Trump Allies Concocted Plan to Seize Voting Machines With Armed Contractors

According to new reporting, Trump’s former allies sought to have voting machines taken by private contractors armed with weapons in the weeks following the 2020 election.

As the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday, draft executive orders dated December 16 and 17, 2020 regarding the seizure of voting machines appear to have started as an “authorizing letter” written on November 21.

The letter was written by “supporters on the fringes” of Trump’s circle to three people who were involved in the former president’s numerous failed attempts to find evidence that President Joe Biden’s victory in the election was fraudulent.

The document sought to grant authority to three companies — including two which were also involved in auditing the election results — to send armed workers to seize all voting machines and election data at will.

The U.S. should be involved in the effort, according to the letter. Marshals to be involved in the effort and for people involved to be armed “since most of the operations would be conducted under hostile conditions.”

The request “implies that whoever drafted this… views this as some sort of warlike event,” Christopher Krebs, the former U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director who Trump fired for affirming that the election had been secure, told the Times.

The Times Reporting on the previously unsolicited letter less than a month before the congressional investigation into the January 6, 20,21 insurrection at U.S. Capitol is set to begin public hearings

According to the, the document is likely to be among previously undiscovered material that will be revealed during the primetime hearings. Times.

The draft executive orders were presented to Trump by Sidney Powell (ex-national security advisor Michael Flynn; ex-Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne), on December 18, 2020. This was shocking news for government watchdogs. reportedThis was earlier in the year.

Although the draft did not contain any language about private companies armed workers seizing election data and machines, it did call on the military to provide assistance.

Trump did not sign the executive orders.

Still, the existence of the letter showing how the former president’s allies approached their efforts to circumvent the democratic process was called “chilling” by Krebs.

“You’re talking about issuing letters of marque effectively to a private sector organization to go do some sort of activity on behalf of that executive office of the president,” Krebs told the Times. “A private sector organization has no authority to go and seize state government equipment. The federal government doesn’t even have that authority, particularly in the context of administering elections. And we are looking at a document that says that’s okay.”

Aimee Allison, founder of pro-democracy group She the People, said the letter is new evidence that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol when lawmakers were certifying the 2020 election results, was “a failed coup.”

“And these people are still plotting,” she said.