Indictment
USDC, District of Columbia
USA v. Donald Trump
Case 1:23-cr-00257-TSC
by Jack Smith, Special Counsel
8/1/23
Case 1:23-cr-00257-TSC Document 1
Filed 08/01/23
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
DONALD J. TRUMP,
Defendant.
CRIMINAL NO.
GRAND JURY ORIGINAL
VIOLATIONS:
Count 1: 18 U.S.C. § 371
(Conspiracy to Defraud the United States)
Count 2: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k)
(Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding)
Count 3: 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2
(Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding)
Count 4: 18 U.S.C. § 241
(Conspiracy Against Rights)
INDICTMENT
The Grand Jury charges that, at all times material to this Indictment, on or about the dates and at the approximate times stated below:
INTRODUCTION
1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.
2. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway -- to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.
3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.
4. Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies:
a. A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371;
b. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified ("the certification proceeding"), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k); and
c. A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.
Each of these conspiracies -- which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud-targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election ("the federal government function").
COUNT ONE
(Conspiracy to Defraud the United States -- 18 U.S.C. § 371)
5. The allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 4 of this Indictment are realleged and fully incorporated here by reference.
The Conspiracy
6. From on or about November 14, 2020, through on or about January 20, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant,
DONALD J. TRUMP,
did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government.
Purpose of the Conspiracy
7. The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.
The Defendant's Co-Conspirators
8. The Defendant enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power. Among these were:
a. Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani], an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant's 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not.
b. Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]], an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President's ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.
c. Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell], an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded "crazy." Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell]'s disinformation.
d. Co-Conspirator 4 [Jeffrey Clark], a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.
e. Co-Conspirator 5 [Kenneth Chesebro], an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.
f. Co-Conspirator 6 [Boris Epshteyn], a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.
The Federal Government Function
9. The federal government function by which the results of the election for President of the United States are collected, counted, and certified was established through the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act CECA), a federal law enacted in 1887. The Constitution provided that individuals called electors select the president, and that each state determine for itself how to appoint the electors apportioned to it. Through state laws, each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia chose to select their electors based on the popular vote in the state. After election day, the ECA required each state to formally determine -- or "ascertain" -- the electors who would represent the state's voters by casting electoral votes on behalf of the candidate who had won the popular vote, and required the executive of each state to certify to the federal government the identities of those electors. Then, on a date set by the ECA, each state's ascertained electors were required to meet and collect the results of the presidential election -- that is, to cast electoral votes based on their state's popular vote, and to send their electoral votes, along with the state executive's certification that they were the state's legitimate electors, to the United States Congress to be counted and certified in an official proceeding. Finally, the Constitution and ECA required that on the sixth of January following election day, the Congress meet in a Joint Session for a certification proceeding, presided over by the Vice President as President of the Senate, to count the electoral votes, resolve any objections, and announce the result -- thus certifying the winner of the presidential election as president-elect. This federal government function -- from the point of ascertainment to the certification -- is foundational to the United States' democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.
Manner and Means
10. The Defendant's conspiracy to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud, and deceit included the following manner and means:
a. The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant's opponent, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant. That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the Defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the Defendant.
b. The Defendant and co-conspirators organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws. This included causing the fraudulent electors to meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes; cast fraudulent votes for the Defendant; and sign certificates falsely representing that they were legitimate electors. Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the Defendant succeeded in outcome-determinative lawsuits within their state, which the Defendant never did. The Defendant and co-conspirators then caused these fraudulent electors to transmit their false certificates to the Vice President and other government officials to be counted at the certification proceeding on January 6.
c. The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to use the power and authority of the Justice Department to conduct sham election crime investigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the election outcome; that sought to advance the Defendant's fraudulent elector plan by using the Justice Department's authority to falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors; and that urged, on behalf of the Justice Department, the targeted states' legislatures to convene to create the opportunity to choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors.
d. The Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results. First, using knowingly false claims of election fraud, the Defendant and co-conspirators attempted to convince the Vice President to use the Defendant's fraudulent electors, reject legitimate electoral votes, or send legitimate electoral votes to state legislatures for review rather than counting them. When that failed, on the morning of January 6, the Defendant and co-conspirators repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gathered supporters, falsely told them that the Vice President had the authority to and might alter the election results, and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the Vice President to take the fraudulent actions he had previously refused.
e. After it became public on the afternoon of January 6 that the Vice President would not fraudulently alter the election results, a large and angry crowd -- including many individuals whom the Defendant had deceived into believing the Vice President could and might change the election results -- violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding. As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.
