Toss-Up America

In Defying the Odds, we talk about the social and economic divides that enabled Trump to enter the White House. In Divided We Stand, we discuss how these divides played out in 2020. 

 At Axios, Jim Vande Hei and Mike Allenn offer eight immutable laws of Toss-up America. 

1. The 50-50 rule. Only twice since 2000 has the White House, Senate or House not flipped. Hence, constant political volatility. Move a few hundred thousand votes in three states in 2016 or 2020, and the loser would have been president.
2. The popularity mirage. Democrats have won the popular vote for president in seven of the last eight elections. But they still lost the electoral vote, which decides the winner — George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. The same dynamic is often true for House and Senate races. Democrats pack themselves so tightly into big cities in big states, which is why those red and blue maps look like red seas.
3. Women rule — voting. More women than men have voted in every election since 1980 — and almost always a majority for Dems. The number of U.S. women registered to vote is typically 7 million to 10 million more than the number of men, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. Among young women (ages 18 to 29) in six swing states, N.Y. Times-Siena College polls in August found an astonishing 38-point advantage for Harris (67%-29%).
4. Most states don't matter. Both parties see the same seven swing states for the White House. The states change a bit — but the number hardly budges. The ballgame in 2024 will be the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania + the fast-growing Sun Belt swath of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. You can boil it down to: Harris needs Pennsylvania, and Trump needs Georgia. In the past four elections, 40 states have voted for the same party.
5. The Trump hump. Roughly 45% of voters are diehards who can be expected to be with him no matter what. But he also has a ceiling: He didn't break 47% in 2016 or 2020, and is unlikely to go much above that this year. That's why third parties and double-haters matter on the margins.
6. The Senate is almost always in play. It all comes down to which 33 states have Senate races in a given two-year cycle. It's all about the map. And this year, Republicans have a formidable advantage: West Virginia is certain to go red after the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin. Democrats have to win Trump-friendly Ohio and Montana — plus the White House — for a 50-50 Senate majority, with the vice president as the tie-breaker. Candidate quality plays an outsized role: Republican Senate candidates have consistently underperformed Trump in battleground polling, giving Democrats an edge in what otherwise would be toss-ups. But Dems also face tough maps in 2026 and 2028.
7. Flipping the House is easier than ever. Redistricting — and self-sorting, where conservatives and liberals literally move next to like-minded neighbors — has rendered 400 of 435 races over before they begin. Rural areas and big cities are rarely, if ever, competitive. After several changes Friday, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates only 24 House races as toss-ups, with 13 held by Republicans and 11 held by Dems — a nearly even split. Dave Wasserman, Cook's senior editor and election analyst, tells us Democrats need to win 15 of 24 toss-ups (60%) to win the majority. They won 75% of Cook's toss-ups (27/36) in 2022.
8. There's no Election Day. Yes, Nov. 5 is technically Election Day. But most people voted long before. COVID "accelerated voting trends that had been building for the past decade," Doug Sosnik, a top adviser to President Clinton, wrote last year in his "10 New Rules of American Politics." Several key states — including the biggest prize of all, Pennsylvania — start early voting this month.
9. 
   
10. Stat for the road: Dave "I've Seen Enough" Wasserman turned us onto a fascinating metric. In a House where Republicans hold the narrowest majority, just 16 districts out of 435 (4%!) voted for a different party for president than for House — toss-up America.

The Shrinking Presidential Battlefield

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The  2024 race has begun.

Ronald Brownstein at CNN

Multiple measures track the evolution of what could be called the incredible shrinking presidential battlefield.

The most revealing is the growing number of states where either party has established a consistent advantage in the presidential race. Twenty states have voted for the Democratic nominee in each of the past four presidential elections, from Barack Obama’s first win in 2008 through Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Twenty states have likewise voted for the GOP presidential nominee in all four of those contests.

That means 40 of the 50 states, or 80%, have voted the same way in four consecutive presidential elections. That’s the highest level of such consistency since the turn of the 20th century. Even when Franklin D. Roosevelt won four consecutive elections from 1932 through 1944, only about two-thirds of the states voted the same way each time. Just under three-fourths of the states voted the same way in the four consecutive Republican presidential victories from 1896 to 1908. From 1976 through 1988, only half the states voted the same way each time.

