On December 6, the Defendant and Co-Conspirator 2 called the Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee to ensure that the plan was in motion. During the call, CoConspirator 2 told the Chairwoman that it was important for the RNC to help the Defendant's Campaign gather electors in targeted states, and falsely represented to her that such electors' votes would be used only if ongoing litigation in one of the states changed the results in the Defendant's favor. After the RNC Chairwoman consulted the Campaign and heard that work on gathering electors was underway, she called and reported this information to the Defendant, who responded approvingly.

...

On [December 14], at the direction of the Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1, fraudulent
electors convened sham proceedings in the seven targeted states to cast fraudulent electoral ballots in favor of the Defendant. In some states, in order to satisfy legal requirements set forth for legitimate electors under state law, state officials were enlisted to provide the fraudulent electors access to state capitol buildings so that they could gather and vote there. In many cases, however, as Co-Conspirator 5 had predicted in the Fraudulent Elector Instructions, the fraudulent electors were unable to satisfy the legal requirements.

Nonetheless, as directed in the Fraudulent Elector Instructions, shortly after the fraudulent electors met on December 14, the targeted states' fraudulent elector certificates were mailed to the President of the Senate, the Archivist of the United States, and others. The Defendant and co-conspirators ultimately used the certificates of these fraudulent electors to deceitfully target the government function, and did so contrary to how fraudulent electors were told they would be used.

...

That evening, at 6:26 p.m., the RNC Chairwoman forwarded to the Defendant, through his executive assistant, an email titled, "Electors Recap - Final," which represented that in "Six Contested States"—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin— the Defendant's electors had voted in parallel to Biden's electors. The Defendant's executive assistant responded, "It's in front of him!"

Contesting an election isn’t criminal. But criminalizing political speech is. — NOS4A2

You are half right. Contesting an election isn’t criminal and while technically not a crime in of itself, criminalizing political speech is unconstitutional.

However, attempting to subvert/overthrow the results of an election is criminal. And his false claims of a "stolen election" were part of his scheme to subvert/overthrow the results of the 2020 election. That is what he's being charged with.

The best analogy I've heard so far is that these attempts to hide behind the 1st amendment are equivalent to a bank robber claiming that his instructions to have the teller hand over money are covered under the 1st amendment.

Any chance this Jan 6 trial is over before the next election? I assume trump has the resources to delay it for an unreasonable amount of time. — flannel jesus

I don't think he will be able to delay the trial till after the election. He tried that in the documents case and it didn't work. On the other hand, if he is convicted, there will certainly be appeals that will go on for years. So, not matter what, I doubt he will be in jail on November 5, 2024.

I think Trump, and his movement is fast becoming one of the most destructive and corrosive forces against the image of 'all things American,' on the global stage and the longer the circus is allowed to continue, — universeness

I think you're right, and I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. As I kvetched earlier, the world's obsession with the US could use some whittling down, for your sake and ours.

The best analogy I've heard so far is that these attempts to hide behind the 1st amendment are equivalent to a bank robber claiming that his instructions to have the teller hand over money are covered under the 1st amendment. — EricH

I can imagine a better analogy with a relationship to the perpetrator's belief, not merely what he said in an operational sense. Consider someone who sells a medicine that is actually is a chemical that makes people sick. He is accused of fraud and tried in court. Evidence is presented that he was given data, repeatedly, demonstrating that the medicine didn't make people better but made them sick. Yet he kept selling it and advertising it as a medicinal cure. Those who worked for him and demonstrated this were fired or resigned. He sought out people to work for him who would tell him what he wanted to hear about how the medicine worked. Meanwhile, more and more people got sick from his medicine as he got wealthy from selling it. His defense in court is that he "really believed" it was medicine, and so he wasn't lying he was simply exercising his free speech by advertising what he believed was true.

The way you frame it sounds criminal, but the alternate electors scheme has precedent in the JFK/Nixon election of 1960. The judge there seemed to think them legitimate. Would you call that scheme criminal? An effort to overthrow/subvert an election?

I can imagine a better analogy with a relationship to the perpetrator's belief, not merely what he said in an operational sense. Consider someone who sells a medicine that is actually is a chemical that makes people sick. He is accused of fraud and tried in court. Evidence is presented that he was given data, repeatedly, demonstrating that the medicine didn't make people better but made them sick. Yet he kept selling it and advertising it as a medicinal cure. Those who worked for him and demonstrated this were fired or resigned. He sought out people to work for him who would tell him what he wanted to hear about how the medicine worked. Meanwhile, more and more people got sick from his medicine as he got wealthy from selling it. His defense in court is that he "really believed" it was medicine, and so he wasn't lying he was simply exercising his free speech by advertising what he believed was true.