The Defendant's Knowledge of the Falsity of His Election Fraud Claims
11. The Defendant, his co-conspirators, and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election. These prolific lies about election fraud included dozens of specific claims that there had been substantial fraud in certain states, such as that large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots, or that voting machines had changed votes for the Defendant to votes for Biden. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue -- often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts -- and he deliberately disregarded the truth. For instance:
a. The Defendant's Vice President -- who personally stood to gain by remaining in office as part of the Defendant's ticket and whom the Defendant asked to study fraud allegations -- told the Defendant that he had seen no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud.
b. The senior leaders of the Justice Department -- appointed by the Defendant and responsible for investigating credible allegations of election crimes -- told the Defendant on multiple occasions that various allegations of fraud were unsupported.
c. The Director of National Intelligence -- the Defendant's principal advisor on intelligence matters related to national security -- disabused the Defendant of the notion that the Intelligence Community's findings regarding foreign interference would change the outcome of the election.
d. The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ("CISA") -- whose existence the Defendant signed into law to protect the nation's cybersecurity infrastructure from attack -- joined an official multi-agency statement that there was no evidence any voting system had been compromised and that declared the 2020 election "the most secure in American history." Days later, after the CISA Director -- whom the Defendant had appointed -- announced publicly that election security experts were in agreement that claims of computer-based election fraud were unsubstantiated, the Defendant fired him.
e. Senior White House attorneys -- selected by the Defendant to provide him candid advice -- informed the Defendant that there was no evidence of outcome-determinative election fraud, and told him that his presidency would end on Inauguration Day in 2021.
f. Senior staffers on the Defendant's 2020 re-election campaign ("Defendant's Campaign" or "Campaign") -- whose sole mission was the Defendant's reelection -- told the Defendant on November 7, 2020, that he had only a five to ten percent chance of prevailing in the election, and that success was contingent on the Defendant winning ongoing vote counts or litigation in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Within a week of that assessment, the Defendant lost in Arizona -- meaning he had lost the election.
g. State legislators and officials -- many of whom were the Defendant's political allies, had voted for him, and wanted him to be re-elected -- repeatedly informed the Defendant that his claims of fraud in their states were unsubstantiated or false and resisted his pressure to act based upon them.
h. State and federal courts -- the neutral arbiters responsible for ensuring the fair and even-handed administration of election laws -- rejected every outcome-determinative post-election lawsuit filed by the Defendant, his coconspirators, and allies, providing the Defendant real-time notice that his allegations were meritless.
12. The Defendant widely disseminated his false claims of election fraud for months, despite the fact that he knew, and in many cases had been informed directly, that they were not true. The Defendant's knowingly false statements were integral to his criminal plans to defeat the federal government function, obstruct the certification, and interfere with others' right to vote and have their votes counted. He made these knowingly false claims throughout the post-election time period, including those below that he made immediately before the attack on the Capitol on January 6:
a. The Defendant insinuated that more than ten thousand dead voters had voted in Georgia. Just four days earlier, Georgia's Secretary of State had explained to the Defendant that this was false.
b. The Defendant asserted that there had been 205, 000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. The Defendant's Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General had explained to him that this was false.
c. The Defendant said that there had been a suspicious vote dump in Detroit, Michigan. The Defendant's Attorney General had explained to the Defendant that this was false, and the Defendant's allies in the Michigan state legislature -- the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Majority Leader of the Senate -- had publicly announced that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in the state.
d. The Defendant claimed that there had been tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud in Nevada. The Nevada Secretary of State had previously rebutted the Defendant's fraud claims by publicly posting a "Facts vs. Myths" document explaining that Nevada judges had reviewed and rejected them, and the Nevada Supreme Court had rendered a decision denying such claims.
e. The Defendant said that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona. The Defendant's own Campaign Manager had explained to him that such claims were false, and the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who had supported the Defendant in the election, had issued a public statement that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona.
f. The Defendant asserted that voting machines in various contested states had switched votes from the Defendant to Biden. The Defendant's Attorney General, Acting Attorney General, and Acting Deputy Attorney General all had explained to him that this was false, and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.
