Special counsel Jack Smith reveals startling new evidence in his latest filing in the Donald Trump case on Jan. 6, unearthing private conversations with top aides and lawyers who ridiculed his election fraud claims as coming from outer space.
The 165-page document, which argues that Trump’s alleged conduct does not merit immunity under a new Supreme Court standard, presents Trump’s as a plot by a private individual to steal the election, not as conduct protected by a branch of the government.
The 165-page dossier is filled with surprising episodes of Trump staffers and allies attempting to generate claims of fraud in battleground states.
On November 4, 2020, according to the filing, a campaign operative, an accomplice identified as P5, attempted to “sow confusion” about the vote count at the TCF Center in Detroit.
When a colleague said that a batch of votes seemed to be heavily in Biden’s favor, the agent responded, “find a reason why it’s not” and “give me options to file litigation.”
A colleague said events could soon resemble the ‘Brooks Brothers Revolt,’ when GOP aides and affiliates tried to stop Florida’s recount in the 2000 election.
‘Make them riot’ and ‘Period!!!’ the operative responded.
A new presentation from Jack Smith details wide-ranging efforts to spread “lies” about voter fraud as part of Trump’s effort to overturn the election.
Smith’s team also detailed a Nov. 7 campaign meeting in which aides told Trump he had only “a slim chance of prevailing.”
Trump soon “sidelined” the campaign staff and began turning to CC1, a “private attorney who was willing to falsely claim victory and spread deliberately false claims about election fraud,” according to the document.
The filing refers to Trump as “the defendant” and says the agents “spread lies that there was fraud determining the outcome” in the election.
The filing also details private interactions between Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump said lacked “courage” on Jan. 6 for not refusing to count votes certified by states during the electoral count.
At a private lunch on November 12, Pence presented a “face-saving option” for Trump: “not concede, but recognize that the process is over.”
Then, at a luncheon on November 16, Pence “tried to encourage the defendant to accept the election results and run again in 2024, to which the defendant responded, “I don’t know, 2024 is too far away.”
Trump is now the Republican nominee for the 2024 election and Pence has said he will not vote for him. Trump’s running mate JD Vance was confronted during last night’s vice presidential debate and asked to say that Joe Biden won the election. He refused to do so and changed the subject.
Relations between Trump and Pence would gradually deteriorate. On January 1, Trump told Pence in a phone call that “hundreds of thousands” of people “will hate you” and “people will think you’re stupid.”
Smith’s team maintains that Trump’s conversations with Pence, held at the White House, were unofficial and therefore protected because they concerned his electoral prospects.
The information comes to light after Trump effectively raised immunity claims and delayed the case, being heard in Washington, DC by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Now, the judge must decide what Trump’s conduct is protected and what, if any, can be tried under a new superseding charge.
Trump’s lawyers tried to keep the material under wraps, arguing that it was designed to harm him in the election.
The surprising new filing comes just 33 days before the November election, in a race that experts consider a failure.
Even as he pushed outlandish claims about tens of thousands of people dying while voting, people in Trump’s circle told him the ideas were misplaced.
A senior campaign adviser identified as P4 told Trump on multiple occasions that his fraud claims were false. ‘When our investigative and campaign legal team cannot support any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force legal team, you can see why we are 0-32 in our cases. “Obviously I will do my best to help on all fronts, but it is difficult to take ownership of this when everything is pure conspiracy transmitted from the mothership,” the advisor said in language full of sarcasm.
It also details a private attorney identified as CC1 – who appears to be Rudy Giuliani – testifying before a Georgia House committee and “baselessly” accusing two poll workers of passing around USB ports “as if they were vials of heroin or Campaign”. Poll workers were awarded $148 million in their defamation lawsuit against Giuliani.
Trump has continued to suggest that he won the election on Tuesday during appearances in Wisconsin.
The presentation peppers the narrative with tweets from Trump, such as a December 5, 2020 tweet in which he wrote: ‘Why are these two “Republicans” saying no? If we win Georgia, everything else will fall into place!’ It came after a public and private pressure campaign against Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Bradd Raffensperger.