Trump and his allies falsely alleged that an international communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines, and polling place fraud had stolen the election from Trump.[4] These claims of election fraud were rejected as totally meritless by numerous state and federal judges, state and local election officials, governors, the Justice and Homeland Security departments, and the Electoral College.[5][6][7] Most congressional Republicans refused to acknowledge Biden's victory[8] until mid-December, after the Republican efforts to overturn the election results failed, and after the Electoral College vote had taken place, formalizing Biden's victory.[9][10]Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, delayed initiating the presidential transition, key elements of which could only begin once she had ascertained Biden to be the President-elect.[11] Murphy allowed the transition to proceed on November 23, 20 days after the election and 16 days after most media outlets projected Biden to be the winner.[12]
The Trump political operation filed more than 60 lawsuits after Election Day[13] and lost all but one of them. He and his allies encouraged officials in swing states to throw out legally-cast ballots and challenge vote certification processes.[14] Trump pressured the Georgia secretary of state to "find" the 11,780 votes needed to secure his victory in the state in an early January 2021 phone call,[15] and repeatedly urged Georgia governor Brian Kemp to convene a special session of the legislature to overturn Biden's certified victory in the state; Trump made a similar plea to the Pennsylvania speaker of the house after Biden's victory had been certified in that state.[16] Before and after the election, Trump stated his expectation that the Supreme Court would determine the outcome, and after the election his legal team sought a path to bring a case before the Court, where conservative justices held a 6-3 majority, including three appointed by Trump.[17] Recently pardoned former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn called on the president to suspend the Constitution, silence the press and hold a new election under military authority.[18] Trump attorney Joseph diGenova called for the execution of a former federal official who had declared the election secure.[19]
After his legal challenges had consistently failed, on December 10 Trump tweeted, "This is going to escalate dramatically. This is a very dangerous moment in our history...The fact that our country is being stolen. A coup is taking place in front of our eyes, and the public can't take this anymore."[20] The next day, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case supported by numerous Republicans that sought to nullify certified election results in four states.[21] Over ensuing days, Trump considered additional options, including military intervention, seizing voting machines and another appeal to the Supreme Court, as well as challenging the congressional counting of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021.[22][23] By December 30, Republican members of the House and Senate indicated their intent to object to the congressional certification of Electoral College results to force both chambers to debate and vote on whether to accept the results.[24][25][26]Mike Pence, who as vice president would preside over the proceedings, signaled his endorsement of the effort, stating on January 4, "I promise you, come this Wednesday, we will have our day in Congress." Trump and some supporters promoted a false "Pence card" theory that the vice president has the authority to reject certified results.[27][28][29]
Within a month after Election Day, the Trump political operation had raised over $207 million, largely by appealing to small-dollar donors with baseless allegations of election fraud, and referring to a nonexistent "Official Election Defense Fund", though funds were directed to other purposes, including the financing of Trump's post-presidency activities.[30]
After his dismissal as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Chris Krebs was interviewed on 60 Minutes about the process of monitoring the election alongside various other election security agencies and organizations, and stated that "it was quiet. There was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before, or after November third."[31] Responding to baseless claims of foreign outsourcing of vote counting, Krebs also affirmed that "all votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America."[31]U.S. Attorney GeneralWilliam Barr stated on December 1 that US attorneys and FBI agents had investigated complaints and allegations of fraud, and found no evidence of anything that would change the outcome of the election.[32]
Background
Trump's past accusations of election fraud
Trump has a longstanding record of calling elections "rigged" when he did not like the results.[33]
Since 2010, Trump has been the most prominent promoter of birther conspiracy theories denying that Barack Obama was born in the United States.[34][35]
In 2012, when Obama was re-elected, Trump falsely claimed that the 2012 presidential election was a "total sham" and that the United States was "not a democracy".[33]
During the 2016 Republican primaries, after Trump lost to Ted Cruz in the Iowa Republican caucus, Trump claimed that Cruz perpetrated "fraud" and "stole" the Iowa caucuses. Trump called for a repeat of the Iowa caucuses or for Cruz's win to be voided.[33]
Uncertainty over Trump accepting an electoral loss in 2016
Trump at a campaign rally on October 20, 2016, stating that, "I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win."
