'The evidence shows a direct line' from Trump to 2020 coup plot: Michigan elections chief

Donald Trump is tied to illegal plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election by a "direct line" of evidence, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Thursday's edition of "Deadline: White House."

This comes after special counsel Jack Smith, who already secured an indictment against the former president for his classified document stash at Mar-a-Lago, interviewed Benson as part of his investigation of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and all the election subversion plots that led up to it.

"Certainly the evidence developed by the Select Committee leaves nothing to the imagination: this was a Trump-directed coup," said Wallace, after playing clips of Trump allies crediting him with being behind the movement to overturn the election. "The legal argument was fleshed out by John Eastman. They knew it violated the Electoral Count Act. Do you, from where you're sitting, have any doubt that the evidence, if Jack Smith wishes to pursue it, will take this plot all the way to Trump's doorstep?"

"I think the evidence certainly shows a direct line between the former president, the phone calls, the pressure that he himself exerted on the lawmakers and the State of Michigan, to local county certification boards. So the line is there," said Benson. "Of course, the public speeches that you just showed earlier as well demonstrate that. So I think his involvement is clear, and every drop of new evidence that emerges in the public arena only underscores that."

That being said, Benson added, "we have to remember it's not the only line, that there were a lot of co-conspirators, for lack of a better word, in my opinion. And all of it manifested itself in a multifaceted national, coordinated, illegal effort to interfere with the will of the voters and overturn it."

"The other component of that is the violence that followed, most notoriously on January 6th, which was also a very real consequence of those lies, beyond just the anti-democratic nature of them," said Benson. "So there needs to be culpability of all of that and the blood that was shed and the lives that were forever impacted because of those lies, not just again at the state level, but local officials as well. My confidence is that the Justice Department, as well as local and state prosecutors, are collectively casting a broad net, looking all of these things, with a goal not just of seeking justice, but ensuring that these don't escalate in the future or reoccur."

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