Exclusive: Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election
Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail.
So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.
The operatives even considered chartering a jet to ensure the files reached Washington, DC, in time for the January 6, 2021, proceeding, according to emails and recordings obtained by CNN.
The new details provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the chaotic last-minute effort to keep Donald Trump in office. The fake electors scheme features prominently in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal indictment against the former president, and some of the officials who were involved have spoken to Smith’s investigators.
It's oddly pleasing that the slowdown in mail caused him pain/inconvenience.
caused by none other than his own appointee DeJoy, whose entire goal in the USPS is to dismantle it and privatize it.... talk about reaping what you sow lol
Yet he’s still holding the same position for some reason… its baffling he hasnt been replaced
The person who could replace him is a Democrat. Now watch the excuses flow.
Actually, Biden can't directly appoint a new Postmaster General. He CAN, however, replace some of the board members that have that ability, though, which he has absolutely no valid reason not to do.
So in other words, he can do what is needed to fire DeJoy, but has chosen not to. The single extra step involved is not a reason not to, and satisfies no one who isn't already seeking excuses.
Biden is in a position to replace him. He won't.
Exactly.
Preaching to the choir, my man. I wasn't disagreeing so much as correcting a detail of your otherwise accurate take 🙂
Reports are the DeJoy and Biden are working really well together. Kind of fucked up, but better than before.
Seems dangerous AF to keep that duplicitous fucker around heading into the next election
DeJoy has his own shipping company as a competitor to the USPS.
Biden can only appoint board members when the term expires of an existing board member.. He has appointed a few and they currently hold a majority but haven't yet acted.
My USPS is normally quite good, and it was a drastic difference during that time. I'm so glad my state decided to also provide official drop boxes and a mechanism to track where my ballot is at any given time.
My USPS straight up loses (steals?) like 25% of my packages. It was never great but it hit new lows in the Trump years.
Yeah, my state too. I'm usually good about mailing my ballot two weeks before but I've been taking it to the county courthouse drop box instead.
I hope this is true so I can use it the next time my dad goes on some diatribe about how the democrats are ruining the country or how he couldn’t vote for any other than Trump in good faith.
If this is true, everyone who continues to support him is outright against our country.
You think this is gonna change a single MAGA mind? Your dad will just put his fingers in his ears and chant fake news.
My brother, a Canadian who is socially liberal, economically conservative, and virtually apolitical thinks the fake elector thing is bs.
He doesn't care if it did or didn't happen.
I am not saying this to contradict you. I am supportive of your point. This is unlikely to even remote reach most people in a meaningful way, let alone die hard Trump fans that somehow think he's a virile, brave, genius business person with big hands and an animal musk that Larry from Three's Company would envy.
🎵 Come and knock on our door... (Come and knock on our door) We've been waiting for you.... (We've been waiting for you)
Thanks for putting it in my head.
we can't just let it be words.... RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!
https://piped.video/watch?v=WfuTipCqs4A
It's just brain washing. They keep saying the Democrats are ruining the country and if you don't vote for trump you won't have a country. They say it over and over nonstop until people believe it. They say it on Fox News they say it on tweeter. And they encourage their peers to say it. It's insane that it works so easily. I'm appalled and amazed at the same time.
It's an easy thing to spread, because there's a kernel of truth to it. Democrats are ruining the country. They're just not doing it half as quickly as Republicans are.
You can see how administrations work, during republican the tax cuts for the rich get thr economy in shambles, then enters a democrat, and suddenly gets better, and repeat.
Things aren't getting better by any metric. All of the most harmful legislation, the Patriot act, the Iraq war resolution, the restrict act, etc, is always bipartisan. Democrats are absolutely ruining the country alongside the Republicans. They're just taking the scenic route.
Doom! Both sides are bad!
So who should we vote for?
Republicans or a third party that helps Republicans, no doubt.
If you want to vote for a Republican I can't stop you
bOtH sIdEs argument..... funny how the data shows that republicans get worse results than democrats, but yeah, bOtH sIdEs
So your take is since something is worse than the Democrats, that makes them good by default? You're a child.
Lol that is basically your projection on republicans hahahaha how ironic.
Also a fallacy, I've never said that, I just pointed to your idiotic abOtH sIdEs fallacy.
The fuck are you even talking about?
It's not a fallacy. They're both horrible. They're not the same, one is clearly worse, but they don't have to be equally bad to both be bad.
You are the idiot using the both sides fallacy. Not me.
Lol, and you keep with the same stupid argument.
Sure bud both sides are equally worse hahahahhahaa
I never said that lmao. It's like you don't even read posts before you decide for yourself what they ought to say
You said that both are terrible bud.
