A Dose of Reality on the Eve of Another Election
Donald Trump knows his claim that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” is a complete and total lie. There’s absolutely no doubt that he knew it was a lie on January 6, 2021, and he knows that’s still a lie today.
When Donald Trump was originally indicted in U.S. v. Trump, on August 1, 2023, the country could still hold out some hope for a timely trial – if not any subsequent appeals – in that historic “stolen“ election case arising out of the Jan6 “insurrection.” Donald’s lawyers – and six members of his Supreme court – made sure that any trial did not happen before the 2024 election. Although all of the delay was not the fault of the Supreme Court, the Court did play a decisive role by itself delaying consideration of the case for a total of eight months. (I’ve tracked the precise components of this inordinate delay previously, see DCReport (July 11, 2024).
As a result, it could not be clearer that the case – finally on remand to the trial court – will not come close to being tried – much less finally decided – before next Tuesday’s election.
HOWEVER! There is one new development – that has not been fully appreciated – that can guide the studious in their ultimate voting decisions, even in the absence of a final verdict in the case. That is, the pending “Immunity Motion”, submitted by the government, examining Trump’s alleged criminal actions in the context of the Supreme Court’s most recent ruling severely limiting a President’s potential criminal liability so long as his or her acts fall within some broad definition of “official duties”.
Despite these daunting obstacles, the government has put together a comprehensive, 165-page presentation of most of the details of Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
It is that presentation by the United States which should be bedtime reading for seriously concerned citizens, between now and next Tuesday!
So, what is the upshot of that most recent filing in a case – United States v. Donald J. Trump – that will almost certainly never be tried should Trump once again be elected President of the United States?
Here is what the government’s new filing alleges – in its starkest terms:
According to the government’s case, at his Ellipse event, on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump stood up and went forward with his plan to rile up his supporters in attendance – and those listening around the country. He did so by LYING to them about EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the results of the 2020 presidential election, which by that time were very well known and essentially completely litigated – all to the detriment of Donald Trump’s quest to somehow save his otherwise nil election prospects.
What follows is a summary of the actual, officially-determined results of the 2020 election, Is Presented in the government’s indictment, contrasted with the picture painted by Trump for his loyalists on Jan6 before he sent them to “peacefully and patriotically” participate in an “insurrection” at the Capitol – whose purpose was to block – or at least to delay – the constitutionally-mandated certification – on Jan6 – of Joe Biden’s Election as 46th President of the United States.
A TALE OF TWO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN 2020: WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AND WHAT TRUMP TOLD HIS SUPPORTERS HAD HAPPENED (Comparing GOVERNMENT’S MOTION FOR IMMUNITY DETERMINATIONS, AS REDACTED), 23 CR 257 (TSC), OCTOBER 2, 2024, with TRANSCRIPT OF TRUMP SPEECH AT RALLY BEFORE CAPITOL RIOTS (NPR, FEBRUARY 10, 2021).
OVERVIEW: On the night of the 2020 election, after Fox’s initial call awarding Arizona to Joe Biden, President Trump had a key decision to make. Some of his advisers suggested he be quiet and let the counting proceed. But a couple of advisors argued he could seize the advantage by declaring victory. Unsurprisingly, President Trump chose the latter. At 2:20 AM on the overnight of November 4, here is exactly what Trump said on national television in the middle of the night: “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”
According to the Immunity Motion, by November 7 Trump was internally being advised that he was unlikely to win the election. The only possibility was if he was able to run the table on all ongoing vote counts and/or litigation in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. Then, less than a week later, on November 13, his existing internal staff advised him that he would lose the pending Arizona challenges. Or, in effect, that he could no longer win the election. At that point, Trump changed the people working on his post-election efforts. Although the redacted Motion has deleted all names, it seems evident that Trump largely turned away from his internal staff, and that he appointed Rudy Giuliani as his lead election representative going forward. According to the United States’ blunt assessment, Giuliani was “willing to falsely claim victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud.” Of course, it is publicly known that, based largely on his election efforts, Giuliani has now been disbarred in at least one or two jurisdictions and is attempting to fight off aggressive enforcement proceedings to liquidate his assets in order to pay off a multi-million-dollar defamation judgment secured by two Georgia election workers against him.
In other words, as bluntly alleged in the Immunity Motion, “[Trump] knew that his claims of outcome determinative fraud were false.” And that is worth repeating: “[Trump] knew that his claims of outcome determinative fraud were false.”
