OLD DRAFT
This is a draft of a paper, please read the final paper here. (add link when finished)
ABSTRACT
Before and after the 2020 United States presidential election, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell would spread false claims of voter fraud caused by Democrats to help sow distrust in American democracy. Despite this, Donald Trump would lose the 2020 United States presidential election, and then Donald Trump attempted various avenues to hold on to the presidency. He began with his private legal team, primarily John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, devising the False elector scheme, an illegal plot to send false slates of electors to Congress so that Vice President Mike Pence would either count them to declare Trump the victor directly, to “break” the Electoral Count Act, or send it to the House delegation, which was Republican. When Mike Pence declined to cooperate with the plot, Donald Trump would hold a “big” rally on January 6th at the Ellipse in front of the White House, where he would hold a heated speech about his false claims of voter fraud and pressure Mike Pence to do “the right thing,” where he would say, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” ending the speech by preaching to his supporters to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue … going to the Capitol.” Many who believed Trump’s lies, such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, would be there attempting to execute their plans to change the outcome of the election, along with provocateurs such as Alex Jones, leading marches of their own. Once at the Capitol, protests against the outcome of the election would quickly turn into violent riots, with rioters breaking down outer barriers and breaking windows and doors to get inside the building where lawmakers were actively certifying the election, compelling them to evacuate temporarily, pausing the count for the first time in American history. Donald Trump would watch the riots unfold for hours within the White House on television taking no action, despite those around him telling him to do something. Donald Trump would eventually release a video calling for the rioters to leave 187 minutes after first hearing about the riots, allowing Congress to resume and certify Democrat Joe Biden as the rightful 46th President of the United States.
INTRODUCTION
Lying: Years in the Life of Fraud claims
Before Election Day of the 2020 presidential election, the incumbent President, Donald Trump, began to sow the seeds of doubt for any election outcome that would favor anyone over himself. Despite this being a monumental break of norms, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s spread false claims about presidential elections. In the 2012 presidential election, Trump would imply that Mitt Romney was, in fact, the true winner, alleging that the election was a “total sham and travesty,” going as far to say that China and Saudi Arabia were involved in the rigging. Continuing this trend into the 2016 presidential election, he would claim multiple instances of voter fraud, starting with his close primary election with Ted Cruz, claiming he stole the victory from him, then voting machines in all of Utah were malfunctioning, and finally alleging that “millions of people who voted illegally,” in the general election with Hillary Clinton, despite still winning the Electoral College. Shortly after being sworn in as President of the United States in 2017, Trump would establish a committee to investigate “vulnerabilities in voting systems and practices used for Federal elections.” This committee would end up being terminated seven months later after finding no major evidence of fraud.
Once he reinstituted lies about election integrity for the 2020 election, he targeted absentee voting, also known as mail-in voting. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, mail-in ballots were used like never before to avoid infection, and due to political divides in the country, Democrats were more health conscious than Republicans surrounding the pandemic, giving Trump the perfect scapegoat, despite there being insufficient reasons to believe that the upcoming election ballots were going to be compromised. Shortly before the election, allies of Trump, such as Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, and opponents, such as Bernie Sanders, predicted that he would claim victory before all the ballots were counted. These predictions all had one thing in common: he would cause chaos by claiming victory, framing future counted mail-in ballots as fraudulent votes attempting to overturn his rightful election win. After Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden at 11:20 p.m. on November 3rd, these predictions became correct, and on November 4th at 2:00 a.m., Donald Trump mentioned “I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots”, implying they were fraudulent, and ending his speech asserting, “Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election.”
Memos and Pressure: The Elements of the Fraud
Once it became clear to Donald Trump that he was beginning to lose the White House, he would take multiple avenues to hold on to power. First, his Attorney General, William Barr, breaking norms, directed the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of election fraud across the country. While the Department of Justice was investigating these claims, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell would amplify the lies about the election on national television by claiming massive fraud. All of these allegations, however, were never confirmed by the Department of Justice or any state agencies, with the Department of Homeland Security going as far to say that “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” If there were fraudulent or incorrect votes found, they wouldn’t be enough to affect any election outcomes.
