Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election which was free and fair, devoid of massive outcome altering voter fraud. He repeatedly lied about the election results, claiming that he had won the election but that it was stolen from him. This angered his most radical supporters. Despite how unethical this was, it was still legal. He requested recounts. The three states that decided the 2020 presidential election were Arizona which President Biden won by 10,457 votes, Georgia which President Biden won by 11,779 votes, and Wisconsin which President Biden won by 20,682 votes. With margins over 1,000 votes, a recount for a statewide election will not change who won the election. This is even more true with margins greater than 10,000 votes. There was a forensic audit of Maricopa County, the largest and most populous county in Arizona. There was a statewide recount of Wisconsin. There was a full hand recount of Georgia. It was legal for Donald Trump to request these recounts despite the fact that the odds of overturning the original results and obtaining a different winner with these kinds of margins is zero. Donald Trump and his allies initiated 62 election related lawsuits, losing 61 of them. The only election related lawsuit they won revolved around curing 3,000 ballots in an election in a state President Biden won by 80,000 votes. Federal judges are extremely unlikely to replace the will of the voters with their own choice. Nevertheless, this was legal as well. After the recounts and the legal challenges, any further attempts to alter the outcome of the presidential election and the winner was illegal and unconstitutional, an attempt at a coup. On December 19th, 2020 Donald Trump tweeted, "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!" I explained how the electoral college works in the previous post. Donald Trump did not pick the time and date of this event randomly. Only pure blind naivete could believe otherwise. He clearly picked January 6th and a location near the Capitol because he knew that on January 6th at the Capitol in Washington D.C., the electoral college votes are collected, counted, and certified and he wanted to overturn the results of these processes. By this date, states had already investigated the wild conspiracy theories and claims of outcome altering voter fraud and found them to be false.
He clearly picked January 6th and a place near the Capitol in Washington D.C. because he intended to fraudulently alter the winner of the electoral college vote. In the Trump Indictments: The Historic Charging Documents with Commentary by Professor Melissa Murray and Professor Andrew Weissmann on page xxvi in the introduction we read, "Approximately 398 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees including approximately 113 individuals who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer."
Far right Trump supporting social media influencers interpreted Donald Trump's tweet on December 19th as including violence. Donald Trump's speech originally included a half dozen references to peace which was cut to one mention. On the other hand, his speech was replete with the language and rhetoric of political violence like, "You have to fight like Hell or you're not going to have a country anymore. " While giving his speech at the Ellipse, Donald Trump noticed empty space in front of the stage even though the event was well-attended. He tried to understand why the space was open. Then he saw firearms in the hands of many people further back. He realized that these armed people did not want to have to pass through the magnetometers and surrender their weapons. He said, "Can we take down the mags please? They're not here to hurt me!" clearly implying that he rightly understood that they were there to hurt his political opponents. Thus, he knew that the crowd that he sent to the Capitol was armed.
Donald Trump led his followers who attended the lying contest to believe that it was possible that Vice President Mike Pence would be able to change who won the electoral college vote and that Mike Pence was willing to do so. Vice President Mike Pence had repeatedly told him that he would not alter who won the electoral college vote because he knew that it would be unconstitutional to do so. Donald Trump said, "We're going to the Capitol" Donald Trump's intention was to use the irrationally angry mob to scare and intimidate Mike Pence and the members of Congress into counting the fake Republican electoral college votes of swing states and into not counting the legitimate Democratic electors of those swing states. This would have changed who won the electoral college vote. Hence, Donald Trump attempted a coup by inciting an armed insurrection.
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