...

After the results in the 2022 election, my own judgment is that the list of true swing states entirely within reach for either side may dwindle to no more than Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin.

J6 Video Evidence

 Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

A Trump lawyer was at the scene of the crime.

Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck and Yahya Abou-Ghazala, CNN:

When conspiracy theorist Alex Jones marched his way to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, riling up his legion of supporters, an unassuming middle-aged man in a red “Trump 2020” hat conspicuously tagged along.

Videos and photographs reviewed by CNN show the man dutifully recording Jones with his phone as the bombastic media personality ascended to the restricted area of the Capitol grounds where mobs of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters eventually broke in.

While the man’s actions outside the Capitol that day have drawn little scrutiny, his alleged connections to a plot to overthrow the 2020 election have recently come into sharp focus: He is attorney Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of the scheme to subvert the 2020 Electoral College process by using fake GOP electors in multiple states.

 

Ella Sherman at TNR:

New explosive footage of Roger Stone strategizing to overturn the 2020 presidential election—before the vote was even called for Joe Biden—dooms Donald Trump’s main legal defense.

The video, aired on MSNBC Wednesday night and shot by filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen, depicts the right-wing lobbyist dictating a fake elector plot in key battleground states. The video was taken on November 5, 2020, two days before the election was called, thus disproving Trump’s main defense that he and his allies genuinely believed they had won the race.

Eastman Flip-Flopped on the VP's Role

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

From the final report of the January 6 committee:

In Eastman’s theory, which was the foundation of President Trump’s January 6th plot, the Vice President of the United States is the “ultimate arbiter” and could unilaterally decide the victor of the 2020 Presidential election.32 However, just before the 2020 presidential election, Eastman hadacknowledged in writing that the Vice President had no such expansive power.

In the course of a lengthy exchange of ideas and emails throughout thepre- and post-election period with an individual named Bruce Colbert,Eastman provided comments on a letter Colbert was drafting to President Trump.33 The draft letter purported to provide recommendations of “crucial legal actions” for the Trump Campaign to take “to help secure your election victory as President of the United States.”34 One of the draft letter’s recommendations was that “the President of the Senate decides authoritatively what ‘certificates’ from the states to ‘open.’” In response, Eastman wrote on October 17, 2020, “I don’t agree with this” and continued, “[t]he 12th Amendment only says that the President of the Senate opens the ballots in the joint session and then, in the passive voice, that thevotes shall then be counted. 3 USC § 12 says merely that he is the presidingofficer, and then it spells out specific procedures, presumptions, and default rules for which slates will be counted. Nowhere does it suggest that the President of the Senate gets to make the determination on his own. § 15 doesn’t, either.”35

By the first week of December, Eastman’s correspondence with this same individual illustrates that he was open to advocating for the very point he had rejected before the election—that is, that “the 12th Amendment confers dispositive authority on the President of the Senate to decidewhich slate to count.”36 And on December 5, 2020, Eastman wrote to Colbert, “I have spoken directly with folks at the top of the chain of commandon this. They are now aware of the issues.”37

• 32. Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman052976, p. 2 (Memo regarding January 6 scenario). 
• 33. Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman003226.
• 34. Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman003228. Note that this letter refers to, and purports to supplement, the recommendations of what Eastman described in his correspondence with Mr. Colbert as “a major war game simulation” that he claimed—on October 24, 2020—was “already before the President and his team.” Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman031983. The war game exercise in which Eastman participated is reflected in a report issued by the Claremont Institute and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “79 Days Report”, (Oct. 20, 2020), available at https://www.texaspolicy.com/79-days-to-inauguration-taskforce-report/.
• 35. Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman003228 (emphasis added).
• 36. Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman031983.
• 37. Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Chapman University Production), Chapman023534.

