The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election published its final report Thursday, which includes conclusions about those responsible for Trump's fake electors scheme.
A group of Republican fake electors claimed that they were the true electors and signed letters to that effect that were then sent to Washington. The goal was to either get Vice President Mike Pence to accept the fake slate of electors or throw things into additional chaos.
The full report names the architects behind the strategy as Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and former President Donald Trump.
"The Select Committee estimates that in the two months between the November election and the January 6th insurrection, President Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election results," the report explains.
They list off, at least "68 meetings, attempted or connected phone calls, or text messages, each aimed at one or more State or local officials; 18 instances of prominent public remarks, with language targeting one or more such officials; and 125 social media posts by President Trump or senior aides targeting one or more such officials, either explicitly or implicitly, and mostly from his own account."
This coincided with Trump's team, both campaign and White House, trying to get help from local legislators. They contacted nearly 200 state lawmakers from swing states between Nov. 30, 2020, and Dec. 3, 2020, to try and get a legislative intervention to stop the election certification in the states.
According to the report, " At least some messages said they were 'on behalf of the president.'"
Trump, Giuliani, John Eastman and others personally participated in a private briefing with nearly 300 state legislators on Jan. 2, 2021, where Trump directly asked them to use "the real power" to choose the electoral votes before Jan. 6. Trump told them they had to do it because "I don't think the country is going to take it."
"It may be impossible to document each and every meeting, phone call, text message, or other contact that President Trump and his allies had with state and local officials in various battleground States," the committee confessed. "What follows is a summary that focuses on four States and that demonstrates the lengths to which President Trump would go in order to stay in power based on lies—the Big Lie—about the election."
They go on to describe in Chapter 2, the efforts that have been part of an ongoing Justice Department investigation referred by two state attorneys general thus far.
Former special counsel for the Department of Defense, Ryan Goodman, called this piece of the report one of the "most active parts of special counsel Jack Smith's criminal investigation."
He cited Chapter 3 Section 2 of the report, in which the committee explains that in early Dec. 2020, top Trump aides took note of Chesebro's fake elector plan. While John Eastman has been the main name cited as the strategy's advocate, the report describes Kenneth Chesebro as the actual architect of the strategy.
His Nov. 18, 2020 note with the memo to Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller suggested, "Let’s have a discussion about this tomorrow."
Miller said he just engaged with reporters on the topic.
Meadows responded: “If you are on it then never mind the meeting. We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.”
Miller clarified he'd been “working the PR angle” and argued they should still meet. Meadows agreed.
When Meadows got a text message about the plot from a Louisiana state legislator, that "Trump electors from AR [sic] MI GA PA WI NV all meet next Monday at their state capitols[,] [c]all themselves to order, elect officers and cast their votes for the President...then they certify their votes and transmit that certificate to Washington." Meadows told the lawmaker "we are."
Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson confirmed the communication. She went on to cite "dozens" of meetings or calls about the fake electors scheme and that he was following it "closely."
Associate General Counsel Joshua Findlay was asked by the campaign's general counsel, Matthew Morgan, on or around Dec. 2 or 8 about assembling the fake electors. Findlay testified, "it was my understanding that the President made this decision..." Morgan conveyed that Trump directed campaign lawyers to "look into electors in these potential litigation States." There was then a call with Republican Party chair Ronna Romney McDaniel ahead of the Dec. 14 electors vote where she was introduced to John Eastman. She pledged her assistance to the scheme and told the president RNC staffers were already at work on the effort.
