The previously undisclosed emails offer an inside look at the increasingly desperate and often brazen efforts of President Donald J. Trump’s advisers to reverse his election defeat in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, including acknowledgments that a key element of his plan was dubious. legality and lived up to its billing as “fake”.
The dozens of emails between people connected to the Trump campaign, outside advisers and close associates of Mr. Trump showed a particular focus on gathering lists of people who would claim, without any basis, to be Electoral College voters on his behalf in the battleground states 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, a lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called voters, who had the intent to provide Vice President Mike Pence and allies of Mr. Trump to Congress a justification for derailing the congressional process to certify the result. And lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew the pro-Trump voters they were pitching might not hold up to legal scrutiny.
“We would only send ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can object when he starts counting the votes and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix. based attorney who helped organize pro-Trump voters in Arizona, wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser to the Trump campaign.
In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes are probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” adding a smiley face emoji.
The emails provide new details of how a wing of the Trump campaign worked with lawyers and outside advisers to organize the voter plan and pursue a range of other options, often without thought to their practicality. An email showed that many of Mr. Trump’s top advisers were aware of problems in nominating Trump’s electors in Michigan, a state he had lost because pandemic rules had closed the state Capitol building where they were to be held. gather the so-called voters.
The emails show that participants in the discussions reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and in at least one case to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. At the same time, according to the House committee that investigated on January 6, Mr. Meadows emailed another campaign adviser, saying, “We just need to have someone coordinate with the state electors.”
Many of the emails went to Mr. Epshteyn, who served as a liaison to people inside and outside the Trump campaign and the White House and remains a close aide to Mr. trump
Mr. Epshteyn, the emails show, was a regular point of contact for John Eastman, the lawyer whose plan to derail congressional certification of the Electoral College result on Jan. 6, 2021, was accepted by Mr. trump
Key revelations from the January 6 hearings
Mr. Epshteyn not only sent and conveyed to Mr. Giuliani the detailed proposal for January 6 prepared by Mr. Eastman, but also dealt with questions about how to pay Mr. Eastman and made arrangements for him to visit the White House in January. 4, 2021, the emails show.
That was the day of the Oval Office meeting in which Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman unsuccessfully lobbied Mr. Pence to adopt the plan, an exchange witnessed by Mr. Pence, Marc Short and Greg Jacob all testified last time. week to the federal grand jury investigating the storming of the Capitol and what led to it.
The emails underscore how Mike Roman, director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump did much of the work to find ways to challenge the losses of Mr. Trump in battleground states.
Mr. Epstein and Mr. Roman, the emails show, coordinated with others who played a role in advising Mr. trump Among them were attorneys Jenna Ellis and Bruce Marks; Gary Michael Brown, who served as deputy director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump; and Christina Bobb, who at the time worked for One America News Network and now works with Mr. trump
The emails were apparently not shared with lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, who reported that the “fake voter” scheme was not legally sound, or with other campaign lawyers.
Some of the participants also expressed their approval in the emails to keep some of their activities out of the public eye.
For example, after Mr. Trump hosted Pennsylvania state lawmakers at the White House in late November to discuss overturning the election result, Mr. Epshteyn celebrated when news of the meeting didn’t leak out quickly. “The WH meeting has not been made public, which is shocking and fantastic,” he wrote to Ms. Ellis.
On December 8, 2020, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that Kelli Ward, one of the Arizona Republicans involved in the fraudulent voter scheme, recommended trying to “keep it secret until Congress counts the vote on Jan. 6 (because we can try to ‘surprise’ Democrats and the media) – I agree with her.”
Mr. Epstein, Mr. Wilenchik, Mr. Roman, Mr. Eastman, Mrs. Bobb and James Troupis, another attorney involved in the scheme, declined to comment or did not respond to emails or calls seeking comment.
Mr. Marks, in an email, disputed that there was anything improper or improper about the job.
“I don’t think there was anything ‘fake’ or illegal about the alternate delegate slates, and particularly Pennsylvania,” he said. “There was a story of alternate slates from Hawaii in 1960. There was nothing secret about it — they were provided to the National Archives, as I understand the procedure, and then it was up to Congress to decide what to do.”
Mr. Marks added: “I had no involvement with Professor Eastman’s advice on the role of the vice-president, which I only learned about after the fact, and I do not support it.”
The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has produced evidence that Mr. Trump was aware of the voters’ plan. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement to the panel that Mr. Trump had called him and put Mr. Eastman on the phone “to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign bring these contingent voters together.”
The group also heard the testimony of Mr. Jacob, who was the lawyer of Mr. Pence at the White House, which Mr. Eastman admitted in the Jan. 4 Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump present, that his plan to have Mr. Pence. obstructing the electoral certification violated the Electoral Counting Act.
Emails sometimes show less accuracy than lawyers. Mr. Marks repeatedly referred to Cleta Mitchell, another attorney assisting Mr. Trump, like “Clita” and “Clavita,” which made Mr. Epshteyn answered: “It is Cleta, not Clavita.”
Once again, Mr. Epstein wrote to Mr. Marks: “You mean Arizona when you say Nevada?”
In early December, it appeared that Mr. Epshteyn was helping to coordinate the efforts, repeatedly conversing with Mr. Marks and others. Mr. Wilenchik told fellow lawyers that he had been discussing an idea proposed by another lawyer while working with the campaign, Kenneth Chesebro, an ally of Mr. Eastman, to submit a list of loyal voters to Mr. trump
“Their idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our voters send in their ballots (even though the ballots are not legal under federal law, because they are not signed by the governor ). ); so that members of Congress can fight over whether they should be counted on January 6,” wrote Mr. Wilenchik in the email on December 8, 2020 to Mr. Epshteyn and half a dozen other people.
“A wild/creative species; I’m happy to talk,” continued Mr. Wilenchik. “My comment was that I assume there is no harm, (at least legally), in that we would only be sending “fake” electoral votes to Pence so that “someone” in Congress can object when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted.”
While organizing the bogus voter scheme, lawyers appointed a “point person” in seven states to help organize those voters who were willing to sign their names on fake documents. In Pennsylvania, that person was Douglas V. Mastriano, a defender of Mr. Lies. Trump on a stolen election who is now the Republican candidate for governor.
But even Mr. Mastriano needed assurances to pursue a plan that other Republicans told him was “illegal,” according to a Dec. 12 email from Ms. Bobb that also referred to Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. .
“Mastriano needs a call from the mayor. This must be done. Talk to him about the legality of what they’re doing,” he wrote, adding, “Constituents want to be sure the process is *legal* essential to a larger strategy.”
The emails showed the group initially hoped to get Republican state legislatures or governors to buy into their plans and give them the stamp of legitimacy. But by December, it was clear that no authority would agree to follow through, so Trump’s lawyers focused on pressuring Mr. Pence, who was scheduled to preside over a joint session of Congress on January 6.
On December 7, Mr. Troupis, who worked for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, wrote to Mr. Epshteyn that “there was no need for legislators to act.” He cited the legal analysis of Mr. Chesebro that the key to the hopes of Mr. Trump was not to block state voter certification on Dec. 14, but to create a reason for Mr. Pence blocked or delayed Congressional certification of Electoral College results on January 14. 6.
“The second list only appears on Monday at noon and votes and then transmits the results,” wrote Mr. Troupis on the republican organization…