Trump campaign tried to start RIOTS during 2020 ballot counts: filing

Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled stunning new evidence in his latest filing in Donald Trump's January 6th case, surfacing private conversations with top aides and lawyers. some of who ridiculed his 2020 election fraud claims as coming from outer space.

The 165-page filing, arguing that Trump's alleged conduct doesn't merit immunity under a new Supreme Court standard, casts Trump's efforts to claim victory regardless of the actual result as a plot by a private individual to steal the election – not protected conduct by a branch of government.

The 165-page filing is filled with stunning episodes of Trump employees and allies seeking to gin up fraud claims in contested states, and even quotes Trump's low-key response – 'So what?' – upon learning Mike Pence had been hustled to safety after facing the ire of the angry MAGA crowd during the Capitol riot.

On Nov. 4, 2020, according to the filing, a campaign operative – a coconspirator identified as P5 – tried to 'sow confusion' about the vote count at Detroit's TCF Center. 

When a colleague said a batch of votes looked to be heavily in Biden's favor, the operative responded, 'find a reason it isn't' and 'give me options to file litigation.'

A colleague said events might soon resemble the 'Brooks Brothers Riot,' when Republican aides and affiliates tried to stop the Florida count in the 2000 election. 

'Make them riot' and 'Dot it!!!' the operative responded.

The talk of a 'riot' is just one of several uses of incendiary or violent language by Trump allies, including a former Trump lawyer who said a government officials should be 'taken out and shot.' It also features a 'threatening' phone call Trump made to an election official who Trump warned would be fired.

It came in the weeks before January 6, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, someone even constructed and brought a scaffold, and members of the mob chanted 'hang Mike Pence' during the Capitol riot. 

The filing recounts Trump's 2:24 pm tweet on January 6 tweet attacking then Vice President Mike Pence as lacking courage 'for refusing the defendant's entreaties to join the conspiracy,' according to the filing. 

A minute later, the Secret Service evacuated Pence from the Capitol. When an official got a phone call saying the Secret Service had rushed Pence to safety, 'the defendant looked at him and said only, "So what?"'

Smith's team also detailed a Nov. 7 campaign meeting where aides told Trump he had only a 'slim chance of prevail.' 

Trump soon 'sidelined' campaign staff and started turning to CC1, a 'private attorney who was willing to falsely claim victory and spread knowingly false claims about election fraud,' according to the filing. 

The filing refers to Trump as 'the defendant,' and says agents 'spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud' in the election. It casts key steps in his election overturn effort as 'private,' rather than official conduct.

'When the defendant lost the 2020 election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,' according to the filing. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case. 

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The filing also details private interactions between Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump said lacked 'courage' on January 6 for failing to refuse to count votes certified by states during the electoral count.

In a Nov. 12 private lunch, Pence presented a 'face saving option' for Trump: 'don't concede but recognize process is over.'

Then on a Nov. 16 lunch, Pence 'tried to encourage the defendant to accept the results of the election and run again in 2024, to which the defendant responded, "I don't know, 2024 is so far off."

Trump is now the Republican nominee for the 2024 election, and Pence has said he won't vote for him. Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, was confronted during last night's vice presidential debate and asked to say Joe Biden won the election. He declined to do so and changed the subject.  

Relations would gradually sour between Trump and Pence. On Jan. 1, Trump told Pence on a call that ''hundreds of thousands' of people 'are gonna hate your guts' and 'people are gonna think you're stupid.'

Smith's team argues Trump's conversations with Pence, conducted in the White House, were not official and therefore protected because they were about his election prospects. 

The information comes to light after Trump effectively raised immunity claims and delayed the case, being heard in Washington, D.C. by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. 

Now, the judge must decide what conduct by Trump is protected and which if any conduct can be adjudicated under a new superseding indictment.

Trump's lawyers sought to keep the material under seal, arguing it was designed to hurt him in the election. 

The stunning new filing comes just 33 days before the November elections, in a race experts consider a tossup.

Even while he was pushing outlandish claims about tens of thousands of dead people voting, people in Trump's circle were telling him the ideas were out of left field.

A senior campaign advisor identified as P4 told Trump on multiple occasions that his fraud claims were false. 'When our research and campaign legal team can't back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we're 0-32 on our cases. I'll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy s*** beamed down from the mothership,' said the advisor in language dripping with sarcasm.

It also details a private attorney identified as CC1 – who appears to by Rudy Giuliani – testifying before a Georgia House committee and 'baselessly' accusing two election workers of passing around USB ports 'as if they are vials of heroin or campaign.' The election workers were awarded $148 million in their defamation suit against Giuliani. 

Trump has continued to suggest he won the election as recently as Tuesday during appearances in Wisconsin.

The filing sprinkles the narrative with Trump tweets, such as a December 5, 2020 Tweet where he wrote, 'Why are these two "Republicans" saying no? If we win Georgia, everything else falls in place!' It came after a public and private pressure campaign against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Bradd Raffensperger. 

The filing goes state-by-state, detailing Trump's efforts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other contested states. Many of these same states are top battlegrounds this year. 

A meeting with top Michigan lawmakers brought about after Trump asked former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel featured a brutal take down of Trump's claim about fraud in Wayne County, which includes Detroit.

The official, then Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, 'corrected the defendant and told him that he had lost primarily because in two routinely Republican counties, the defendant had underperformed with educated females, and if he had received the same number of votes there as the two winning local sheriffs, he likely would have won Michigan.'

The pressure continued from the Trump lawyer, when CC1 followed up with the top Michigan legislative leaders 'and attempted to pressure them to use the Michigan legislature to overturn the valid election results.'

 Another passage recounts McDaniel weighing in on a private report purporting to identify flaws in voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan. Trump had asked her to publicize it. She refused, and told him it was 'f***ing nuts.'

Trump blasted in the filing in a post on his Truth Social site. He wrote:

'The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. Deranged Jack Smith, the hand picked Prosecutor of the Harris-Biden DOJ, and Washington, D.C. based Radical Left Democrats, are HELL BENT on continuing to Weaponize the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power. “TRUMP” is dominating the Election cycle, leading in the Polls, and the Radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are totally “freaking out.” This entire case is a Partisan, Unconstitutional, Witch Hunt, that should be dismissed, entirely, just like the Florida case was dismissed!' 

Judge Chutkan issued the order to unseal the Sept. 26 filing after receiving pleadings from both sides. 

The filing stats that Trump watched an infamous press conference at RNC headquarters Nov. 20 where hair dye dripped down Rudy Giuliani's face.  It says spoke to other officials and acknowledged that his lawyer, likely Sidney Powell, appeared 'unhinged.' He put a call on mute and called her claims 'crazy,' then made a reference to Star Trek.

Prosecutors argue that since Pence's role in counting electoral votes came in his role as president of the Senate, prosecuting Trump 'for his corrupt efforts regarding Pence poses no danger to the Executive Branch's authority or functioning.'