Report: Trump Lawyer Wanted Grassley To Help Overturn 2020 Election

A lawyer for former President Donald Trump wanted to utilize US Sen. Chuck Grassley in a plan to decertify presidential electors in states that President Joe Biden won, eventually aiming to install Trump instead.

The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection released the Dec. 13, 2020, email from attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who Politico said has been advising Trump’s legal team.

The email lays out a plan in which Vice President Mike Pence would step aside in the routine certification of the slate of electors state by state, leaving the job of denying electors in Biden states to Senate president pro tempore Grassley “or another senior Republican,” beginning with Arizona.

[inline-ad id=”1″]

“(Grassley) can make his own judgment that the Arizona proceedings violated due process, so he won’t count the votes in Biden’s column,” Chesebro wrote.

Grassley’s spokesperson Taylor Foy told Bleeding Heartland neither the senator nor his staff “were approached about the plan outlined” in the email.

Sen @ChuckGrassley's communications director Taylor Foy just told me neither the senator nor his staff were approached about the plan outlined in a newly-released memo from Dec 2020.
Told Politico same thing: "We were never approached about this strategy." https://t.co/8k43Ssl4Be

— Bleeding Heartland (@LauraRBelin) June 1, 2022

Grassley, a Republican running for reelection, was asked at an April town hall about why he didn’t send the election “back to the states.” Grassley said there “wasn’t an alternative set of ballots that came in,” meaning another slate of electors, something that Chesebro’s plan relied on.

Audience member pushes Grassley on why he didn’t vote to send the election results “back to the states” after Trump loss in 2020. Grassley pushes back: “There wasn’t an alternative set of ballots that came in.” pic.twitter.com/z1zQPsVwob

— Amie Rivers (@amierrivers) April 12, 2022

[inline-ad id=”2″]

Chesebro’s email, sent to Rudy Giuliani, was dubbed the “President of the Senate strategy.” It was made public last week in a legal battle between the Jan. 6 select committee and John Eastman, who Politico said strategized with Chesebro about the last-minute plan.

A judge ruled the email memo was likely part of a criminal effort to overturn the election. Per Politico:

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter described the memo in his March ruling as perhaps “the first time members of President Trump’s team transformed a legal interpretation of the Electoral Count Act” — the law that governs the transition of power — into a day-by-day plan of action.” Carter wrote in his opinion that this memo “likely furthered the crimes of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.” He ordered it released to the select committee under the “crime-fraud” exception to attorney client privilege.

By Amie Rivers
6/1/22

[inline-ad id=”0″]