1.6 President Trump’s Campaign Team Told Him He Lost the Election and There Was No Significant Fraud

¶President Trump’s campaign team quickly realized that none of the significant fraud claims were real. Bill Stepien testified that, as of November 5th, the Trump Campaign had not found any proof of fraudulent activity. There were “allegations and reports,” but “nothing hard [and] fast” that drew the results of the election into question.⁵⁷⁵⁷ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 92.

¶The Campaign continued to investigate claims of fraud into the second week after the election. According to Stepien, as people shared “wild allegations” with the President, the campaign team was forced to review the facts and then serve as a “truth telling squad” to the President regarding why the claims “didn’t prove to be true.”⁵⁸⁵⁸ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 111–112. For example, Stepien recalled someone alleging that thousands of illegal votes had been cast in Arizona. That wasn’t true. The votes had been submitted by overseas voters (such as military deployed or stationed abroad) who were obviously eligible to participate in the election.⁵⁹⁵⁹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 134; Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, (Mark Meadows Production), MM007288, (November 13, 2020, email from Bill Stepien to Mark Meadows, Justin Clark, and Jason Miller titled “Fwd: AZ Federal ID Voters”).Show full note

¶Alex Cannon was a lawyer for the Trump Campaign and previously worked for the Trump Organization. After the election, Cannon was tasked with looking into allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election—including the claim that thousands of ineligible votes had been cast in Arizona.⁶⁰⁶⁰ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alex Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), pp. 19–23. Cannon recalled that Vice President Pence asked him what he was finding. “And I said that I didn't believe we were finding it, or I was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election,” Cannon responded. Vice President Pence thanked him.⁶¹⁶¹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alex Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), pp. 38–39.

¶Cannon reported his assessment to Mark Meadows, the White House Chief of Staff, as well. In mid to late-November 2020, Meadows asked Cannon what his investigation had turned up. “And I remember sharing with him that we weren't finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states,” Cannon told Meadows. “So there is no there, there?” Meadows replied.⁶²⁶² Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alex Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), pp. 33-34.

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¶Jason Miller, a senior advisor to the Trump Campaign, pushed claims of election fraud in public. In private, however, Miller says that he told President Trump a different story, informing him numerous times that there was not enough election fraud to have changed the election:

Miller: My understanding is that I think there are still very valid questions and concerns with the rules that were changed under the guise of COVID, but, specific to election day fraud and irregularities, there were not enough to overturn the election.

Committee Staff: And did you give your opinion on that to the President?

Miller: Yes.

Committee Staff: What was his reaction when you told him that?

Miller: “You haven't seen or heard”—I’m paraphrasing, but—“you haven't seen or heard all the different concerns and questions that have been raised.”

Committee Staff: How many times did you have this conversation with the President?

Miller: Several. I couldn't put a specific number on it, though.

Committee Staff: But more than one?

Miller: Correct.⁶³⁶³ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Jason Miller (Feb. 3, 2022), p. 119.

¶Matthew Morgan, the Trump Campaign’s top lawyer, came to a similar conclusion. Nearly two months after the election, on January 2nd, Morgan met with the Vice President’s staff. According to Morgan, the consensus in the room was that even if all the claims of fraud and irregularities were “aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign . . . it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative.”⁶⁴⁶⁴ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), pp. 117–18.

¶As far as the Trump Campaign’s professional leadership was concerned, there was no evidence that the election had been “stolen” from President Trump. To the contrary, they had seen ample evidence that President Trump simply lost—and told the President so.