The Criminal Agreement and Acts to Effect the Object of the Conspiracy
The Defendant's Use of Deceit to Get State Officials to Subvert the Legitimate Election Results and Change Electoral Votes
13. Shortly after election day -- which fell on November 3, 2020 -- the Defendant launched his criminal scheme. On November 13, the Defendant's Campaign attorneys conceded in court that he had lost the vote count in the state of Arizona -- meaning, based on the assessment the Defendant's Campaign advisors had given him just a week earlier, the Defendant had lost the election. So the next day, the Defendant turned to Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani], whom he announced would spearhead his efforts going forward to challenge the election results. From that point on, the Defendant and his co-conspirators executed a strategy to use knowing deceit in the targeted states to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function, including as described below.
Arizona
14. On November 13, 2020, the Defendant had a conversation with his Campaign Manager, who informed him that a claim that had been circulating, that a substantial number of non-citizens had voted in Arizona, was false.
15. On November 22, eight days before Arizona's Governor certified the ascertainment of the state's legitimate electors based on the popular vote, the Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] called the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and made knowingly false claims of election fraud aimed at interfering with the ascertainment of and voting by Arizona's electors, as follows:
a. The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] falsely asserted, among other things, that a substantial number of non-citizens, non-residents, and dead people had voted fraudulently in Arizona. The Arizona House Speaker asked Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] for evidence of the claims, which Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] did not have, but claimed he would provide. Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] never did so.
b. The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing based on their claims of election fraud. The Arizona House Speaker refused, stating that doing so would require a two-thirds vote of its members, and he would not allow it without actual evidence of fraud.
c. The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] asked the Arizona House Speaker to use the legislature to circumvent the process by which legitimate electors would be ascertained for Biden based on the popular vote, and replace those electors with a new slate for the Defendant. The Arizona House Speaker refused, responding that the suggestion was beyond anything he had ever heard or thought of as something within his authority.
16. On December 1, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] met with the Arizona House Speaker. When the Arizona House Speaker again asked Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] for evidence of the outcome-determinative election fraud he and the Defendant had been claiming, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] responded with words to the effect of, "We don't have the evidence, but we have lots of theories."
17. On December 4, the Arizona House Speaker issued a public statement that said, in part:
No election is perfect, and if there were evidence of illegal votes or an improper count, then Arizona law provides a process to contest the election: a lawsuit under state law. But the law does not authorize the Legislature to reverse the results of an election.
As a conservative Republican, I don't like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.
I and my fellow legislators swore an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the constitution and laws of the state of Arizona. It would violate that oath, the basic principles of republican government, and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify the people's vote based on unsupported theories of fraud. Under the laws that we wrote and voted upon, Arizona voters choose who wins, and our system requires that their choice be respected.
18. On the morning of January 4, 2021, Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]] called the Arizona House Speaker to urge him to use a majority of the legislature to decertify the state's legitimate electors. Arizona's validly ascertained electors had voted three weeks earlier and sent their votes to Congress, which was scheduled to count those votes in Biden's favor in just two days' time at the January 6 certification proceeding. When the Arizona House Speaker explained that state investigations had uncovered no evidence of substantial fraud in the state, Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]] conceded that he "[didn't] know enough about facts on the ground" in Arizona, but nonetheless told the Arizona House Speaker to decertify and "let the courts sort it out." The Arizona House Speaker refused, stating that he would not "play with the oath" he had taken to uphold the United States Constitution and Arizona law.
19. On January 6, the Defendant publicly repeated the knowingly false claim that 36, 000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona.
Georgia
20. On November 16, 2020, on the Defendant's behalf, his executive assistant sent Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell] and others a document containing bullet points critical of a certain voting machine company, writing, "See attached -- Please include as is, or almost as is, in lawsuit." Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell] responded nine minutes later, writing, "IT MUST GO IN ALL SUITS IN GA AND PA IMMEDIATELY WITH A FRAUD CLAIM THAT REQUIRES THE ENTIRE ELECTION TO BE SET ASIDE in those states and machines impounded for non-partisan professional inspection." On November 25, Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell] filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia falsely alleging "massive election fraud" accomplished through the voting machine company's election software and hardware. Before the lawsuit was even filed, the Defendant retweeted a post promoting it. The Defendant did this despite the fact that when he had discussed Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell]'s far-fetched public claims regarding the voting machine company in private with advisors, the Defendant had conceded that they were unsupported and that Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell] sounded "crazy." Co-Conspirator 3 [Sidney Powell]'s Georgia lawsuit was dismissed on December 7.
