It now appears that this state will be in the Trump column because of know fraud within the election. This opens new avenues for the same changes In Michigan and Arizona. Michigan will likely flip to Trump. Those two legal battles already underway.
Meanwhile Georgia has a different set of issues concerning the votes. Many expect that state to also flip to Trump as it is so close.
Wisconsin and Nevada will major problems as well with the counts that do not add up. What .at very well happen is the states would e decided by the legislature of each state. That would favor Trump in most of those states. There is a long way to go, but if these things happen, the election is NOT over.
Other states are also getting attention for irregularities including Colorado, where election insiders claim there were some major violations of election laws.
I for one will wait until it is over, but I will demand that all these issues are resolved prior to announcing the next President either way.
I hope your right Lg.
There seems to have been alot of fraud.
Voters including myself deserve the truth.
An I don't believe biden was elected as president.
Source?
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-pennsylvania-elections-philadelphia-d9c96c4593ec278f3b1d4bc564068df6
All official results that I found regarding the recounts were either "dismissed, rejected or thrown out" by actual judges. Hopefully they find something because it could expose the vast history of our government's corruption. Realistically...there's no way in hell that this election is flipped (unless Trump pulls a Putin and changes the laws to avoid stepping down).
Quote from: KansasCityCats on November 28, 2020, 07:51:05 AM
Source?
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-pennsylvania-elections-philadelphia-d9c96c4593ec278f3b1d4bc564068df6
All official results that I found regarding the recounts were either "dismissed, rejected or thrown out" by actual judges. Hopefully they find something because it could expose the vast history of our government's corruption. Realistically...there's no way in hell that this election is flipped (unless Trump pulls a Putin and changes the laws to avoid stepping down).
Exactly - where is the evidence. Can you imagine a conspiracy so wide and deep across that many states. Not even in a Tarantino movie
This site has become conspiracy central. Really embarrassing. Clicked on this because I wrongly assumed it might relate to the possibility of adding Pennsylvania to the wildcat's schedule.......
Enough of this shit please.
Only thing being exposed is that the site has plenty of ignorant mother fuckers who back a racist and his racist attacks on democracy.
Not sorry.
Keep this shit to your designated black ops conspiracy thread if you don't like my response. Better yet move it to qanon.com
I would say the corruption has been there quite some time. Going back to the 90's but we won't rehash that. 2019 just following the 2018 mid-term elections E Warren and several other prominent Dems made the claim that the voter system we were using was subject to alterations, adjustments, tampering, and fraud. These were true then and more so now. That is not in question! Dominion and the software Smartmatic were created for that very purpose. Hell, Trump may have won 16 for that very reason? The point here is simple. The corruption has destroyed voter confidence and that needs to be corrected either way. It is clear that there needs to be voter ID period. People who commit election/voter fraud need to be held accountable. It is the effort to control or overthrow our People's choice. The idea that even Hillary Clinton beat Joe Biden everywhere except a handful of cities in battle ground states is kind of ridiculous. The thought that Biden got more votes than B Obama is ludicrous. The fact that in Wayne County Michigan and Philadelphia just to name two places, there were more votes than. Registered voters? Raises questions to me. Also, ballots being delivered by UPS at 2:30 AM in Detroit? UPS does not handle ballots. The dumps in the early morning hours after the counting had supposedly ended for the evening? Over 500 sworn statements of witnesses fraud by poll works and postal workers and others says we should look into this mess. I cannot foresee all of what will change, but Pennsylvania will flip red. Michigan and Arizona are set for hearings already. Michigan has a major problem as they have already certified a corrupt count. Even California has a handful of people responsible for thousands of votes being charged. Wisconsin and Michigan have dumps that cannot be possible. In Michigan one personal vehicle from out of state brought in thousands of ballots. Personal vehicle? In Georgia there thousands of ballots brought in unverified by signatures because there were no envelopes. Those ballots had never been folded. No creases. They could not have been mailed that way. Those votes were fraudulent. Back in Philly there were over 50k votes for Biden on USB drives that cannot now be located to verify. There were zero for Trump?
Nevada is loaded with problems with over 12k votes received from people who either no longer live in Nevada, or died long before the election.