¶On November 6th, Jared Kushner arranged for the senior campaign staff to brief President Trump in the Oval Office on the state of the race.⁶⁵⁶⁵ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 112–13. Since election day, Matt Oczkowski, the Campaign’s leading data expert, had tracked voting returns in the swing States to analyze the campaign’s odds of success.⁶⁶⁶⁶ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Jason Miller (Feb. 3, 2022), p. 88–91. Miller texted such updates on data from key States to Meadows.⁶⁷⁶⁷ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Mark Meadows Production), MM010951-52 (November 3, 2020, Jason Miller text message to Mark Meadows at 10:27 pm); Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Mark Meadows Production), MM010972 (November 3, 2020, Jason Miller group text message to Mark Meadows and David Bossie at 11:53 pm); Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Mark Meadows Production), MM011343 (November 6, 2020, Jason Miller group text message to Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump, Bill Stepien, Hope Hicks, Dan Scavino, and Jared Kushner at 11:10 am).Show full note The Trump Campaign’s data did not add up to victory. Oczkowski “delivered to the President in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose” the election.⁶⁸⁶⁸ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Jason Miller (Feb. 3, 2022), p. 91. There were not enough outstanding votes in the battleground States for President Trump to overcome Biden’s lead. President Trump disagreed and insisted that he would still prevail through legal challenges.⁶⁹⁶⁹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Jason Miller (Feb. 3, 2022), p. 91.

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But the data did not lie.

¶On November 7th, the Associated Press called Pennsylvania and the overall presidential election for former Vice President Biden.⁷⁰⁷⁰ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 115– 17; Brian Slodysko, “Explainer: Why AP Called Pennsylvania for Biden,” Associated Press (Nov. 7, 2020), available at https://apnews.com/article/ap-called-pennsylvania-joe-biden-why-f7dba7b31bd21ec2819a7ac9d2b028d3. At that point, a small team of the President’s campaign advisors including Stepien met with the President and told him that his path to victory was virtually non-existent.⁷¹⁷¹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 115– 20. The campaign team conveyed to the President that his chance of success was only “5, maybe 10 percent,” which Stepien explained to the Committee was a “very, very, very bleak” assessment.⁷²⁷² Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 118.

¶In retrospect, the campaign’s estimate of a 5 to 10 percent chance of winning, as of November 7th, was far too optimistic. In one of the most favorable possible scenarios, for example, President Trump and his team would need to win recounts in Arizona and Georgia, while also prevailing in litigation challenging absentee or vote by mail ballots in Wisconsin, or possibly Michigan or Pennsylvania.⁷³⁷³ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 119. But the election wasn’t even close enough to trigger automatic recounts in Arizona or Georgia.

