In the heady days between Donald Trump’s defeat in November 2020 and the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, an executive order was prepared. It commanded the defense secretary to seize voting machines in battleground states, as part of Trump’s “big lie” that the vote was rigged. The draft executive order, obtained and
published by Politico, was never sent and its author is unknown. It was part of a cache of documents handed over to the House committee investigating the January 6 violence, after the Supreme Court ruled this week that Trump could not shield himself from oversight on grounds of executive privilege.
The disclosure of the draft order adds to evidence of the lengths to which Trump and his close advisers were prepared to go to keep him in the White House, against the will of the American people. Under the draft order, the defense secretary would have been required to carry out an assessment of the voting machines “no later than 60 days from commencement of operations.” That would have pushed the chaos that Trump assiduously attempted to sow around
Joe Biden’s legitimate victory well beyond the handover of power at the inauguration on