Live Updates Politics
A busy day
- Trump, attorney John Eastman and Trump administration officials participate in a telephone conference with nearly 300 state legislators. According to a press release, the purpose was to “review the extensive evidence of irregularities and lawlessness in the 2020 presidential election.” According to The Washington Examiner, Trump told the lawmakers they were the only path to stopping Biden’s election.
- It’s unclear whether any Georgia legislators participated in the Zoom call. But that same day 16 Georgia Republican legislators sign a letter to Vice President Mike Pence. Among them are state Sens. Brandon Beach, Matt Brass, Greg Dolezal, Burt Jones and William Ligon. The letter, which appeared on Ligon’s state Senate stationery, urges Pence to “delay the count of votes of the Electoral College for 12 days for further investigation of fraud, irregularities and misconduct in the November 2020 general election.” Legislators in four other states wrote similar letters to Pence.
- Trump phones Brad Raffensperger, pressuring the secretary of state to overturn the presidential election results in Georgia. “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes, give me a break,” Trump says to Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel, Ryan Germany. “We have that in spades already. Or we can keep it going, but that’s not fair to the voters of Georgia because they’re going to see what happened.” Trump had called Raffensperger 18 times before the secretary agreed to take the call. Raffensperger says he resisted taking the president’s call because of the pending lawsuit Trump’s campaign and the Georgia GOP had filed against him.
- U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah receives a two-page memo from the White House written by Trump attorney John Eastman, according to The Washington Post. Eastman, also a law professor, had told Georgia lawmakers in December that they could send an alternative slate of electors to the Electoral College. Eastman’s memo argues that Vice President Mike Pence can refuse to certify the official electors in disputed states while presiding over the joint session of Congress at which electoral ballots are formally counted. Trump repeatedly urges Pence to toss out the election results.
Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark speaks next to Deputy U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 21, 2020. (Yuri Gripas/POOL/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
- At the U.S. Justice Department, acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark meets with acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Richard Donoghue, according to the Senate investigation. Clark continues to press debunked allegations of election fraud in Georgia, insisting that the Justice Department send his proposed letter, and the meeting becomes heated. Donoghue tells Clark the letter will never be sent as long as he and Rosen are in charge of the Justice Department. Then Clark tells Rosen the president has offered to make him acting U.S. attorney general. Clark indicates he might turn down the job if Rosen reconsiders his refusal to sign Clark’s letter. Rosen declines to reconsider.
- U.S. Attorney Byung “BJay” Pak speaks with state Sen. William Ligon about allegations that a truck full of ballots was being moved to a warehouse in Cobb County, where they allegedly were to be shredded to prevent an audit. Pak told Senate investigators the allegation came in two days before he resigned, so he doesn’t know what happened with the investigation. He refers it to the district election officer in his office. And when he learned that Bobby Christine would be his replacement, instead of his first assistant U.S. attorney, he arranged for Christine to receive a briefing about all pending election cases to aid the transition. The Cobb truck allegation was among the cases Christine is later briefed on.
