A Coup Plotted in PowerPoint
They took notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy.
Rolling Stone (“Trump’s White House Passed Around a PowerPoint on How to End American Democracy“):
The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol on Thursday released slides from a PowerPoint calling for former President Trump to declare a national security emergency in order to delay the certification of the results of the 2020 election. The presentation, headlined was referred to in an email provided to the committee by Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff who’s had a rough couple of weeks, to say the least.
The revelation is the latest piece of evidence that Trump and his inner circle, including his allies in Congress, were very actively and very aggressively trying to overturn the results of the election, which Trump lost handily.
The PowerPoint presentation, which spanned 38 pages and was titled “Election fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN,” was part of an email sent on Jan. 5, the day before the attack on the Capitol. The email pertained to a briefing that was to be provided “on the hill.” Hugo Lowell of The Guardian tweeted slides from the presentation on Thursday detailing a conspiracy theory-laden plan for Vice President Pence to install Republican electors in states “where fraud occurred,” and for Trump to declare a national emergency and for all electronic voting to be rendered invalid, citing foreign “control” of electronic voting systems.
In the 13 months since the election, no evidence has emerged that foreign entities influenced the election, or that any significant fraud occurred.
The release of the PowerPoint slides laying out options to overthrow democracy comes a day after the committee noted in a letter that Meadows had provided text messages in which he discussed a “highly controversial” plan to overturn the election results by appointing alternate electors in certain states. “I love it,” Meadows replied to the idea, which was sent to him by a lawmaker. Meadows discussed the same plan, which was described as a “direct and collateral attack,” in a separate email. The letter referenced the PowerPoint presentation, as well, but did not provide details of its contents.
I haven’t seen the full PowerPoint. These two slides, possibly first circulated by Guardian congressional reporter Hugo Lowell, are the only ones I’ve seen anywhere:
This doesn’t necessarily shed new light on the Capitol riots, the ostensible aim of the hearings. They may not even be new news in terms of the various actions the administration was considering to overturn the election results. The rumors have been steady and we knew a lot of this before January 6th.
Certainly, though, we see here how determined and methodical the effort was. This was more than the rantings of a lunatic President being humored by a hapless staff.
UPDATE: Matt Bernius located a full version of the slide deck and pointed me to it in the comments below. I’ve embedded it here for posterity:
And yet the only indictment is Bannon for ignoring a House subpoena. While our Democracy is slipping away and Americans and in particular, Dem elites don’t seem to care.
@Sleeping Dog: Oddly enough building proper legal action and even political action with broader political support takes rather longer than angry commenting.
Good, solid wins take more time than blog comments and angry Twittering. And typically are best prepared sans showing your entire hand.
What appears to be the full deck is available via the internet archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210716135230if_/https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/voter-fraud.pdf
It’s honestly really scary. To James’ point: “This was more than the rantings of a lunatic President being humored by a hapless staff. ” This does appear to be an actual attempt at an autoglope.
What is far scarier is that the Republican party is apparently reorganizing itself around exactly this type of lie and a not-insignificant amount of the base apparently wants this person to run for president again.
And all of this is happening as conservative group after conservative continues to, in attempts to find fraud, validate that fraud did not occur in the election:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/12/07/wisconsin-conservative-group-finds-no-evidence-of-widespread-fraud-in-2020-election/?sh=6fec2de445be
And I expect that as always, our conservative commenters will react to this news with their usual brave stance of complete silence. Which at this point, I think can only be taken as passive support for the Trump take-over of the Republican party (and the overthrow of elections where Democrats win).
On a related note, the release of the deck should be really concerning to Mike Lindell, Sydney Powell, Rudy Guiliani, OAN, and everyone else Dominion and Symantec are suing for defamation. Both companies are falsely attacked throughout the deck (see the Michigan “Fixing the Vote” slide for example that suggestions that Dominion executives tampered with the vote). I have to this that this will be the first of many docs that will ultimately be used in those lawsuits.
https://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-dominion-smartmatic-suing-defamation-election-conspiracy-theories-2021-2
@mattbernius: Wow, that PPT is something else.
Government by Gish gallop continued right through to the end.
Sorry for the multiple posts, but I’m doing a close reading of the deck and the further I get, the scarier it becomes. I’m not even sure what to highlight as each slide is worse than the last.
For example, the “money trail” slide 18 which I think might finally explain how Hugo Chavez traveled through time to overthrow Trump.