In 2016, Trump repeatedly suggested that the election was "rigged" against him, and in the final debate he cast doubt on whether he would accept the results of the election should he lose, saying "I'll keep you in suspense".[36] His comment touched off a media and political uproar, in which he was accused of "threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy" and "rais(ing) the prospect that millions of his supporters may not accept the results on Nov.8 if he loses".[37]Rick Hasen of University of California, Irvine School of Law, an election-law expert, described Trump's comments as "appalling and unprecedented" and feared there could be "violence in the streets from his supporters if Trump loses."[38] The next day Trump said, "Of course, I would accept a clear election result, but I would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result." He also stated that he would "totally" accept the election results "if I win."[39]
Trump eventually won the election but lost the popular vote. He went on to claim without evidence that he won the popular vote "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."[40]
Refusal to accept 2020 electoral loss
In 2020, concerns were raised about the acceptance of the election result on October 8, when Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeted "We're not a democracy" and "Democracy isn't the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity (sic) are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that."[41]
After a consensus of major news organizations named Biden as President-Elect on November 7,[42] Trump refused to accept the loss, saying: "this election is far from over" and alleging election fraud without providing evidence.[43] He said he would continue legal challenges in key states,[43] but most of them have been dismissed by the courts.[44][45][46] His legal team led by Rudy Giuliani made numerous false and unsubstantiated assertions revolving around an international communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines and polling place fraud to claim the election had been stolen from Trump.[47][48][49][50][51] He blocked government officials from cooperating in the presidential transition of Joe Biden.[52] Attorney General William Barr authorized the Justice Department to initiate investigations "if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State."[53]
An Economist/YouGov poll conducted November 15–17, 2020 found nearly all Trump supporters asserting that Biden's election was illegitimate (88%). They said they believed that mail-in ballots were manipulated to favor Biden (91%), that votes had been cast by immigrants who were not eligible to vote (89%), and that there was voter fraud more generally (89%).[54] According to a poll by CNBC/Change Research conducted on November 16–19, only 3% of Trump supporters stated that Biden's victory was legitimate. 73% of Trump voters considered Trump the winner of the election. 66% of them stated that Trump should never concede the election while another 31% said Trump should fight the results until states certify the results.[55]
"Stop the Steal" was created by Republican political operative Roger Stone in 2016.[66] A Facebook group with that name was created during the 2020 counting of votes by the pro-Trump group "Women for America First" co-founder and Tea Party movement activist Amy Kremer.[67] Facebook removed the group on November 5, and described it as "organized around the delegitimization of the election process".[67][68] It was reported to have been adding 1,000 new members every 10 seconds[69] with 360,000 followers before Facebook shut it down.[70][71]
All subsequent "Stop the Steal" groups have since been removed from the website by Facebook moderators due to discussions of extreme violence, incitement to violence, and threats, all of which are violations of Facebook's community standards.[72][73][74] Several "Stop the Steal" groups were founded by right-wing extremists[59] after Trump published tweets on Twitter encouraging his supporters to "Stop the Count".[75] Since then, many of these unorganized "Stop the Steal" groups have started protesting in several U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C.,[76] Detroit[77] and Lansing, Michigan,[78] Las Vegas, Nevada,[79][80] Madison, Wisconsin,[81] Atlanta, Georgia,[82] and Columbus, Ohio.[83] Several of these protests have included members of extremist groups such as Three Percenters, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers, which CNN reported was an illustration of "the thinning of a line between the mainstream right and far-right extremists" to those who track such groups.[84]
In Michigan, on December 7, 2020, "Stop the Steal" protestors gathered outside the private home of Michigan's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to shout obscenities and chant into bullhorns threatening speech. President-elect Joe Biden's Michigan win by 154,000 votes was officially certified by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers in November.[85]
On Saturday, December 12, 2020, post-election protests were held in Washington, DC in which at least nine people were transported from the protest by DC Fire and EMS workers for treatment in hospital. Among the injured were four people who suffered stab wounds and said to be in critical condition. Two police officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries, and two people with minor injuries. An additional 33 people were arrested, including one arrested for assault with a dangerous weapon. Earlier in the day large groups of protesters and counter protestors assembled outside the Supreme Court and Freedom Plaza. Although small fights broke out periodically, in general the protests were mostly peaceful. Most participants did not wear masks, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.[86]
Attempts by Facebook and other mainstream social networks to restrict groups that spread false election claims led to a surge in the popularity of Parler, a right-leaning alternative social networking site which has attracted supporters of Stop the Steal.[87][88]
November
Following the election, Trump fired the head of his Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who contradicted Trump's claims of electoral fraud. The Trump administration refused to initiate the presidential transition as the Trump campaign filed lawsuits designed to overturn the results of the election. State election officials reported being pressured to overturn the results.
Post-election firings
After vote counts showed a Biden victory, Trump engaged in what has been called a "post-election purge", firing or forcing out at least a dozen officials and replacing them with loyalists.[89] Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was fired by tweet on November 9.[90] Undersecretary for Defense Joseph D. Kernan and Acting Undersecretary for Policy James H. Anderson resigned in protest or were forced out.[89] The White House sought to learn the names of political appointees who had applauded Anderson upon his departure, so they could be fired.[91] The DOD chief of staff, Jen Stewart, was replaced by a former staffer to Representative Devin Nunes.[89] On November 30 Christopher P. Maier, the head of the Pentagon's Defeat ISIS Task Force, was ousted and the task force was disbanded. A White House official told him that the United States had won the war against the Islamic State so the task force was no longer needed.[92]
Trump's allegations of election fraud in battleground states were refuted by judges, state election officials, and his own administration's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).[44] After CISA director Chris Krebs contradicted Trump's voting fraud allegations, Trump fired him on November 17.[93] Two other Department of Homeland Security officials – Bryan Ware, CISA's assistant director, and Valerie Boyd, the DHS's assistant secretary of international affairs – were also forced out.[89]
Bonnie Glick, the deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, was abruptly fired on November 6. She had prepared a transition manual for the next administration. She was due to become acting administrator of the department on November 7; firing her left the position of acting administrator vacant, so that Trump loyalist John Barsa could become acting deputy administrator.[94][95]
Career climate scientist Michael Kuperberg, who for the past five years has produced the annual National Climate Assessment issued by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was demoted on November 9 and returned to his previous position at the Department of Energy. Several media outlets reported[96][97][98] that David Legates, a deputy assistant secretary at NOAA who claims that global warming is harmless, would be appointed to oversee the congressionally mandated report in place of Kuperberg, based on information obtained from "people close to the Administration", including Myron Ebell, the head of President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team and director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.[99]
In October 2020 Trump signed an executive order that created a new category of federal employees, Schedule F, which included all career civil servants whose job includes "policymaking". Such employees would no longer be covered by civil service protections against arbitrary dismissal, but would be subject to the same rules as political appointees. The new description could be applied to thousands of nonpartisan experts such as scientists, who give advice to the political appointees who run their departments.[101] Heads of all federal agencies were ordered to report by January 19, 2021 a list of positions that could be reclassified as Schedule F. The Office of Management and Budget submitted a list in November that included 88 percent of the office's workforce.[102] Federal employee organizations and Congressional Democrats sought to overturn the order via lawsuits or bills. House Democrats warned in a letter that "The executive order could precipitate a mass exodus from the federal government at the end of every presidential administration, leaving federal agencies without deep institutional knowledge, expertise, experience, and the ability to develop and implement long-term policy strategies."[103] Observers predicted that Trump could use the new rule to implement a "massive government purge on his way out the door."[104]
Meanwhile, administration officials had ordered the Budget office to begin work on a 2022 budget proposal that they would submit to Congress in February, ignoring the fact that Biden would have already taken over.[105]
After the 2020 United States presidential election, the campaign for incumbent president Donald Trump filed a number of lawsuits contesting election processes, vote counting, and the vote certification process in multiple states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.[106] Many cases were quickly dismissed,[46] and lawyers and other observers noted that the lawsuits are not likely to have an effect on the outcome of the election.[107][108][109] By November 19, more than two dozen of the legal challenges filed since Election Day had failed.[110]
On November 21, US District Court in Pennsylvania Judge Matthew Brann, a Republican, dismissed the case before him with prejudice, ruling:
"In this action, the Trump Campaign and the Individual Plaintiffs [...] seek to discard millions of votes legally cast by Pennsylvanians from all corners – from Greene County to Pike County, and everywhere in between. In other words, Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens.