The issue is that democrats ate useless, but republicans always try to push their agenda of hate and remove people's rights..... but sure idiot bOtH sIdEs ArE tErRiBlE bud
There's a kernel of attempt at future genocide in it, not truth
So you believe the Democrats are actually on our side and want what's best for everyone?
That party isn't even particularly consistent given how many different types of people are in it. What I can tell you is the genuinely monstrous people are drawn to the Republican party because they're actively welcomed there.
That's a pretty long winded way to say "no, I do not believe they're good people who care about me".
Can you think of anything positive to say about them that doesn't involve comparing them to Republicans? I can't.
Can you define good without the definition comparing to bad?
Yes. Satisfactory, desirable, moral. If you need to compare a concept to it's antonym to define it, then you don't really understand the concept.
Oh you sweet summer child
Bro, you dodged his question. He answered yours.
So how about instead of brushing him off with an insult, you actually pony up some good things you think democrats are doing that doesn't just boil down to "well republicans would have done it worse"
Frankly, I'm on the side of voting democrats with the exact reasoning that Republicans will steer us into fascism. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're doing good, they just aren't doing as much bad.
I can't blame people who are disappointed with democrats as a whole, and I think it's a reach to unironically take your position of voting for them because you think they have good policies.
Infrastructure expansion like trains, investing in education, healthcare plans, environmental programs, etc.
But of course you already know of all these so why do you need to ask the question?
(I'm not even from USA myself, but your Republicans have such deranged policies that it spills over to us in impacts on trade, etc)
I can define irony too, it's when a guy who believes that one of the political parties in this country are good guys who are on his side implies that you're naive.
If you click the article, you can hear recordings of this happening and read the emails where they plan it.
It's definitely true. Clear, unambiguous language is used throughout all evidence.
Audio recordings don’t mean shit to these fucks. They’ll just grab it by the pussy and toss it into their basket of deplorables where some, I assume, are good. The whole thing will blow over by Easter.
That was the case even before this news.
Your dad is a total loss, bruv. Sorry - that’s just how it is.
That should be the smoking gun right there. Wonder what kind of lies and bullshit they're going to throw at this one.
Idk I thought the live televised insurrection was going to be the smoking gun lol
"Let's have trial by combat!"
There's so many smoking guns at this point you can field an army with them.
I think everyone is so bumfuzzled because they didn't hide any of it. It was out in the open, live tweeting acts of treason. Smoking guns are really important when you didn't watch them load the gun, aim the gun, and shoot the gun. We all saw the entire crime in real time, and it's weird that justice is taking this long.
But the president has immunity.
The idea that a president is above the law is insane. Also ignorance of the law is not a get out of jail free card.
The more significant the accused is, in terms of the survival of our democracy, the more ironclad and formality-adhering the prosecution must be.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, and these cases are moving forward at a pretty solid clip. It's not uncommon for a murder trial to take place a year-plus after an indictment, as an example.
This will be analyzed much more closely than even a murder trial, so it is important to jump through every possible hoop.
As for smoking guns, this evidence is a fucking Napoleonic battlefield of smoking guns.
I hear this a lot, but the longer these things take the more likely it is that the government will shift and simply decide "well, the cases haven't gone anywhere so at the beheadst of the Republican president we're shutting it down."
It's good to be thorough, but being so thorough that a conclusion to the charges isn't on the timescale of Trump's political career (or even life tbh) makes the whole process a waste of time and money. There needs to be more initiative being taken or the whole process may be moot.
And then they use the fact that they didn't hide any of it as evidence that it couldn't have been illegal.
What smoking guns? There's so much smoke I can't see anything through it!
Yes but right wing media does not cover these things and even worse: They give their audiences fresh, daily propaganda suggesting that crimes like this are no big deal (unless Democrats do them) and that the opposition will always seem so, so much worse than the worst Republican criminal.
It's the argument right wingers always fall back on when they've lost an argument or have run out of ways to change the topic: The other side is worst or "just as bad". No. No they are not and objective reality proves this. There's so, so many more criminal prosecutions and convictions of Republicans/conservatives in general than there are Democrats/liberals.
Those on the right will claim the justice department is out to get Republicans yet law enforcement and the justice department itself have vastly more Republicans/conservatives. If there's a crime to uncover on the Democrat side of things they are actively and wholeheartedly looking for it.
Bog standard "plug their ears and scream FAKE NEWS" with a dash of "rules for thee, but not for me".
Yeah, I’ll just throw it on this pile of other smoking guns we have here.
Reminder that Trump's Postmaster General sabotaged the post office's handling capacity in order to interfere with absentee voting.
