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December 11, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Dec 12
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The picture of what was happening at the White House in the days before the January 6 insurrection is becoming clearer. (While we also have a decent idea of what was happening at the Department of Justice, what was happening at the Pentagon remains unclear.)
Shortly after Trumps White House chief of staff Mark Meadows announced on Tuesday that he would no longer cooperate with the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) wrote a letter noting that Meadows had already shared materialthus indicating he did not consider it privilegedthat he is now saying he wont discuss. Thompson identified some of that material.
He said Meadows had provided the committee with an email regarding a 38-page PowerPoint briefing titled Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN that was to be provided on the hill; and, among others, a January 5, 2021 email about having the National Guard on standby.
Journalists immediately began looking for that PowerPoint. Slides began to surface, and then a whole slide deck appeared on the internet. The Guardians Hugo Lowell verified it on Friday. The fact that members of the presidents inner circle actually prepared a presentation for an audience about how to overturn an election crystallized just how close the nation came to a successful coup on January 6.
The PowerPoint presented three ways for thenVice President Mike Pence to overturn Bidens election and hand the presidency back to Trump. Pence could simply seat the slates of electors Trump supporters had organized to replace the official slates certified by the states. Pence could insist on rejecting all electronic ballots. Or Pence could delay the counting of the ballots long enough to throw the election into the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote. Since there were more Republican-dominated states than Democratic-dominated states, Trump would be reelected.
Then, also on Friday, news dropped that Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis had produced two memosone previously unknownoutlining far-fetched legal arguments to justify Pence throwing the election to Trump. One, dated December 31, said he could simply refuse to open the envelopes containing the electoral votes of states whose results Trump contested.
A second, dated January 5, made a more complicated argument claiming for Pence more authority to determine the outcome of the election than the vice president has exercised since the 1887 Electoral Count Act.
Today, Robert Costa, the Washington Post reporter who wrote the book Peril with veteran journalist Bob Woodward about the fraught weeks surrounding the January 6 insurrection, laid out the timeline for early January in the White House.
In December, right-wing lawyer John Eastman began drafting the Eastman Memo calling for Pence to refuse to count electors from states Biden won and laying out a number of ways Pence could throw the election to Trump. (Trumps own loyal attorney general, William Barr, and his deputy Jeffrey Rosen, who replaced Barr when he resigned on December 23, 2020, had already concluded the election was not fraudulent.) The plan, as Costa and Woodward put it in Peril, was: Either have Pence declare Trump the winner, or make sure it is thrown to the House where Trump is guaranteed to win.
The White House had the memo by January 1. Meadows was working with the Trump team to push the ideas in it. Someone in the White House gave it to Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and others on January 2. Meadows met with both Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in Meadowss office on January 2 to brief Graham, who was then the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on what they claimed was voter fraud. Graham demanded proof.
On January 3, Pence conferred with the Senate parliamentarian, who told him he was simply there to count the votes. It was clear he was not on board with Trumps plan.
On January 4, Trump called Pence to the Oval Office to pressure him. Eastman presented his case to Pence; Pences chief of staff, Marc Short; and Pences legal counsel, Greg Jacob. On that day, someone presented the PowerPoint to a number of Republican senators and members of the House.
Apparently, none of the people briefed called the attention of the FBI to the coming attempt to overturn the election.
On the evening of January 5, Trump called Pence to a meeting as his supporters were gathering on Freedom Plaza near the White House. The people in the streets were cheering and waving Make America Great Again flags. Trump asked Pence to throw the election to the House of Representatives; Pence again said he did not have authority to do anything other than count the certified electoral votes.
And then, according to Costa and Woodward in Peril, Trump asked: Well, what if these people say you do? gesturing to the crowds outside. If these people say you had the power, wouldnt you want to?
Pence, who would have been the face of the insurrection if he had done as he was asked, still said no.
That night, Trump called his people in the so-called war room at the Willard Hotel, where loyalists had been trying to figure out a way to delay certification if Pence didnt cave. He called the lawyers and the non-lawyers separately, since Giuliani wanted to preserve attorney-client privilege. Hes arrogant, Trump told his lieutenant Stephen Bannon.