That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more."[111][112]
Michigan officials pressured to not certify
The four-member board of canvassers of Wayne County, Michigan voted unanimously to certify its election results on November 17; prior to this vote, the board was deadlocked along party lines with the two Republican members refusing to certify.[113]
Trump subsequently called the two Republican members of the board.[114] The two Republican members then asked to rescind their votes for certification, signing affidavits on the day after stating that they voted for the certification only because the two Democratic members promised a full audit of the county's votes.[115] The two denied Trump's call had influenced their reversal.[116]
Trump issued an invitation to Michigan lawmakers to travel to D.C.[117] Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, State Sen. Mike Shirkey and State Rep. Jim Lilly were photographed in lobby of the D.C. Trump Tower, where they were drinking $500-a-bottle champagne and not wearing masks.[118] Chatfield later floated the possibility of a 'constitutional crisis' in Michigan, while Shirkey suggested the certification be delayed.[119] On November 21, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and Michigan Republican Party Chair Laura Cox publicly called upon the Michigan State Board of Canvassers to not proceed with the planned certification of election results.[120] On November 23, the State Board of Canvassers certified the election.[121]
Georgia Secretary of State pressured to disqualify ballots
Senator Lindsey Graham contacted the Georgia Secretary of State about the possibility of invalidating ballots.
The 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia produced an initial count where Biden defeated Trump by around 14,000 votes, triggering an automatic recount due to the small margin.[122] While the recount was ongoing, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina privately called the Georgia Secretary of StateBrad Raffensperger to discuss Georgia's vote counting.[122] Raffensperger, a Republican, told the Washington Post that Graham had asked whether Raffensperger could disqualify all mail-in ballots in counties that had more signature errors.[122]Gabriel Sterling, a Republican election official and staffer to Raffensperger, was present in the call; Sterling confirmed that Graham had asked that question.[123]
Raffensperger viewed Graham's question as a suggestion to throw out legally-cast ballots, while Graham denied suggesting this.[122] Graham acknowledged calling Raffensperger to find out how to "protect the integrity of mail-in voting" and "how does signature verification work", but said if Raffensperger "feels threatened by that conversation, he's got a problem".[122] Graham stated that he was investigating in his own capacity as a senator, although he is the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.[124] Graham also claimed that he had spoken to the secretaries of state in Arizona and Nevada.[124] The secretaries denied this, and Graham then contradicted himself, stating that he had talked to the governor of Arizona, and no official in Nevada.[124]
Wisconsin recount obstruction
The Trump campaign requested a recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, both Democratic strongholds. On November 20, Wisconsin election officials reported that Trump campaign observers were attempting to obstruct the recount.[125] According to officials, observers were "constantly interrupting vote counters with questions and comments." At one table, a Republican representative was objecting to every ballot that was pulled for recount. At other tables, there were two Republican observers when only one was allowed; it was reported that some Republicans had been posing as independents.[125] Completed by November 29, the recounts increased Biden's lead by 87 votes.[126]
Partisan hearings with Republican legislatures
On November 25, one day after Pennsylvania certified its election results, a Republican state senator requested a hearing of the State Senate Majority Policy Committee to discuss election issues. The event, described as an "informational meeting," was held at a hotel in Gettysburg and featured Rudy Giuliani asserting that the election had been subject to massive fraud. Trump also spoke to the group by speakerphone, repeating his false claims that he had actually won in Pennsylvania and other swing states, and saying "We have to turn the election over."[127]
In Arizona, a state won by Biden, Republican members of the Arizona Senate promoted Trump's false claims of election fraud; in mid-December 2020, Eddie Farnsworth, the chair of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed that "tampering" or "fraud" might have marred the election, the despite testimony given by elections officials, attorneys, and Arizona Attorney General Election Integrity Unit at a six-hour hearing, all of whom testified that there was no evidence for such claims.[128] Hearings held in the Michigan Legislature similarly presented no evidence of any fraud or wrongdoing.[129]
Conspiracy allegations
Days before the 2020 presidential election, Dennis Montgomery, a software designer with a history of making dubious claims, asserted that a program called "SCORECARD", running on a government supercomputer called "HAMMER", would be used to switch votes from Trump to Biden on voting machines. Trump legal team attorney Sidney Powell promoted the conspiracy theory on Lou Dobbs Tonight on November 6,[130][131] and again two days later on Maria Bartiromo's Fox Business program, claiming to have "evidence that that is exactly what happened."[132] She also asserted that the CIA ignored warnings about the software, and urged Trump to fire director Gina Haspel.[133] Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), characterized the supercomputer claim as "nonsense" and a "hoax."[134][135] CISA described the 2020 election as "the most secure in American history," with "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised."[134][135] A few days later, Trump fired Krebs by tweet, claiming that Krebs's analysis was "highly inaccurate."[136]
During a November 19 press conference, Powell alleged without evidence that an international Communist plot had been engineered by Venezuela, Cuba, China, Hugo Chávez (who died in 2013), George Soros, and the Clinton Foundation, to rig the 2020 election.[137] She also alleged that Dominion Voting Systems "can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden."[138] The source for many of these claims appeared to be far right news organization One America News Network (OANN). She also repeated a conspiracy theory[139] spread by Congressman Louie Gohmert, OANN and others:[140] that accurate voting results had been transmitted to the German office of the Spanish electronic voting firm Scytl, where they were tabulated to reveal a landslide victory for Trump statewide (which included implausible Trump victories in Democratic strongholds such as California, Colorado, Maine statewide, Minnesota, and New Mexico) after which a company server was supposedly seized in a raid by the United States Army. The US Army and Scytl refuted these claims:[141] Scytl has not had any offices in Germany since September 2019, and does not tabulate US votes.[142][143]