 

Seventeen Findings

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

 The findings of the January 6 Committee:

This Report supplies an immense volume of information and testimony assembled through the Select Committee’s investigation, including information obtained following litigation in Federal district and appellate courts, as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon this assembled evidence, the Committee has reached a series of specific findings,[19] including the following:

1.  Beginning election night and continuing through January 6th and thereafter, Donald Trump purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election in order to aid his effort to overturn the election and for purposes of soliciting contributions. These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th.
2. Knowing that he and his supporters had lost dozens of election lawsuits, and despite his own senior advisors refuting his election fraud claims and urging him to concede his election loss, Donald Trump refused to accept the lawful result of the 2020 election. Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome.
3. Despite knowing that such an action would be illegal, and that no State had or would submit an altered electoral slate, Donald Trump corruptly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes during Congress’s joint session on January 6th.
4. Donald Trump sought to corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice by attempting to enlist Department officials to make purposely false statements and thereby aid his effort to overturn the Presidential election. After that effort failed, Donald Trump offered the position of Acting Attorney General to Jeff Clark knowing that Clark intended to disseminate false information aimed at overturning the election.
5. Without any evidentiary basis and contrary to State and Federal law, Donald Trump unlawfully pressured State officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their States.
6. Donald Trump oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.
7. Donald Trump pressured Members of Congress to object to valid slates of electors from several States.
8. Donald Trump purposely verified false information filed in Federal court.
9. Based on false allegations that the election was stolen, Donald Trump summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington for January 6th. Although these supporters were angry and some were armed, Donald Trump instructed them to march to the Capitol on January 6th to “take back” their country.
10. Knowing that a violent attack on the Capitol was underway and knowing that his words would incite further violence, Donald Trump purposely sent a social media message publicly condemning Vice President Pence at 2:24 p.m. on January 6th.
11. Knowing that violence was underway at the Capitol, and despite his duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed, Donald Trump refused repeated requests over a multiple hour period that he instruct his violent supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, and instead watched the violent attack unfold on television. This failure to act perpetuated the violence at the Capitol and obstructed Congress’s proceeding to count electoral votes.
12. Each of these actions by Donald Trump was taken in support of a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.
13. The intelligence community and law enforcement agencies did successfully detect the planning for potential violence on January 6th, including planning specifically by the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militia groups who ultimately led the attack on the Capitol. As January 6th approached, the intelligence specifically identified the potential for violence at the U.S. Capitol. This intelligence was shared within the executive branch, including with the Secret Service and the President’s National Security Council.
14. Intelligence gathered in advance of January 6th did not support a conclusion that Antifa or other left-wing groups would likely engage in a violent counter-demonstration, or attack Trump supporters on January 6th. Indeed, intelligence from January 5th indicated that some left-wing groups were instructing their members to “stay at home” and not attend on January 6th.[20] Ultimately, none of these groups was involved to any material extent with the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.
15. Neither the intelligence community nor law enforcement obtained intelligence in advance of January 6th on the full extent of the ongoing planning by President Trump, John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani and their associates to overturn the certified election results. Such agencies apparently did not (and potentially could not) anticipate the provocation President Trump would offer the crowd in his Ellipse speech, that President Trump would “spontaneously” instruct the crowd to march to the Capitol, that President Trump would exacerbate the violent riot by sending his 2:24 p.m. tweet condemning Vice President Pence, or the full scale of the violence and lawlessness that would ensue. Nor did law enforcement anticipate that President Trump would refuse to direct his supporters to leave the Capitol once violence began. No intelligence community advance analysis predicted exactly how President Trump would behave; no such analysis recognized the full scale and extent of the threat to the Capitol on January 6th.
16. Hundreds of Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers performed their duties bravely on January 6th, and America owes those individual immense gratitude for their courage in the defense of Congress and our Constitution. Without their bravery, January 6th would have been far worse. Although certain members of the Capitol Police leadership regarded their approach to January 6th as “all hands on deck,” the Capitol Police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd.[21] Capitol Police leadership did not anticipate the scale of the violence that would ensue after President Trump instructed tens of thousands of his supporters in the Ellipse crowd to march to the Capitol, and then tweeted at 2:24 p.m. Although Chief Steven Sund raised the idea of National Guard support, the Capitol Police Board did not request Guard assistance prior to January 6th. The Metropolitan Police took an even more proactive approach to January 6th, and deployed roughly 800 officers, including responding to the emergency calls for help at the Capitol. Rioters still managed to break their line in certain locations, when the crowd surged forward in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet. The Department of Justice readied a group of Federal agents at Quantico and in the District of Columbia, anticipating that January 6th could become violent, and then deployed those agents once it became clear that police at the Capitol were overwhelmed. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security were also deployed to assist.
17. President Trump had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, but never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day. Nor did he instruct any Federal law enforcement agency to assist. Because the authority to deploy the National Guard had been delegated to the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense could, and ultimately did deploy the Guard. Although evidence identifies a likely miscommunication between members of the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense impacting the timing of deployment, the Committee has found no evidence that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed deployment of the National Guard. The Select Committee recognizes that some at the Department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election.

