3 . The Fake Electors and the President of the Senate Strategy . On the morning of January 6 , in a speech at the ellipse , president Trump exhorted his thousands of assembled supporters to march to the US Capitol , explaining that �We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated .
This was known off the cuff remark . It was the culmination of a carefully planned scheme . Many weeks in the making , this plea by the President turned the truth on its head . There was only one legitimate slate of electors from the battleground states of Arizona , georgia , michigan , nevada , new Mexico , pennsylvania and Wisconsin , and Trump wanted them rejected .
This scheme involved lawyers such as Canada Cheesebro and Rudy Giuliani , as well as Mark Meadows . It was also aided at key points by Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee , ronald McDaniel , members of Congress and Republican leaders across seven states , some of whom did not know exactly what they were being asked to do . President Trump oversaw it himself .
Trump and his allies prepared their own fake slates of electoral college electors in seven states .
The President Trump lost Arizona , georgia , michigan , wisconsin , nevada , new Mexico , pennsylvania and on December 14 , 2020 , the day when the true certified electors were meeting to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who had won the popular vote in each of those states .
These fake electors also met , ostensibly casting electoral votes for President Trump , the candidate who lost . There was no legitimate reason for Trump electors to meet , vote and produce fake slates on December 14 in states that the former Vice President Biden won .
Instead , this effort was aimed directly at the President of the Senate , which , under the Constitution , is the Vice President in his role at the joint session of Congress on January 6 . President Trump and his advisors wanted Vice President Pence to disregard real electoral college votes for former Vice President Biden in favor of these fake competing electoral slates .
But there were never real competing slates of electors . By the time the fake Trump electors met on December 14 , appropriate government officials in each of the seven states had already certified their state's official election results for former Vice President Biden .
No court had issued an order revising or calling into question those results and most election-related litigation was over . In his detailed in Chapter 2 , despite the illicit efforts of President Trump and his allies , no state legislature had agreed to the President's request to reverse the result of the election by appointing a different slate of electors .
Given all of this , these groups of Trump backers , who called themselves presidential electors , were never actually electors and the votes they purported to cast on December 14 were not valid . They were fake . They had no legal standing and their fake votes could not have been used by Vice President Pence to disregard the real votes of electors chosen by the voters .
By January 6 , trump had been discouraged by his top lawyers from following through on this plan .
The Trump campaign senior staff attorneys had concerns and several days before the joint session , the acting Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General blocked the sending of a letter indicating that they were competing slates of electors , including in Georgia and several other states . But this reasoning did nothing to change Trump's rhetoric or plan .
He continued to assert that they were competing or dual slates of electors to create an opportunity to stay in office on January 6 . These lawyers were right President Trump's plan was illegal .
In his June 7 , 2022 opinion , federal District Judge David Carter wrote that this initiative to certify alternate slates of electors for President Trump constituted a critical objective of the January 6 plan .
This followed Judge Carter's earlier determination in March that the illegality of the plan was obvious in every American , and certainly the President of the United States knows that in a democracy , leaders are elected and not installed . With the plan , this bold President Trump knowingly tried to subvert this fundamental principle .
Based on the evidence , the court finds , it is more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6 , 2021 . The fake-elector effort was an unlawful , unprecedented and destructive break from the electoral college process that our country has used to select its President for generations .
It led directly to the violence that occurred on January 6 . To address the damage that it caused , it is important to understand how it transpired . Chapter 3 , section 1 , laying the Groundwork for the Fake-Elector Plan , the Cheese Bro Memos .
The Fake-Elector Plan emerged from a series of legal memoranda written by and outside advisor to the Trump campaign , kenneth Chesbro , although from now on we're going to refer to him as Kenneth Cheesebro , although John Eastman would have had a more prominent role in advising President Trump in the days immediately before January 6 , cheesebro , an attorney based in Boston ,
new York , recruited to assist the Trump campaign as a volunteer legal advisor , was central to the creation of the plan . Memos by Cheesebro on November 18 , december 9 , and December 13 , as discussed below , laid the plan's foundation .
Cheesebro's first memo on November 18 suggested that the Trump campaign could gain a few extra weeks for litigation to challenge Wisconsin's election results . So long as Wisconsin slayed a Republican nominee to the electoral college , it made on December 14 to cast placeholder electoral college votes on a contingent basis .
