The subject of Jack Smith's request to testify publicly so he can refute allegations made against him, primarily by House Repub's, has caused trump devotees to once again assume a defense crouch. Essentially denying the evidence in Smith's indictments. Refusing to read the documents, despite my best efforts, he has released in support of the case against Don.
So, I thought a walk down memory lane might be in order.
A. Mr. Trump's Pressure on State Officials
One of Mr. Trump's efforts to change the results of the election involved targeting the electoral process at the state level through politically aligned state officials. Mr. Trump contacted state legislators and executives, pressured them with false claims of election fraud in their states, and urged them to take action to ignore the vote counts and change the results. 22 Significantly, he made election claims only to state legislators and executives who shared his political affiliation and were his political supporters, and only in states that he had lost. 23
For instance, Mr. Trump and Co-Conspirator 1 called the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives on November 22 and used false fraud claims to try to convince the Speaker to call the state legislature into session and replace Arizona's legitimate electors with Mr. Trump's illegitimate ones. 24 Co-Conspirator 1 tried to coerce the Arizona Speaker, including by telling him, "we're all kind of Republicans and we need to be working together." 25 The Arizona Speaker refused to do what he was asked and requested that Co-Conspirator 1 provide evidence to support his fraud claims. 26 Co-Conspirator 1 not only failed to ever provide such evidence, but he conceded to the Arizona Speaker at an in-person meeting a week later that "[w]e don't have the evidence, but we have lots of theories." 27 Despite this lack of fraud evidence, Mr. Trump and others continued to pressure the Arizona Speaker to overturn the election results. 28Mr. Trump similarly leaned on other state officials-always those of the same political party. On January 2, 2021, just days before the election results were to be certified, he called Georgia's Secretary of State and pressed him to "find 11,780 votes"-Mr. Biden's margin of victory in the state. 29 When the Secretary of State refuted Mr. Trump's false fraud claims, Mr. Trump issued a threat, stating that because the Secretary of State knew "what they did and you're not reporting it ... that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you ...." 30 Mr. Trump also pressed state legislators in Michigan by inviting them to the White House on November 20, raising false claims of election fraud, and bringing Co-Conspirator 1 into the meeting by phone. 31 Michigan's Senate Majority Leader told Mr. Trump that he had lost the election not because of fraud, but because he had under performed with educated females-an assessment that displeased Mr. Trump. 32
Of course, the section I pasted just scratches the surface. Smith's report contains much more evidence of trump's crimes and those of his co-conspirators.
