VIDEO. How the Trump clan wanted to “steal” the election from Joe Biden: the conspiracy scenario

This is a first in the United States: a former president has been charged with conspiracy against American institutions. Investigators have numerous elements and testimonies that show that Donald Trump sought to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election, by lying in order to retain power. The violent attack on the Capitol, the seat of Congress, on January 6, 2021, then appears in a new light, as the result of a deliberate political strategy.

One of the scenarios imagined as part of this strategy was detailed in black and white in a memo. Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s loyal vice president, is a key figure. On January 6 in Congress, the Constitution provides that it is the vice president who must open and count the votes of the electors. This is the certification of the new president’s victory.

To prevent this, Donald Trump was counting on the complicity of his lieutenant. According to the memo, this is what Mike Pence was supposed to do on January 6, 2021: “… announce that because of pending litigation in seven states, no electors can be considered validly chosen in these states.” Deprived of these votes, Joe Biden then lost the majority and, the memo continues, “Pence then declares President Trump reelected.” At the bottom of the page, this recommendation: “The bottom line is that Pence do this without asking permission. The Constitution grants this power to the Vice President as the final arbiter. We must act with this in mind.”

Did this plan have any chance of working? “Complément d’enquête” asked the head of the parliamentary committee’s investigation on January 6. According to Tim Heaphy, “Yes, because it was unprecedented“, although “without any legal basis.” For Tim Heaphy, “This is a made-up theory (…) that would allow Mike Pence, the Republicans in Congress, to justify President Trump’s continued stay in power.”

The inventor of this theory and the author of the memo in question is John Eastman, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers. He is now a co-defendant of his client in Georgiaindicted in Arizonaand named as one of the main accomplices in the federal indictment targeting the former president. According to the justice system, he would be the mastermind of Donald Trump’s final plan.

Can the vice president be considered the “ultimate arbiter”? No court of justice agrees with John Eastman on this point, with experts instead considering him a sort of master of ceremonies for certification. In front of the cameras of “Complément d’enquête”, John Eastman denies any attempted coup d’état and pleads “an ambiguity in the law”, “an unresolved question of constitutional law”. On the day of the attack on the Capitol, the lawyer once again hammered home from the podium his certainties about the vice president’s alleged power. A few minutes later, Donald Trump took the floor: “I hope Mike Pence makes the right choice. Because if Mike Pence makes the right choice, we win the election!”

Mike Pence, for his part, has already made it clear to the president that John Eastman’s theories do not hold water, and that he will not oppose Joe Biden’s legitimate victory. Donald Trump is then putting pressure on him publicly. “Mike Pence, I hope you will act for the good of our Constitution, and for the good of our country,” he says in front of the crowd.

A little over an hour after the end of his speech, when the rioters had already entered the Capitol, Donald Trump posted this message on Twitter: “Mike Pence did not have the courage to do what must be done to protect our Country and our Constitution. (…) America demands the truth!”

Two minutes later, the vice president had to be urgently evacuated from Congress, while in front of the Capitol, Donald Trump supporters shouted: “Hang Mike Pence!”

Excerpt from “Donald Trump, the strategy of chaos“, a document to be seen in “Complément d’enquête” on September 12, 2024.

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