This memo acknowledged that it may seem odd that the electors pledged to Trump and Pence might meet and cast their votes on December 14 , even if at that juncture the Trump-Pence ticket is behind in the vote count and no certificate of election has been issued in favor of Trump and Pence .
However , cheesebro argued that , as such a slate of alternate electors gathered to cast electoral votes on a contingent basis , this would preserve the Trump campaign's options . So a court decision or perhaps a state legislative determination rendered after December 14 in favor of the Trump-Pence slate of electors should be timely .
On December 9 , cheesebro penned a second memo which suggested another purpose for the fake electoral college votes on January 6 . It stated that unauthorized Trump electors in these states could be retroactively recognized by a court , the state legislature or Congress .
Under this theory , there would be no need for a court to decide that the election had been decided in error . Instead , congress itself could choose among dual-linked slates of reported electoral votes and thereby decide the presidential election , even though Article II of the Constitution grants that power to the electoral college via the states .
Cheesebro's contemporaneous communications made clear that the goal was having Congress act on the fake electoral votes .
He emailed an organizer of the fake electors in Nevada that the purpose of having the electoral votes sent in to Congress is to provide the opportunity to debate the election irregularities in Congress and to keep alive the possibility that the votes could be flipped to Trump , and the legal advisers of the Arizona GOP reportedly described being told by cheesebro around
this time that their supposed electors would just be sending in fake electoral votes to Pence so that someone in Congress can make an ejection when they start counting the votes and start arguing that the fake votes should be counted .
Many of the states contested by the Trump team had laws that specified requirements for electors to validly cast and transmit their votes . In the December 9 , 2020 memo , it recognized that some of these criteria would be difficult , if not impossible , for the fake electors to fulfill . As described later , most were not fulfilled .
For example , nevada state law required that the Secretary of State preside when presidential electors meet , and Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Kogafsky , a Republican , had already signed a certificate ascertaining the Biden-Harris electors as the authorized winning slate .
Several states also had rules requiring electors to cast their votes in the state capitol building or rules governing the process for approving substitutes if any original proposed electors from November were unavailable .
As a result , cheeseburrows December 9 , 2020 memo advised the Trump campaign to abide by such rules when possible , but also recognized that these slates could be slightly problematic in Michigan , somewhat dicey in Georgia and Pennsylvania and very problematic in Nevada .
On December 13 , the fake-elector scheme became even clearer in an email sent by cheeseburrow to Giuliani . His message was entitled Brief Notes on the President of the Senate Strategy .
It addressed how the fake-electors meeting the next day , december 14 , could be exploited during the joint session of Congress on January 6 by the President of the Senate , a role that the Constitution grants to the Vice President of the United States .
Cheeseburrow argued that on January 6 , the President of the Senate could firmly take the position that he , and he alone , is charged with the constitutional responsibility not just to open the votes but to count them , including making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes .
Cheeseburrow suggested that the President of the Senate , which under the Constitution is the Vice President , could toss out former Vice President Biden's actual electoral votes for any state , or the Trump campaign organized fake-electors simply because there are two slates of votes .
Of course , there were never two slates of electoral votes , so this premise itself was fundamentally wrong . But he was arguing that , even if votes by fake-electors were never retroactively ratified under state law , that their mere submission to Congress would be enough to allow the presiding officer to disregard valid votes for former Vice President Biden .
Cheeseburrow also suggested that this might result in a second term for President Trump or , at minimum , it would force a debate about purported election fraud , neither of which was a lawful , legitimate reason to organize and convene fake-electors .
As discussed below and in Chapter 5 , john Eastman worked with Cheeseburrow as January 6th approached and wrote two additional memos that built upon and extended the plan to use the fake electoral votes during the joint session . Chapter 3 , section 2 , president Trump and the Campaign Adopt the Fake-Elector Scheme .
In early December , the highest levels of the Trump campaign took note of Cheeseburrow's fake-elector plan and began to operationalize it . On December 6th , the White House Chief of Staff , mark Meadows , forwarded a copy of Cheeseburrow's November 18 , 2020 memo to Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller , writing let's have a discussion about this tomorrow .
Miller replied that he had just engaged with reporters on the subject , to which Meadows wrote If you are on it , then never mind the meeting , we just need to have someone coordinating the electors' four states . Miller clarified that he had only been working with the PR angle and they should still meet , to which Meadows answered Got it .