In a subsequent interview with Newsmax on November 21,[144] Powell accused Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, of being "in on the Dominion scam" and suggested financial impropriety.[145] Powell additionally alleged that fraud had cost Doug Collins the nonpartisan blanket primary against incumbent Kelly Loeffler in the Senate race in Georgia.[146] She also claimed the Democratic Party had used rigged Dominion machines to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, and that Sanders learned of this but "sold out."[147] She stated she would "blow up" Georgia with a "biblical" court filing.[148] Powell suggested that candidates "paid to have the system rigged to work for them."[149] On the basis of these claims, Powell called for Republican-controlled state legislatures in swing states to disregard the election results and appoint a slate of "loyal" electors who would vote to re-elect Trump,[150] based on authority supposedly resting in Article Two of the Constitution.[151]The Washington Post reported that on December 5 Trump asked Kemp to convene a special session of the Georgia legislature for that purpose, but Kemp declined.[152] Trump also pressured the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler to overturn the result and use electors loyal to Trump, but Cutler declined, saying that the legislature had no power to overturn the state's chosen slate of electors.[153]
Conservative television outlets amplified baseless allegations of voting machine fraud, and Smartmatic, a company accused of conspiring with Dominion, sent them a letter demanding a retraction and threatening legal action. Fox News host Lou Dobbs had been outspoken during his program about the accusations, and on December 18 his program aired a video segment refuting the accusations, though Dobbs himself did not comment. Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo had also been outspoken about the allegations, and both their programs aired the same video segment over the following two days. Smartmatic had demanded that the corrections "must be published on multiple occasions" during primetime to "match the attention and audience targeted with the original defamatory publications."[154][155][156] Dominion sent a similar letter to Sidney Powell demanding she retract her allegations and retain all relevant records; the Trump legal team later instructed dozens of staffers to preserve all documents for any future litigation.[157][158]
Threats of violence by Trump supporters
After Biden won the election, angry Trump supporters threatened election officials, election officials' family members, and elections staff in at least eight states, via emails, telephone calls and letters.[159] Some of the menacing and vitriolic communications included death threats.[159] Officials terrorized by the threats included officials in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona, as well as a few less competitive states.[159] Some officials had to seek police protection[159][160] or move from their homes due to the threats.[159] The director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, described the threats as frightening and said, "These threats often go into areas related to race or sex or anti-Semitism. More than once they specifically refer to gun violence."[159] Prominent Republicans ignored or said little about the threats of violence.[159]
On November 15, the Georgia Secretary of State reported that he and his wife were receiving death threats.[122] On November 30, Trump attorney Joseph diGenova said the recently fired head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, should be "taken out and shot" for disputing the president's claims about election fraud.[161] On December 1, Republican Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling publicly condemned Trump and Georgia Senators Perdue and Loeffler for making unsubstantiated claims and for failing to condemn the threats of violence against election workers, including those made against a young, low-level Dominion employee and his family.[162] Soon afterward, after Democratic Georgia State Senator Elena Parent spoke out against the false claims of voter fraud, she was targeted by online vitriol, threatened with death and sexual violence, and had her home address widely circulated online; Parent attributed the onslaught to Trump, saying, "He has created a cult-like following and is exposing people like me across the country to danger because of his unfounded rhetoric on the election."[160]
In early December, an "enemies list" circulated on the web falsely accusing various government officials and voting systems executives of rigging the election, providing their home addresses and red targets on their photos.[163]
The Arizona Republican Party twice tweeted that supporters should be willing to "die for something" or "give my life for this fight." Ann Jacobs, chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said she had received constant threats, including a message mentioning her children, and photos of her house had been posted on the web.[164]
On January 1, 2021, vice president Mike Pence asked a federal judge to dismiss a suit naming him as the defendant. Filed by Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert and others, the ultimately unsuccessful suit asserted the vice president had the sole constitutional authority to conduct the congressional certification of Electoral College results without restriction.[165] Attorney Lin Wood, a conspiracy theorist and QAnon promoter who had worked with Trump attorney Sidney Powell to file baseless lawsuits alleging election fraud, tweeted that day that Pence and other prominent Republican officials should be arrested for treason, and Pence should "face execution by firing squad".[166] Two weeks earlier, Wood tweeted that people should stock up on survival goods, including "2nd Amendment supplies." Emerald Robinson, a White House correspondent for pro-Trump One America News, tweeted "Folks, when [Lin Wood] tells people to prep, I listen."[167]
After Trump urged supporters to protest in Washington as Congress convened to certify the election results, some posters on far-right online boards interpreted it as a call to action, with one asserting, “We’ve got marching orders,” while others made references to possible violence and to bringing firearms to the protest. In a discussion of how to evade police blockades and Washington’s gun laws, one poster remarked, “We The People, will not tolerate a Steal. No retreat, No Surrender. Restore to my President what you stole or reap the consequences!!!”[168]
December
Trump's attempt to pressure state officials
On December 5, Trump placed a call to Georgia governor Brian Kemp in which he urged the governor to call a special session of the state legislature to override the election results and appoint electors who would support Trump.[152] He also called the Pennsylvania speaker of the house with similar objectives, and had earlier invited Michigan Republican state officials to the White House to discuss election results in that state.[152][169] The Georgia and Pennsylvania contacts were made after Biden's victories had been certified in those states; Biden's Michigan victory was certified three days after the Trump White House meeting.[170][171][172]
After Georgia had twice recounted and twice certified its results, Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger received death threats. He was pressured to resign by others in his party, including the state's two senators.[173][174] Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued the state and three others, asking the United States Supreme Court to invalidate the states' voting results, alleging they had violated the Constitution, citing a litany of complaints that had already been rejected by other courts.[175][176] Trump and seventeen Republican state attorneys general filed motions to support the case, the merits of which were sharply criticized by legal experts and politicians.[177][178] The day the suit was filed, Trump warned Georgia attorney general Chris Carr to not rally other Republican officials in opposition to the suit.[179]
Sixty-four Republican members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly signed a letter urging the state's congressional delegation to reject Biden's electoral votes. Kim Ward, the Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania senate, said Trump called her to say there had been fraud in the election, but she had not seen the letter before it had been released. She stated that Republican leaders were expected to support Trump's claims and if she had announced opposition to the letter, "I'd get my house bombed tonight."[180]