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¶The narrowest margin of total votes between the two candidates was in Arizona, where former Vice President Biden won by more than 10,000 votes. This may seem like a small number of votes, but it was more than enough to avoid an automatic recount. As Benjamin Ginsberg, a longtime Republican elections lawyer, explained to the Select Committee, “the 2020 election was not close.”⁷⁴⁷⁴ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Hearing on the January 6th Investigation, 117th Cong., 2d sess., (June 13, 2022), available at https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-january6th. Previous campaigns had successfully challenged vote differentials in the hundreds—not thousands—of votes.⁷⁵⁷⁵ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Hearing on the January 6th Investigation, 117th Cong., 2d sess., (June 13, 2022), available at https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-january6th.; Federal Election Commission, “Federal Elections 2020 – Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives,” Oct. 2022, p. 12, available at https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2020.pdf.Show full note Ginsberg explained, “you just don't make up those sorts of numbers in recounts.”⁷⁶⁷⁶ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Hearing on the January 6th Investigation, 117th Cong., 2d sess., (June 13, 2022), available at https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-january6th. Georgia performed a hand recount of all the ballots anyway, confirming within weeks of the election that Biden had won the State.⁷⁷⁷⁷ “Risk-Limiting Audit Report – Georgia Presidential Contest, November 2020,” Georgia Secretary of State, (Nov. 19, 2020), available at https://sos.ga.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/11.19_.20_risk_limiting_audit_report_memo_1.pdf. Also, by January 6th, Arizona and New Mexico had conducted statutory post-election audits of voting machines or randomly-selected, representative samples of ballots at the State- or county-level that affirmed the accuracy of their election results.⁷⁸⁷⁸ See “Summary of Hand Count Audits – 2020 General Election,” Arizona Secretary of State, (Nov. 17, 2020), available at https://azsos.gov/2020-general-election-hand-count-results ; “Agreed Upon Procedures Report – Evaluation of the Accuracy of Voting Machine Tabulators Used for the 2020 General Elections Held on November 3, 2020 (Voting System Check),” New Mexico Secretary of State, (Dec. 15, 2020), available at https://api.realfile.rtsclients.com/PublicFiles/ee3072ab0d43456cb15a51f7d82c77a2/f740346c-7b6b-4479-acd6-068829382307/2020%20Post%20Election%20Voting%20System%20Check%20Audit%20Results.pdf. Similar audits conducted by Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin also affirmed the results in those states, but their results are excluded from this list because in those instances their audit results were not available until after January 6th. Shortly after the election, Nevada also conducted some post-election checks that supported the validity of the results there too, including testing a sample of the voting machines to make sure votes were accurately recorded. Deposition of Joseph Gloria at 33, Law v. Whitmer, No. A-22-858609-W (Nev. Ct., Clark Cty. Dec. 1, 2020), p. 33, available at https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2022.10.31-NV-Poll-Worker-Response-to-Application-for-Mandamus-STAMPED.pdf; Rex Briggs, “Trump Supporters Asked me to Look into Voter Fraud in Nevada; What I found Debunked What They were Alleging,” Nevada Independent, (Dec. 22, 2020), available at https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/trump-supporters-asked-me-to-look-into-voter-fraud-in-nevada-what-i-found-debunked-what-they-were-alleging.Show full note

¶Chris Stirewalt, who led the elections desk at Fox News at the time, concurred with Ginsberg’s analysis. Asked what President Trump’s odds of victory were as of November 7th, Stirewalt replied: “None.”⁷⁹⁷⁹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Hearing on the January 6th Investigation, 117th Cong., 2d sess., (June 13, 2022), available at https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-january6th.

¶Meanwhile, the Trump Campaign continued to crunch the numbers. On the morning of November 12th, Oczkowski circulated among top campaign advisors a presentation describing what happened in each of the battleground States the campaign was monitoring.⁸⁰⁸⁰ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Jared Kushner Production), JK_00115, JK00117-132(November 12, 2020, email from Matt Oczkowski, and attached analysis of battleground states). This analysis by the data team examined the turnout and margins on a county-by-county basis in a dozen States while also analyzing demographic changes that impacted the results.⁸¹⁸¹ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Jared Kushner Production), JK_00115, JK_00117-132 (November 12, 2020, email from Matt Oczkowski, and attached analysis of battleground states). Among the States were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin.⁸²⁸² Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Jared Kushner Production), JK_00115, JK_00117-132 (November 12, 2020, email from Matt Oczkowski, and attached analysis of battleground states). Oczkowski’s team determined that President Trump lost each of those six States because Biden had performed better than President Trump in certain areas like population centers or suburbs.⁸³⁸³ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Jared Kushner Production), JK_00115, JK_00117-132 (November 12, 2020, email from Matt Oczkowski, and attached analysis of battleground states). Yet, in the weeks that followed, President Trump and his new legal team—the “clown car”—went to great lengths to challenge the results of the election in these six states, spreading multiple conspiracy theories.

¶The voting data told a clear story: President Trump lost. But, regardless of the facts, the President had no intention of conceding defeat.

¶On election night, President Trump and Rudy Giuliani agreed that the President should just declare victory—even though he had no basis for doing so. Giuliani also told the Select Committee that President Trump asked him on November 4th to take over his campaign’s legal operation.⁸⁴⁸⁴ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Rudolph Giuliani (May 20, 2022), pp. 22-23. Giuliani thought the only way that it would work would be for the President to call the existing campaign team to announce Giuliani’s takeover because, in Giuliani’s words, “they are going to be extraordinarily resentful, because they don’t like me already, and I don’t trust them.”⁸⁵⁸⁵ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Rudolph Giuliani (May 20, 2022), pp. 22-23. He said that the President agreed.⁸⁶⁸⁶ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of Rudolph Giuliani (May 20, 2022), pp. 22-23.