They appear to have settled on a plan to get Republican lawmakers to raise enough objections that it would delay the counting long enough to throw the election into the House of Representatives. (This squares with the voicemail Giuliani left for newly elected Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) in the midst of the insurrection, saying: The only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrowideally until the end of tomorrow.)
Since his memo became public, John Eastman has said it was not being provided to Trump or Pence as my advice.... The memo was designed to outline every single possible scenario that had been floated, so that we could talk about it. When subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, Eastman declined to appear, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Since journalist Lowell broke the story of Trumps calls to the Willard the night of January 5, Trumps spokesperson has said that the account is totally false but provided no more information.
Since the story of the PowerPoint dropped, retired U.S. Army colonel Phil Waldron, who was working with the Trump team to challenge the election results, claimed authorship of it. Waldron told the Washington Post that he met with Meadows maybe eight to 10 times and was the one who briefed several members of Congress about the information in his presentation on January 5.
Since Politico dropped the story about her memos, Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis said: At no time did I advocate for overturning the election or that Mike Pence had the authority to do so . As part of my role as a campaign lawyer and counsel for President Trump, I explored legal options that might be available within the context of the U.S. Constitution and statutory law.
Yesterday, the January 6 committee subpoenaed six more people who had been involved in planning the rallies in Washington on January 5 and January 6. Some of them communicated with Trump directly; one communicated with Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL). Subpoenas went to Bryan Lewis, Ed Martin, Kimberly Fletcher, Robert Bobby Peede Jr., Max Miller, and Brian Jack.
On Monday, December 6, we learned that Pences chief of staff, Marc Short, has been cooperating with the January 6 committee.
Maeve
(42,282 posts)Of which I am one
Joinfortmill
(14,432 posts)LittleGirl
(8,287 posts)I send it to my spouse who doesnt use FB.
mrsadm
(1,198 posts)Sorry I am not facebook litterate. I went to her facebook page and did not see a link for emails.
Thanks
Joinfortmill
(14,432 posts)samplegirl
(11,480 posts)We can not allow this to be swept!!!!
Diamond_Dog
(32,008 posts)I have been a subscriber for 6 months and wish Id found her sooner.
LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)and god knows we need real justice on this awful episode in our history, but for me this is all confirmatory of what we basically knew very early on.
rambler_american
(789 posts)is brilliant and should run for Senate.
LittleGirl
(8,287 posts)Shes a national treasure. I feel smarter for it. Shes taught me a lot of history in ways I like to read. Were so lucky to be able to learn from her.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)nature of a completely crazy power hungry man and the inordinate level of support by his sycophants. Though sickening is any of this activity illegal?
What I'd like to know is what the connection of this group above had with the people who stormed the Capitol. Were they specifically instructed to commit unlawful acts?
kentuck
(111,104 posts)Didn't Barr leave just before last Christmas?
Did they expect the acting AG to go along where Barr had refused?
Did they know what "type" of people were coming to the rally? (Militias, bikers, gangsters, all mixed with the die-hard cult)
TNNurse
(6,927 posts)I recently went to my 50th (oh, my) college reunion. I had the thrill of hearing a classmate who was chairman of the history dept at a large well known university praise her daily writing.
FrankTC
(210 posts)Nice summary. Watching the news as a routine viewer, you get the links in the chain in drips and drabs in nonlinear order over a week or so, and then Richardson comes along and knits them together in proper sequence, revealing the overall design. Chris Hayes did that last week too. Wonderfully helpful. So, now, finally, will people who express concern for the institutions of government (Biden, Manchin, Sinema, Garland) bestir themselves and protect those said institutions? Isn't it clear that these institutions are in the ICU on life support and will perish unless there are consequences for perfidy and reforms to shore up voting rights? This comment is directed primarily to Manchin and Sinema, who uphold the filibuster for the alleged sake of institutional integrity but who are allowing even more important institutions (e.g., elections) to be degraded.
bluescribbler
(2,117 posts)And she writes well, she's organized, comprehensive, and easy to read.
chia
(2,244 posts)CrispyQ
(36,478 posts)downplaying the importance of the PowerPoint presentation.
erronis
(15,303 posts)I use Inoreader.com (paid subscription) but there are many other excellent readers.
erronis
(15,303 posts)Mad_Machine76
(24,414 posts)She really helps provide much needed historical context to current events.