The Year Ends Well for Democrats

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. Though Democrats lost the House, they beat the midterm point spread by a lot.

Blake Hounshell notes that 2022 is ending well for Democrats:

Democrats are gawking at the lackluster start of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which so far has earned him very few endorsements from Republican members of Congress. On Thursday, Trump lashed out at the recent run of polls showing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida outpacing him in hypothetical matchups — including in The Wall Street Journal, an influential newspaper among Republican donors.

Then, several of Trump’s most prominent supporters mocked what he had billed as a “major announcement,” which turned out to be a low-energy infomercial for digital trading cards selling for $99.

...

The average price of a gallon of gasoline has fallen to $3.18 from a height of $5.02 in June. And even though Americans are still feeling pretty sour about the overall state of the economy, the overall rate of inflation rose by 7.1 percent in November — still a lot, but less than expected. Twelve Republican senators voted for the same-sex marriage law that Biden championed, a recognition of just how far public opinion has moved on the issue over the last decade.

If all goes as planned next week, Congress also looks poised to pass an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, a major bipartisan victory led by Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Insurrection Update May 11

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

NEWS: A new batch of John Eastman emails from Dec. 2020 shows his advice to state legislators seeking to rescind Joe Biden's electors — including his suggestion that they simply retabulate the popular vote to put Trump on top.https://t.co/03bDxoHwZY pic.twitter.com/YLOEGjbnBc

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 11, 2022

Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu at Politico:

Donald Trump’s top election-subversion wingmen have stonewalled the Jan. 6 select committee for months, but investigators have found a reliable workaround: their deputies and assistants.

Time and again, the panel has managed to pierce the secrecy of Trump’s inner circle by turning to the aides entrusted with carrying out logistics for their bosses, according to interviews with lawmakers and newly public committee records.

Some of the select panel’s most crucial information has come from Trumpworld staffers, who were often in the room or briefed on sensitive meetings, even if they weren’t central players themselves. It’s a classic investigative strategy that’s paid dividends for select committee investigators, many of whom are seasoned former federal prosecutors.

Insurrection Update: April 15

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

Ryan Nobles, Annie Grayer, Zachary Cohen and Jamie Gangel at CNN:

In the weeks between the 2020 election and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, almost 100 text messages from two staunch GOP allies of then-President Donald Trump reveal an aggressive attempt to lobby, encourage and eventually warn the White House over its efforts to overturn the election, according to messages obtained by the House select committee and reviewed by CNN.

The texts, which have not been previously reported, were sent by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The text exchanges show that both members of Congress initially supported legal challenges to the election but ultimately came to sour on the effort and the tactics deployed by Trump and his team.

"We're driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic," Roy texted Meadows on January 1. That text was first released in December by the House select committee and described as being written by a House Freedom Caucus member. Roy's authorship has not been previously reported.

...

Also on November 7, Roy wrote to Meadows, "We need ammo. We need fraud examples. We need it this weekend."

...

While Lee and Roy both voted to certify the electoral results in favor of Biden, more than 100 of their GOP colleagues in both the House and Senate did not. Chief among them were Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both of whom Lee called out in his texts to Meadows.

"I have grave concerns with the way my friend Ted is going about this effort," Lee wrote to Meadows. "This will not inure to the benefit of the president."