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¶Although Giuliani wouldn’t assume leadership of the Campaign’s legal operations until mid-November, the former New York City mayor quickly began to butt heads with “Team Normal.”

¶On November 6th, Giuliani and his team met with the Trump Campaign’s leadership at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.⁸⁷⁸⁷ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 106-107. Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis accompanied Giuliani. The campaign was represented by Jared Kushner, Bill Stepien, David Bossie (a former senior official on President Trump’s 2016 campaign), Derek Lyons, and Justin Clark. See Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Jared Kushner, (Mar. 31, 2022), pp. 50-51; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Derek Lyons, (Mar. 17, 2022), pp. 64-65. Eric Herschmann also arrived at the campaign headquarters as the meeting was underway. See Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Eric Herschmann, (Mar. 17, 2022), pp. 160-61.Show full note

¶“Team Normal” was not impressed. Stepien told the Select Committee the campaign team was concerned that Giuliani would be a distraction to them and to President Trump.⁸⁸⁸⁸ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 109. When Giuliani suggested traveling to Pennsylvania to assist in the campaign’s efforts, the campaign team “didn’t dissuade him from doing so.”⁸⁹⁸⁹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 109. After just 10 to 15 minutes in the conference room, Stepien and other staffers left the meeting.⁹⁰⁹⁰ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), p. 107.

¶That same day, President Trump discussed the Campaign’s legal strategy in the Oval Office with Giuliani, Clark, and Matt Morgan, the Trump Campaign’s General Counsel.⁹¹⁹¹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), p. 63; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), pp. 34-35. Prior to the election, Morgan was responsible for the Campaign’s litigation strategy.⁹²⁹² Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), pp. 14-16. Morgan and his team filed lawsuits challenging the changes States made to voting practices during the coronavirus pandemic.⁹³⁹³ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), p. 14-16. Morgan also studied previous elections to determine the types of cases that were likely to succeed.⁹⁴⁹⁴ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), p. 41. Clark described how the Campaign’s original legal strategy was based on his general theory for election cases: “to look at what do you think, what do you know, and what can you prove” and then determine which cases to file from there.⁹⁵⁹⁵ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), p. 63.

¶Giuliani had other ideas and advocated to President Trump that he be put in charge of the Campaign’s legal operation so that he could pursue his preferred strategy.⁹⁶⁹⁶ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), pp. 34-35, 41-42. “Mr. Giuliani didn’t seem bound by those cases or by those precedents. He felt he could press forward on anything that he thought was wrong with the election and bring a strategy around that,” Morgan explained.⁹⁷⁹⁷ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), p. 41. “Rudy was just chasing ghosts,” Clark said.⁹⁸⁹⁸ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), p. 63. Morgan and Clark excused themselves from the meeting because it “was going nowhere.”⁹⁹⁹⁹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), p. 63.

¶The next day, November 7th, Giuliani held a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He immediately began making outlandish claims, arguing that the Democrats had conspired to steal the election. “As you know from the very beginning, mail-in ballots were a source of some degree of skepticism, if not a lot of skepticism, as being innately prone to fraud,” Giuliani said. “Those mail-in ballots could have been written the day before by the Democratic Party hacks that were all over the Convention Center.”¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰ “Rudy Giuliani Trump Campaign Philadelphia Press Conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping,” Rev, (Nov. 7, 2020), available at https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/rudy-giuliani-trump-campaign-philadelphia-press-conference-november-7. Giuliani offered no evidence to support his shocking and baseless allegation. Echoes of President Trump’s relentless campaign against mail-in balloting, and his decision to exploit the Red Mirage, were easy to hear.