All these thing I mention have witnesses who have verified the claims. Not anonymous ones either. When people say show us the evidence there are two facts. First, sworn statements from witnesses are evidence, and second, lawyers never reveal everything before the hearing. There is an obvious reason for that.
Now, in 2016 there were false claims of Russian collusion against Trump. Made up garbage! There was collusion by Hillary Clinton and her campaign. I thought Mueller was looking into Russian collusion? Nope, just the Trump family! I personally never liked Trump, but I like what he did for our economy. In 47 years Biden made his own family wealthy. Cannot name much else he has done. That brings true with most career politicians.
Quote from: Johnny-bravo on November 28, 2020, 09:13:11 AM
This site has become conspiracy central. Really embarrassing. Clicked on this because I wrongly assumed it might relate to the possibility of adding Pennsylvania to the wildcat's schedule.......
Enough of this shit please.
You did enter the "POLITICS" section of the site - so it's pretty much not basketball, brother. Bear Down !
Quote from: FOOS on November 28, 2020, 09:58:25 AM
Quote from: Johnny-bravo on November 28, 2020, 09:13:11 AM
This site has become conspiracy central. Really embarrassing. Clicked on this because I wrongly assumed it might relate to the possibility of adding Pennsylvania to the wildcat's schedule.......
Enough of this shit please.
You did enter the "POLITICS" section of the site - so it's pretty much not basketball, brother. Bear Down !
Right FOOS.
This is a place to dump some opinions, frustrations, and facts. Politics usually sucks either way for one person or another. We all have the right to our own opinion and thoughts. I try to be respectful of everyone's personal views but that can be difficult at times. Like Brothers, we sometimes argue and fight amongst ourselves, but we are all enjoying that freedom because so many have sacrificed so much. Let's not take that for granite. Bear Down Wildcats fans and alumni. Best of wishes to all of you and you are all in my prayers as well.
Quote from: Little George on November 28, 2020, 10:16:06 AM
Quote from: FOOS on November 28, 2020, 09:58:25 AM
Quote from: Johnny-bravo on November 28, 2020, 09:13:11 AM
This site has become conspiracy central. Really embarrassing. Clicked on this because I wrongly assumed it might relate to the possibility of adding Pennsylvania to the wildcat's schedule.......
Enough of this shit please.
You did enter the "POLITICS" section of the site - so it's pretty much not basketball, brother. Bear Down !
Right FOOS.
This is a place to dump some opinions, frustrations, and facts. Politics usually sucks either way for one person or another. We all have the right to our own opinion and thoughts. I try to be respectful of everyone's personal views but that can be difficult at times. Like Brothers, we sometimes argue and fight amongst ourselves, but we are all enjoying that freedom because so many have sacrificed so much. Let's not take that for granite. Bear Down Wildcats fans and alumni. Best of wishes to all of you and you are all in my prayers as well.
You are a good person, LG. Good indeed, Sir !
It's absolutely possible that Biden earned more votes than Obama.
We're living in a pandemic that left a large population of our country posed off at the president, regardless of whether he could have prevented anything.
As a result, people are locked in their homes, watching the news and registering to vote. Since they're stuck at home, the mail in and absentee ballots were received in record numbers, which creates counting issues.
Since Trump fell behind, he used the slow voting process as a scapegoat to whine about losing. It's a distraction...and it worked because his minions are still obsessed with the same "cheating" that occurred when Gore didn't make it into office.
It's all part of our wonderful democracy...
Quote from: KansasCityCats on November 28, 2020, 03:30:30 PM
It's absolutely possible that Biden earned more votes than Obama.
We're living in a pandemic that left a large population of our country posed off at the president, regardless of whether he could have prevented anything.
As a result, people are locked in their homes, watching the news and registering to vote. Since they're stuck at home, the mail in and absentee ballots were received in record numbers, which creates counting issues.
Since Trump fell behind, he used the slow voting process as a scapegoat to whine about losing. It's a distraction...and it worked because his minions are still obsessed with the same "cheating" that occurred when Gore didn't make it into office.
It's all part of our wonderful democracy...