Lee added that unless new, competing slates of electors were put forward in accordance with state law, the net effect "could help people like Ted and Josh to the detriment of DJT."
When January 6 finally came, neither Lee nor Roy joined their colleagues in objecting to the 2020 presidential election results.

After the violence unfolded and Congress returned to session, Roy said on the House floor, "The President should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be."

He also texted Meadows, "This is a sh*tshow.

"Fix this now."

Alan Feuer at NYT:

One week before an angry mob stormed the Capitol, a communications expert named Jason Sullivan, a onetime aide to Roger J. Stone Jr., joined a conference call with a group of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters and made an urgent plea.

After assuring his listeners that the 2020 election had been stolen, Mr. Sullivan told them that they had to go to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day that Congress was to meet to finalize the electoral count — and “descend on the Capitol,” according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times.

While Mr. Sullivan claimed that he was “not inciting violence or any kind of riots,” he urged those on the call to make their presence felt at the Capitol in a way that would intimidate members of Congress, telling the group that they had to ensure that lawmakers inside the building “understand that people are breathing down their necks.”

He also pledged that Mr. Trump was going to take action on his own; the president, he said, was going to impose a form of martial law on Jan. 6 and would not be leaving office.

Insurrection Update 1/21

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses  Trump's record of scandal. 

“We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that,” Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of Michigan GOP & a fake elector, said last week, per audio obtained by CNN.

Maddock also helped organize buses to DC for 1/6 rally & marched to Capitol.https://t.co/fXrJOwXuTu

— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) January 20, 2022

A district attorney in Atlanta on Thursday asked a judge to convene a special grand jury to help a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. https://t.co/ZJw7CJLbUf

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) January 21, 2022

Fani Willis wants a special grand jury for her investigation. What does this mean for Trump?

It confirms what we wrote in our @BrookingsGov report: he's at substantial risk of prosecution in GA 👇

I’ll be on @CNN @AC360 in the 9pm ET hour to discuss https://t.co/A9GS3HXYq0

— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) January 21, 2022

Coup Mechanics

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  DOJ has charged the head of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy. And we are learning more about the role of fake electors.

Charlie Sykes on the attempted coup:

 Here is a useful thread that put this all in context: (I’ve unrolled it.)

Asha Rangappa @AshaRangappa_

THREAD. Since there’s so much [waves hands everywhere] crazy coming up all of a sudden, let me break down the theory of how the overturning of the election was supposed to go down:

January 15th 2022

7,059 Retweets16,465 Likes

STEP 1: John Eastman concocts a “legal blueprint” whereby VP Pence elides the requirements of the Electoral Vote Act based on 7 states submitting dual slates of electors, allowing Pence to either count the alternate slate or not count those states at all https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf…

STEP 2: GOP operatives/officials in those 7 states in fact create a false slate of electors and submit them as official, so they can be used in the scenario above

STEP 3: DOJ, meanwhile, submits letters to each state, indicating (falsely) that they have reason to believe that there has been election fraud. This creates perception that results are actually in question, bolstering VP’s ability to discount their votes.

[She later tweeted: “Jeffrey Clark’s letter references the alternate slate of electors “which have already been submitted”… his DOJ scheme was part and parcel of the same Eastman/forged slate scheme (also creating appearance the the “alternate slate” is OK as a matter of law)”]

STEP 4: The Big Lie is repeated in rallies and social media, saturating information space to rile up base and give momentum to “Stop the Steal” movement

STEP 5: Plan for all of these angry and agitated individuals to come to D.C. on January 6, the day that Eastman’s plan will be put into effect. The protesters are sent to march on the Capitol, to further put pressure on VP Pence and lawmakers, as stated in Oath Keeper indictment.

STEP 6: Since mob attack is intended to keep up pressure on Pence/lawmakers, they must be able to remain in Capitol as long as possible.

So: 6a) Purge top DOD and replace with loyalists; and 6b) delay LE/National Guard response as long as possible.

STEP 7: ??? I’m not sure what was supposed to happen at this point. Presumably, Pence would somehow declare Trump the winner, or if not, the Capitol would remain occupied until they found a way to make him do it. Seems like they planned to continue the siege.