Then there are claims that New Mexico has been changing votes sice 1992! Or using the national shift towards people identifying as “independents” as proof of voter fraud. Or that pollsters getting it wrong is proof of voter fraud. (All of those on slide 30).
BTW, the last one is especially funny as extending that logic, wouldn’t that mean that the 2016 election and Trump’s surprise win is proof of voter fraud?!
Then there are slides 31-33 that suggest that they put an Astronaut in charge of the national recount (BTW, poor Sid Gutierrez: NASA Astronaut, retired Air Force Colonel,
Center Director at a National Laboratory–his phone is probably about to blow up), done by national guard members, which will be live broadcast on the internet with a picture of every ballot, and done in only 5 to 10 days.
Jeebus.
I also have to wonder if the OG PowerPoint deck still exists and if it has notes/a talk track to go with each of the slides. Because, honestly, that could be even more damning.
@mattbernius:
Thanks for posting that. I really liked the final page, the one with the photo of the boxes stamped “Dominion. Made in China.”
Now that’s what I call proof of a stolen election.
The old joke about “Death by Power Point” comes true in rather unfunny way.
On last bit of irony before I head to doing real work. On slide 24, they list 3 groups of perpetrators of this Voter Fraud (noting that they might not been working in a coordinated fashion). The first one is:
Unless I’ve missed something, in the months since the election, the only “local zealots” who were identified engaging in various election chicanery were all supporters of President Trump. See for example: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/578012-texas-lt-gov-pays-out-first-voter-fraud-bounty-to-progressive-pa-poll
@mattbernius: Yeah, it would be good to have the .ppt to look at the metadata. Not sure this crowd would’ve been smart enough to clean that up.
The disturbing thing about all this is that even with all the evidence that is public at this point the DOJ is missing in action.
And, of course, the January 6th Committee is inept and feckless.
Pay attention…you are seeing the collapse of American Democracy in real time.
(Every time I try to stop, they keep pulling me back in)
Important Context from WaPo Political Reporter Phillip Bump via twitter
For the record, the site that the PDF was archived on the Internet Archive–https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/–appears to be a defense investing group named after someone who is tied to “Q” conspiracies. So that should be taken into account in all this.
I love when they ID the Chinese firm responsible for all of hacking they give the entire address: street, city, telephone, fax. You know you can edit when you cut and paste…Basically, the whole thing looks like it was designed and thought up by cranks. No actual logistics or planning or legalities, just fantasies about getting marshals and the national guard to work together. Oh, yeah, not a prob.
@mattbernius:
I also need to do real work, but if I understand what you are saying, is that folks are saying this document is no biggie because it originated via Qanon folks, and we already know they are nuts.
However, to me what is an even bigger deal than what is on the PP Deck is that it shows that Qanon had possibly pretty much fully infiltrated the White House, to the point where a deck like this was placed front and center in front of Trump and a good chunk of the GOP and instead of being ignored, many a Senator wanted to take what is on the deck as the gospel truth. To me this is the equivalent of a foreign government taking over the levers of power in this country.
I am about to sound like a kook when I declare that God help this country, because we may actually get a President that suspends the next election and ignores any court orders that countermand his Executive Orders and his name is Biden, I bet the GOP is a bit slow on the uptake in not understanding that this could happen.
Biden could declare that he has had folks vet a group of professionals that he will send to all the voting sites in the U.S., and these professional will be accompanied by armed troops and they will only let the votes be counted when it is determined that they are legitimate (and keep in mind, it would be Biden this time choosing to use his own standards to accept or deny votes as ones that should count). He could then say once this is done, he is prepared to accept the results and pass the baton on to his successor, if the American pubic did indeed vote him out of office.
So basically, I think we need to stop assuming that Coup attempts are only reserved for the GOP, as Biden could basically go all Trump and suspend elections, ignore the courts, challenge the military to ignore his orders, all of that.
Finally, feel free to tell me to take a breath, step away from the keyboard, stop sounding like a loon, and no Biden is not going to do any of the above. I am just a normal Joe who can be as hysterical as the best Right Wing Keyboard warrior out there (but I am not a member of the GOP), and not being infallible can certainly sound as spazzy and overwrought about this as others might be upon reading this info this morning.
I know I am among on-line friends, so feel free to have some fun at my expense when you read my post. I could just choose to not hit post, but it is a bit cathartic to post the above no matter how true it is that what I outlined above is beyond simplistic and would never happen.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: No you are not seeing the collapse for God’s sake.