21. On December 3, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] orchestrated a presentation to a Judiciary Subcommittee of the Georgia State Senate, with the intention of misleading state senators into blocking the ascertainment of legitimate electors. During the presentation:
a. An agent of the Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] falsely claimed that more than 10, 000 dead people voted in Georgia. That afternoon, a Senior Advisor to the Defendant told the Defendant's Chief of Staff through text messages, "Just an FYI. [A Campaign lawyer] and his team verified that the 10k+ supposed dead people voting in GA is not accurate .... It was alleged in [Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] 's] hearing today." The Senior Advisor clarified that he believed that the actual number was 12.
b. Another agent of the Defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] played a misleading excerpt of a video recording of ballot-counting at State Farm Arena in Atlanta and insinuated that it showed election workers counting "suitcases" of illegal ballots.
c. Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]] encouraged the legislators to decertify the state's legitimate electors based on false allegations of election fraud.
22. Also on December 3, the Defendant issued a Tweet amplifying the knowingly false claims made in Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani]'s presentation in Georgia: "Wow! Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia. Ballot stuffing by Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room. Plenty more coming, but this alone leads to an easy win of the State!"
23. On December 4, the Georgia Secretary of State's Chief Operating Officer debunked the claims made at Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani]'s presentation the previous day, issuing a Tweet stating, "The 90 second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing. Here is the fact check on it." On December 7, he reiterated during a press conference that the claim that there had been misconduct at State Farm Arena was false.
24. On December 8, the Defendant called the Georgia Attorney General to pressure him to support an election lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court by another state's attorney general. The Georgia Attorney General told the Defendant that officials had investigated various claims of election fraud in the state and were not seeing evidence to support them.
25. Also on December 8, a Senior Campaign Advisor -- who spoke with the Defendant on a daily basis and had informed him on multiple occasions that various fraud claims were untrue -- expressed frustration that many of Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] and his legal team's claims could not be substantiated. As early as mid-November, for instance, the Senior Campaign Advisor had informed the Defendant that his claims of a large number of dead voters in Georgia were untrue. With respect to the persistent false claim regarding State Farm Arena, on December 8, the Senior Campaign Advisor wrote in an email, "When our research and campaign legal team can't back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we're 0-32 on our cases. I'll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership."
26. On December 10, four days before Biden's validly ascertained electors were scheduled to cast votes and send them to Congress, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] appeared at a hearing before the Georgia House of Representatives' Government Affairs Committee. Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] played the State Farm Arena video again, and falsely claimed that it showed "voter fraud right in front of people's eyes" and was "the tip of the iceberg." Then, he cited two election workers by name, baselessly accused them of "quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine, " and suggested that they were criminals whose "places of work, their homes, should have been searched for evidence of ballots, for evidence of USB ports, for evidence of voter fraud." Thereafter, the two election workers received numerous death threats.
27. On December 15, the Defendant summoned the incoming Acting Attorney General, the incoming Acting Deputy Attorney General, and others to the Oval Office to discuss allegations of election fraud. During the meeting, the Justice Department officials specifically refuted the Defendant's claims about State Farm Arena, explaining to him that the activity shown on the tape Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] had used was "benign."
28. On December 23, a day after the Defendant's Chief of Staff personally observed the signature verification process at the Cobb County Civic Center and notified the Defendant that state election officials were "conducting themselves in an exemplary fashion" and would find fraud if it existed, the Defendant tweeted that the Georgia officials administering the signature verification process were trying to hide evidence of election fraud and were "[t]errible people!"
29. In a phone call on December 27, the Defendant spoke with the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General. During the call, the Defendant again pressed the unfounded claims regarding State Farm Arena, and the two top Justice Department officials again rebutted the allegations, telling him that the Justice Department had reviewed videotape and interviewed witnesses, and had not identified any suspicious conduct.
30. On December 31, the Defendant signed a verification affirming false election fraud allegations made on his behalf in a lawsuit filed in his name against the Georgia Governor. In advance of the filing, Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]] -- who was advising the Defendant on the lawsuit -- acknowledged in an email that he and the Defendant had, since signing a previous verification, "been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate" and that signing a new affirmation "with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate." The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]] caused the Defendant's signed verification to be filed nonetheless.
