Trump Repeatedly Asked if He Could Seize Control of Voting Machines, Report Says
Donald Trump’s doomed attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat reportedly included a scheme to take control of voting machines in crucial swing states. A report from The New York Times reveals that Trump pressed his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it was legally possible for it to seize control of the machines, and also asked Attorney General William Barr if the Justice Department could carry out the same unprecedented task. The Times states that the Giuliani directive took place six weeks after the election, and the Barr meeting happened shortly before that. According to the report, Barr shot down the suggestion, while Giuliani did reach out to the DHS, only to be told he lacked the authority to take control of the voting machines. Trump’s advisers reportedly wrote two drafts of an executive order authorizing the military to oversee the seizure of the machines, at which point Giuliani is said to have abandoned the plans, and persuaded Trump that the military shouldn’t get involved. Read more...
According to a Washington Post's report published by CNBC Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other aides asked GOP prosecutor to give them Michigan county voting machines after 2020 election. James Rossiter, the prosecuting attorney for Antrim County in northern Michigan, told the Post that the request from Giuliani and his colleagues came during a phone call after the county had misreported its initial election results in favor of Joe Biden. “I said, ‘I can’t just say: give them here.’ We don’t have that magical power to just demand things as prosecutors. You need probable cause,” Rossiter said he told Trump’s legal aides, the Post reported. Rossiter said he could not have handed the machines over to Trump’s team even if he had grounds to seize them as evidence, due to Trump’s clear interest in the matter. CNBC’s request for comment from Rossiter’s office was not immediately returned. A lawyer for Giuliani did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The call came around Nov. 20, 2020, nearly two weeks after news outlets projected Biden had defeated Trump in the presidential election, Rossiter said. Trump had falsely claimed that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud. Trump’s legal team and other allies had filed dozens of lawsuits in key states Biden won, attempting to overturn their Electoral College results. None of those lawsuits succeeded in reversing votes for Biden. Read more...
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