New details emerge on Trump’s alleged plan to use fake electors to overturn election loss

Amna Nawaz:

New information is coming to light in a central charge against former President Trump, that he schemed to prop up fake sets of electors to overturn the 2020 election.

Our Lisa Desjardins has more on the latest developments.

Lisa Desjardins:

The accusation, like much in the Trump case, is unique.

Federal prosecutors point to these seven states which Trump lost, but where they allege he plotted to subvert the results with false slates of electors poised to cast the state's electoral votes. The indictment alleges that Trump's goal was to cast doubt and disrupt the final vote certification January 6.

Joining me now is Amy Gardner, who covers voting and national politics for The Washington Post.

Amy, we're talking about a fundamental part of our democracy here, the last step in voting for a president. This indictment charges that Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators were working to overturn that. Now, these are the faces of some people that are believed to be those co-conspirators, including one, Boris Epshteyn, who The New York Times has said is indicated.

The others, Rudy Giuliani, these are people clearly close in the Trump orbit. What did you learn from the indictment about them and about this plot?

Amy Gardner, The Washington Post:

I think one of the most interesting and really quite blockbuster elements of this indictment is that Jack Smith and his team are alleging that the pretext for the electors to meet, which was simply to preserve their legal remedies in the pending court cases in each of those seven states, was a lie, and that the real reason that the Trump campaign was endeavoring to get all of these electors to meet and cast their ballots for Trump and send these false elector slates to Washington was, as you put it in the introduction, to disrupt the proceedings on January 6.

That's something that the Trump folks denied. But Jack Smith presents quite a bit of evidence to suggest the possibility that's indeed what was going on.

Lisa Desjardins:

We also learned today from The New York Times something about a memo, a new memo that we hadn't seen in public before.

This was written in December of 2020 from Trump's ally, one of these that you just saw the picture of, Kenneth Chesebro, pushing these false slates of electors in those states even after most of those states had already certified their electoral process.

What is significant about this memo?

Amy Gardner:

What's significant about it is that it shows that, indeed, as early as December 6, when he apparently authored that memo, which The New York Times divulged last night, they were plotting to use these elector slates on January 6, not merely to preserve their legal recourse, as they stated at the time.

It's also worth noting that, even earlier than that, on December 3, another one of those unnamed co-conspirators who we have identified as John Eastman was testifying before the Georgia legislature about very similar possibilities about using these slates of electors on January 6.

So there's a good deal of evidence that Jack Smith includes in his indictment to show that the intent all along was, in fact, to subvert the final counting of the Electoral College vote on January 6.

Lisa Desjardins:

As I said, this is unique. This is an also about an archaic piece of American law, the Electoral College process.

The Trump team has said, there's nothing illegal with having these slates of electors ready to go. I know you're saying this indictment says otherwise. But what does the prosecutor in this case, the special counsel, have to prove to show that this was illegal?

Amy Gardner:

Well, so the way that conspiracy charges work is that all you have to prove is that at least two people planned to commit a crime.

And the crime — those individuals charged don't have to have been the people directly executing the crime, and the crime doesn't even have to have taken place.

Lisa Desjardins:

So they have to know it was a crime.

Amy Gardner:

Well, that is — thank you. That was my next point, which is that they do have to show that Trump knew.

And there is lots of evidence that people were telling the president at the time there isn't widespread fraud and, also, you can't do this thing with the electors that you're trying to do.

In one of the texts of changes with his — some of his senior campaign staff, at the time that they were trying to arrange these elector meetings, it was — one of them called it a donkey show. They were so certain that it was just legally not sustainable.

But, at the same time, he was also hearing from close advisers, including Giuliani, including Eastman, including Chesebro, that it was possible. Let's try it.

So I think that is the really, really big challenge that prosecutors face in this case.

Lisa Desjardins:

In our last minute or so here, how about the states?

These were state slates of electors? What's going on in the states regarding this generally?

Amy Gardner:

So, it's really interesting that Jack Smith is not going after the electors themselves in — who in many instances appear to have been duped into believing that it really was about preserving those legal remedies in those cases that were still pending.

However, in the states, some of the prosecutors who are looking into this, they are looking at the electors. We know that, in Michigan, the attorney general, Dana Nessel, has already charged all of the Michigan electors with crimes because, in part, Michigan didn't even have any pending cases. So there was no pretext to meet, other than to disrupt January 6.

We also know that the Fulton County prosecutor in the Atlanta, Georgia, area is planning to make a charging decision any day now. And we expect some of the electors in Georgia to actually be charged in that case as well.

Lisa Desjardins:

Amy Gardner, thank you so much for your very clear reporting. We appreciate it.

Amy Gardner:

Thank you so much.