The fact that Committees etc are moving in normal order and developing fundamental evidence and cases – rather than racing to ill-considered and ill-prepared action to please the facile and living by internet commentary partisan commentariat are showing the very opposite of a collapse of democracy, rather one is seeing good order response of a proper democracy, not democracy damaging partisan counter-action.
That there is real danger, ongoing and in particular with the adoption of a Big Lie by broad segments of the opposition party is worrisome, but building proper legal cases on proper legal time is not democracy collapsing.
@mattbernius: And this update you usefully highlight why measured well investigated action, and not running around with hair-on-fire is the better path.
Although action on a federal protection against the state level shenanigans one reads may be cooked up is perhaps wise, although requires careful thought and action – two edged swords and all that.
@inhumans99: Someone other than Trump could definitely try this. The firewalls are not looking especially robust.
But Biden isn’t going to be the guy to do it. He’s too old-school, for one thing. That is just not done. For another, he doesn’t have a 20 year history of bogus voter fraud (to fuel “election reforms” that further advantage Republicans) within his party to fuel such a move.
Many blue states, such as California, have passed non-partisan redistricting laws. As such, they are maybe giving away 10 to 15 seats in the House which will take effect in the next cycle.
This is not a group that is going to try an autogolpe without a lot of intra party pushback. Democrats make a habit of the “circular firing squad” and this is a case where its a good thing.
@inhumans99:
All I am arguing is that we should take lessons from the Steele Dossier and (1) pause, breathe, and wait until this particular doc is vetted and (2) focus the attention on the docs that are about to be released from the National Archive that we can actually know Trump interacted with.
Worrying about the possibility of “Q” having theoretical access (beyond folks like Mike Flynn and Lin Wood — where more reporting needs to be done) isn’t as productive as spending more time with verifiable documents.
@Jay L Gischer:
“The firewalls are not looking especially robust.”
The firewalls in 2020 were largely human, with people like Raffensberger refusing to support chicanery. Republicans have been systematically replacing people like him with people who are willing to support such coups in the future.
@Jay L Gischer: I believe Kevin Drum has been banging on about the need to refocus the Democrats & Left hand-wringing from worrying about Voter ID and that sort of thing, and rather refocus on the rather nasty possibility of banana republic style (or 19th century style) election shenanigans at that level. Perhaps they can buy some R votes by giving a Voter ID morsel in return for something more practical on the federal level count protection.
@mattbernius: Ah but why let proper preparation get in the way of wailing and gnashing of teeth as to why the legal etc case is not proceeding at Internet Commentary Speed.
@Lounsbury: “Perhaps they can buy some R votes by giving a Voter ID morsel in return for something more practical on the federal level count protection.”
And they wold both accept and keep the deal?
I have no beef with Dominion, and yet I endorse computer-assisted voting that prints a paper ballot which can be examined and audited. (Well, ok, my preferred method to vote is vote-by-mail as we do in CA. And it has a paper trail that can be audited).
I mean, yes, we can do financial transactions on the wire and have them be very secure from fraud.
However, we don’t rely on non-professionals with an agenda to download data onto a thumb drive and transfer it in good faith (for example) to do those transactions. There are a lot more failure points in voting, precisely because there are so many voting precincts with different people in charge.
@Lounsbury:
It’s been 11+ months since January 6th and there is one…ONE…indictment. And that is for contempt, and not for anything that happened on or before January 6th. In all likelihood the Jan. 6 Committee will be completely disbanded immediately after the mid-terms.
In the unlikely event they do “finish” their work, they will only issue a report and not charges.
Garland and the DOJ are missing in action, and clearly do not have the spine to prosecute Trump. What makes me say that? The Mueller Report provided a roadmap of Obstruction Charges open to the DOJ. That was March, 2019. Garland was sworn into office in March — 8 months ago. To date, crickets.
Our Government was attacked in an attempt to take it over.
It is unfathomable to me, not only that it happened but, that no significant instigators will pay a price. And when no one is held to account they will only try again.
Everyday there is something:
Two election workers break silence after enduring Trump backers’ threats
And this:
Kanye West publicist pressed Georgia election worker to confess to bogus fraud charges
I ask myself: If we knew for sure that Trump got a presentation on the Pence Nullification plan, and said, ‘Yeah, let’s get this done’ and even designated people to push in certain directions, would that constitute a crime under current statutes?