However, according to the government, he nonetheless proceeded, through and including January 6, in his campaign to discredit the election. At that time, even many Republican leaders objected to what he was doing. This includes Vice President Pence and the Republican governors in both Arizona and Georgia. In a telling personal statement to certain family members, Trump summed up his approach: “it doesn’t matter whether you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
Here is a state-by-state summary of the seven swing states which decided the 2020 presidential election:
ARIZONA: In Arizona, according to the government’s Immunity Motion, the Trump campaign was making wilder and wilder claims of fraud, primarily focused on allegations of voting by noncitizens. These false allegations ranged from an initial claim of 36,000 noncitizens, all the way up at one point to 250,000, and finally back to a less glaring claim of 38,000. However, according to the Motion, there was zero basis for any of these claims. And ultimately, according to the Motion, this litany of clearly defunct election lies was the core of Trump’s speech to his followers on the Ellipse on January 6 before sending them on their “peaceful and patriotic” march to the Capitol. According to the Motion, throughout the period starting in November and concluding on January 6, the President and his team continued to press for some opening to undo the key unfavorable election results. In Arizona, this included a call to the Republican governor who colorfully summed up Trump’s situation to him in baseball terms: “it’s the ninth inning, two outs and [the defendant] was several runs down.”
GEORGIA: at the outset, it should be recalled that in Georgia there remains a pending state indictment of Trump – and many alleged co-conspirators, a few of whom have already accepted plea bargains in return for admissions of guilt – for alleged racketeering-type violations of Georgia law in the 2020 election. Whether that case will ever be tried depends on many factors that are not pertinent to the discussion here. In any event, an initial focus of Trump’s legal challenges in Georgia was that the election outcome was affected by a large number of allegedly “dead” voters. Those claims were made publicly and also by Rudy Giuliani at a Georgia legislative hearing. It turns out, as determined by Georgia officials, it was not 10,000 dead people who voted for but something more like 12! Obviously, this letter number not being by any stretch “outcome determinative”. Separately, there also was a huge push by the Trump campaign based on misinterpretations of videotapes made at the State Form Arena in Atlanta. Ultimately, those pervasive and highly damaging misinterpretations led to the naming and endangerment of two volunteers at the Arena. After they had been put through hell, the two ultimately sued Mayor Giuliani for defamation and they are now in the process of attempting to collect their $148,000,000 (!) judgment against him. One remaining key event in Georgia was a telephone call by Donald Trump to the Republican Governor and Secretary of State. There is no need to rehash that notorious phone call at any length, because it was famously recorded, although we comment briefly on it below in a discussion of the historical numbers of fraudulently made – or changed – votes identified in prior studies.
MICHIGAN: According to the government’s Immunity Motion, the State of Michigan was the subject of legislative lobbying efforts by Trump representatives urging the Legislature to declare the election invalid and/or to approve a separate, competing Trump slate of electors in Michigan. Such efforts went nowhere, for the following reasons, according to the Immunity Motion: Allegedly, President Trump invited Michigan’s Republican Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the Michigan House to the White House. According to the Immunity Motion, on the same day that he invited those legislators to the White house, Trump issued a Press Release, having zero basis in fact, in which he claimed: “In Detroit there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan.” Allegedly, during the aforementioned White House meeting, Trump claimed that he lost the election due to fraud in Wayne County where Detroit is located. Supposedly, Trump was corrected by the Michigan representatives who explained that he (Trump) lost Michigan because of his poor performance with educated women into suburban counties where two sheriff candidates had outperformed him sufficiently for him to have won the State. The President then called upon Rudy Giuliani who launched into a “fraud monologue.” However, once again, in that meeting Giuliani provided no useful additional evidence. And with no solid evidence of fraud, according to the Immunity Motion, the Trump campaign ultimately never even filed a court case challenging the result in Michigan. Finally, on December 14, the deadline for certifying electors, Michigan’s appointed electors publicly reported that they had not found any outcome determinative fraud in the State of Michigan. On that basis the official electors expressly declined to appoint a separate slate of Trump electors. In response to the negative role of the Republican legislative leaders, Trump thereafter tweeted the Majority Leader’s and the House Speaker’s telephone numbers to his. Subsequently, the Majority Leader received 4000 angry phone calls from Trump loyalists and had to change his telephone number. Ironically, the House Speaker’s telephone number had been garbled in Trump’s tweet so that he was spared the same harassment.