The point is that there are a lot of moving parts and evidence surfacing in a lot of different areas but they are all connected to one overarching goal: Keep Trump in power by subverting the counting of the electoral votes and preventing the transfer of power to Biden /END

**

Exit take: Let’s go back to George Conway’s question: How does this not constitute a criminal offense? And why on earth would the DOJ not launch an investigation into the fake/forged election certificates?

**

Insurrection, Fraud, and Force

Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  DOJ has charged the head of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy.

Makes you wonder how there could 𝙣𝙤𝙩 have been a conspiracy or attempt by Trump or Eastman and others to "corruptly ... obstruct[], influence[], or impede[]" the electoral-vote count proceedings within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). https://t.co/gKrrx3L080 https://t.co/MoMj3pBwZl

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) January 15, 2022

The forged electoral certificates show coordination across seven states. Those fake certificates were key to the plan of the Eastman memo and to the Jeffrey Clark DOJ draft letter to Georgia. The conspiracy involved fraud and force. At the head of the conspiracy: Donald Trump.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 15, 2022

In a CNN interview, a lawyer for the Oath Keeper does a very bad job:

Forgery and Electors

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.

From the 6-page Eastman memo:

Because of these illegal actions by state and local election officials (and, in some cases,

judicial officials, the Trump electors in the above 6 states (plus in New Mexico) met on

December 14, cast their electoral votes, and transmitted those votes to the President of the

Senate (Vice President Pence). There are thus dual slates of electors from 7 states.

Nicholas Wu at Politico:

As Trump's team pushed its discredited voter fraud narrative, the National Archives received forged certificates of ascertainment declaring him and then-Vice President Mike Pence the winners of both Michigan and Arizona and their electors after the 2020 election. Public records requests show the secretaries of state for those states sent those certificates to the Jan. 6 panel, along with correspondence between the National Archives and state officials about the documents.

Spokespeople for the Michigan and Arizona secretaries of state declined to comment on the documents. The offices confirmed that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, both Democrats, and their staff met with the panel in November.

“They mostly discussed election administration in Arizona, the 2020 elections, threats/harassment directed toward the office, and the Cyber Ninja’s partisan ballot review,” said Hobbs' spokesperson C. Murphy Hebert.

Benson and her staff took questions from the committee on the 2020 election and events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, according to Tracy Wimmer, a spokesperson for Benson.

The National Archives sent emails to the Arizona secretary of state on Dec. 11, 2020, passing along the forged certificates “for your awareness” and informing the state officials the Archives would not accept them.

Arizona then took legal action against at least one of the groups who sent in the fake documents, sending a cease and desist letter to a pro-Trump "sovereign citizen" group telling them to stop using the state seal and referring the matter to the state attorney general.

“By affixing the state seal to documents containing false and misleading information about the results of Arizona’s November 3, 2020 General Election, you undermine the confidence in our democratic institutions,” Hobbs wrote to one of the pro-Trump groups.

That group’s leader, Lori Osiecki, had told the Arizona Republic in December 2020 that she decided to send in the certificates after taking part in post-election rallies and after attending a daylong meeting in Phoenix that had included Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The group that forged the Michigan certification had not used the state seal, and it appears state officials there took no further action after the Archives rejected it.

Coup Documents

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

Emma Brown, Jon Swaine, Jacqueline Alemany, Josh Dawsey, and Tom Hamburger at WP:

A retired U.S. Army colonel who circulated a proposal to challenge the 2020 election, including by declaring a national security emergency and seizing paper ballots, said that he visited the White House on multiple occasions after the election, spoke with President Donald Trump’s chief of staff “maybe eight to 10 times” and briefed several members of Congress on the eve of the Jan. 6 riot.

Phil Waldron, the retired colonel, was working with Trump’s outside lawyers and was part of a team that briefed the lawmakers on a PowerPoint presentation detailing “Options for 6 JAN,” Waldron told The Washington Post. He said his contribution to the presentation focused on his claims of foreign interference in the vote, as did his discussions with the White House.