My point exactly, We do NOT live in a democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic where the Constitution stands supreme. That guarantees the Rights of the PEOPLE, NOT the Rights of the Government. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had NO authority over the election laws for the Presidency of the United States. Just one example. With out that it becomes a true democracy where the majority rules regardless. Those Rights include Free Speech for all. Freedom of Religion, not from it. The Right to Bear Arms, and the reason IS to protect ourselves from a government of Tyranny. Therefore that law cannot be infringed upon. It is been many times and now many in government want to erase that Right. Why? To dictate and control!
The voting machines were and are corrupted by designed software which allows it.
The MASS mail in ballots were a big problem as MANY people voted multiple times or for other people as the ballots were mailed to old addresses including dead people. Many dead people voted by the way. There are absentee ballots which are official ballots that are requested by those who choose to use them. All of the other mass mailed ballots should have NEVER happened. It creates a great opportunity for fraud.
The so-called pandemic is not a hoax, but it has been abused and any lock down is deemed un-Constitutional by the Supreme Court itself. More than one justice has spoken publicly about this since the election. I believe it has been a tool used to create fear among the American people and the world. It has certainly worked with the corrupt media blasting it out there and lying daily about the medications and vaccines, and also the actual death rates to produce a greater level of fear.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/politics/pennsylvania-state-supreme-court-election-case/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/28/politics/pennsylvania-state-supreme-court-election-case/index.html)
QuoteThe Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Saturday night from US Rep. Mike Kelly and other Republicans, after they had tried to invalidate absentee voting and block the certification of votes in recent weeks.
The dismissal adds to a growing number of losses in court for Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump, who have tried to attack voting systems in the wake of President-elect Joe Biden's victory. The lawsuits have failed almost uniformly.
The court was unanimous in deciding against Kelly and others, and refusing to block vote certification on Saturday. Five of the seven judges wrote that they believed the lawsuit had been filed far too late, a year after absentee voting procedures had been established in the state and weeks after millions of Pennsylvanians voted in good faith.
"It is beyond cavil that Petitioners failed to act with due diligence in presenting the instant claim," the court wrote in its majority opinion.
The high court said the Republicans couldn't reconfigure their complaints and try again.
Lower courts in the state had said the lawsuit, which was filed weeks after Election Day, could stop counties from certifying votes, but that move had essentially become irrelevant.
Pennsylvania counties had already certified their vote counts, making Biden the winner of the battleground state by an 80,000-vote margin.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dealt a death blow to the Trump campaign's effort to overturn Biden's presidential win by dismissing a closely watched lawsuit that sought to invalidate millions of Pennsylvania votes. That case was essentially the last major case seeking to throw out or block enough votes that could swing a key state in Trump's favor.
Judge Matthew Brann of the US District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania called the Trump campaign's case "Frankenstein's monster" for its poorly stitched together legal theories.
On Friday, a federal appeals court dealt the Trump campaign's effort another blow, with a Trump-appointed judge writing in a scathing opinion that the campaign's lawsuit lacked proof and that its allegations in Pennsylvania "have no merit."
The court opinion also rejected Trump's motion to undo Pennsylvania's certification of votes, calling it "unprecedented" and "breathtaking" relief where no fraud had been alleged.
according to Q, later it was shown that all of the Penn Supreme Court were actually Joe Biden's kids who had eaten the real justices for Thanksgiving Dinner and then wrote the ruling in support of their dad, who was busy raping kids on the moon, which the don retweeted and all his little brownshirts accepted as fact
QuoteWe do NOT live in a democracy.
we have a form of representative democracy, where we, the People, democratically elect our office-holders (and in many states can vote directly to enact initiatives)
we also are a form of Constitutional Republic, where our democratically elected representative wield power
the two have not been in conflict, they've worked for over two centuries because people placed America and her people over their personal interests
until now, until one man wants to overturn the explicit will of 80 million Americans based on nothing more than conspiracy theories
QuoteJustices on the state high court ruled unanimously late Saturday that Republican petitioners waited too long to file their suit challenging Act 77, the 2019 law that established universal mail voting in Pennsylvania. Trump allies had asked the court to invalidate all votes cast by mail in the most recent election or direct the majority-Republican legislature to choose a slate of presidential electors. The ruling with prejudice means that the plaintiffs are barred from bringing another action on the same claim.
The court's written order called the latter option "extraordinary," noting that it would disenfranchise 6.9 million voters.