NEVADA: According to the Immunity Motion, meaningful evidence of outcome determinative fraud was never developed or presented in Nevada. Trump was advised that there was no such evidence but he nonetheless authorized pursuit of a lawsuit challenging the election result. According to the government’s Motion, Trump announced the Nevada lawsuit as “Big News!” Two weeks later, when the court dismissed his case, Trump issued no announcement. However, the Trump campaign did appeal from the adverse ruling in the lower court. But they also lost that appeal in the Nevada Supreme Court. And both courts noted the absence of any meaningful proof of the Trump campaign’s claims of fraud. Notwithstanding all of the above, in his Ellipse speech, President Trump repeated all of the unproven Nevada fraud claims that had been rejected by the Nevada courts!
PENNSYLVANIA: According to the Immunity Motion, in Pennsylvania, there was no material fraud in the state election. Trump specifically asked why his lead as of Election Day was eroding and there after lost over a period of several days after the election. An advisor with whom Trump had worked previously pointed out that there were one and three-quarter million absentee ballots in Pennsylvania – ballots running 80% for Biden – that had to be counted and taken into consideration. Relatively early in November, the City Commissioner declared that there was no significant fraud detected in Philadelphia. Trump, in his typically bold fashion, thereafter targeted the Commissioner by name, stating that he was being used by the “Fake News Media” and was “refusing to look at a mountain of corruption and dishonesty. We Win!” Notwithstanding all of this, according to the government’s motion, for the next two months Trump continued to spread false claims about voting fraud in Pennsylvania, as did his chief counsel Rudy Giuliani, including what turned out to be an erroneous claim that the number of absentee ballots did not match the number of ballots actually received, but that turned out to be based on a mistaken comparison of primary and election votes. Finally, also according to the Immunity Motion, four of Pennsylvania’s legislative leaders ultimately announced that there was no evidence of fraud and that they had no power to overturn the clear result of the election for Biden. A Twitter campaign was subsequently launched against the four legislative leaders calling them, among other things “Cowards,” Liars,” and “Traitors.”
WISCONSIN: In the State of Wisconsin there was a recount paid for by the Trump campaign. Unfortunately for Trump, the recount not only confirmed Biden’s win but actually increased Trump’s margin of defeat. All of this was challenged in litigation that went up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where all of the Trump legal challenges were rejected. Wisconsin’s governor thereafter signed a certificate confirming Biden’s win. It is perhaps no surprise that, thereafter, Trump issued a series of tweets attacking the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion rejecting Trump’s challenge.
MANY IF NOT ALL OF THE DISPROVEN CLAIMS REVIEWED ABOVE – CLAIMS THAT WERE CONSISTENTLY REJECTED STATE-BY-STATE – WERE NONETHELESS REPEATED, AND MOST OFTEN VERY SUBSTANTIALLY EMBELLISHED, BY TRUMP AT THE JAN6 RALLY ON THE ELLIPSE: This summary is not based on government allegations in the Immunity Motion. Trump’s many, many claims of election fraud can be found in available transcripts of his Jan6 speech. Trump began his speech by purporting to put his claims into dramatic historical perspective. According to Trump: “[The 2020 election] was so corrupt that in the history of this country we’ve never seen anything like it. You can go all the way back***No third-world countries would even attempt to do what we caught them doing and you’ll hear about that in just a few minutes.” “As you know, the media has constantly asserted the outrageous lie that there was no evidence of widespread fraud … No evidence of fraud. Oh, really? Well, I’m going to read you pages. I hope you don’t get bored listening to it.” “Over the past several weeks, we’ve amassed overwhelming evidence about a fatally-flawed election. This is the presidential election.”
DOES THIS IN ANY WAY SOUND LIKE THE OFFICIAL FINDINGS, STATE-BY-STATE, AND DESCRIBED ABOVE?