After discovering no evidence of widespread voter fraud, William Barr participated in an interview with the Associated Press, explaining that the investigations found no evidence of fraud. When he returned to the White House later that day, a heated argument erupted between himself and Donald Trump, likely causing Barr to resign two weeks later. One week after William Barr held that interview with the Associated Press, on December 7th, Ivan Raiklin, a Trump supporter and attorney on a podcast, first coined the idea that the Vice President, Mike Pence, could affect the election outcome. Initially skeptical of the concept, Mike Pence contacted his White House legal counsel, Gregory Jacob, who informed Pence that “there is no justifiable basis to conclude that the Vice President has that kind of authority.”
Around the same time, Donald Trump hired additional private lawyers, including Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman, who composed what is now known as the False elector scheme. Chesebro wrote the first memos, sketching out the “logistics” of the plan and reminding Trump about “messaging that presents this as a routine measure” to avoid suspicion. He further details that the “alternate slates of electors” needed to be signed and sent to Congress on December 14th so Mike Pence would count them for Donald Trump. Together with the plan, he would craft a dubious legal theory arguing that the Electoral Count Act, passed in 1887 that outlines how Congress shall count the Electoral votes on January 6th, is unconstitutional and violates the twelfth amendment of the United States Constitution. John Eastman would write the final few memos, detailing how the plan would work on January 6th, “war gaming” the possible outcomes that could result from the plan, asserting that Mike Pence is the “ultimate arbiter” for determining the Electoral vote outcome, repeating the false claims from Donald Trump, and ending the memos by asserting, “this Election was Stolen by a strategic Democrat plan to systematically flout existing election laws for partisan advantage.” Following the plan, on December 14th, the fraudulent electors would gather in several swing states and mail the false slates of electors to the President of the Senate, Mike Pence, to the National Archives and Records Administration, and others, planning to clash with the legal slates of electors to cause chaos on January 6th in Congress.
Aiding the pressure on lawmakers to effectuate the False elector scheme, Trump would announce a rally on social media with a document of alleged voter fraud with the caption: “A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will [sic] be wild!” Up to January 6th, he continued to spread false allegations of voter fraud and imply that Republicans who would not help him would lose their elections without his endorsement. To apply further pressure, he would phone call various Republicans in state governments to affect or change the outcomes of the elections in their states, including two GPO canvassers in Michigan, an investigator with the Georgia Secretary of State, Frances Watson, and the Georgian Secretary of State himself Brad Raffensperger. In the Raffensperger phone call that took place on January 3rd, Donald Trump would directly ask him “to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state,” despite Raffensperger debunking every claim he made about the election in Georgia. Later that same day, Donald Trump would hold a several-hour meeting in the Oval Office at 6:15 p.m. with various White House staff and administration within the Department of Justice. The purpose of the meeting was to appoint Jeff Clark as Acting Attorney General, replacing Jeff Rosen, so that the Department of Justice would release a letter to the states claiming to have done “real” investigations to “uncover widespread fraud.” Those within the room not only despised this decision but threatened to “resign immediately” if Trump were to do this. Trump would ultimately not appoint Jeff Clark to Acting Attorney General likely due to the potential “blowout” it would cause.
The day before January 6th, Donald Trump would have a 30 seconds conversation with Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller, asking that, “they were going to need 10,000 troops the following day,” with “they” referring to law enforcement, public security, and public safety. Christopher C. Miller, however, interpreted this as “presidential banter,” and due to prior information about “domestic law enforcement” being able to “handle much — you know, a million people,” this resulted in no action to prepare troops for January 6th. At 1:00 a.m. on January 6th, the day of the rally, Trump posted that if Mike Pence “comes through for us, we will win the Presidency.” On the night before January 6th, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, along with Roger Stone, would meet up in Washington D.C., presumably to enact their plans at the Capitol.
