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Suddenly, Trump’s fake electors scheme looks very criminal

Biden won Georgia in 2020, and was entitled to its 16 electoral votes, but the Trump campaign had other plans.

A Trump campaign operative in that state assembled a group of unelected “alternate” electors, arranged for them to meet at the statehouse on December 14, 2020, and issued them the following instructions:

  1. Keep the entire operation a closely-guarded secret
  2. Direct security guards away from the meeting room
  3. Lie to security guards about what they were there for

These instructions were in an e-mail now in the hands of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, and federal and state prosecutors. The sender was a lawyer named Robert Sinners (c.v. here). In that e-mail, he told the counterfeit electors,

“I must ask for your complete discretion in this process. Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

It almost reads like a text message to a woman not his wife arranging a motel rendezvous.

But this was a serious plot, not a lark, by people who knew they were doing wrong. Otherwise, why the secrecy and lying? It was organized and run by the Trump campaign on a multistate basis. And Sinners sent this email in his capacity as a Trump campaign staffer; at least, that’s what prosecutors will argue.

Odds are growing this caper is heading to the criminal courts. CNN says (here), “In recent weeks, the federal criminal investigation into electors in Georgia and at least one other state has grown in seriousness. A federal grand jury subpoenaed documents and the FBI interviewed witnesses … seeking details about the signing and mailing of official election documents and the planning ….”
A state criminal investigation into those matters is also underway as part of a larger probe into whether Trump committed election fraud when he called Georgia’s secretary of state, a Republican, and demanded he “find more votes.”
New York Magazine says (here), “Clumsy as it was, the fake elector gambit was a key component of the Trump plan to overturn the election results on January 6, 2021.” The objective was to “(a) recognize or count Trump–Pence electors as the ‘true’ winners, (b) prematurely adjourn the joint session of Congress in order to ‘send the election back to the states’ for resolution of conflicting claims, or (c) refuse to recognize any electors in the seven states, throwing the election into the U.S. House,” where Trump would have won, 26 states to 24 states. None of those things happened, but not for want of trying.
Might the plotters and/or fake electors face serious charges? In January 2022, as the investigations were gaining momentum, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said (here), “Legal experts interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cited various federal and state laws against false statements, forgery, racketeering and election fraud that the alternative electors might have violated.” So, yes, people could go to jail over this.
At this point it remains to be seen whether anyone will be charged, or what the charges will be. But it may be time for the plotters and fake electors to start getting nervous.

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