What in the hell went on here? If this isn’t being investigated then I think our problems are even worse that we thought. This is from the Bulwark:
In the weeks after the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump’s allies sent fake certificates to the National Archives declaring that Trump won seven states that he actually lost. The documents had no impact on the outcome of the election, but they are yet another example of how Team Trump tried to subvert the Electoral College — a key line of inquiry for the January 6 committee.
The fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico, who sought to replace valid presidential electors from their states with a pro-Trump slate, according to documents obtained by American Oversight.
In other words, what we have here is attempted election fraud on a massive scale.
Some perspective: If an average voter lied on their registration forms or forged an absentee ballot, they would face criminal charges and a world of legal hurt.
But this case is far worse because the forged electoral certificates were coordinated, and part of a larger conspiracy to overturn the presidential election.
And the smoking guns are littered all around us.
The forged electoral certificates show coordination across seven states. Those fake certificates were key to the plan of the Eastman memo and to the Jeffrey Clark DOJ draft letter to Georgia. The conspiracy involved fraud and force. At the head of the conspiracy: Donald Trump.
Why the 7 forged certifications matter: Eastman memo: “Pence…announces because of the ongoing disputes…there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States…[So] there are 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels Trump re-elected.”
This morning’s Wapo reports that the Biden DOJ “does not appear to be directly investigating the person whose desperate bid to stay in office motivated the mayhem — former president Donald Trump — either for potentially inciting a riot or for what some observers see as a related pressure campaign to overturn the results of the election.”
But attorney George Conway asks the key question: “how there could 𝙣𝙤𝙩 have been a conspiracy or attempt by Trump or Eastman and others to “corruptly … obstruct[], influence[], or impede[]” the electoral-vote count proceedings within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).
(c)Whoever corruptly—
(1)alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2)otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
The forgeries were not a side-show — they were an integral part of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.
And the plan was widely known.
On December 10, 2020, a group of prominent “movement” conservatives signed an open letter call for swing states to “appoint clean slates of electors to the Electoral College to support President Trump.” They wrote:
There is no doubt President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner of the presidential election. Joe Biden is not president-elect.
Accordingly, state legislatures in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan should exercise their plenary power under the Constitution and appoint clean slates of electors to the Electoral College to support President Trump. Similarly, both the House and Senate should accept only these clean Electoral College slates and object to and reject any competing slates in favor of Vice President Biden from these states.
Here’s a partial list of the signatories:
Look at that list of old time conservative movement luminaries. None of them are stupid. They knew exactly what they were doing. They all got the memo.
A week later, former White House spox Kayleigh McEnany talked about an “alternate slate of electors” that Congress would vote on, when it met on January 6.
Kayleigh says the litigation is ongoing and says in four states there has been “alternate slate of electors voted upon that congress will decide in January”
Around the same time, Trumpists in the Department of Justice were drafting letters to states alleging election fraud, and John Eastman was writing a detailed memo laying out a scheme for overturning the election on January 6.
It was a wide ranging conspiracy. Most of these people knew that the fraud claims were bullshit. They are educated, sophisticated political actors. They were in on the coup. All of them.
Is this going to stand?
And by the way…
I’m pretty sure that can’t happen. But then I never thought the conservative movement and a bunch of crackpot conspiracy theorists would circle the wagons around an narcissistic, orange game show host to overthrow the the government. Strange things do happen.