On November 21, a group of Republican legislators in Pennsylvania petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in appeal of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision against the legislators, who had asked to nullify mailed ballots after they had been cast, or to direct the legislature to select Pennsylvania's electors. The high court denied the request in a one-sentence, unsigned order on December 8. By the time of the high court's decision, the Pennsylvania election results had been certified in Biden's favor. Lawyers for Pennsylvania argued to the high court that the legislators' request was "an affront to constitutional democracy" and that "Petitioners ask this court to undertake one of the most dramatic, disruptive invocations of judicial power in the history of the Republic, No court has ever issued an order nullifying a governor's certification of presidential election results."[171][13]
On December 8, 2020, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where certified results showed Joe Biden the victor over Trump, alleging a variety of unconstitutional actions in their presidential balloting, arguments that had already been rejected in other courts.[13] Paxton asked the Supreme Court to invalidate those states' 62 electoral votes, allowing Trump to be declared the winner of a second presidential term.[13] Trump and seventeen Republican state attorneys general filed motions to support the case.
126 Republican members of the U.S. House signed onto the Texas lawsuit.[181] After congressman Michael Waltz added his name, the Orlando Sentinel published an editorial apologizing for endorsing him.[182] On December 11, the Supreme Court denied plaintiff's motion to intervene in the election stating "the state of Texas' motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing."[21][183][184][185] On December 12, after the Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit, Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, calling for the Republican House members who backed the suit to not be seated in Congress based on the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment providing that persons who "have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the United States are ineligible for office; Pascrell wrote that "Men and women who would act to tear the United States government apart cannot serve as members of Congress" and that "These lawsuits seeking to obliterate public confidence in our democratic system by invalidating the clear results of the 2020 presidential election attack the text and spirit of the Constitution, which each member swears to support and defend."[186][187]
Electoral College vote and "alternate" electors
On December 14, in accordance with the law, the local electors of the Electoral College met in each state capital and in the District of Columbia and formalized Biden's victory, with 306 electoral votes cast for Biden and 232 electoral votes cast for Trump.[188][189] On the same day that the electors voted, self-appointed "alternate" slates of Republican electors convened in five states where Biden had won by a relatively small margin and attempted to issue counterfeit electoral college certificates.[190]Stephen Miller, an aide to Trump, announced on Fox & Friends that "an alternate slate of electors in the contested states [pledged to Trump] is going to vote and we are going to send those results to Congress".[191] The fake "votes" case by the pro-Trump "alternate electors" have no legal standing.[192][193]
Scattered protests from Trump supporters also occurred at multiple state capitols during the voting. A group of Republican activists claiming to be electors attempted to enter the Michigan State Capitol, but were blocked by security.[194]
In Texas, the state's official electors voted 34–4 to call on Republican-controlled legislatures in five swing states won by Biden to ignore their states' election results and appoint electors pledged to Trump instead.[195]
In an address to the nation on the evening of December 14, after the Electoral College vote, Biden strongly criticized Trump's continued refusal to concede.[196]
Consideration of special counsel and martial law
After legal efforts by Trump and his proxies had failed in numerous state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court,[197] some right-wing activists and Trump allies—including Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and L. Lin Wood—suggested that Trump could suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, and "rerun" the election.[198][199] Many retired military officers, attorneys, and other commentators expressed horror at such a notion.[200][a] Trump held an Oval Office meeting on December 18 with Rudy Giuliani, chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House CounselPat Cipollone, Powell, and Flynn. At the meeting, Trump entertained the idea of naming Powell, who has promoted election conspiracy theories and falsehoods, as special counsel to investigate election matters, though most advisors in attendance strongly opposed the idea. Flynn reportedly discussed his idea to declare martial law, though others also resisted that idea and Trump's opinion on the matter was unclear. Trump also reportedly considered an executive order to confiscate voting machines, which Trump has falsely claimed were rigged against him. That same day, Flynn appeared on Newsmax TV to suggest that Trump had the power to deploy the military to "rerun" the election in the swing states that Trump lost.[197] Trump dismissed reports about a discussion of martial law as "fake news" but it remained unclear whether he endorsed the notion.[205]
An attempt by Trump to invoke martial law to invalidate the results of the election would be illegal and unconstitutional.[206][207] In late December 2020, legal scholars Claire O. Finkelstein and Richard Painter wrote that while it was very unlikely that Trump would actually "attempt to spark a military coup," Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen should be prepared to direct federal law enforcement "to arrest anyone, including if necessary the president, who ... conspired to carry out this illegal plan."[206] Likening a hypothetical invocation of martial law to overturn the election to the 1861 firing on Fort Sumter, Finkelstein and Painter wrote that any such plan would constitute seditious conspiracy and possibly other crimes, and that any military officers or enlisted personnel ordered to assist in such a plan would be required, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to disregard such an illegal order.[206]
On December 18, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and General James McConville, the Army chief of staff, issued a joint statement saying "There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election."[208] On January 3, all ten living former secretaries of defense—Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld—published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for the orderly and peaceful transfer of power; noting that "efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory"; and noting that "civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.[209] The former defense secretaries wrote that "acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates – political appointees, officers and civil servants – are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team."[209]
Elizabeth Neumann, an adviser at Defending Democracy Together and a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security under Trump, stated that, "In the conspiratorial conservative base of supporting Trump, there are calls for using the Insurrection Act to declare martial law. When they hear that the president is actually considering this, there are violent extremist groups that look at this as a dog whistle, an excuse to go out and create ... violence."[205]
January
The counting of the electoral votes in 1933.