Later that week Miller sent Meadows a spreadsheet that the Trump campaign had compiled . It listed contact information for nearly all of the 79 GOP nominees to the Electoral College on the November ballot for Arizona , georgia , michigan , nevada , pennsylvania and Wisconsin .
And on December 8th , meadows received a text message from a former state legislator in Louisiana recommending that the proposed Trump electors from Arkansas I'm assuming they meant Arizona there Michigan , georgia , pennsylvania , wisconsin and Nevada all meet next one day at their state capitals , call themselves to order , elect officers and cast their votes for the president .
Then they certified their votes and transmitted that certificate to Washington . Meadows replied we are Cassidy Hutchinson , a special assistant to the president and assistant to chief of staff Mark Meadows confirmed Meadows significant involvement in the plan .
Hutchinson told the select committee that Meadows followed the progress of the fake elector effort very closely in the she quote remembered him having frequent calls , meetings and outreach with individuals in this just being a prominent topic of discussion in our office . When asked how many of the calls or meetings that came up in , she estimated dozens .
The evidence indicates that by December 7th or 8th President Trump had decided to pursue the fake elector plan and was driving it .
Trump campaign associate general counsel Joshua Finley was tasked by the campaign's general counsel , matthew Morgan , around December 7th or 8th with exploring the feasibility of assembling unrecognized slates of Trump electors in a handful of states the president Trump had lost .
He told the select committee quote , it was my understanding that the president made this decision , as recounted by Finley . Morgan conveyed that the client , president Trump , directed the campaign lawyers to look into electors in these potential litigation states .
President Trump personally called RNC chairwoman Ronald Romney McDaniel days before December 14th to enlist the RNC's assistance in the scheme .
President Trump opened the call by introducing McDaniel to John Eastman , who described quote the importance of the RNC helping the campaign to gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing changed the results in any of the states .
According to McDaniel , she called President Trump back soon after the call ended , letting him know that she agreed to his request and that some RNC staffers were already assisting . On December 13th and 14th Trump worked with Rudy Giuliani on the plan's implementation .
On the 13th Miller texted some of his colleagues to check in about the fake-elector meeting scheduled for the following day .
He let them know that Giuliani had told him POTUS was aware that they would be filing litigation in four states just to keep the effort going , which the select committee believes was to create a pretax to claim that it was still possible for the fake-electors to be authorized retroactively .
In subsequent litigation a federal district court found that Trump filed certain lawsuits not to obtain legal relief but to disrupt or delay the January 6th congressional proceedings through the courts . The next day Miller sent an email asking whether they were going to issue a press release about electors and he was told the mayor he's going to discuss it with POTUS .
Chapter 3 , section 3 . The campaign legal team bows out and Giuliani steps in . Not everyone on the campaign was eager to pursue the fake-elector plan . On December 11th the US Supreme Court rejected a high-profile lawsuit filed by the state of Texas challenging the election results in Pennsylvania , in Georgia , michigan and Wisconsin .
After that decision , the Trump campaign senior legal staffer said that they had reduced their involvement in the fake-elector plot , apparently because there was no longer a feasible scenario in which a court that a court would determine that Trump actually won any of the states that he contested .
Justin Clark , who oversaw the Trump campaign's general counsel's office , said that he had basically conveyed I'm out and encouraged his colleagues on the legal team to do the same .
Finley told the select committee that we backed out of this thing and Morgan Moss's boss said he had Finley pass all responsibility for the electors as my way of taking that responsibility to zero . Clark told the select committee it never set right with me that there was no contingency whereby these votes would count .
I had real problems with the process , clark said , because it morphed into something I didn't agree with . In his view , the fake electors were not necessarily duly nominated electors , despite being presented as such , he said he believed .
He warned his colleagues that unless we have litigation pending in these states like I don't think this is appropriate or , you know , this isn't the right thing to do . Morgan told the select committee that he saw no value in pushing slates of purported electors if they were not authorized by state government certificate of entertainment , as he put it .
My view was as long as you didn't have the certificate of entertainment , then the electors were for lack of a better way of saying it not good or not not valid . Finley confirmed that .
Morgan told him after the Supreme Court ruling on December 11th that there's not really anything left for us to do on this project and that it doesn't seem like a good idea for us to be involved in it . Campaign lawyers were not the only ones who doubted the legality of the fake elector plan .