31. On January 2, four days before Congress's certification proceeding, the Defendant and others called Georgia's Secretary of State. During the call, the Defendant lied to the Georgia Secretary of State to induce him to alter Georgia's popular vote count and call into question the validity of the Biden electors' votes, which had been transmitted to Congress weeks before, including as follows:
a. The Defendant raised allegations regarding the State Farm Arena video and repeatedly disparaged one of the same election workers that Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] had maligned on December 10, using her name almost twenty times and falsely referring to her as "a professional vote scammer and hustler." In response, the Georgia Secretary of State refuted this: "You're talking about the State Farm video. And I think it's extremely unfortunate that [Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani]] or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context." When the Georgia Secretary of State then offered a link to a video that would disprove Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani]'s claims, the Defendant responded, "I don't care about a link, I don't need it. I have a much, [Georgia Secretary of State], I have a much better link."
b. The Defendant asked about rumors that paper ballots cast in the election were being destroyed, and the Georgia Secretary of State's Counsel explained to him that the claim had been investigated and was not true.
c. The Defendant claimed that 5, 000 dead people voted in Georgia, causing the Georgia Secretary of State to respond, "Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong .... The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so [your information]'s wrong, that was two."
d. The Defendant claimed that thousands of out-of-state voters had cast ballots in Georgia's election, which the Georgia Secretary of State's Counsel refuted, explaining, "We've been going through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, that [Defendant's counsel] was just saying, they're not accurate. Every one we've been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately ... they moved back in years ago. This was not like something just before the election."
e. In response to multiple other of the Defendant's allegations, the Georgia Secretary of State's Counsel told the Defendant that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was examining all such claims and finding no merit to them.
f. The Defendant said that he needed to "find" 11,780 votes, and insinuated that the Georgia Secretary of State and his Counsel could be subject to criminal prosecution if they failed to find election fraud as he demanded, stating, "And you are going to find that they are -- which is totally illegal -- it's, it's, it's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal, you know, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to [the Georgia Secretary of State's Counsel], your lawyer."
32. The next day, on January 3, the Defendant falsely claimed that the Georgia Secretary of State had not addressed the Defendant's allegations, publicly stating that the Georgia Secretary of State "was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the 'ballots under table' scam, ballot destruction, out of state 'voters', dead voters, and more. He has no clue!"
33. On January 6, the Defendant publicly repeated the knowingly false insinuation that more than 10, 300 dead people had voted in Georgia.
Michigan
34. On November 5, 2020, the Defendant claimed that there had been a suspicious dump of votes -- purportedly illegitimate ballots -- stating, "In Detroit, there were hours of unexplained delay in delivering many of the votes for counting. The final batch did not arrive until four in the morning and -- even though the polls closed at eight o'clock. So they brought it in, and the batches came in, and nobody knew where they came from."
35. On November 20, three days before Michigan's Governor signed a certificate of ascertainment notifying the federal government that, based on the popular vote, Biden's electors were to represent Michigan's voters, the Defendant held a meeting in the Oval Office with the Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives and the Majority Leader of the Michigan Senate. In the meeting, the Defendant raised his false claim, among others, of an illegitimate vote dump in Detroit. In response, the Michigan Senate Majority Leader told the Defendant that he had lost Michigan not because of fraud, but because the Defendant had underperformed with certain voter populations in the state. Upon leaving their meeting, the Michigan House Speaker and Michigan Senate Majority Leader issued a statement reiterating this:
The Senate and House Oversight Committees are actively engaged in a thorough review of Michigan's elections process and we have faith in the committee process to provide greater transparency and accountability to our citizens. We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said throughout this election.
36. On December 1, the Defendant raised his Michigan vote dump claim with the Attorney General, who responded that what had occurred in Michigan had been the normal vote-counting process and that there was no indication of fraud in Detroit.
37. Despite this, the next day, the Defendant made a knowingly false statement that in Michigan, "[a]t 6:31 in the morning, a vote dump of 149, 772 votes came in unexpectedly. We were winning by a lot. That batch was received in horror. Nobody knows anything about it. ... It's corrupt. Detroit is corrupt. I have a lot of friends in Detroit. They know it. But Detroit is totally corrupt."
38. On December 4, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] sent a text message to the Michigan House Speaker reiterating his unsupported claim of election fraud and attempting to get the Michigan House Speaker to assist in reversing the ascertainment of the legitimate Biden electors, stating, "Looks like Georgia may well hold some factual hearings and change the certification under ArtII sec 1 cl 2 of the Constitution. As [Co-Conspirator 2 [John Eastman]]] explained they don't just have the right to do it but the obligation .... Help me get this done in Michigan."