On January 6, 2021, a joint session of Congress, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is scheduled to take place to count the electoral votes; this is normally a ceremonial formality.[210][211]
On January 3, the Washington Post released audio of a telephone conversation among Trump, Raffensperger, and others, in which Trump pressured Raffensperger to "find" votes that would swing the Georgia election back from Biden.[15]
On December 28, 2020, Republican U.S. Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas, as well as the slate of Republican presidential electors for Arizona, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Vice President Mike Pence, seeking to force him to decide the election outcome.[212][213] Gohmert argued that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 was unconstitutional, that the Constitution gave Vice President Pence the "sole" power to decide the election outcome, and that Pence had the power to "count elector votes certified by a state's executive," select "a competing slate of duly qualified electors," or "ignore all electors from a certain state."[212][214][215] Pence, represented by the Justice Department, moved to dismiss the case, since Congress, and not the vice president, was a more suitable defendant; the Justice Department also argued that "the Vice President — the only defendant in this case — is ironically the very person whose power [plaintiffs] seek to promote. A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction."[216][217] Lawyers for Congress also supported Pence's position.[218] On January 1, 2021, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle dismissed the suit for lack of standing.[213][219][217] The next day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed Gohmert's appeal in a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel.[220]
On January 2, 2021, Trump held a one-hour phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.[221][222] Trump was joined by chief of staff Mark Meadows, trade adviser Peter Navarro, Justice Department official John Lott Jr., law professor John Eastman and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Cleta Mitchell and Kurt Hilbert. Raffensperger was joined by his general counsel Ryan Germany.[223]
In that call, Trump repeatedly referred to disproven claims of fraud and urged Raffensperger to overturn the election, saying "I just want to find 11,780 votes."[15] Raffensperger refused, noting that Georgia certified its results after counting the votes three times,[224] and said at one point in the conversation, "Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is the data you have is wrong."[225][224] Trump issued a vague threat suggesting that Raffensberger and Germany might be subject to criminal liability.[226] After the Georgia call, Trump and his team spoke on Zoom with officials in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.[227]
Raffensperger told his advisers that he did not wish a recording or a transcript to be made public unless Trump made false claims about the conversation or attacked Georgia officials. On the morning of January 3, Trump tweeted that Raffensperger "was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions" about various election-related conspiracy theories endorsed by Trump. Raffensperger replied by tweet, "Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true. The truth will come out."[228] Later that day, The Washington Post reported on the call and published the full audio and transcript.[229][223] (The Associated Press also obtained the recording.[224])
Legal experts stated that Trump's attempt to pressure Raffensperger could have violated election law,[224] including federal and state laws against soliciting election fraud or interference in elections.[227][230] Election-law scholar Edward B. Foley called Trump's conduct "inappropriate and contemptible" while the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called Trump's attempt "to rig a presidential election ... a low point in American history and unquestionably impeachable conduct."[231]
Democrats condemned Trump's conduct.[224] Vice President-elect Harris, as well as Representative Adam Schiff (the chief prosecutor at Trump's impeachment trial) said that Trump's attempt to pressure Raffensperger was an abuse of power.[224][232]Dick Durbin, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, called for a criminal investigation.[224] On January 4, 2021, Democratic U.S. Representatives Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to open a criminal investigation of the incident, writing that they believed Trump had solicited, or conspired to commit, "a number of election crimes."[233] More than 90 House Democrats support a formal censure resolution, introduced by Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia, to "censure and condemn" Trump for having "misused the power of his office by threatening an elected official with vague criminal consequences if he failed to pursue the president’s false claims" and for attempting "to willfully deprive the citizens of Georgia of a fair and impartial election process in direct contravention" of state and federal law.[234][235] Some congressional Democrats called Trump's conduct an impeachable offense.[236]
Several House and Senate Republicans also condemned Trump's conduct,[224][237] although no Republican described the conduct as criminal or an impeachable offense.[237] Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who is not seeking reelection in 2022, called it a "new low in this whole futile and sorry episode" and commended "Republican election officials across the country who have discharged their duties with integrity over the past two months while weathering relentless pressure, disinformation, and attacks from the president and his campaign."[237] Other congressional Republicans ignored or sought to defend Trump's Georgia call, including House Minority LeaderKevin McCarthy[235] and Georgia Senator David Perdue, who told Fox News in a interview that he thinks releasing the tape of the call was "disgusting."[238]
In December 2020, several Republican members of the House, led by Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama,[5][239] as well as Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri,[240] declared that they would formally object to the counting of the electoral votes of five swing states won by Biden during the January 6, 2021 joint session.[5][239][210] The objections would then trigger votes from both houses.[210] At least 140 House Republicans reportedly plan to vote against the counting of electoral votes, despite the lack of any credible allegation of an irregularity that would have impacted the election, and the allegations' rejections by courts, election officials, the Electoral College, and others,[5] and despite the fact that almost all of the Republican objectors had "just won elections in the very same balloting they are now claiming was fraudulently administered."[241]
