A series of disclosed emails reveal details of Trump’s ‘fake electors plan’

Previously undisclosed emails provide an inside look at the increasingly desperate efforts by advisers to President Donald Trump to reverse his election defeat in the weeks before the Capitol attack.

The dozens of emails among people connected to the Trump campaign, show a particular focus on assembling lists of people who would claim, with no basis, to be electors on his behalf in states that he had lost.

In emails reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who had worked with the Trump campaign at the time, according to the newspaper, one lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called electors.

The so-called electors were intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome.

“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, a lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign.

In a follow-up email, Wilenchik wrote that “alternative” votes was probably a better term than “fake” votes, adding a smiley face emoji.

Image: Wu Yi/Unsplash

One email showed that many of Trump’s top advisers were informed of problems naming Trump electors in Michigan (a state he had lost) because pandemic rules had closed the state Capitol building where the so-called electors had to gather.

The emails show that participants in the discussions reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and in at least one case, to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff.

According to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, Mark Meadows emailed another campaign adviser saying, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.”

The emails were apparently not shared with lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, who advised that the fake electors plan was not legally sound, or other lawyers on the campaign.

On Dec. 8, 2020, Wilenchik wrote that Kelli Ward (pictured), one of the Republicans in Arizona participating in the fake electors plan, recommended trying “to keep it under wraps until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6th (so we can try to ‘surprise’ the Dems and media with it). I tend to agree with her,” he added.

The committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has produced evidence that Trump was aware of the fake electors plan.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said in a deposition to the panel that Trump had called her and put Eastman on the phone “to talk about the importance of the R.N.C. helping the campaign gather these contingent electors.”

The panel has also heard testimony from Greg Jacob, who was Pence’s counsel in the White House, that Eastman admitted in the Jan. 4 Oval Office meeting, with Trump present, that his plan to have Pence obstruct the electoral certification violated the Electoral Count Act.

As they organized the fake elector scheme, lawyers appointed a “point person” in seven states to help organize those electors who were willing to sign their names to false documents.

In Pennsylvania, that point person was Douglas V. Mastriano, a proponent of Trump’s lies of a stolen election who is now the Republican nominee for governor.

“The second slate just shows up at noon on Monday and votes and then transmits the results,” Troupis wrote of organizing Republican slates of electors to cast ballots for Trump on Dec. 14.“It is up to Pence on Jan 6 to open them,” he noted.

“Our strategy is for the electors to meet and vote so that an interim decision by a Court to certify Trump the winner can be executed (…) The key nationally would be for all six states to do it so the election remains in doubt until January,” Troupis added.

The emails also demonstrated the legal team had relied on false information to point to broad claims of election fraud, according to The New York Times.

On Dec. 17, Epshteyn wrote to Giuliani that a document on election fraud created by Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, (which has been discredited by state officials and courts), appeared to be “the most comprehensive summary of voter fraud from this election season.”

The lawyers were aware their legal efforts were being ridiculed. On Dec. 23, one of them wrote: “You folks are getting killed in the media on litigation strategy, even on Fox and among conservatives.”