President Trump's surrogates and members of the Freedom Caucus.[49] The email envisioned President Trump hosting "4+ MONSTER RALLY-TRIALS" with "[t]ens of thousands of Trump voters staring up at the GOP state legislators from their districts who ALONE control which slate of electors their state will submit," a proposal that seemed to foreshadow the State hearings that Rudolph Giuliani and President Trump championed less than a month later.[50]
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino called Robison's message "Bat. Shit. Crazy," but the President's executive assistant, who was asked to print it for the President, wrote "Printed," and may have shared it with the President anyway.[51]
By then, President Trump was engaged. According to Stepien, his Campaign Manager, the State-focused strategy came up in a November 11th meeting among close advisors as "something to consider."[52] At that point, the election had been called, but the President "was very interested in keeping pathways to victory open, so [Stepien] believe[d] [the President] found the concept intriguing."[53] Then, the plan "just started happening" even though it was something Stepien, "honestly, kind of dismissed at hand," characterizing it as one "of the crazy, crazier ideas that w[as] thrown out, in and around that time."[54]
But not everyone was convinced. On November 19th, the prior Republican Presidential nominee, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), issued a harsh public condemnation of President Trump's open and notorious efforts to overturn the election:
Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before a court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.[55]
Senator Romney was right to identify and decry President Trump's actions. And yet, in hindsight, it is clear that the effort to pressure State and local officials by the Trump team was only just getting started.
2.3 OUTREACH AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN
Just one day after the State-focused plan came up in the Oval Office with the President and his top lieutenants, President Trump started taking concrete steps aimed at State legislators. And in the weeks that followed, the