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who on December 15 acknowledged Biden's victory the day after the Electoral College vote, privately urged his Republican Senate colleagues not to join efforts by some House Republicans to challenge the vote count,[5] but was unable to persuade Hawley not to lodge an objection.[242] Hawley used his objection stance in fundraising emails.[243][244] Eleven Republican senators and senators-elect (Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, Cynthia Lummis, Roger Marshall, Bill Hagerty, and Tommy Tuberville)—one-quarter of Senate Republicans—announced that they would join Hawley's challenge, while acknowledging that it would not succeed.[241] On January 2, 2021, Vice President Pence expressed support for the attempt to overturn Biden's victory.[241] Neither Pence nor the 11 senators planning to object made any specific allegation of fraud; rather, they vaguely suggested that some wrongdoing might have taken place.[241] Other Senate Republicans were noncommittal or opposed to the attempt by the 11 Republican senators to subvert the election results.[242]
A spokesperson for President-elect Biden called the effort a publicity stunt that would fail,[245] a statement echoed by Senator Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat of the committee with jurisdiction over federal elections.[241] A bipartisan group of senators condemned the scheme to undo the election for Trump;[245]Joe Manchin (D-WV), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mark Warner (D-VA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Angus King (I-ME), Mitt Romney (R-UT), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) said, "The 2020 election is over. All challenges through recounts and appeals have been exhausted. At this point, further attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election are contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine Americans' confidence in the already determined election results."[246] In a separate statement, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, denounced his Republican colleagues who have sought to overturn the election results, terming them "the institutional arsonist members of Congress" and the submission of objection to counting the electoral votes as a "dangerous ploy" by Republican members of Congress who – in seeking "a quick way to tap into the president's populist base" – were pointing "a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government."[247] Other prominent Republicans who spoke out against attempts to subvert the election results included Governor Larry Hogan, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House.[245]
Objections to the electoral votes have virtually no chance of success, as Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives[5] and, although the Senate has a Republican majority, there is no majority for overturning the election results.[242]Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and the president of the Campaign Legal Center, wrote that the counting joint session "gives Trump's die-hard supporters in Congress an opportunity to again provide more disinformation about the election on national television."[210] After Senator John Thune, the second highest-ranking Senate Republican, said that the challenge to the election results would fail "like a shot dog" in the Senate, Trump attacked him on Twitter.[241][248]
In January Trump began to pressure Pence to take action to overturn the election. As vice president, Pence presides over the Congressional session to count the electoral votes - normally a non-controversial, ceremonial event. For days beforehand, Trump demanded both in public and in private that Pence use that position to overturn the election results in swing states and declare Trump-Pence the winners of the election.[249] Pence demurred that the law does not give him that power, but Trump insisted that "The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act."[250]
Starting in December, Trump repeatedly encouraged his supporters to protest in Washington, D.C. on January 6 in support of his campaign to overturn the election results,[251] appealing his supporters to "Be there, will be wild!"[252] The Washington Post editorial board criticized Trump for urging street protests, referring to previous violence by some Trump supporters at two earlier rallies and his earlier statement during a presidential debate telling the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by."[253] Multiple groups of "die-hard" Trump supporters are staging rallies in D.C. on that day: Women for America First; the Eighty Percent Coalition (also at Freedom Plaza); the group's name refers to the approximately 80% of Trump voters who do not accept the legitimacy of Biden's win); and "The Silent Majority" (a group organized by a South Carolina conservative activist).[254][251]George Papadopoulos and Roger Stone, ardent allies of Trump, will headline some of the events.[251] In addition to the formally organized events, the Proud Boys, other far-right groups, and white supremacists vowed to descend on Washington on January 6, with some threatening violence and pledging to carry weapons.[251] Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio said that his followers would "be incognito" and "spread across downtown DC in smaller teams."[254] On January 4, Tarrio was arrested by D.C. police on misdemeanor and felony charges.[255]
As the certification process was underway, Trump supporters violently stormed and breached the Capitol, approaching the Senate chamber before the proceedings were suspended, the Senate was locked down and Pence was evacuated.[256] Protestors penetrated the Senate chamber.[257]
Former Republican Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in The Economist, wrote that "President Donald Trump's actions to destroy faith in our elections and throw centuries of American principles out the window must be met with universal condemnation from all political leaders, regardless of party."[272]
The New York Post, which had promoted Trump's celebrity in New York since the 1980s[273] and twice endorsed his presidential candidacy, in December published a front-page editorial asking the president to "stop the insanity" and "end this dark charade," asserting he was "cheering for an undemocratic coup." The editorial continued, "If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match." The Post characterized Trump attorney Sidney Powell as a "crazy person" and his former national security advisor Michael Flynn's suggestion to declare martial law as "tantamount to treason." The conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal published an editorial entitled "Trump's Bad Exit," writing, "as he leaves office he can't seem to help reminding Americans why they denied him a second term" and "his sore loser routine is beginning to grate even on millions who voted for him."[274][275]
In 2011, Fox News created a “Monday Mornings with Trump” segment during which Trump would call in to Fox & Friends to offer his views on current affairs, and the hosts of the program continued to be supportive of Trump during his presidency.[276] On January 4, 2021, host Ainsley Earhardt stated that many conservatives “feel like it was rigged,” though host Steve Doocey responded, "That's the case that Donald Trump and his lawyers have put out. They said there is all this evidence. But they haven't really produced the evidence." Host Brian Kilmeade stated, "I just worry about you have that along with the protest the president is calling for on Tuesday and Wednesday [as Congress convened to certify the election results]. I mean, this is the type of anarchy that doesn't work for anybody, Republicans or Democrats in the big picture."[277][278]
