WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers orchestrated a plot to overturn the 2020 election by organizing slates of alternate “fake electors” in seven pivotal states, according to testimony and documents presented Tuesday by the House Jan. 6 committee.
During the committee’s fourth public hearing, the committee revealed that the fake electors submitted false certifications of Trump victories to the National Archives in hopes of having then-Vice President Mike Pence substitute them for the actual electoral votes that made Joe Biden president.
The effort, spearheaded by Trump lawyer John Eastman, was just one particularly extreme part of a broader campaign by the just-defeated president to cling to power.
But, according to the committee, it demonstrated Trump’s willingness to use any means — regardless of their legality — to reverse the will of voters. Trump’s team turned to the “fake electors” plan when it became clear that state officials in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and other key battlegrounds would not overturn the results in their states and replace Biden electors with Trump electors.
When Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Trump supporter who rebuffed Giuliani’s entreaties to switch electors in his state, learned that fake electors had met, he was shocked.
“I thought, this is tragic parody,” he testified at Thursday’s hearing.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