The Office of White House Counsel appears to have expressed concerns about it as well . In his testimony to the select committee , white House Counsel Pat Cipollone acknowledged his view that by mid-December the electoral process was quote done .
Cipollone told the select committee that the White House Counsel's office probably had discussions about the electors' plan and that his depony , pat Philbin , would have been involved in evaluating the electors' issue .
In an informal committee interview , philbin described the fake elector scheme as one of the quote bad theories that were like whack-a-mole in the White House during this period . Mr Cipollone agreed with this characterization .
In her testimony , cassidy Hutchison testified that she heard at least one member of the White House Counsel's office say that the plan was not legal Committee staff . To be clear , did you hear the White House Counsel's office say this plan to have alternate electors meet and cast vote for Donald Trump in states that he had lost was not legally sound ?
Hutchison , yes , sir . She also recalled a meeting that took place in or before mid-December , during which this few was related to Giuliani and members of his team , by lawyers in the White House Counsel's office .
By December 11 , finley emailed his main points of contact in six battleground states to say Thank you for your work on the presidential elector project and , in order to pass off his responsibilities , let them know that Rudy's team has designated Kenneth Cheesebro as the point person for the legal documents going forward .
While the campaign's core legal team stepped back from the fake elector effort on December 11 , it nonetheless went forward because Rudy was in charge of it and this is what he wanted to do , according to Finley .
When Finley was asked at this decision to let the effort proceed under Giuliani's direction was quote coming from your client the president Finley responded yes , I believe so . I mean he had made it clear that Rudy was in charge of this and that Rudy was executing what he wanted .
Finley also recalled being told that Cheesebro's elector memos became the justification for why Rudy and Ken were going to keep forward with this stuff . He explained that Giuliani really bought into Ken's theory on this and that the two of them were kind of the main ones driving this .
From that point forward , clark told the select committee that my understanding of who was driving this process was Mayor Giuliani and his team .
On December 10 , when Cheesebro emailed one of the state party officials involved in organizing the fake elector effort in Nevada , he reported that I spoke this evening with Mayor Giuliani , who was focused on doing everything possible to ensure that all the Trump Pence electors vote on December 14 .
In the days to follow this handoff , cheesebro would draft and distribute documents intended for use in the Trump team's fake elector ceremonies that were then shared with Key Context in Arizona , georgia , michigan , nevada , new Mexico , pennsylvania and Wisconsin .
He also gave some of the groups , step by step , the justical guidance , such as when and where they should convene commenting copies each person would need to sign and to send their fake votes to Congress via registered mail . Pretty simple , he commented in some of those emails .
A campaign operative named Michael Roman was also tapped for a major operational role in the fake elector plot when Finlay sent his email handing off certain responsibilities for the initiative . He also wrote the Giuliani's team had designated Roman as the lead for executing the voting on Monday , december 14 .
Roman was the Trump campaign's director of election day operations , with team members who specialized in political outreach and mobilization in battleground states where the Trump team now urgently needed the fake electors to meet on December 14 .
With help from his EDO staff , as well as Giuliani's team and RNC staffers working alongside the campaign as part of the Trump victory committee , roman ran and improvised the electors with operation .
For example , roman sent an email on December 12 directing an aide to create a tracker for the electors With tabs for Arizona , georgia , michigan , nevada , pennsylvania and Wisconsin , listing contact information , whether they had been contacted , whether they agreed to attend on December 14 , and names of quote substitute electors to replace any reticent or unavailable
participants as needed . Roman referred to the others on this email as the whip team and directed them to fill out the spreadsheet , to update him on quote what you have and what you need and to plan on a call that evening .
In the days to follow , this group focused on tracking which Republicans previously named as President Trump's nominees to the Electoral College would be willing to show up for fake elector ceremonies , finding adequate substitutes for those who refuse to attend , and actually coordinating the unrecognized elector signing ceremonies in seven states on December 14 .
In all seven states , these efforts to mobilize fake electors benefited from the support of the RNC as well as the state Republican parties . However , it was the Trump team who drove the process from start to finish , as one of the fake electors and later co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party , marshawn Maddock , sold an audience in January of 2022 .
We fought to seat the electors . The Trump campaign asked us to do that . Chapter 3 , section 4 , some of the Proposed Fake Electors Express Concerns About the Plan . The Trump team's fake elector plan raised concerns not just for several senior officials , but also for some of the Republican activists being recruited to be the fake electors .
