Donald Trump, at a rally in Texas on January 29. GO NAKAMURA (REUTERS)
The question that the then still president of the United States wanted his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to ask for him, nothing more and nothing less than the Department of Homeland Security, was whether he could legally seize the voting machines in the key states that they did not give him the victory. The information is explosive and opens another front that shows that the Republican was directly involved in using national security agencies with the ultimate goal of reversing the result of the 2020 elections, which gave victory to his rival Joe Biden. , according to
The New York Times,
citing three different sources.
Six weeks had passed since the November 3 presidential election, and there had been two different attempts to seize the machines, either by lobbying the Department of Defense or by making demands directly on Attorney General William Barr. As the
Times
reports
, Barr dismissed such a possibility. While Trump's proposals to use federal departments to gain a hold on power were well known, initiatives involving the Pentagon and Homeland Security were codified in draft executive orders.
The new accounts provide a fresh perspective on how the former president considered and to some extent pushed through the plans, which would have taken the United States into uncharted territory by using federal authority to seize control of state-run voting systems over the unfounded basis of electoral fraud.
In the opinion of two
CNN
analysts , the events are the closest thing that has ever been known to the "end of democracy in America."
The information now known falls within the scenario of the investigation carried out by the committee of the House of Representatives -with a large Democratic majority- to purge responsibilities for the attack with fatalities by a mob supporter of the Republican that suffered the US Capitol UU on January 6, 2021 when he was preparing to certify Biden's victory.
Last Saturday, during a rally in Texas, Trump, who flirts with the idea of being a presidential candidate again, proclaimed that he considered amnestying all those who were convicted of the assault if he returned to the White House. The promise of pardons was a qualitative step in the speech of the tycoon, who until now had resisted the investigation, but had not directly challenged the action of justice. More than 700 people have been charged so far for participating in the attempted assault on the Capitol. Eleven of the defendants are charged with sedition while 165 have pleaded guilty, according to data from the District Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.
Following those statements in Texas, in a statement issued by Trump, the idea was also suggested that Mike Pence, the US vice president, could have "nullified the election" by refusing to count the delegates to the Electoral College who had promised to cast their votes. votes for Joe Biden.
The Democrat won the elections by more than seven million votes and with 306 electoral votes compared to 232 for Trump.
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