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¶On November 10th, Giuliani and Kerik met with President Trump in the Oval Office to discuss their investigation into voter fraud. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and White House Senior Advisor Eric Herschmann were also in attendance. After Giuliani’s presentation, President Trump asked Cipollone whether he had spoken to Attorney General Barr about the allegations of fraud.¹⁰¹¹⁰¹ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Bernard Kerik, (Jan. 13, 2022), pp. 30-32. One day before, Barr had issued a memorandum outlining a shift in DOJ policy that allowed Federal prosecutors to investigate claims of voting irregularities without waiting for the results to be certified.¹⁰²¹⁰² “Memorandum from Attorney General William Barr on Post-Voting Election Irregularity Inquiries to the United States Attorneys, to the Assistant Attorneys General for the Criminal Division, Civil Rights Division, and National Security Division, and to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Department of Justice, (Nov. 9, 2020), available at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20403358-william-barr-election-memo-november-9. Longstanding DOJ policy had been not to conduct such investigations prior to certification to avoid impacting election results. See Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses, 8th ed. Department of Justice, December 2017, at 84, available at https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1029066/download.Show full note President Trump’s question was an early indication that he was going to pressure the DOJ to endorse his phony fraud claims.

¶Days later, Giuliani and Justin Clark engaged in a screaming match during a meeting in the Oval Office.¹⁰³¹⁰³ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), pp. 66-67; Mike Pence, So Help Me God, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022), at pp. 431-432. Giuliani was urging President Trump to file a lawsuit in Georgia, but Clark pointed out that a hand recount was already being conducted and argued it was better to wait.¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), pp. 66-67. Giuliani told President Trump that Clark was lying to him.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁵ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), p. 67; Mike Pence, So Help Me God, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022), at pp. 431. A formal changing of the guard would follow.

¶On November 14th, President Trump announced on Twitter that Giuliani was now the head of his campaign’s legal team.¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁶ See Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter, Nov. 15, 2020 7:11 p.m. ET, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20201117115935/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1327811527123103746 (archived). “Team Normal” saw drastic changes to their roles on the newly-structured campaign team—some self-imposed—and many outside law firms that had signed up to support the campaign’s legal efforts disengaged completely.¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁷ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Matthew Morgan, (Apr. 25, 2022), pp. 37-38.

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¶“I didn’t think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time,” Stepien explained. “This wasn’t a fight that I was comfortable with,” he added.¹⁰⁸¹⁰⁸ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of William Stepien, (Feb. 10, 2022), pp. 174-175.

¶On the day the leadership change was announced, Giuliani participated in a “surrogate” briefing to coordinate messaging by Trump loyalists during their media appearances.¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, (Mark Meadows Production), MM007112 (Nov. 14, 2020 email from Jason Miller to Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, David Bossie, Mark Meadows, and Jared Kushner describing Rudy Giuliani’s surrogate briefing). Giuliani announced that the messaging strategy should be “to go hard on Dominion/Smartmatic, bringing up Chavez and Maduro.”¹¹⁰¹¹⁰ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, (Mark Meadows Production), MM007112 (Nov. 14, 2020 email from Jason Miller to Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, David Bossie, Mark Meadows, and Jared Kushner describing Rudy Giuliani’s surrogate briefing). Giuliani claimed that additional lawsuits would soon be filed “to invalidate upwards of 1M ballots.”¹¹¹¹¹¹ Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, (Mark Meadows Production), MM007112 (Nov. 14, 2020 email from Jason Miller to Bill Stepien, Justin Clark, David Bossie, Mark Meadows, and Jared Kushner describing Rudy Giuliani’s surrogate briefing).

¶Consistent with the messaging advanced by the new campaign team, President Trump in mid-November remained dug-in, still refusing to concede defeat. President Trump continued to insist that he was cheated out of victory, endorsing one wild conspiracy theory after another to deny the simple fact that he lost.