The Capitol: The Insurrection Location
On the morning of January 6th, Trump supporters would gather at the Ellipse in front of the White House for another Trump rally. The rally’s attendees would include notable Right-wing figures such as Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones, in which several of Trump’s close allies, including those involved with the False elector scheme, would give speeches touting evidence of widespread voter fraud and government corruption. In particular, Rudy Giuliani would propose a “trial by combat” to somehow affect the outcome of the election of Donald Trump. The final speaker at the rally would be none other than Donald Trump himself, who emphasized that not only was the “election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats,” but asserting that “we will never give up, we will never concede” and calling for his supporters to march down to the Capitol, saying he knows they’ll do so “peacefully and patriotically,” notably never actually clarifying them to be peaceful themselves. In addition, he would call for them to fight multiple times, which normally would be standard political talk. However, when combined with a message that every other peaceful way has been exhausted, that will lead to the only option left being violence. At the end of his speech, he would affirm the crowd by saying, ”… we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Once the rally was over, his supporters would do exactly what Trump told them to do and marched down to the Capitol, with Alex Jones leading some of them on his own. Donald Trump then was escorted to “The Beast,” or the presidential state car, where they drove him back to the White House. During the drive, Donald Trump protested to the Secret Service that he wanted to go to the Capitol to cheer on his supporters, however, his protests were ignored due to the Secret Service not having the perimeter secured for the President and that weapons were identified from his supporters. Trump’s call to action and the presumptive actions that followed were unexpected by both the intelligence community and Congress since many of the preparations for January 6th were under the assumption that certifying the vote would be like the times before. Initially, when the supporters from the rally got to the Capitol, it was a peaceful protest that called for the election to be overturned. This, however, would change quickly, with many of the supporters beginning to force entry into Restricted property, injuring USCP officers in the process, with the first breach beginning with the Oath Keepers around 1:00 p.m. When Donald Trump heard the news of the violence beginning at the Capitol upon arriving home twenty minutes later, he would say “All right, let’s go see,” where he would end up watching the events of the Capitol riot on Fox News and various other news channels. One hour later, a member of the Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola, around seventy minutes later, would bash the Capitol windows open with a stolen riot shield and enter inside, with other rioters following in the process, resulting in the first breach of the building itself. Congress would immediately call out of session and members of Congress were evacuated to unknown locations to avoid potential violence from the rioters.
Up to this point, Donald Trump has not taken any action to reduce or stop the ongoing violence, despite having the power to do so as the Commander-in-chief of the military. As usual, he would make various tweets, initially posting a recording of his rally. Well into the violence, however, and knowing the violence has been occurring for at least an hour up to this point and has now entered the Capitol building itself, Donald Trump would tweet “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution [sic], giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” instead of calling for peace or for the violence to stop. Upon this tweet , his supporters at the Capitol would begin calling Mike Pence a traitor, even going as far as to chant, “Hang Mike Pence.” After it became clear that the riot was becoming out of control by local law enforcement, Trump’s aides would begin to plead with him to take any action or call for an end to the violence, but Donald Trump refused to do so. It would take over twenty minutes for Trump to be convinced to release a tweet respecting law enforcement, with his daughter, Ivanka Trump, requesting he add the words “Stay peaceful!” Donald Trump, like previous requests, initially refused to do so, however, after pressure from his daughter and other White House employees, he conceded and would post the message with the appended statement. Despite this call for peace, his supporters would not stop their violence on the Capitol and continue to navigate around the Capitol, with some attempting to find noteworthy Democrats in Congress, such as Nancy Pelosi, presumably to attack or kill them.