It depends on the specific crime, but I think in common law legalese this would fall under 'knowledge' or 'recklessness', a category of crime just below 'intent' but above negligence. It is reckless to disregard the evidence presented and if any reasonable person should have known that the medicine would cause illness it may be 'knowledge', for some crimes a higher form of intent then recklessness. Common law doctrine on intent and on justifications and excuses is not very precise and not uniform unfortunately.

I’m not sure he did so fraudulently. The claims that he did so knowingly and fraudulently are without evidence and therefor bullshit. — NOS4A2

What if the jury finds him guilty based on evidence? Would that be enough to convince you that he did so fraudulently?

What the heck, man? You've already notified us that even if he really was guilty of a crime, you don't care because you don't believe in laws. So you're just trolling.

What if the jury finds him guilty based on evidence? Would that be enough to convince you that he did so fraudulently?

No. I am unable to pass off someone else’s judgement with my own, especially a Washington jury.

The way you frame it sounds criminal, but the alternate electors scheme has precedent in the JFK/Nixon election of 1960. The judge there seemed to think them legitimate. Would you call that scheme criminal? An effort to overthrow/subvert an election? — NOS4A2

In the 1960 election JFK got 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. Hawaii at that time was worth 3 electoral votes. In the initial count of the popular votes in Hawaii Nixon was apparently the winner, but it was by a very slim margin and so there was a recount which revealed JFK barely won Hawaii. The entire Presidential election didn't hinge on the outcome of this recount. The alternate electoral votes in that context made sense, one could argue, for the sake of efficiency to have them prepared depending on how the recount went because it was so close. Personally, I would rather that it would be illegal for alternate electoral votes to be prepared on the basis of mere speculation, but apparently it isn't. I think the standard should be to not be able to prepare the certificates until one has the popular election results in support of them... but I digress. In any case the 1960 situation is disanalogous because it couldn't have affected the overall presidential election. In the 2020 election there were enough alternate electors -- 84 -- from enough swing states to potentially do that. Also, you have to look at it in the context of the overall scheming that was going on, such as Trump pressuring the DoJ to "just say the election was corrupt" and pressuring states to "find me more votes" and in particular the pressure on Pence to not certify the election results and return the legitimate electors to the state legislatures. I would say the exception to this would be the alternate electors from Pennsylvania and New Mexico who included the caveat that their votes would only be counted if ongoing court battles went in favor of Trump.

This shows just how deeply anti-democratic you are. It also shows a disregard for the legal system.

[Deleted]

As I kvetched earlier, the world's obsession with the US could use some whittling down, for your sake and ours. — T Clark

Yep, I think the human race needs a new 'role model' of what we might consider a better civilisation to aspire to. A better way of living as a human community. There don't seem to be many historical or current suitable candidates. Perhaps we still need a lot of new thinking to imagineer one that might be palatable to a significant enough majority.

Juries can be wrong. How do wrongful convictions fit into your notion of democracy?

An analyst notes: “It (the indictment) puts Republicans who are defending Trump in the stance of opposing democracy. The indictment outlines fundamental threats to democracy on the part of Trump, and so it really puts the GOP in a very difficult political stance."

No kidding. Trump moans that 'this should never happen in America' - who can forget the hundreds of Trump rallies with the Lock Her Up chants and placards with pictures of Hillary Clinton in the lead up the 2016 election?

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP.

“It was also very sad driving through Washington, D.C., and seeing the filth and the decay, and all of the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti. This is not the place that I left.”

Comedy gold.

The judge there seemed to think them legitimate. Would you call that scheme criminal? An effort to overthrow/subvert an election? — NOS4A2

Good article - well written & researched. I'm not an expert in these matters but as a lay person it seems that your article is making a pretty convincing case that the "scheme" was most definitely not criminal and in no way was it an attempt to overthrow/subvert an election

he's talking about it like the elector thing is the only thing Donald Trump is in hot water for. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't believe if is. I'm not even sure it's ONE of the things he's in hot water for.

I should also note that the argument "democrats did it 60 years ago" shouldn't be very persuasive. Maybe the democrats who did it 60 years ago were also fraudulent little pests. Or maybe there was some context there that made sense that's absent here.

For example, I'm not sure of the timing of everything but if those "fake electors" for Kennedy did what they did after knowing that the recounts were in Kennedy's favour, that might be a factor not present in the trump situation.