39. Similarly, on December 7, despite still having established no fraud in Michigan, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] sent a text intended for the Michigan Senate Majority Leader: "So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the Michigan legislature that states that, * the election is in dispute, * there's an ongoing investigation by the Legislature, and * the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official Electors of the State of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline of Dec 8 under Michigan law."
40. On December 14 -- the day that electors in states across the country were required to vote and submit their votes to Congress -- the Michigan House Speaker and Michigan Senate Majority Leader announced that, contrary to the Defendant's requests, they would not decertify the legitimate election results or electors in Michigan. The Michigan Senate Majority Leader's public statement included, "[W]e have not received evidence of fraud on a scale that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan." The Michigan House Speaker's public statement read, in part:
We've diligently examined these reports of fraud to the best of our ability ....
. . . I fought hard for President Trump. Nobody wanted him to win more than me. I think he's done an incredible job. But I love our republic, too. I can't fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because some think there may have been enough widespread fraud to give him the win. That's unprecedented for good reason. And that's why there is not enough support in the House to cast a new slate of electors. I fear we'd lose our country forever. This truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the Electoral College. And I can't stand for that. I won't.
41. On January 6, 2021, the Defendant publicly repeated his knowingly false claim regarding an illicit dump of more than a hundred thousand ballots in Detroit.
Pennsylvania
42. On November 11, 2020, the Defendant publicly maligned a Philadelphia City Commissioner for stating on the news that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in Philadelphia. As a result, the Philadelphia City Commissioner and his family received death threats.
43. On November 25, the day after Pennsylvania's Governor signed a certificate of ascertainment and thus certified to the federal government that Biden's electors were the legitimate electors for the state, Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] orchestrated an event at a hotel in Gettysburg attended by state legislators. Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani] falsely claimed that Pennsylvania had issued 1.8 million absentee ballots and received 2.5 million in return. In the days thereafter, a Campaign staffer wrote internally that Co-Conspirator 1 [Rudy Giuliani]'s allegation was "just wrong" and "[t]here's no way to defend it." The Deputy Campaign Manager responded, "We have been saying this for a while. It's very frustrating. "
44. On December 4, after four Republican leaders of the Pennsylvania legislature issued a public statement that the General Assembly lacked the authority to overturn the popular vote and appoint its own slate of electors, and that doing so would violate the state Election Code and Constitution, the Defendant re-tweeted a post labeling the legislators cowards.
45. On December 31 and January 3, the Defendant repeatedly raised with the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General the allegation that in Pennsylvania, there had been 205, 000 more votes than voters. Each time, the Justice Department officials informed the Defendant that his claim was false.
46. On January 6, 2021, the Defendant publicly repeated his knowingly false claim that there had been 205, 000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania.
Wisconsin
47. On November 29, 2020, a recount in Wisconsin that the Defendant's Campaign had petitioned and paid for did not change the election result, and in fact increased the Defendant's margin of defeat.
48. On December 14, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected an election challenge by the Campaign. One Justice wrote, "[N]othing in this case casts any legitimate doubt that the people of Wisconsin lawfully chose Vice President Biden and Senator Harris to be the next leaders of our great country."
49. On December 21, as a result of the state Supreme Court's decision, the Wisconsin Governor -- who had signed a certificate of ascertainment on November 30 identifying Biden's electors as the state's legitimate electors -- signed a certificate of final determination in which he recognized that the state Supreme Court had resolved a controversy regarding the appointment of Biden's electors, and confirmed that Biden had received the highest number of votes in the state and that his electors were the state's legitimate electors.
50. That same day, in response to the court decision that had prompted the Wisconsin Governor to sign a certificate of final determination, the Defendant issued a Tweet repeating his knowingly false claim of election fraud and demanding that the Wisconsin legislature overturn the election results that had led to the ascertainment of Biden's electors as the legitimate electors.
51. On December 27, the Defendant raised with the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General a specific fraud claim -- that there had been more votes than voters in Wisconsin. The Acting Deputy Attorney General informed the Defendant that the claim was false.
52. On January 6, 2021, the Defendant publicly repeated knowingly false claims that there had been tens of thousands of unlawful votes in Wisconsin.
