Text From Trump Son Is Said To Plan Overturning Election
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In a message two days after Election Day 2020, the president's son conveyed a range of ideas for keeping his father in office.
Former President Donald J. Trump's eldest son sent the White House chief of staff a text message two days after Election Day in 2020 that laid out strategies for declaring his father the winner regardless of the electoral outcome, people familiar with the exchange said on Friday.
The text, which was reported earlier by CNN, was sent two days before Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner of the election. The recipient, Mark Meadows, turned a cache of his text messages over to the House committee investigating the events leading up to the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as the Electoral College results in Mr. Biden's favor were being certified.
"It's very simple," Donald Trump Jr. wrote to Mr. Meadows on Nov. 5, 2020. He wrote at another point, "We have multiple paths We control them all."
The message went on to lay out a variety of options that Mr. Trump or his allies ultimately employed in trying to overturn the results of the election, from legal challenges to promoting alternative slates of electors to focusing efforts on the statutory date of Jan. 6 for certification of the Electoral College results.
In a statement, the younger Mr. Trump's lawyer, Alan Futerfas, confirmed that the text message was sent but suggested it was someone else's idea that Donald Trump Jr. was passing along.
"After the election, Don received numerous messages from supporters and others," Mr. Futerfas said. "Given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded."
Still, the text message underscores the extraordinary lengths that Mr. Trump's allies and official aides were already exploring right after Election Day to keep Mr. Trump in power if the voters throughout the country failed to do so.
Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric called on Republicans to keep fighting on their father's behalf in the immediate aftermath of Election Day, as votes were still being counted in a string of close races in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.
"The total lack of action from virtually all of the '2024 GOP hopefuls' is pretty amazing," Donald Jr. wrote on Twitter the same day he sent the text to Mr. Meadows. "They have a perfect platform to show that they're willing & able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead. Don't worry @realDonaldTrump will fight & they can watch as usual!"
The House committee is investigating what led to the assault on the Capitol and the various efforts to try to thwart Mr. Biden's victory, all of which failed. Ultimately, a mob of supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol during the certification. At least seven people died in connection with the riot.
Mr. Trump and a number of his advisers pressured Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role in the Electoral College certification to upend the process, something Mr. Pence was adamant was beyond his authority.
The text message that Donald Trump Jr. sent to Mr. Meadows acknowledged that scenario, which was championed by a lawyer advising President Trump, John C. Eastman. "We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021," the text message said.
The younger Mr. Trump also texted with Mr. Meadows during the riot, urging him to move the president to act as the violence played out.
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Trump Jr. Texts Show 'Coup Was the Plan' From the Start, Legal Experts Say
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S ome legal experts contend that newly reported text message sent from Donald Trump Jr. to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows demonstrate that the former president and his allies were planning a "coup" from the start—even before votes were fully counted in the 2020 election.
CNN first reported on Friday that Trump Jr. sent a November 5, 2020 text message to Meadows which said: "It's very simple ... We have multiple paths We control them all." The former president's son reportedly laid out plans to subvert the Electoral College process and keep his father, former President Donald Trump, in the White House. Notably, that message was sent just two days after the election—before the results were finalized and as many states continued to count ballots.
Trump Jr.'s attorney Alan S. Futerfas told CNN that the message was most likely forwarded. "After the election, Don received numerous messages from supporters and others. Given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded," he said.
But Trump critics and some legal experts jumped on the reporting, arguing it was more evidence of a "coup" attempt.
"What this makes clear is that Jan. 6 was not based on a belief, good faith or otherwise, that the outcome of the 2020 election was decided incorrectly—they were plotting this before the votes had even been counted! The coup was the plan from the get-go," Asha Rangappa, a lawyer and senior lecturer at Yale University as well as a former FBI special agent, tweeted on Friday.
Laurence Tribe, a professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, agreed with Rangappa's assessment.
".@AshaRangappa_ has this just right," Tribe wrote, retweeting the lawyer's post. "Most others have missed this key point: Junior's revelations kill the 'innocent state of mind' defense, leaving compelling proof of corrupt intent for each of the several federal felonies the plotters close to the defeated president committed."
Glenn Kirschner, a former U.S. Army prosecutor who has repeatedly called for Trump's indictment, touted the text messages as evidence of "treasonous criminality."
"The 'Subject' line of Don Jr.'s email might as well have been, 'I'm a member of my father's criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.' How long do we have to endure this open, treasonous criminality by Trump and company before someone gets indicted?" Kirschner wrote in a Twitter post.
