Federal prosecutors are examining the efforts of some Trump lawyers to overturn the 2020 election, the New York Times reports.
The DOJ has asked for information about Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Jenna Ellis as part of its probe into alternate slates of electors that had been conjured up to vote for Trump over the will expressed by the voters of the states in which they resided, the paper reported.
That’s purportedly taken the form of subpoenas issued by a D.C. federal grand jury seeking information about the attorneys and about Kenneth Chesebro, who provided legal justifications for appointing pro-Trump electors.
False electors were meant to be put forward in seven swing states that Trump lost. According to the MAGA scheme, state officials were supposed to claim that fraud had swindled Trump out of the election, necessitating the appointment of pro-Trump electors to cast Biden’s aside.
Vice President Mike Pence was buffaloed by the bizarre scheme in the run-up to Jan. 6, when Trump and his attorneys demanded that Pence accept the fake elector slates in a desperate bid to deny Biden victory.
The Trump attorneys thought up numerous legal theories to support their case. As one federal judge recently described Eastman’s activity, it was a “coup in search of a legal theory.”
But more critically, the attorneys submitted the false slates to various federal agencies in a bid to have the Trump electors be taken seriously, and to lay the groundwork for their potential acceptance.
As the New York Times notes, it’s a federal crime to submit false statements to the federal government.
Wow, DOJ leaping into action! They’ve issued subpoenas! How many months after the false elector schemes were first extensively reported on? I hope there’s no statute of limitations on submitting false statements to the federal government, 'cause if there is, Merrick Garland’s DOJ sure as hell isn’t going to get anything done before it runs out.
Asked whom?
Subpoenas to whom? Mickey Mouse? Tinkerbell?
The Times reports that DOJ acknowledged this investigation last January. It may have been underway before that.
The Time also observes that “It is a federal crime to knowingly submit false statements to a federal agency or agent for an undue end,” and that “The scheme reached a crescendo in the days leading up to Jan. 6, when Mr. Trump and his allies mounted a relentless campaign to persuade Mr. Pence to accept the alternate electors and use them at a joint session of Congress to deny.”
It seems probably or even likely that much of the evidence necessary for an indictment is in the public record. Trump and a mob of his flunkies spent a couple of months publicly urging all sorts of people and institutions to submit statements to congress that they knew were false. And so maybe these subpoenas are just DOJ crossing their Ts and dotting their i’s.
It might be my imagination (or, more likely, wishful thinking), but I keep hearing that harmonica at the beginning of the theme music from Hang 'Em High…
The noose tightens…