1.4 President Trump’s Launch of the Big Lie
1.4 President Trump’s Launch of the Big Lie
¶Consistent with the pre-election narrative planted by President Trump, within hours of polls closing, President Trump began pushing the claim that late-reported vote tallies were illegitimate.40 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020 12:49 a.m. ET, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20201105044240/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1323864823680126977 (archived); Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020 10:04 a.m. ET, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20201104153504/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324004491612618752 (archived). Even though he had been reminded by his Campaign Manager that very day that a large number of mail-in ballots would not be counted for several hours or days,41 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 44-45. President Trump claimed that Democrats were going to “find . . . ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”42 “Donald Trump 2020 Election Night Speech Transcript,” Rev, (Nov. 4, 2020), available at https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-2020-election-night-speech-transcript. He also suggested that Democrats were continuing to vote after the polls had closed.43 See “Donald Trump 2020 Election Night Speech Transcript,” Rev, (Nov. 4, 2020), available at https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-2020-election-night-speech-transcript; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020 12:49 a.m. ET, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20201104060648/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1323864823680126977 (archived).
203¶Indeed, this is exactly what Steve Bannon described when he said President Trump would “take advantage” of the Democrats’ “natural disadvantage” on election night.44 Dan Friedman, “Leaked Audio: Before Election Day, Bannon Said Trump Planned to Falsely Claim Victory,” Mother Jones, (July 12, 2022), available at https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/leaked-audio-steve-bannon-trump-2020-election-declare-victory/.
¶In the ensuing days and weeks, President Trump often referred to “dumps” of votes that were injected into the counting process.45 Factba.se, “Interview: Maria Bartiromo Interviews Donald Trump on Fox News - November 29, 2020,” Vimeo, Nov. 29, 2020, at esp. 1:42-3:35, available at https://vimeo.com/485180163; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020 10:17 a.m. ET, available at https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1324007806694023169.jpg (archived); Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020 10:04 a.m. ET, available at https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1324004491612618752.jpg (archived); Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 18, 2020 8:22 p.m. ET, available at https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1329233502139715586.jpg (archived); Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 19, 2020 8:49 p.m. ET, available at https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1329602736053252107.jpg (archived). His supporters latched onto these false claims.46 For example, one widely shared post claimed that, in the early-morning hours of November 4, hundreds of thousands of mail in ballots were “found” in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and all of the ballots were for Biden. Nick Adams (@NickAdamsinUSA), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020 4:48 p.m., available at https://web.archive.org/web/20201110150437/https://twitter.com/NickAdamsinUSA/status/1324151663641448448 (archived). There were no “dumps” of votes—just tallies of absentee ballots as they were reported by jurisdictions throughout the country in a fully transparent process.47 In many metropolitan areas, absentee ballots are counted in centralized locations and reported in batches. For example, the ballots that were supposedly “found” in Wisconsin were absentee ballots reported by Milwaukee County when that county completed its tally. Of the approximately 181,000 votes reported between 3:26 and 3:44 a.m., Biden received approximately 83% of the votes and Trump received approximately 17%. See Eric Litke and Madeline Heim, “Fact check: Wisconsin Did Not ‘Find’ 100K Ballots around 4 a.m. the Morning after the Election, or Take Break from Counting Votes,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, (Nov. 4, 2020), available at https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/wisconsin-didnt-find-ballots-stop-count-voter-fraud-claims-untrue-politifact/6165435002/. In Michigan, no ballots were “found” between 3:30-5:00 a.m. Rather, approximately 200,000 votes were reported by Wayne County shortly after 6:00 a.m., the vast majority of which were for Biden. See Geoffrey Skelley, “Live Bog: 2020 Election Results Coverage: Michigan’s Morning Update,” FiveThirtyEight, (Nov. 4, 2020), available at https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/#294294. Overall, Biden won 68% of the vote in Wayne County, to 30% for Trump. However, among absentee voters, Biden won 75% to Trump’s 23%. See “November 3, 2020 - General Election Results,” Charter County of Wayne, Michigan, available at https://www.waynecounty.com/elected/clerk/november-3-2020-general-election-results.aspx. These batches of ballots included votes for both Trump and Biden. The late-reported votes favored the former Vice President, just as President Trump’s campaign advisors said they would, particularly in primarily Democratic cities.48 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 45; See also John Curiel, Charles Stewart III, and Jack Williams, One Shift, Two Shifts, Red Shift, Blue Shifts: Reported Election Returns in the 2020 Election, MIT Election Data and Science Lab, (July 9, 2021), p. 40, available at https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2021-07/curiel_stewart_williams_blue_shift_esra_final.pdf, (detailed analysis of timed reporting data shows that “smaller and more rural counties, which favored Trump, could report their ballots before the counties with hundreds of precincts and hundreds of thousands of voters”).
¶Attorney General Bill Barr recognized immediately that the “Red Mirage” was the basis for President Trump’s erroneous claim of fraud. “[R]ight out of the box on election night, the President claimed that there was major fraud underway,” Barr said. “I mean, this happened, as far as I could tell, before there was actually any potential of looking at evidence.”49 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Barr, (June 2, 2022), p. 8. President Trump’s claim “seemed to be based on the dynamic that, at the end of the evening, a lot of Democratic votes came in which changed the vote counts in certain states, and that seemed to be the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud.”50 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Barr, (June 2, 2022), p. 8.
¶President Trump knew about the Red Mirage. He chose to lie about it repeatedly—even after being directly informed that his claims were false. This was often the case in the post-election period. The President consciously disregarded facts that did not support his Big Lie.
1.5 Post-Election: President Trump Replaces His Campaign Team
¶President Trump’s campaign leadership, including Bill Stepien (the campaign’s manager) and Justin Clark (the campaign’s deputy manager), supported President Trump, and were willing to pursue recounts and other standard post-election litigation, but they were not willing to promote baseless conspiracy theories.51 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 119, 124-26, 174. Stepien and others characterized this group as “Team Normal.”52 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 174.
¶Less than two weeks after the election, President Trump pushed “Team Normal” aside because its members didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. In their place, Trump promoted Rudy Giuliani and his associates, men and women who spread baseless and extreme claims of election fraud. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, recruited several investigators and lawyers to assist him.53 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Rudy Giuliani, (May 20, 2022), pp. 22–23. Giuliani’s team included Jenna Ellis, Bernard Kerik, Boris Epshteyn, Katherine Friess, and Christina Bobb.54 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Rudy Giuliani, (May 20, 2022), pp. 23, 26. Ellis functioned as Giuliani’s deputy on the new Trump Campaign legal team.55 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Rudy Giuliani, (May 20, 2022), p. 35 (describing Ellis as “a co-counsel” and “my number two person” so “generally, if you got an opinion from Jenna, it would be just like getting an opinion from me”). Kerik, the former commissioner of the New York Police Department and a pardoned felon, served as Giuliani’s chief investigator.56 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Bernard Kerik, (Jan. 13, 2022), pp. 10, 15–18. Other attorneys who collaborated with Giuliani’s legal team included Sidney Powell, Cleta Mitchell, and John Eastman. As discussed elsewhere in this report, Eastman became a key player in President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
204