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Donald Trump launched an expansive campaign to convince more than 150 Republican officials to overturn the election results in his favor, a new report claims.
In one case, Trump contacted Monica Palmer, who is on a board confirming election results for Wayne County, Michigan, the most populous county in the state.
Shortly after the call, Palmer said he wanted to rescind his vote to authorize the election results, which showed Joe Biden had won.
Although his efforts were ultimately in vain, they were only the beginning of Trump’s attempts to convince lawmakers to fraudulently name him the winner of the election.
Over the following month, Trump contacted at least 31 Republican officials, primarily state and local officials in battlefield states he lost, the report says.
He called at least 11 people and invited 20 Republicans to meet personally with him at the White House. Attendees included state attorneys general, party leaders and legislators.
He also discussed his plans with sitting Republicans and at least three incoming Republican senators.
Politician spoke with 22 White House advisers who described the president’s attempts to convince Republicans to revoke the election.
Despite his efforts, no Republican legislator was willing to play catch and fraudulently overturn his state’s election results or discount legally cast votes.
Still, Trump’s conspiracy theories alleging voter fraud have taken hold of his base and have only been echoed and amplified by his loyalists like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell.
Trump’s first strategy was to derail the election at the state and local levels by preventing key counties from certifying their results if they favored Biden.
At the time, Senator Mitt Romney criticized Trump’s actions, calling them “undemocratic.”
“It is difficult to imagine a worse and more undemocratic action by a sitting US president,” he said.
After his attempts to stop the certifications failed, he invited lawmakers from Michigan and Pennsylvania to meet him at the White House.
While the details of those discussions are largely unknown, both groups of Republicans said they were committed to honoring the election results in the areas they represent.
Trump was later enraged when Arizona Governor Doug Ducey accepted the results of the state elections that named Biden the winner.
Trump reportedly called Ducey, who set the president’s ringtone as “Hello to the boss,” during a press conference, but Ducey declined the call.
After that, Trump joined the electoral battle in Georgia, where the Republican governor and the state secretary of the state were besieged with conspiracy theories that the election result was fraudulent.
Republican state senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perude, who are facing runoff elections in January that will determine control of the Senate, called for the secretary of state to step down. Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly called the secretary of state and asked him to discount the votes based on gaps in the matches. The senator denies the claim.
Trump pressured Governor Brian Kemp to call a special legislative session to appoint voters loyal to himself, which would have effectively nullified the state’s election results. He also pressured Kemp to request an audit of the absentee ballots, which Kemp explained he could not do.
Kemp roundly rejected Trump’s plan to elect loyal voters.
The president then backed up with an unfortunate lawsuit in Texas that challenged election results in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr publicly criticized the lawsuit, calling it “constitutional, moral and factually incorrect.”
His criticism prompted a personal response from Trump, who told him to stop criticizing the lawsuit and join it. Trump wanted all Republican attorneys general to sign the lawsuit. While 17 agreed, nine refused.
Trump then lobbied Republicans in the House of Representatives to join the lawsuit: 126 Republicans agreed to join.
The president expected the US Supreme Court to rule on the lawsuit, but the court rejected the case, ending the risky attempt to reverse the election.
Days after the failure of the Texas lawsuit, the electoral college met and certified the election results, confirming Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
Despite the electoral college announcement, Trump continues to question the results. He now backs a plan by Republican House members and possibly at least one senator, Tommy Tuberville, to challenge the election results when Congress meets Jan. 6 to accept the election results.
Election experts say the objection will not change the election results, that it will only delay the process and further damage the confidence of the American public in the electoral process.
