of that document without any additional commentary. This episode is the introductory section of Chapter 1 - The Big Lie. The following episodes will be released in subsequent days: 1.1 - The Big Lie Reflected Deliberate Exploitation of the “Red Mirage” 1.2 - Trump’s Pre-Election Plans to Declare Victory 1.3 - Trump’s Pre-Election Eff...
Jan 09, 2023•7 min
