THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN'S BARRAGE OF PHONE CALLS TO STATE LEGISLATORS
Not only was replacing electors a theme during the official and unofficial State hearings, it was also a critical component of President Trump's plan both before and after the hearings took place.
In fact, while the hearings were happening, the Trump Campaign set up an operation to contact hundreds of State legislators and ask them to support an effort to appoint electoral college electors for the Trump/Pence ticket in States that President Trump had lost.
On the same day as Giuliani's hearing in Michigan, Trump Campaign staff contacted dozens of Republicans in Michigan's State legislature. A Trump Campaign supervisor sent text messages to his team, directing them to reach out to lawmakers "to explain the process for legislative redress and tell them how to send representative[s] to th[e] electoral college."[142] He added: "We're gonna be lobbyists. Woot."[143]
According to a Campaign staffer's spreadsheet produced to the Select Committee, the Trump Campaign apparently tried contacting over 190 Republican State legislators in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, alone.[144]
One voicemail left as part of this initiative was leaked to the press on December 1, 2020. In it, a Trump Campaign staffer said, "I did want to personally reach out to you on behalf of the President."[145] Her main point came later in the message: "we want to know when there is a resolution in the House to appoint electors for Trump if the President can count on you to join in support."[146] Another message from this effort that reached reporters made the same ask and claimed that, "[a]fter a roundtable with the President, he asked us to reach out to you individually" to whip support for a "joint resolution from the State House and Senate" that would "allow Michigan to send electors for Donald J. Trump to the Electoral College and save our country."[147]
Soon after the voicemail leaked, the Campaign staffer who left this voicemail got a text message from one of her supervisors, who wrote: "Honest to god I'm so proud of this" because "[t]hey unwittingly just got your message out there."[148] He elaborated: "you used the awesome power of the presidency to scare a state rep into getting a statewide newspaper to deliver your talking points."[149]
OUTREACH BY PRESIDENT TRUMP AND SENIOR AIDES
While Campaign aides blanketed State officials with these calls, some State officials received more personalized outreach directly from President Trump, Giuliani, and their allies throughout the post-election period about this issue.