In any case, regardless of whether some people who are probably dead by now were trying to steal an election, we should judge what's happening here on its own merits. Why was the fake elector scheme devised? What was it's purpose? What were they hoping to achieve?

What I would say to anybody still defending Trump right now, after everything that's happened is, consider how you would react if Biden loses the election in 2024 and he pulls all the same shit Trump did.

He loses in 2024 and he asks Kamala Harris to not certify the republican winner. He loses in 2024 and he calls the governor of some state and asks the governor to find him some more votes. He loses in 2024 so he and his team arrange the same sort of fake elector scheme. He loses in 2024 and then has a big speech talking to his supporters about stolen elections, trial by combat, marching to the capitol to show strength and so on, and his supporters then violently charge into the capitol.

What should happen to Biden if he did all that shit?

What should happen to Biden if he did all that shit? — flannel jesus

Give him a Very Stable Genius award?

What I would say to anybody still defending Trump right now, after everything that's happened is, consider how you would react if Biden loses the election in 2024 and he pulls all the same shit Trump did. — flannel jesus

Even that would not work, because I don't think that Biden fully qualifies as human for a Trump supporter.

The impression I get from Trump supporters is that they feel very deeply alienated from "the establishment". What they mean by that isn't well defined, but it's certainly any Washington politician they don't agree with. They don't feel "the elite" are part of the same people as themselves.

Their stance makes sense if you consider "the elite" to be a bunch of aliens (of the interstellar variety).

Trump is the wrecking ball against an evil system. He can do no wrong (so long as he is arrayed against the system) and comparisons don't apply.

Or maybe there was some context there that made sense that's absent here. — flannel jesus

That is indeed the case - as the article NOS linked made clear: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/07/1960-electoral-college-certificates-false-trump-electors-00006186

Juries can be wrong. — NOS4A2

Yes. And so can you. Do you want to do away with trial by jury?

As you said:

I’m not sure he did so fraudulently. — NOS4A2

So how is that to be determined if not by a jury based on evidence?

The claims that he did so knowingly and fraudulently are without evidence and therefor bullshit. Maybe some evidence will drop in the future but here is nothing. — NOS4A2

I remember hearing audio clips from Steve Bannon and Roger Stone prior to the election that the plan was for Trump to claim the election was rigged and declare victory on election night if he was behind.

I did read that but there were details I found hard to understand. I would really appreciate it if you could lay out the explicit difference between the two situations that makes one arguably ethical, and the other one unethical.

I’m sure you could find it if pressed. But comments from Stone and Bannon don’t mean much, I’m afraid.

The greatest conspiracy to defraud the United States this century was the Russian collusion narrative, which gripped American politics for a number of years and arguably altered American diplomacy, disrupted official business, and forever tarnished the standing of the intelligence community, leading to the war we see today. That episode and those kinds of people, like this indictment and Jack Smith, lays bare the incompetence of state bureaucrats and what they are willing to do to human rights in order to maintain deep-state power. Now they are criminalizing the contesting of an election and accepting of legal counsel; they are violating attorney/client privilege; and they a making a mockery of the bill of rights, all because their little “official proceeding” was protested. It’s all a joke.

And until this indictment dropped, deep-state supporters thought they had Trump dead-to-rights on insurrection and sedition, just like what their political handlers told them to believe. Now they are shown a shiny new charge and act like they knew it all along.

Geez NOS, how far would you let someone go in "contesting an election" ? Would you let them overthrow legitimate elections?

Maybe there is no ethical difference in what the electors did, but there is definitely an ethical difference between conducting a recount and conspiring to overthrow legitimate election results.

he's talking about it like the elector thing is the only thing Donald Trump is in hot water for. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't believe if is. I'm not even sure it's ONE of the things he's in hot water for. — flannel jesus

Recommended to read the indictment. My understanding is that Trump is Not being charged for inciting violence. Rather, he is being charged with both (A) obstructing the electoral process, and (B) conspiring to obstruct the electoral process.

I’m sure you could find it if pressed. But comments from Stone and Bannon don’t mean much, I’m afraid. — NOS4A2

They are evidence that there was a plan to overturn the election results if Trump was losing or lost. Stone and Bannon were both confidants and advisors of Trump, and what they said in advance was exactly what Trump did on election night. This is in addition to Trump's own words leading up to the election. No one is saying Trump didn't have the right to doubt the election results or the fairness of the process, but he clearly had a plan ahead of time to declare victory regardless of the election results.