House Jan. 6 House Select Committee claims that former President Donald Trump was intimately involved in scheme to pressure GOP State election officials to create an alternative slate of electors favorable to Trump’s re-election. While it’s true that Trump backed any scheme to give his campaign more life, it leaps to conclusions about the exact role Trump played in any scheme to replace legitimate state lectors with a fake list favorable to Trump. Once Trump lost the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election, the campaign was in panic mode, no know how to proceed to give Trump a shot a restoring his presidency. Trump’s chief election legal consultant, former Chapman Univ. law professor John Eastman, concocted the scheme to create an alternative elector slate based on court rulings about the legitimacy of the vote. Once vote tabulation were certified for Biden, Eastman’s fake elector scheme blew up in his face.
All the talk about pressure on 67-year-old Georgia Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger and 69-year-old Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers to create a separate slate of electors were only based on legitimate court rulings proving that Trump had actually won the state’s popular vote. When no such court rulings took place, Eastman’s scheme to add a competing set of electors failed. “We have heard by an official high up in the Republican legislature that there is a legal theory or a legal ability in Arizona, that you can remove the elector of President Biden and replace them. And we would like to have the legitimate opportunity to come to that end and remove that,” Bowers said Trump and Giuliani told him. Bowers of course had no basis for establishing a new set of electors without a court ruling that the first set of electors were illegitimate by virtue of a flawed vote count.
Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.), a key member on the House Select Committee, produced an email from Bowers asking Trump’s lawyers for proof of Arizona election fraud. Without any proof certified by a court, there was little Bowers could do to seek a new slate of electors. ”We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence,” Bowers said Giuliani told him. “President Trump and his campaign were directly involved in advancing and coordinating the plot to replace legitimate Biden electors with fake electors no chosen by voters,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.) at yesterday’s House Select Committee hearing. All Schiff really knows is that Trump’s attorneys, led by Giuliani and Eastman, concocted a scheme to replace legitimate Biden electors with a new slate of electors supporting Trump. As Bowers testified, there was no evidence presented to accomplish that.
Schiff leaps to the conclusion that Trump orchestrated the scheme to replace legitimate Biden electors with those favorable to himself. Schiff tried to tie Trump’s Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse to the Jan. 6 riots, where alleged “Trump supporters” vandalized the Capitol. Schiff is ready to convict Trump of anything because three weeks of impeachment hearings resulted in Trump’s Feb. 13, 2020 acquittal in the U.S. Senate. Trump’s lawyers legal scheme to replace legitimate Biden electors with a new list of Trump-backed electors were only based on a court overruling the results of the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election. Not one court, anywhere in the country, invalidated any state election results due to fraud. Only a court order would have prompted state election officials to accept a new set of electors. But it never happened, making the House Select Committee’s case moot against Trump.
Schiff’s attempt to convince the public that Trump broke U.S. election law is preposterous. Trump’s attorney concocted an alternative elector scheme based on court rulings de-certifying state election votes. When no court produced even one decertification, Eastman and Giuliani’s alternative election scheme backfired. Schiff tries to see criminal culpability rather that looking at the scheme of producing new electors as a long-shot strategy. Schiff seeks any chance to tie Trump to criminal activity, just like he did in his 2020 impeachment trial. Eastman said that “the fact that we have multiple slates of electors demonstrates the uncertainty of either. That should be enough. Eastman’s plan, according to Schiff, Eastman’s plan was to sow enough doubt to justify delaying the Jan. 6 certification date. Schiff’s conjecture that Eastman was involved in an illegal scheme to decertify the Jan. 6 Elector College vote is a real stretch.
Proving that Trump’s legal team tried to find alternative electors does not mean that they tried to obstruct the Jan. 6 certification of the 2020 presidential vote. Nor does it mean that because Trump thought he was cheated out of the election that he tried to burn down the Capitol, encouraging rioting or any other illegal activity. Schiff insisted that Trump’s Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse was what prompted the riots. FBI officials confirmed that the illegal malicious mischief was planned for months, could have been prevented and was not due to Trump’s Jan. 6 speech. Now that the Jan. 6 Committee has run out of criminal options, they’re insisting Trump’s attorney’s tried to delay the Jan. 6 Electoral College certification vote. Trump’s legal team was trying to figure out any way to salvage his Nov. 3, 2020 election loss to Biden. There was no criminal intent, only alternative legal strategies.
