Jacquelyn Martin/AP
- Rudy Giuliani and Trump campaign officials oversaw the fake pro-Trump elector scheme in the 2020 election, CNN reported.
- In March 2021, a watchdog group first reported the attempt to falsify that Trump won in seven states he lost.
- The news reveals the lengths the Trump campaign went to overturn Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Former President Donald Trump campaign officials, with Rudy Giuliani at the helm, coordinated the scheme to put forward illegitimate pro-Trump electors in December 2020, CNN and The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The report further reveals the lengths the Trump campaign went to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
In March 2021, American Oversight, a DC-based watchdog group, obtained the seven phony certificates of pro-Trump electors in seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — in a failed attempt to falsify that Trump won the majority of votes in the state.
The fake electoral certificates were assembled by groups of Trump supporters in the seven states in an unsuccessful bid to replace the legitimate electors who had been chosen by voters, according to American Oversight.
“None of the certificates contains any indication that they list illegitimate slates of electors not chosen by those states’ voters,” the watchdog group said in the March 2021 report.
Biden beat Trump in the Electoral College 306-232 and in the popular vote 81.2 million votes to Trump’s 74.2 million.
Three sources familiar with the scheme revealed to CNN just how involved the Trump campaign was involved in those efforts, the extent of which was previously unclear.
“It was Rudy and these misfit characters who started calling the shots,” a former Trump campaign staffer told CNN. “The campaign was throwing enough shit at the wall to see what would stick.”
One source told CNN that Trump campaign staffers orchestrated the plot with GOP state officials, with Giuliani participating in at least one of those calls.
“The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives,” according to the CNN report.
The Post reported that Giuliani at times was assisted by an anchor with the conservative network One America News. Representative for OANN did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Meshan Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, was one of the 16 fake electors from the state who signed the illegitimate electoral vote certificates, according to the CNN report.
“We fought to seat the electors,” Maddock said at a public event last week, per a recording obtained by CNN. “The Trump campaign asked us to do that.”
Representatives from the Michigan Republican Party did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
The news comes after the House select committee investigating January 6 issued a subpoena to Giuliani, as well as Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Boris Epshteyn, in their ongoing probe into the insurrection.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the bipartisan panel, said in a statement that the four lawyers “advanced unsupported theories about election fraud, pushed efforts to overturn the election results, or were in direct contact with the former President about attempts to stop the counting of electoral votes.”
Attorneys for Donald Trump and Giuliani were not immediately available for comment.
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