For another two hours, Donald Trump would again take no direct action to stop or quell the violence at the Capitol riot, with him only tweeting another message with more emphasis on peace, doing little to nothing. Over the course of Trump’s inaction, his Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, would receive loads of text messages from Republican lawmakers and conservative figures calling for Donald Trump to take more action to stop the violence unfolding, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump, Jr., and Sean Hannity, with Meadows sending quick replies to each suggesting that he’s trying to get Trump to do something. Because Trump was not taking action to call upon the military, that would leave the responsibility to the Secretary of Defense and Army. The problem was that these secretaries had poor communication not only between the two of them but with local law enforcement as well, causing immediate deployment of the army to be postponed for hours later than needed. As President of the United States, Donald Trump could have prevented the bureaucratic delays and deployed them right as the violence began.
187 minutes after being notified of the Capitol riot, Donald Trump would finally release a video calling for his supporters to go home, despite continuing the lies about voter fraud and describing his supporters as “special.” Two hours later, he would post a message saying that the events that unfolded at the Capitol are what happens “when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” implying that this was a punishment of some sorts. His supporters would end up winding down the violence, and with the army finally arriving hours late, cleared the Capitol at 6:00 p.m. As a last-ditch attempt to change the outcome of the election, Rudy Giuliani would attempt to call Senator Tuberville an hour before Congress resumed the counting of the electoral votes, requesting him to stall the counting process and push it for another day. Nevertheless, Congress resumed their session and counted the electoral votes for Joe Biden, leading Biden to become the 46th President of the United States.
CONCLUSION
Over the course of his political career, Donald Trump has made an effort to undermine the electoral process in the United States. From the 2012 presidential election with Chinese and Saudi Arabian influence to the 2016 presidential election with failing machines all over Utah, Ted Cruz cheating in Iowa, and so-called millions of illegals voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election despite winning the Electoral College. Winding up the disinformation, during the 2020 presidential election cycle, Donald Trump, along with his allies, pushed claims that the election was rife with corruption and illegal activity caused by the Democratic Party, such as absentee voting, as untrustworthy. On the night of the election, he would claim that he “…did win this election,” despite all the votes not being counted yet.
Once it became clear to Trump that the election was not going to go in his favor, he, together with his private legal team, plotted out ways that he could maintain his presidency. Lawyers such as Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman would write several memos detailing and “war gaming” various outcomes that could result through their plans to overturn the outcome of the Electoral College. These memos would result in the False elector scheme, based on a dubious legal theory between the Electoral Count Act and the Twelfth Amendment. It would follow that Trump’s team would gather people from several swing states and sign documents claiming to be the legal electors for their respective State’s elections. These false slates of electors would then be sent to Congress to hopefully have Vice President Mike Pence either certify Donald Trump as the president outright or send the election back to the predominantly Republican House delegation. Upon being confronted by Donald Trump and John Eastman about the plot, Mike Pence thought the plan was illegal and decided not to participate, which Pence’s lawyer confirmed and agreed.
Due to Mike Pence’s supposed failure, Donald Trump would announce to his followers on social media a “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will [sic] be wild!” Before January 6th, he posted several false claims of election fraud and how if Mike Pence “comes through for us, we will win the Presidency.” On January 6th, Donald Trump held a rally at the Ellipse in front of the White House, where he would then send a large crowd of Trump supporters to the Capitol to protest the certification of the Electoral count. The protesters would soon turn into rioters, breaching through barriers to the Capitol, then breaking inside the building itself, resulting in the count pausing and the members of Congress evacuating to secure locations. During this breach of the Capitol, Donald Trump would not take any action to stop the rioters for hours while watching them on television, with White House staff pleading for him to do something, including calling for peace.
Ultimately, after 187 minutes, Donald Trump would come out and release a video calling for his supporters to “go home” while still claiming the election was stolen from him. This video, and with the military finally showing up from the Secretary of Defense at 5:00 p.m., cleared out the Capitol an hour after arriving, allowing Mike Pence to resume Congress and finish counting the Electoral votes, certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. To this day, Donald Trump continues to claim that he won the election and that he lost due to fraud, resulting in over 35% of Americans believing the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.