All ten living former secretaries of defense — including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates — published an essay on January 3, 2021 stating, "The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived." They also warned of grave consequences of any contemplated military involvement in the situation.[279][209]
The Chief Executive of the United States Chamber of Commerce commented that "Efforts by some members of Congress to disregard certified election results... undermines our democracy and the rule of law and will only result in further division", while almost 200 business leaders signed a statement from the Partnership for New York City declaring that such a move would "run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy".[280]
Steven Levitsky, the co-author of How Democracies Die, said that “in technical terms, it’s probably not a coup. But it is an illegal and authoritarian attempt to stay in power." Naunihal Singh, the author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups, opined that Trump's actions are not a coup without military action.[299] Erica De Bruin, an assistant professor of government at Hamilton College, submitted a November 11, 2020 op-ed to The Washington Post, arguing that Trump's actions did "not yet fit" the definition of a coup but more closely matched the description of an autocoup.[300] Scholars Michael Albertus and John Chin also state that the behavior better fits the political science definition of an autocoup rather than a classical coup, with Chin stating, "[i]f this were a coup, it'd be a very strange one, a slow-motion kind of coup that goes against pretty much what most scholars have observed about coups from time immemorial."[301]Joshua Keating has similarly argued that the autocoup descriptor is most accurate in Slate, but that regardless of the technical definition "Republicans are drawing up a playbook that won't soon be forgotten" and pointing out "[p]olitical scientists have identified a phenomenon known as the 'coup trap,' in which countries that have experienced coups in the recent past are more likely to have more of them."[302][303]
Daniel Drezner wrote a December 2020 op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that while Trump and his confederates are ineptly trying to overturn the election results in a "ham-handed effort to besmirch the election outcome by any easily available means necessary", the attempts are insufficiently violent to meet the criteria for a coup and consequently should not be equated to Turkish military coups d'état.[304] Jonathan Powell described the coup classification as "completely inaccurate", clarifying that "[t]he types of places that have coups are limited to countries that are incredibly poor, that have really stagnant economies, that are economically marginalized, that generally have very serious forms of other types of domestic instability, like civil war", but said that while the attempt "might not be specifically tied to a potential coup right now, it is certainly very alarming for the US's potential to remain a democracy in the future."[301]
Anita Kumar & Gabby Orr (December 21, 2020). "Inside Trump's pressure campaign to overturn the election". Politico. Trump's efforts to cling to power are unprecedented in American history. While political parties have fought over the results of presidential elections before, no incumbent president has ever made such expansive and individualized pleas to the officials who oversee certification of the election results.
David E. Sanger (November 19, 2020). "Trump's Attempts to Overturn the Election Are Unparalleled in U.S. History". New York Times. President Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election are unprecedented in American history and an even more audacious use of brute political force to gain the White House than when Congress gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency during Reconstruction.
^"MEMORANDUM OPINION"(PDF). pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com. November 21, 2020. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
^Sherman, Jake; Palmer, Anna; Ross, Garrett; Okun, Eli (November 19, 2020). "POLITICO Playbook PM: Rudy". Politico. Archived from the original on November 20, 2020. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
^Kim, Noah Y. (December 18, 2020). "No, a 2018 executive order doesn't allow Trump to unilaterally impose martial law". PolitiFact. Retrieved January 5, 2021. PolitiFact spoke to six scholars of constitutional law and presidential power and asked them whether the executive order allows Trump to declare martial law. They were unanimous: It doesn't. ... Under the Constitution, the president does not have the power to unilaterally impose martial law.
^Tufekci, Zeynep (December 7, 2020). "This Must Be Your First". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
^Scarborough, Charles Joseph (December 1, 2020). "Morning Joe" (Interview). Interviewed by Scarborough, Mika Emilie Leonia Brzezinski. MSNBC. Just so people who think this, to call this a coup is hyperbolic, or an attempted coup, you just look at the definition in Wikipedia: it says, "Typically, it's an illegal, unconstitutional attempt to seize power by a political faction". Definition of a coup. Of course, if he's already in power, it'd be an "autocoup". But at the same time, you look at the definition, and if... I guess I would just say to Trump defenders, if it's not an attempted coup, if it's not an "illegal unconstitutional attempt to seize power by a political faction" when he's trying to call people to the White House to get them to change their votes, trying to call the Governor of Arizona to try to stop him from doing legally what he has to do which is to certify the election results, trying to get those in Michigan and Wayne County to illegally not certify the votes there... if Republicans don't think it's a coup or doesn't fit this definition of a coup in all four corners then I'd love to hear what they would call it.((cite interview)): CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^Harkness, Kristen A. (June 1, 2016). "The Ethnic Army and the State: Explaining Coup Traps and the Difficulties of Democratization in Africa". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 60 (4): 587–616. doi:10.1177/0022002714545332. hdl:10023/9391. ISSN0022-0027. S2CID54538341.
^Drezner, Daniel W. (December 7, 2020). "It's not a coup. It's not even a bad coup: Coup-coup-kachoo!". PostEverything · Perspective. ISSN0190-8286. Archived from the original on December 17, 2020. To be clear, the takeaway from this is not to relax completely. However ineptly, Trump and his legal team are trying to overturn the results. The effect on GOP public attitudes is disheartening. Tufekci is correct to observe that the watchword is vigilance.¶ That said, what is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup. It is a ham-handed effort to besmirch the election outcome by any easily available means necessary. That is not good, but it is very different from Turkey's myriad coups.
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