In this interview Jamie Raskin outlines in clear terms what they thought Trump was up to on January 6th:
Placing former vice president Mike Pence front and center was not a strategic choice for the impeachment managers; it was a recognition that Pence was the central player in the former president’s attempted coup. “There was a method to all [his] madness. This was the counting of the electoral votes,” Raskin said. Trump seemed to think that if he could just get Pence to throw out votes from a few states, that would stop the election’s certification and “he could deny the election to Joe Biden.”
Under this thinking, the election’s outcome would go to a vote in the House, and Trump could “declare martial law” to put down the violence. “Vice President Pence became the linchpin” in this fanciful scenario. That is why Trump called Pence the morning of Jan. 6 and reportedly told him, “You can either go down in history as a patriot” or as an epithet[a pussy].
Raskin said, “The American people understand who Donald Trump is. That kind of authoritarian relationship is a threat to democracy.”
Mike Pence knows this first hand, as does Rudy Giuliani and any number of Trump’s confidantes. It really was an attempted coup. And when Pence refused to go along, Trump sicced his violent mob on him, hoping that would delay the vote and persuade him to change his mind out of fear for his life.
This happened.