Finley told the select committee that there were definitely electors and probably most of the states that had concerns about this process , finley being tasked with reaching out to the potential fake electors . Finley notified his colleagues on December 10 that a lot of questions are arising from them .
He also noted that an R&C staffer seconded to the Trump victory committee requested a call with the Pennsylvania electors and or leadership to address concerns which may be necessary to get people to appear . The Republican Party of Pennsylvania's General Counsel relates several specific concerns to the Trump campaign via email on December 13 .
Saying that we're all getting calls from concerned electors , he elaborated his follows .
I'm told that on the call with the electors they were told that the ballot form would be conditioned upon ultimate certification by the governor , a demnification by the campaign if someone gets sued or worse charged with something by the AG or something else , and the receipt by the electors of a legal opinion by a national firm and certified to be accurate by a
Pennsylvania lawyer . What was sent was a memo by Cheeseboro not addressed to the electors and no certification by a Pennsylvania lawyer . To make it worse , cheeseboro describes the Pennsylvania plan as quote dicey and there's no indication by anyone with authority that there's any identification authorized by the campaign .
Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tapps informed the select committee that his state's fake electors never were identified by the Trump campaign . When Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt was notified in late November that the campaign wants a list of electors , he texted his executive director that quote .
I am definitely concerned about their inquiry in that I hope they are not planning on asking us to do anything like try and say we are only the proper electors . On December 12 , after Hitt received a message about a phone call with Giuliani discussed the fake elector issue , he texted a colleague these guys are up to no good and it's gonna fail miserably .
Despite such concerns , it and many other fake electors participated anyway . Even so , 14 of the original Republicans who had listed as electoral college nominees on the November ballot bowed out .
When the fake Trump electors gathered in December , former Michigan Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land declined to attend , which the state's GOP chair , laura Cox , told the select committee was because I think she just said she was uncomfortable with the whole thing and that she has her own beliefs .
A senior advisor from the Pennsylvania GOP said the chairman Tappas did not serve as an elector because Joe Biden won the election and it was Biden's electors that were certified . Former US Representative Tom Marino , a Republican from Pennsylvania , said he backed out because I'm a constitutionalist and as a former prosecutor .
When the Attorney General says that he's not finding anything there , that's good enough for me . The other 11 dropouts included a Georgia State Lawmaker , a former state party chair from New Mexico , two former state party chairs from Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania's RNC National Committee Woman .
Other participants asserted that they would have had much greater concerns if the Trump team had been more forthcoming about how the fake electoral votes would be used .
The Trump campaign's director of election day operations in Georgia told the select committee that I absolutely would not have wanted to participate in organizing the Trump team's fake electors in Georgia had I known that the three main lawyers for the campaign that I'd spoken to in the past and were leading up to were not on board .
He said that he felt angry because no one really cared if people were potentially putting themselves in jeopardy by doing this and we were just useful idiots or rubes at that point . Chopper 3 , section 5 , december 14, . The Fake Electors Meet and Vote .
On December 14 , using instructions provided by cheesebro , the fake Trump electors gathered and participated in signing ceremonies in all seven states . In five of these states Arizona , georgia , michigan , nevada and Wisconsin the certificates that they signed used the language that falsely declared themselves to be the duly elected and qualified electors from their state .
This declaration was false because none of the signatories had been granted that official status by their state government in the form of a certificate of ascertainment the paperwork signed by the fake Trump electors in two other states contained partial caveats .
In New Mexico , the document they signed made clear that they were participating quote on the understanding that it might be determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors . In Pennsylvania , the document they signed indicated that they were participating .
Quote on the understanding that if , as a result of a final non-appealable court order or other proceeding prescribed broad law , we are ultimately recognized as being the duly elected and qualified electors . All seven of these invalid sets of electoral votes were then transmitted to Washington DC .
Roman's team member in Georgia , for example , sent him an email on the afternoon of December 14 that affirmed the following All votes cast , paperwork complete , being mailed now ran pretty smoothly .
Likewise , finley updated campaign manager Bill Stepien and his bosses on the legal team that the Trump team , slayed in Georgia , was not able to satisfy all provisions of state law , but still voted as legally as possible under the circumstances , before transmitting their fake votes to Washington DC by mail .