Trump has consistently rejected any wrongdoing related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the events of January 6, 2021—when hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and threatened the lives of top lawmakers, including Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi . The former president continues to claim that President Joe Biden 's victory was fraudulent and that any investigations into him and his family are politically motivated.
The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack against the Capitol said in a March court filing that evidence suggests Trump and his allies engaged in a "criminal conspiracy" related to the 2020 election. The committee contended that the former president and "several others entered into an agreement to defraud the United States by interfering with the election certification process, disseminating false information about election fraud, and pressuring state officials to alter state election results and federal officials to assist in that effort."
U.S. District Court Judge David Carter appeared to agree that Trump may have engaged in criminality. "Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021," Carter wrote in a late March ruling .
Despite Trump's and his allies claims, no evidence has emerged to corroborate allegations of widespread fraud resulting in his election loss.
Dozens of 2020 election challenge lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies failed in state and federal courts . Even judges appointed by the former president consistently dismissed the lawsuits. Meanwhile, audits and recounts—including in states where the election was overseen by pro-Trump conservatives—have repeatedly reaffirmed Biden's win.
Former Attorney General William Barr , who was widely viewed as one of Trump's most loyal cabinet members, has said repeatedly that there is "no evidence" to support allegations of widespread voter fraud. Barr wrote in his memoir published last month that he told Trump to his face that the claims were "bullish*t."
Maybe father and son can be cellmates. But who gets the lower bunk?
As a citizen of another country I must admit to being unable to comprehend US politics/politicians, the prime example being Donald Trump. I did greatly admire John Kennedy, and also Barack Obama, though I know many US citizens will disagree.
You really think senior would be able to get to the top bunk? He's got bone spurs you know.....
Unfortunately, nothing is going to happen with this.
And more unfortunately, democracy in America may undergo a transformation of sorts, Belarusian style.
Of course, if the Putin Regime collapses, the right wing in the World, the Le Pen's in Europe and the MAGA in America will trample themselves in their rush to the exits.
"We have multiple paths We control them all."
Or not.
It's amazing how "conservatives" keep ignoring the landslide of evidence that Trump and his family and friends wanted to overthrow the US government. Its a version of this
Or maybe you're reading too much into a text conversation between two people. How do you think Al Gore talked with his inner circle folks prior to launching a law suit over the hanging chad issue in Florida? People do tend to talk differently when they are in what they think is a private conversation.
I don't think that Trump or his children or anybody in the "inner circle" is going to be held criminally liable for anything out of the Jan 6th Committee. I believe the political calculations have been made and these leaks of information have a single purpose, to continue to show Trump in a bad light in hopes that he decides to not run again in 24 or to turn enough Republicans against him so that he doesn't win the nomination.
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Call me what you want, your words are meaningless.
I submit that your bias is so great that you cannot look at this issue objectively.
Astute observation.
And undoubtedly correct.
Donald Trump approved of a plan in which he would be named president by Mike Pence after Pence threw out the votes of swing states that voted for Biden.
I dont need to know anything else.
That's a sad way to prove my point.
I'm not responsible for you not knowing what is going on.
It's good to see you still have an active imagination.
I only care about one path, the one that leads to prison for the Trumpbinos.
Oh, NO, Mr. Bill, not yet another smoking gun sure to bring all the Trumps down, down, down!!!!!!!!!!
LMAO at times #1363 of a sure thing to bring them down!
Trump's downfall was getting ass whooped...
Anything else is icing on his whooping cake.
WTF are you talking about, and how the FUCK does it relate to my post?
Trump is a defeated brokeass old loser. How much lower can he go? Prison? Is throwing an ex-president into prison necessary to satisfy you? Or, must he be exiled to St Helena, too?
Not interested on Democratic pipe dreams.
I asked how your post related to mine, and you provide THIS crap?
Not satisfactory.
There certainly are worse places to be in exile. Jamestown and the island can be a great vacation, especially if you like the outdoors. Even though it sits in the tropics, the trade winds keep the weather mild. Hiking can be rugged but breathtaking with a 300 foot heart-shaped waterfall to see. Scuba diving there is awesome with many sunken ship wrecks to see and whale sharps to swim with. I saw more humpback whales there than when I lived in Monterrey CA. Of course the sea food there is plentiful and many times same day fresh.
The only difficulty is that all flight there originate in South Africa, so it's best to combine it with an African vacation.
Honestly, how many "Smoking Guns" have they had that failed? Aren't we up around 50 now?
Oh, not to worry. This is Monday, so I expect at least two more just this week.
What else can they do but distract from the disaster that is the Biden/Harris Administration?
They've been distracting long before the Bumbling Idiot and Call Girl were elected.