I’m not sure that it does. If he was involved in bringing weapons, and stoking violence or simply breaking and entering, then yeah, that would be illegal. But we don’t have any trace of that.
As a political thing, it’s terrible. Just awful. But, I don’t think it’s illegal to discuss what powers someone in the middle of a process might have and what they might do with those powers. That’s the trouble we’re having.
Our greatest firewall here was Mike Pence. I feel a bit vindicated because early on I said that Pence knew the difference between what’s good for him and what’s good for the country, and Trump didn’t.
@Jay L Gischer:
IANAL but at minimum it seems like Conspiracy to Defraud the United States is applicable.
And I think it’s not just January 6th, but calls to Election officials, etc. It was a months long effort to take over the Government and remain in power.
Likely we will never know because Democrats are weak and inept.
lock him up
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
I don’t want to pick on you, but man, this bugs me.
So, you’d like them to cheat more, is that it? To do more hype, to make charges that don’t stick, to lie more? To ignore rule of law? Because that’s what “strong” is? You want them to be more like current Republican officeholders and TFG? I mean, more FUD and confusion works for them, I’m pretty sure, and destroys democracy and rule of law in the meantime.
I mean, I get the frustration. I’m pretty sure that Conspiracy to Defraud the United States isn’t a criminal charge on the books.
Democrats look weak at the ballot box because Republicans at the state level have gerrymandered stuff to the nines. So blame Republicans for it, not Democrats.
I guess the likeliest means of a conviction for Trump will be tax evasion. It has to be very, very solid before anything goes public, or it will just make the situation worse.
@Scott: Good god, that poor woman.
Why isn’t someone bankrolling her suing everyone who has failed her? Can’t some left-leaning organization or some celebrity front her the money so she can sue the police for not doing anything, Kanye West, and TFG?
This is all just so wrong on so many levels.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees everyone a speedy trial. Eventually. What’s going to destroy the country is sclerosis, an accumulating inability do anything, or at least do anything quickly. Democracy may die while our legal system grids along, perhaps finely, but exceedingly slow.
Well something could be done, but that would divert attention away from the Democratic Party’s primary mission of raising money (with a small side of tangential governance.)
Now, a focused group of shitheads ate going to run the Federalist society playbook of deliberate and unrelenting maneuver just under the radar and exploit media ADD until they win.
At least American Fascism will go down better knowing the only Party positioned to put a stop to this bullshit rid us of scary Confederate statues and was at the forefront of the fight to ensure us Blacks had 20 days of early voting instead of 15 and the .005% of us who have no Birth Certificates or ID can vote with pride.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: Thought you might get some use out of this. There’s probably a lot more going on behind the scenes at DOJ than we know about, even though the slowness is very frustrating for people like you and I.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/12/08/a-taxonomy-of-the-visible-january-6-crime-scene-investigation/
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: Oh my a whole eleven months…. My god….
Proper legal action, partiuclarly in complex situations with unclear evidentiary support on actual legal bases – not partisan “I am not a lawyer but here I am going to make up some charges to bring, understanding nothing of what may be required to prevail before both jury, judges and appeals” – takes time. And one is rarely successful acting at Facile Internet Commentary speed which rather resembles armchair generaling.
This all the more so if one is actually concerned with Democracy with a capital D and do wish to have courses of action that are fundamentally not partisan political but well supported in law and in courtroom defensible presentation. Not internet partisan already-have-reached-the-conclusion audiences….
Now if in fact you are really only interested in your partisan cause, well rushed action and ‘justice’ … well one has any number of models like that, but none are democratic.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
The only branch of government where truth matters, where BSers get their butts handed to them on anything resembling a regular basis, is the Judicial.
When we blame Dems for not prosecuting we are essentially blaming them for not leaning on Justice. We just had 4 years of that crap. The erosion of that firewall must not be continued, notwithstanding the flaws and our impatience of it. It’s now the last bastion of this republic.
Here’s the thing.
The DOJ and various and sundry AGs and DAs in Georgia, NY, etc., shouldn’t be quietly investigating Donnie and the Putsch Gang, but rather they should file charges, arrest them, and hold them in prison without bail because they are both a danger to the country at large, and a flight risk.
@Kathy: As much as I want them publicly perp-walked, I also want every i dotted and t crossed on any charges they file against an ex President and his toadies. Anything less will result in an acquittal and if they ever come into power again, ANY opposing candidate is actually in danger of being locked up purely for revenge.
