The Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into the formation of alternate slates of presidential electors for Donald Trump as part of a plan to undo President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election, The New York Times reported Thursday.
...background from Liz Cheney statements last Thursday:
"....I'm going to describe a few of the details now of some of the actions taken by a gentleman named Kenneth Chesebro after the electoral college met and cast their votes on December 14th. Actually the day before they met, Kenneth Chesebro sent a memo to Rudy Giuliani, the President's lead outside counsel. Mr. Chesebro wrote to Mayor Giuliani that the Vice President is charged with quote, "Making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes," close quote.
Mr. Chesebro wrote that when the joint session of Congress got to Arizona in the alphabetical list of states, the Vice President should not count the Biden votes, quote, "Because there are two slates of votes." His justification which we will learn more about in our next hearing was that a group of Trump supporters in Arizona and other swing states decided to proclaim themselves the true electors for the state, creating two sets of electors: the official electors selected by the state and a group of fake electors.
This document was ordered to be produced to the select committee by a federal district court judge. As you will see on the screen shortly, Judge David Carter wrote, quote,
"The draft memo pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count Act." The judge concluded that quote,
"The memo is both intimately related to and clearly advanced the plan to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6th, 2021." A few days later, Professor John Eastman took up this cause."
Eastman was at the time a law professor at Chapman University Law School. He prepared a memo outlining the nonsensical theory that the Vice President could decide the outcome of the election at the joint session of Congress on January 6th. You will see portions of this memo on the screen. In the first line he wrote, quote,
"Seven states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate." But Dr. Eastman goes on to rely on those so-called dual slates of electors to say that Vice President Pence could simply declare President Trump the winner of the 2020 election.
Cheney to Jacob (attorney for VP Mike Pence)
Mr. Jacob, were there in fact dual slates of electors from seven states?
GREG JACOB:
No, there were not.
LIZ CHENEY:
And just a few days after that, Dr. Eastman wrote another memo.
This one quote, "Wargaming out several scenarios." He knew the outcome he wanted and he saw a way to go forward if he simply pretended that fake electors were real. You will see that memo up on the screen now. Here Dr. Eastman says the Vice President can reject the Biden electors from the states that he calls quote, "Disputed." Under several of the scenarios, the Vice President could ultimately just declare Donald Trump the winner regardless of the vote totals that had already been certified by the states.
However, this was false and Dr. Eastman knew it was false. In other words, it was a lie. In fact, on December 19th, 2020, just four days before Dr. Eastman sent this memo,
Dr. Eastman himself admitted in an email that the fake electors had no legal weight, referring to the fake electors as quote, "Dead on arrival in Congress," end quote, because they did not have a certification from their states.
Cheney to Judge Luttig:
Judge Luttig, did the Trump electors in those seven states who were not certified by any state authority have any legal significance?
J. MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Congresswoman, there — there was no support whatsoever and either the Constitution of the United States nor the laws of the United States for the Vice President frankly ever to count alternative electoral slates from the states that had not been officially certified by the designated state official in the Electoral Count Act of 1887. I did notice in the passage from Mr. Eastman's memorandum and I took a note on it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but he said in that passage that there was both legal authority as well as historical precedent.
I do know what Mr. Eastman was referring to when he said that there was historical precedent for doing so. He was incorrect. There was no historical precedent from the beginning of the founding in 1789 that even as mere historical precedent as distinguished from legal precedent would support the possibility of the Vice President of the United States quote, "Counting alternative electoral slates that had not been officially certified to the Congress pursuant to the Electoral Count Act of 1887." I would be glad to explain that historical precedent if the committee wanted, but it — it would be a digression.
Here's every word of the third Jan. 6 committee hearing on its investigation
