Emails reveal Trump campaign efforts to subvert Electoral College certification: ‘We would just be sending fake electoral votes’

Advisors to Donald Trump who were involved in the former president’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election appeared to recognise that their plan was legally dubious, according to emails revealed by The New York Times.

The Times said it had reviewed and authenticated dozens of emails that show a frantic effort by aides to Mr Trump and a coterie of lawyers and supporters outside of the White House to send fake electors to the Electoral College certification of the 2020 election.

The emails frequently refer to “fake” electors, and those involved seemed aware that their efforts had no legal standing, the Times reported.

“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes,” wrote Jack Wilenchik, a lawyer who helped organise pro-Trump electors in Arizona, in an email sent on 8 December, 2020, according to theTimes. The email was sent to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign.

He added in a later email that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes.”

Mr Wilenchik also outlined a plan from another lawyer working with the campaign, Kenneth Chesebro, to send fake electors for Mr Trump, noting that the plan was not legally sound.

“His idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our electors send in their votes (even though the votes aren’t legal under federal law — because they’re not signed by the Governor); so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6th,” Mr Wilenchik wrote in the email to Mr Epshteyn.

The Times reported that Mr Epshteyn was “a regular point of contact” for John Eastman, the lawyer who came up with the plan to send fake electors to Congress on 6 January 2021. Others involved in the efforts included lawyers Jenna Ellis and Bruce Marks, and Gary Michael Brown, who was deputy director of the Trump campaign’s election day operations.

The emails show the broad outlines of a shifting plan to override the will of voters in battleground states lost by Mr Trump. While the effort was ultimately unsuccessful, the repetition of bogus claims about election fraud by Mr Trump and his campaign would spur the then-president’s supporters to attack the US Capitol on January 6.

A House committee investigating the causes of the attack has subpoenaed masses of communications between Mr Trump’s advisers and key players in the plan to overturn the election.

Mr Trump and some of his allies are facing a number of investigations relating to their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Earlier this month, a special grand jury investigating potential criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results subpoenaed key players in the legal team that advised Mr Trump during the aftermath of the vote. Among this group were Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis. Senator Lindsay Graham, a Trump ally, was also included.

The court filings allege "a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere." A 23-person grand jury was impaneled in May and has already heard from numerous witnesses.

The Justice Department is also in the midst of a wide-ranging investigation into the attack on the US Capitol and election interference by Mr Trump’s allies, including the fake elector scheme.

On Tuesday, attorney general Merrick Garland refused to rule out charging Mr Trump as part of that investigation when asked by NBC’s Lestor Holt if indicting a former president would “tear the country apart.”

“Look, we pursue justice without fear or favour,” Mr Garland said.

“We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable,” he added.