PENNSYLVANIA: According to Trump at the Ellipse “you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters … And the number is actually much greater than that now. So Pennsylvania was defrauded. Over 8000 ballots in Pennsylvania were cast by [dead] people … Over 14,000 ballots were cast by out-of-state voters … More than 10,000 votes in Pennsylvania were illegally counted; “more than 60,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were reported received back… Back before they were ever supposedly mailed out.” 25,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were requested by nursing home residents, all in a single giant batch. “… The number of absentee ballots that had been sent out suddenly and drastically increased by 400,000 people.… Nobody knows where it came from…”
WISCONSIN: there were more than 500 illegal drop boxes, which collected a minimum of 91,000 unlawful votes.”… In addition, over 170,000 absentee votes were counted in Wisconsin without a valid absentee ballot application. In Madison, 17,000 votes were deposited in so-called human drop boxes… Unsecured ballots put into duffel bags on park benches.… “[Also,] Postal Service workers in Wisconsin were instructed to illegally backdate approximately 100,000 ballots.)
GEORGIA: unverified signatures in Fulton County; absentee ballot rejection rate 10 times lower than previous levels … 11,000 votes for Trump that they refused to find!”… Over 10,300 ballots were cast by dead people! More than 2,500 ballots were cast by incarcerated people. People who were not allowed to vote more than 4500 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who do not appear on the state’s own portable over 18,000 illegal ballots were cast by individuals using an address listed as vacant; according to the Postal Service at least 88,000 ballots in Georgia were cast by people registrations were illegally evaporated 66,000 folks were cast by individuals under the legal voting age… At least 15,000 ballots were cast by individuals who moved out of the state prior to the election.” Despite all of this, the margin in Georgia is only 11,700!
ARIZONA: “Over 36,000 ballots were illegally cast by noncitizens. 2,000 ballots were returned with no address. More than 22,000 ballots were returned before they were ever supposedly mailed out. 11,600 more ballots and votes were counted, more than there were actual voters.” “150,000 people registered in Maricopa County* after the registration deadline. 103,000 ballots were sent for electronic adjudication with no Republican observers.”
NEVADA: “In Clark County the accuracy settings of signature verification machines were lowered before they were used to count over 130,000 ballots; if you sign your Name Is Santa Claus, it would go through!”; … 1500 ballots were cast by dead people. And more than 8,000 votes were cast by individuals who had no addresses.”
MICHIGAN: 17,000 dead people. In Wayne County Detroit 174,000 ballots were counted without being tied to an actual registered voter; also in Wayne County, batches of ballots were rescanned over and over again three or four or five times in Detroit tonight … 139% of registered voters; city workers were coaching voters to vote straight Democrat but refused to talk to Republicans; no attempts to validate signatures if they were Democrats; thousands and thousands of ballots were improperly backdated; witnesses have testified that after the last votes had been counted tens of thousands of additional ballots arrived without required envelopes …”; at 6:31 AM – in the early morning hours after voting had ended – Michigan suddenly reported 147,000 votes an astounding 94% to Joe Biden. And finally Trump complained about DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS. Trump claimed that in one Michigan County 6,I00 votes were switched from him to Biden by machine! One Georgia senator complained that the machines in Fulton County had an astounding 93.67% error rate whereas the national average error rate is far less than 1%.
A FEW FINAL NOTES ON “CHEATING” IN ELECTIONS: Based on all of the above – admittedly still allegations to the extent they are part of the government’s pending Immunity Motion – Trump’s most recent statement concerning election fraud could be cynically viewed as the ultimate in brazen (using the vernacular) ’chutzpah’! Thus, just recently, on or about October 26, Trump issued what he called a “CEASE & DESIST” notice – directed expressly to Democrats. Referencing alleged Democrat “Cheating and Skullduggery” in the 2020 Presidential election, Trump warned that when he becomes President again (“WHEN I WIN”) “those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long-term prison sentences … We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T!” (Emphasis added)
*A closely-watched, but now nearly forgotten event, related to the 2020 Arizona election controversy, was the unofficial “Cyber-Ninja” “hand recount” in Maricopa County, the largest county in the state, including the city of Phoenix, that normally votes Democratic. After many months of seeming craziness, the result of the Cyber-Ninja recount: Biden’s total county-wide vote count increased by 99 votes; while Trump’s total decreased by 261 votes. Net result: Biden gains 162 votes in the recount!
** Another obscure but actually relevant historical note from Georgia: when Donald Trump said. On that notorious recorded telephone call – with the Republican governor and Secretary of State – that “all he wanted” from Georgia officials was to “find 10,780 votes” for him, he was actually asking for a level of vote-count fraud far surpassing anything previously documented in multiple, think-tank type studies over recent decades, typically done by conservative groups motivated to find fraud in order to justify greater levels of voter suppression!
