GOP actually had a plan to overturn the election

[Intrinsic]

There was an actual plan to overturn the 2020 election. Like any point-shaving scandal, the GOP vote suppression plans resemble the ability to throw out legal votes and ballots and reduce the numerical proportions to favor them. Congress would decide the election.

The 1/6 Select Committee might ask some questions of John Eastman about his memo. VP Pence’s unwillingness to follow the blueprint seems now even more important.

Having a concurrent ‘national emergency’ with martial law and an insurrectionist mob(s) would help pressure the result. The military’s tacit role was simply an ornamental feature. “It's really sad that the thing most responsible for preventing utter chaos was Mike Pence's lingering sense of country club propriety.”

[Intrinsic]

Why legal experts are so disturbed by a Trump lawyer's 6-point plan to overturn the 2020 election

by Cody Fenwick


https://www.alternet.org/amp/memo-to-ov ... ssion=true

A new CNN report on Monday revealed a memo from a lawyer working with former President Donald Trump that detailed a plan to overturn his loss to Joe Biden on Jan. 6. The report reveals findings from the new book, "Peril," by reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

It included a copy of the memo from conservative law professor John Eastman, showing a six-point plan to leverage then-Vice President Mike Pence's role as the president of the Senate to control Congress's vote counting and throw out the votes of seven states.


This would leave Trump in the lead with 232 Electoral College votes over Biden's 228. Then, according to Eastman, Democrats would let out "howls." (The whole memo shows open contempt for Democrats.) But if they object, he argued, Pence could declare the election inconclusive, at which point it would move into the House. And because Republicans control a majority of the House delegations, they could select Trump to carry out a second term.

"The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session [of Congress] or from the Court," the memo said. "The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind."

Pence, of course, ultimately disagreed with these arguments and refused Trump's pleas to carry out the plan. And despite the insurrection carried out by Trump's followers on the Capitol that day, Pence fulfilled his role as expected, and Congress counted all the Electoral Votes as they were actually awarded, affirming Biden as the winner.

But even though the plan failed, the document remains a disturbing record of the time. It's impossible to know what would have happened if Pence had tried to go along with the plan — there might've been outrage and chaos in the streets, just as there were outbursts of celebration when Biden was declared the winner in November 2020. But if the vice president could just throw out the votes of states he didn't like, it would indisputably be the end of democracy in the United States.
...
Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, agreed: "This memo is horrifying. As is the fact that it was written by a (former) law professor. As is the reporting that Pence agonized over the matter. As is so much else about how close we came to a coup (fine — an autogolpe) on 1/6. As is how little we're doing to respond to it."

Asha Rangappa, who teaches at Yale Law School, called the memo a "sinister plan" that would let "Trump to unconstitutionally grab and hold on to power." She added: "Note, by the way, that he's pretty confident the R's would go along with it until then end."

However, the CNN report notes that GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, was a staunch opponent of the plan when it was presented to him.

"It was a dress rehearsal," said Rick Hasen, a prominent expert in election law. "Here's how to do the coup next time, with more loyalists in key places." Hasen argued that there are various ways lawmakers could strengthen our elections against such attempts at subversion, including reform of the Electoral Count Act.

[Intrinsic]

Memo PDF:
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/2 ... n.memo.pdf

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL
January 6 scenario

7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate.
...
So here’s the scenario we propose:

1. VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required).

2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors, and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act.

3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected.

4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote. President Trump is re-elected there as well.

5. One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules (which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate of electors, if they had not already done so.
6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind.

[Intrinsic]

This now explains Trump's bizarre phone call to Pence.
Trump's command to go to the Capitol on J6. Trump's tweets getting his Insurrection to chant death threats about Pence while they storm the Capitol. They had a plan


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 9.html?amp

By Gino Spocchiam

Donald Trump allegedly told Mike Pence he did not want to be “friends anymore” and that he had chosen “the wrong man four years ago” as demonstrators assembled in front of the US Capitol, a new book has claimed.

The incident, which was revealed by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in an upcoming book titled “Peril”, occurred the day before the US Capitol was assaulted on 6 January by Trump supporters.

CNN, which obtained a copy of the book before its 21 September release, reported that Mr Trump asked Mr Pence to overrule the results of the 2020 election in a tense exchange inside the Oval Office.

"I wouldn't want any one person to have that authority," Mr Pence allegedly told Mr Trump, who suggested that if “people say you had the power [to overturn the election], wouldn't you want to?”

The former president pressed Mr Pence and asked: “But wouldn't it be almost cool to have that power?”

Mr Pence, who was 24 hours away from presiding over a joint session of Congress to confirm the results of the 2020 presidential race, refused the former president’s request, saying “No”.

He was forced to flee the House chamber along with Democrat and Republican lawmakers as rioters assaulted the building on 6 January, in events that saw five people lose their lives.

In what was likely his final encounter with Mr Trump before that attack, Mr Pence went on to say that he had "done everything” he could to “find a way around this”, but that it was “simply not possible”.

Outraged, Mr Trump reportedly shouted: “No, no, no! You don't understand, Mike. You can do this. I don't want to be your friend anymore if you don't do this”.

“If you don't do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago,” the former president allegedly told Mr Pence. “You're going to wimp out.”

The former president went on to tell crowds assembled in Washington DC that Mr Pence had an opportunity to “do the right thing” by overturning the 2020 results.

Within an hour of his remarks, hundreds assaulted the Capitol and Mr Trump tweeted that Mr Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done”, despite his life being in danger.

Mr Woodward and Mr Costa’s book goes on to claim that Mr Trump’s advisers were afraid he would go “rogue”, and that a senior military official acted to block the former president from deploying nuclear weapons.

[Intrinsic]

John Eastman was THERE. He spoke at the rally on Jan. 6. Looks like Eastman is a scumbag plagiarizing white federalist covering his ass from the failed Trump coup

[Munchy]

here's a short video version for anyone who may be web-forum^book-reading-hesitant