It took less than a month. Between December 8, 2020, the last day for lawful challenges to the 2020 election, and January 6, 2021, the day for Congress to count the electoral vote, Donald Trump’s actions boiled over into violent insurrection. An insurrection is an unlawful, “public use of violence by a group of people to hinder or prevent the execution of the Constitution.” Highlights:
Dec 8, 2020: Governors certify electors on December 8 for the count in Congress January 6. Any actions after December 8 to delay the electoral count past January 6 would be unlawful under the Electoral Count Act (ECA) and the US Constitution which specify the date.
Dec. 11: The US Supreme Court rejects challenges to the election results. Previously, over 60 lower courts also had rejected Trump electoral challenges. Trump, learning of the Court’s decision, tells Mark Meadows: “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out.” Trump knows he has lost; future legal challenges are blocked.
Dec. 16: Trump attorney Ken Chesebro meets Trump in the Oval Office. Chesebro briefs Trump on his fake elector scheme to throw the election. Chesebro tells Trump they still have until January 6 to win even though the legitimate electors had already voted December 14. Trump latches onto the false hope.
Dec 18: Trump meets in the Oval with Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn and Rudy Guiliani. Powell later acknowledges Trump paid attention to her and Rudy Giuliani, “because we were the only ones willing to support his effort to sustain the White House. I mean, everybody else was telling him to pack up and go.”
Dec 19: Trump tweets: Big protest in D.C. on January 6. Be there, will be wild!” Later, at a White House Christmas Party, Trump aide Dan Scavino tells lawyer Jenna Ellis that Trump was not leaving the White House, saying: “We’re not going to leave. The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.”
Dec. 20: Gabriel Sterling, a Georgia Republican election official, warns President Trump over incendiary “stop the steal” tweets to “stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence” or “someone’s going to get killed.”
Dec. 25: Pence wishes Mr. Trump Merry Christmas and says: “You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome” by accepting votes of fake electors.
Jan. 1, 2021: Pence wishes Mr. Trump happy new year, and again says it would be improper for him to delay or change the electoral count. Mr. Trump responds: “You’re too honest.”
Jan 3: White House counsel Pat Philburn warns Mr. Trump: “There is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House on January 20.”
Jan. 6: Morning: Pence once more refuses Mr. Trump’s demands to delay or overturn the electoral vote.
12:00 Noon: Trump’s personal attorney (his agent), Rudy Guiliani, tells the crowd at the Ellipse: “So, let’s have trial by combat.” Trump follows: “[I]f Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.” Further: “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. …And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. …So, we’re going to…the Capitol.”
1:00 pm: Pence responds publicly he did not have “unilateral authority.”
1:21 pm: Assistants tell Trump the Capitol is under attack. A GAO Report describes: “Over the course of about 7 hours, more than 2,000 protestors entered the U.S. Capitol on January 6, disrupting the peaceful transfer of power and threatening the safety of the Vice President and members of Congress. The attack resulted in assaults on at least 174 police officers, including 114 Capitol Police and 60 D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers. These events led to at least seven deaths and caused about $2.7 billion in estimated costs.”
2:24 pm: In the midst of the attack Mr. Trump tweets: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country.”
2:25 pm: One minute later, the Secret Service must evacuate the Vice President.
1:21 p.m. to 4:17 p.m.: For nearly three hours Trump watches TV in the Oval Office dining room to see if rioters stop the electoral count. He resists urgent requests to stop the riot. Instead, he calls Senators urging them to help delay the electoral count. Aides tell Trump that the mob is chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” Trump responds that perhaps the Vice President deserves to be hanged. Trump makes no move to call in the National Guard.
Shenna Bellows, Secretary of State of Maine, recently summed it up: “This violent disruption of Congress’s duty, through a transparently public use of force, meets…[the] historically accurate definition of an insurrection. …I conclude, as did the Colorado Supreme Court…that the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. …The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tender laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match.”
Robert P. Wise is a Northsider.