A version of the presentation made its way to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 5. That information surfaced publicly this week after the congressional committee investigating the insurrection released a letter that said Meadows had turned the document over to the committee.

Although Trump at the time was pressuring Pence to delay certifying Biden’s victory, it is not clear how widely the PowerPoint was circulated or how seriously the ideas in it were considered. A lawyer for Meadows, George J. Terwilliger III, said on Friday that there was no indication that Meadows did anything with the document after receiving it by email. “We produced it [to the committee] because it was not privileged,” Terwilliger said. A Meadows spokesman, Ben Williamson, declined to comment. Waldron said he was not the person who sent the PowerPoint to Meadows.

Still, Waldron’s account of his interactions with the White House, together with a 36-page version of the presentation that surfaced online this week and was reviewed by The Post, shed new light on the wild theories and proposals that circulated among the people advising Trump as they worked to overturn his election defeat, causing a crisis at the heart of government. They suggest that Meadows, who also pressed senior Justice Department leaders to investigate baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud, was more directly in contact with proponents of such theories than was previously known. 

The 36-page PowerPoint

 Betsy Woodruff Swan and Kyle Cheney at Politico:

A Donald Trump campaign lawyer wrote two legal memos in the week before the Jan. 6 Capitol attack that claimed then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to refuse to count presidential electors from states that delivered Joe Biden the White House.

The memos from then-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, which contain widely disputed legal theories about Pence’s ability to stop a Biden presidency, underscore Ellis’ promotion of extreme arguments that she promulgated amid Trump's effort to reverse the election results. Her actions have remained largely below the radar as House investigators probe Trump’s inner circle.

A Dec. 31 Ellis memo delivered to Trump’s office suggested that Pence — who was constitutionally responsible for presiding over Congress’ counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6 — should simply refuse to open envelopes from states whose election results Trump considered to be fraudulent. That memo was described by ABC reporter Jonathan Karl in his recent book “Betrayal.” POLITICO is publishing it in full for the first time.

In a second, previously unreported memo dated Jan. 5, Ellis made a more technical legal argument that she delivered to Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's outside lawyers. Sekulow represented Trump during his first impeachment and in a series of legal battles during his administration, but he had minimal involvement in Trump’s election litigation. The exception was an early November Supreme Court case regarding Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballots.

Trump Called the Coup Plotters

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

 Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:

Hours before the deadly attack on the US Capitol this year, Donald Trump made several calls from the White House to top lieutenants at the Willard hotel in Washington and talked about ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win from taking place on 6 January.

The former president first told the lieutenants his vice-president, Mike Pence, was reluctant to go along with the plan to commandeer his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress in a way that would allow Trump to retain the presidency for a second term.

But as Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January, and delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.

The former president’s remarks came as part of strategy discussions he had from the White House with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification.

Multiple sources, speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, described Trump’s involvement in the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

Trump’s remarks reveal a direct line from the White House and the command center at the Willard. The conversations also show Trump’s thoughts appear to be in line with the motivations of the pro-Trump mob that carried out the Capitol attack and halted Biden’s certification, until it was later ratified by Congress.

The former president’s call to the Willard hotel about stopping Biden’s certification is increasingly a central focus of the House select committee’s investigation into the Capitol attack, as it raises the specter of a possible connection between Trump and the insurrection.

January 6 at the Willard

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.

 Jacqueline Alemany and colleagues at WP:

They called it the “command center,” a set of rooms and suites in the posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election.

The Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and the ensuing attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob would draw the world’s attention to the quest to physically block Congress from affirming Joe Biden’s victory. But the activities at the Willard that week add to an emerging picture of a less visible effort, mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term.

They were led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as the effort’s senior political adviser. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

A plausible hypothesis is that the idea was to delay the count so that Trumpists in the states could provide "evidence" or "alternative slates" that would give Pence a rationale to carry out the Eastman plan.

When the violence erupted a short time later, forcing Congress into recess, some of the most ardent Trump supporters saw an opportunity.

“Congress is adjourned. Send the elector choice back to the legislatures,” Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona GOP, tweeted at 3:30 p.m., more than half an hour after insurrectionists in tactical gear made their way to the floor of the Senate.