Fourth wall break how do you do something as legally as possible ? On the evening of December 14 , r&c chairwoman Ronald McDaniel provided an update for President Trump on the status of the fake-elector effort .
She forwarded President Trump's executive assistant an elector recap email which conveyed that President Trump's electors voted not just in the states that he won , but also in six contested states . Just later , president Trump's executive assistant replied it's in front of him .
The Trump team and the fake-electors also engaged in acts of subterfuge to carry out their plans on December 14 . For instance , a campaign staffer notified the Georgia participants via email that he quote must ask for your complete discretion .
He explained that their efforts required complete secrecy and told them to arrive at the state Capitol building and , quote please state to the guards that you are attending a meeting with either Senator Brandon Beach or Senator Bert Jones .
Indeed , greg Bluestine of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that he had tried to enter this group's meeting room , but a guy at the door called it an education meeting and scrambled when I tried to walk in .
Former Michigan GOP chair Laura Cox told the select committee that an attorney who said he was working with President Trump's campaign and informed her that the Michigan slate for President Trump was quote planning to meet in the Capitol and hide overnight so they could fulfill the role of casting their vote in , per law , the Michigan chambers .
She said that she told him in no uncertain terms that that was insane and inappropriate in that she warned Michigan Senate Majority Leader as a precaution . Instead , the group of fake electors in Michigan signed their paperwork in the state GOP headquarters where staff told them not to bring phones inside . Chapter 3 , section 6 , the Fallout from the Fake-Elector Plan .
In spite of the Trump campaign's efforts to give the fake-electors votes the sheen of authenticity , they failed . The US Senate parliamentarian noted in correspondence by January 3 , the materials from the Trump team's supposed electors in Arizona , georgia , nevada , new Mexico and Pennsylvania had no seal of the state and no evidence .
Votes were delivered by the executive of the state for signatures by electors and , as a result , these materials failed to meet requirements of federal law .
Similarly , the Senate parliamentarian noted that the Trump team's slates from Georgia , new Mexico and Pennsylvania appeared to violate another statute , which requires the approval of the governor for the substitution of electors .
Meanwhile , the documents from Michigan and Wisconsin did not even arrive to Congress on time , so they had already missed the required statutory deadline . Several of the Trump team's fake-elector slates also failed to follow state rules specifying where they were required to meet .
In Georgia and Wisconsin , state lawmakers or their staff appeared to have held participants gather inside their state capitals , but in Michigan . The fake-trump electors were blocked from entering the state capitol building Like this .
They still signed documents attesting that they had convened and organized in the state capitol in the city of Lansing , michigan , and at 2 pm to form the duties enjoined upon us .
That document had been signed earlier in the day , off-site , and one of the signatories even told the committee that she didn't join their march to the state capitol building because she didn't see a need to go . The entire premise of the fake votes was not enough . These infirmities also meant that they had no legal relevance .
In no way could they ever have been used by the vice president to disregard the real votes , the electors chosen by the voters . In the weeks between December 14 and January 6 , president Trump's team continued to embrace the idea that the fake electoral votes had a purpose .
Although Giuliani and White House speechwriter Stephen Miller made public comments on December 14 , suggesting that the uncertified Trump votes were Millicontigent , that pretense was dropped in short order . For example , on December 17 , white House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox News that in numerous states there has been an alternate slate of electors voted upon .
That Congress will decide in January . On December 21 , president Trump and Vice President Pence each joined parts of a White House meeting in which members of Congress from the Freedom Caucus encouraged the vice president to reject Biden electors from one or more of the seven states that were contested .
In days later , eastman cited the existence of the fake votes in an email to Boris Epstein , a member of the Giuliani legal team , writing the fact that we have multiple slates of electors demonstrates the uncertainty of either . That should be enough . As discussed further in Chapter 5, . That email contained Eastman's two-page memo proposing a strategy for January 6 .
Based on the incorrect legal theory , the vice president Pence could assert some authority as president of the Senate to prevent or delay the election of former vice president Biden during the joint session . Eastman's memo relied on the fake votes , which the memo featured in the very first line . Seven states have transmitted dual slates of electors .
When Eastman submitted his memo to Epstein , he also copied Cheeseboro , who had edited the memo and called it really awesome . By that point , cheeseboro and Eastman were coordinating their arguments about the fake electors votes and how they should be used .