Yeah, and it’s the Untied States of America. Typo done on purpose. We’re hosed.
@Jax:
Another option is to hire some people to “talk” with Manchin, Sinema, and perhaps other Democrats, to get them to nuke the legislative filibuster, or at least reform it so they can pass the voting rights laws pending.
By “talk” I don’t mean threaten bodily harm to them or their families, of course.
I should add I’m tired, cranky, and particularly bitter from too much work and too little sleep.
@inhumans99: Just because Joe Biden *could* do those things doesn’t mean he *would*. Do you have any legitimate information indicating he’s so inclined? Or is this all just speculative?
@Kathy: Such an occasion would simply cause them to switch parties and put Mitch McConnell back in charge of the Senate. Manchin’s just looking for the excuse, and Sinema will do whatever gets her the most attention/money. She’ll get at least 6 months of air time as the new GOP maverick, and Manchin can probably stand for another election cycle in West Virginia if he’s a Republican now.
Sigh. It is what it is.
@Kathy: If we’re going to start resorting to violence (and a threat without the willingness to follow through would be useless), I can think of much better targets than Manchin and Sinema. I also don’t think we really want to live in a country where we are resorting to violence (although, you would only be living next door).
I am genuinely surprised, however, that we have far right loons egged on by Trump and his circle who are parading about with guns, and threatening election workers and health officials, and school board members, and we don’t have left wing loons rising in response. And I’m surprised the right wing loons haven’t really committed to violence yet.
The Big Lie is creating a situation where violence seems inevitable — if you truly believe that your country’s election and democracy has been stolen, why wouldn’t you fight back with all your might? — and it’s amazing that the body count remains single digits. I fear that the longer it goes on like this, the more violent it’s going to be when/if it snaps.
I only hope that when it happens, it comes from the right, and provokes a massive, non-violent backlash that destroys the Republican Party at the polls and makes voters repulsed by this type of rhetoric and behavior. But, I doubt it will be that tidy.
@Jen: “Can’t some left-leaning organization or some celebrity front her the money so she can sue the police for not doing anything, Kanye West, and TFG?”
Kanye is reportedly worth $1.8 billion, which means between them Kanye and Trump are worth at least $1.5 billion. Surely there is some ambulance chaser out there who can see a big payday… Gloria Allred, where are you?
Just as we knew as far back as January 7th, the more we find out about the lead-to to and the actual events of Janury 6th, the worse it gets. They were planning a coup and they came aufully close to succeeding. To most Republicans January 6th was at worst a rehearsal. The next time will be the last time, for a long time thereafter.
Michelle Obama in 2016 (naively) said, “When they go low, we go high.” We now know better, “When they go low, we go as low as it takes.”
One more Twitter thread. It looks like this deck has been publicly circulating since last January.
@mattbernius: first off, Trump was not the author, nor the creater of this “power point”. No where in it’s entirety, did I see any discussion, or plan for a “coup”. This document was created by his staff and others, and was presented to him, outlining thier case in great detail, for suspected voter fraud, which were all backed up with data from credible sources such as the New York times among others.
Trump, after being presented with this “option” turned it down, and elected not to implement it. However, as it was only January 5th at that point, e would have been well within his rights under the constitution, to declare a national emergency, due to foreign interference with our electoral system, and carry out all procedures outlined there after to establish the confidence in and integrity of the vote. This would not have been a coup, he was still the sitting President of the United States, until inaguration day, and I have no doubt that all of these procedures would have been completed by then, or very shortly there after. This is just another instance of people, picking and choosing what portions of a document or speech, that they can twist to fit their own narrative. This outlines a procedure, that would be exactly the same no matter what president enacts it. The same exact things would happen if Biden had to do so. A national emergency would be declared, etc. Etc. Etc. Joe Biden was not the sitting President yet, and a President can not launch a coup against himself.
@Matthew Hall:
You are correct. The would have been an autoglope… which I noted in my first post:
Note that I also said attempt.
Beyond that, I later noted that while this appears to have made it to the White House, that doesn’t mean it made it to the Oval Office.
But if your best defense of the President was “he didn’t go through with the autoglope–at least in this form” then that’s pretty weak tea. It also ignores the fact that he appears to have put all of his money on Mike Pence not doing his sworn duty.
Or if your defense is “any president could follow this procedure” that’s missing that no other president has attempted to perpetuate the baseless lie of voter fraud like Trump did.
But hey, keep trying to normalize this behavior.