Many speculated about the reasons that President Donald Trump was disputing the 2020 election results. Some said it was that he couldn't handle being branded "a loser." Others speculated he feared the legal problems that he faced after leaving office. According to a new bombshell New York Times report, it was the fear of both and the idea that Trump was so willing to go as far as he did was because he felt like he had nothing else to lose.
At one point, Trump became so desperate that he wanted evidence to be "found." For about a month, Trump was forwarding conspiracy theories to Attorney General William Barr, demanding they be investigated. None were true.
On Dec. 1, Trump told Fox News on-air that Barr was missing in action. Barr gave an interview to the Associated Press, revealing that there was no fraud. None of the QAnon conspiracies coming from random people on message boards were real.
In one case, Trump became obsessed with a Postal Service truck driver who claimed he transported fake ballots. He recanted the story.
"Federal investigators had determined that that one, too, was bunk. Court records showed that the driver had a history of legal problems, had been involuntarily committed to mental institutions several times and had a sideline as a ghost hunter," the report said, citing The York Daily Record.
"Now, with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, backing him, Mr. Barr told the president that he could not manufacture evidence and that his department would have no role in challenging states' results, said a former senior official with knowledge about the meeting, a version of which was first reported by Axios. The allegations about manipulated voting machines were ridiculously false, he added; the lawyers propagating them, led by Mr. Giuliani, were 'clowns," reported The Times.
Trump admitted "maybe," and then before Barr was out of the building, he tweeted the conspiracy about the USPS driver.
Lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his allies put the false allegation in his Pennsylvania lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed and mocked. Trump's real election lawyers said that they found the efforts "counterproductive" and "embarrassing," said The Times. Indeed the more lawsuits Giuliani and his team announced, the more Trump was humiliated in court. Over 60 lawsuits took Trump on a roller coaster of hope and loss, as the country watched him lose over and over again.
