New recordings obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith regarding efforts by the Trump administration to block certification of the 2020 election provide powerful new evidence that prove failed former president Donald Trump’s intent to commit criminal acts, according to legal experts.
The recordings, which were first made public by CNN this week, suggest that Trump and those allied with him flew fake elector ballots to Washington D.C. so they could replace the real ballots with ones that would be favorable to the disgraced ex-president.
Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail.
So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.
The operatives even considered chartering a jet to ensure the files reached Washington, DC, in time for the January 6, 2021, proceeding, according to emails and recordings obtained by CNN.
The recordings are of Trump-aligned lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who devised the fake elector scheme and is now cooperating with prosecutors.
Former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams had this to say about the recordings:
“It’s one thing for a jury to read a transcript or even hear someone talk about things they heard somebody else say, it is another thing to hear voices to have sort of an evocative effect, that is more valuable and powerful.”
The tapes, Williams continued, “could be introduced as evidence showing the state mind of not just of the former president, or people around him who knew what they were doing and attempting to take all efforts to get these fake or alternate — their argument is — ballots to Washington, D.C.., it can speak to intent.”
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen concurred with Williams.
“And the reason those details about the elaborate plan to get all the materials to Washington for Jan. 6 matters so much is they go directly to the intent here.”
He added, “This wasn’t just, as it started out, a preventive measure in case Trump won court cases,” Eisen said. “This was an active alleged conspiracy to have Mike Pence and Congress block the rightful winner of the election from taking office, and Jack Smith has said that that is a criminal conspiracy. And it’s hard to understand how lawyers and other professionals couldn’t see why that was wrong.”
With each day, new and damning evidence comes to light that will help the special counsel make the case against Trump, who is reportedly terrified that he will indeed be found guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison.