Yeah how come that everyone already has forgotten about that one? I remember people having problems with receiving critical medication (and that was just a 'side effect') because of this yet nobody's talking about it anymore
One of my biggest let downs with Biden is that he didn't fire that DeJoy asshole in the first week. I get that his team doesn't think he has authority, but they know there's a reasonable argument that they do. They should just fire his ass and let it play out, the other side certainly would.
The other side literally did that for a position they had no legal argument for until SCOTUS invented it for them.
Another opportunity to say all I really want is a plugin that replaces every instance of "Ron Johnson" with "That fucker, Ron Johnson."
FoxReplace lets you set up custom substitutions like you suggest.
(!) I'll look into that!
..... I heard that exclamation point.
Who's footprints are these?
It's just a box
Seems like a potential recursive bug
This man should not be able to run at all lol.
He should be allowed to run ... for one hour a day in a special side yard away from the gen pop.
Maine has entered the chat?
Unfortunately, I think SCOTUS will let him run. After all, Trump owns the majority of the judges.
I’m going to need all you libtards to show me where on the constitution it says that crimes are illegal or that presidents can’t commit a lil treason every now and then
Also, what’s taking so long to throw this shitbag in jail already
If SCOTUS rules that sitting presidents are immune from all crimes I want biden to just fucking chainsaw the cheeto in the face. Maybe that'd be a big enough object lesson for maga zombies, but probably not even then.
This feels like the democratic equivalent of putting out a flaming bag of dog shit.
Everyone keeps talking about how Biden will likely win against Trump. I don't disagree. Most of my concern is if Trump is allowed to run just how much more brazen him and his team will be.
Not to mention how dangerous his supporters may become. Cults aren't known for their logical and clear understanding.
Sure but this time the National Guard's reins aren't held by someone hoping it succeeds. They're going to need a lot more violence to get past security this time.
Or for quietly calming down. They always seem to come to a head
The cult failed even when Trump had power from within the White House and a corrupt US Attorney General. Much harder now when everyone is on guard and he has no executive power, fortunately.
2020 was far more risky than 2024 in my opinion.
Hope that those with ties to this attempted insurrection get called for being traitors and be at least, banned yo get any work in government
Treason!
Close, sedition.
I think sending them through the mail actually bumps it up to treason.
I'm so sick of donnie diapers not only still walking around a free man, he might get back into power again.
I hope cholesterol wins soon
Watch how many people not named Trump go down for this.
Well, this makes it even more terrifying that this guy is running for office again.
Just toss it on the giant pile of smoking guns.
Knowing this country, the pile is next to a school and in danger of collapsing like coal ash.
Of course the pile of guns is next to a school in the US.
Mike Pence is a national hero. he knew about these and said he wouldn't accept them even if delivered. he stood strong when thousands outside wanted to lynch him. As much as I don't agree with him, he is a true patriot. I don't think he gets enough credit. without his backbone we would be in an even crazier place.
Hero is too strong a word. It took far too long for him to tell anyone what happened and he hasn't once called out Trump for being a traitor or trying to overthrow our democracy. During the Republican debates this year he agreed he'd endorse the Republican candidate regardless of who it was, including Trump.
Pence could have been a hero but he's tried too hard to stay in the middle and not offend the MAGAts when we've really needed the truth.
Hero is the wrong word. He did the bare minimum as to not be a traitor. Which is something I guess given the state of the GOP.
LMAO
Pence just had a few more braincells than the rest in knowing the consequences of this action versus the probability of it actually succeeding. He's no hero. He's no Patriot. As always, he is a self-serving sociopath.
what will he get up to next
Next week on Shit Show: America
Ah, another great example of projection.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The emails and recordings also indicate that a top Trump campaign lawyer was part of 11th-hour discussions about delivering the fake elector certificates to Pence, potentially undercutting his testimony to the House select committee that investigated January 6 that he had passed off responsibility and didn’t want to put the former vice president in a difficult spot.
CNN has obtained audio of Chesebro’s recent interview with Michigan investigators, and exclusively reported earlier this month that he also told them about a December 2020 Oval Office meeting where he briefed Trump about the fake electors plan and how it ties into January 6.
Chesebro also discussed the episode with Wisconsin investigators last week when he sat for an interview with the attorney general’s office as part of a separate state probe into the fake electors plot, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The emails show that Brown and the Wisconsin GOP official were instructed to meet Chesebro at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington to hand off the fake elector certificates.
The details from Chesebro put a finer point on how members of Congress, including a sitting US senator, were involved in making sure the electoral certificates for Trump ended up in Pence’s hands.
The January 6 committee first revealed last year Johnson’s involvement in trying unsuccessfully to deliver the fake elector certificates to Pence, who announced on the morning of the joint session that it would be unconstitutional to do what Trump wanted and unilaterally overturn the election results.
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