On January 1 , 2021 , cheeseboro sent an email to Eastman and Epstein that recommended that vice president Pence derail the joint session of Congress .
In it , he raised the idea that vice president Pence is declaring that there are two competing slates of electoral votes in several states and taking the position that only he , or possibly Congress , could quote resolve any disputes concerning them .
Two days later , eastman completed his second major memo advising President Trump and his team on strategies for January 6 , again arguing that there were quote dual slates of electors from seven states and calling for vice president Pence to assert power to act as the ultimate arbiter to take steps that could overturn the election , either by sending the election back to
state legislatures to reassess or by rejecting Biden's certified electoral votes from states in which there are also fake Trump electors . By early January , most of the fake electors votes had arrived in Washington , except those from Michigan and Wisconsin , undeterred .
The Trump team arranged to fly them to Washington and hand deliver them to Congress for the vice president himself . Quote freaking Trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the Senate president . Wisconsin Republican Party official Martin Jefferson wrote to party chairman Hitt on January 4 .
Hitt responded OK , I see I have missed a call from Mike Roman and a text from someone else . Did you talk to them already ? This is just nuts . The next day Trump campaign deputy director for election day operations , michael Brown , sent a text message to other campaign staff suggesting that he was the person who delivered the fake votes to Congress .
After sending the group a photo of his face , with the Capitol in the background , brown said this has got to be the cover of a book I write one day , and I should probably buy Mike Roman a tire something for sending me on this one . It hasn't been done since 1876 , and it was only three states that did it .
The reference to 1876 alludes to a controversy during that election about certain states electoral college votes . President Trump and his campaign apparently had assistance from allies on Capitol Hill for this effort , including Senator Ron Johnson , his chief of staff , and the chief of staff to representative Mike Kelly .
Although Senator Johnson has said that quote his involvement in that attempt to deliver fake electoral paperwork span the course of only a couple of seconds .
On the morning of January 6 , representative Kelly's then chief of staff texted an aide to the vice president , chris Hoxon , about hand delivering the fake electoral votes to the president's team before the joint session , a message that Hoxon ignored . Just following up any chance you or someone from your team can meet to take the Michigan and Wisconsin packets .
According to the office of Senator Ron Johnson , representative Kelly's chief of staff didn't have a phone call with Senator Johnson's chief of staff at 1158 AM about how Kelly's office could get us the electors , because they had it .
Shortly after 1130 AM the Trump campaign's lead attorney in Wisconsin had texted Senator Johnson expressing a need to get a document on Wisconsin electors to you for the VP immediately . Is there a staff person I can talk to immediately ? Senator Johnson then put his chief of staff in touch with the campaign to handle the issue .
Shortly afterwards , senator Johnson's chief of staff texted Hoxon . Senator Johnson needs to hand something to Vice Podest , please advise . When Hoxon asked what it was , the response he got was alternate slate of electors from Michigan and Wisconsin because archivists did not receive them . Hoxon did not mince words . Do not give that to him .
He's about to walk over to preside over the joint session . Those were supposed to come in through the mail . Those fake electoral votes which the Trump team tried for weeks to manufacture and deliver never made it to the vice president , but they would have been invalid even if they did arrive on time .
The Trump team's activities were based on the false pretense that these fake electoral votes had a decisive role to play at the joint session of Congress , and yet any such role that they could have played would have helped unlawfully obstruct an official proceeding to determine how our nation carries out the peaceful transfer of power between presidents .
Indeed , as the joint session approached , senator Mike Lee had expressed grave concerns about the fake-elector effort in a series of text messages to one of the Trump team's senior legal advisors .
Although Senator Lee had spent a month encouraging the idea of having state legislatures endorse competing electors for Trump , he grew alarmed as it became clear that the Trump team wanted the fake-electors' votes to be considered on January 6 , even without the authorization from any state's government body .
On December 30 , senator Lee texted Trump advisor Cleeter Mitchell that January 6 was quote a dangerous idea , including for the Republic itself .
He explained that I don't think we have any valid basis for objecting to the electors , because it cannot be true that we can object to any state's presidential electors simply because we don't think they handle their election well or suspect the legal activity . Senator Lee even questioned her about the plan's dangerous long-term consequences .
Will you please explain to me how this doesn't create a slippery , slow problem for all future presidential elections ?