"The want of due diligence demonstrated in this matter is unmistakable," the justices wrote, noting that the lawsuit was filed "more than one year" after no-excuse mail voting was enacted in Pennsylvania. The order blamed petitioners for a "complete failure to act with due diligence in commencing their facial constitutional challenge, which was ascertainable upon Act 77's enactment."
Concurring, Justice David N. Wecht noted that the GOP petitioners "failed to allege that even a single mail-in ballot was fraudulently cast or counted."
Legal experts had predicted little chance of success for the suit, which also sought to block certification of election results. Trump and his allies have gained no substantive traction with more than two dozen cases trying to undermine President-elect Joe Biden's win since Election Day.
The ruling followed a procedural setback for the petitioners on Wednesday, when a temporary order blocking further certification of election results was stayed on appeal from state officials who already had formalized Biden's win the previous day. The state asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to exercise extraordinary jurisdiction in the case, a request it granted as part of Saturday night's order.
QuoteIn a separate blow to Trump, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit on Friday rejected his request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania's election results. That lawsuit claimed Republicans were illegally disadvantaged because some Democratic-leaning counties in the state allowed voters to correct administrative errors on their mail ballots.
The 3rd Circuit said the case had "no merit" in a scathing opinion written by Judge Stephanos Bibas, who was appointed to the court by Trump.
Two trumpers die from Covid after attending a superspreader event maskless and goes to Heaven, so he asks St Peter if the election was rigged
"No, Biden won cleanly" says St Pete
"this goes up further than we thought!" one says to the other
Quote from: ichi on November 28, 2020, 07:16:49 PM
QuoteWe do NOT live in a democracy.
we have a form of representative democracy, where we, the People, democratically elect our office-holders (and in many states can vote directly to enact initiatives)
we also are a form of Constitutional Republic, where our democratically elected representative wield power
the two have not been in conflict, they've worked for over two centuries because people placed America and her people over their personal interests
until now, until one man wants to overturn the explicit will of 80 million Americans based on nothing more than conspiracy theories
This is true! However, those representatives work for the people, not the other way around. Most of our elected officials are more tyrant than servant and would rather dictate to us rather than represent us. The Constitution protects us from the pure democracy that would lead to majority rules. When the leaders take upon themselves to rule over rather than represent, they are over-stepping their authority! That would be a tyrant. We have many in government today. Governors who iron fist lock down everything? Mayors as well? Congressmen/women and senators who do NOT represent the people in their own districts because they are more concerned with Illegals, other nations, and areas they do NOT represent. If the state wants a minimum wage increase then the state has the right to do that. If the congress tries to force it on the states, they are over-stepping their authority! If those officials currently in office had any respect for the law itself we would not be a corrupt nation right now. That goes on both sides of the isle.
QuoteHowever, those representatives work for the people,
yes, for the People, not for the RNC or don, that's why they won't overturn our democratically-elected President 46 - Joe Biden
Quote from: ichi on November 28, 2020, 09:20:13 PM
QuoteHowever, those representatives work for the people,
yes, for the People, not for the RNC or don, that's why they won't overturn our democratically-elected President 46 - Joe Biden
You actually believe Nancy Piglosi or her nephew actually work for the people? You must be kidding me!
Trump is a political leader that does things "his way". He is the definition of a tyrant.
Pelosi was democratically elected to become the speaker of the house. In a few months, Trump will be nothing, except an orange whiny bankrupt businessman that refuses to pay taxes.
Quote from: Little George on November 28, 2020, 09:36:32 PM
Quote from: ichi on November 28, 2020, 09:20:13 PM
QuoteHowever, those representatives work for the people,
yes, for the People, not for the RNC or don, that's why they won't overturn our democratically-elected President 46 - Joe Biden
You actually believe Nancy Piglosi or her nephew actually work for the people? You must be kidding me!
I don't know who those people are, but no, not kidding when I say that representatives work for the people, not the other way around - oh wait I didn't say that you did
but again, without anything other than baseless allegations and wild conspiracy theories are you can do is change the subject
the subject is Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court just threw that shit out - with prejudice, meaning it can't be resubmitted - for lack of diligence
there was no systemic voter fraud, the only fraud is the one being perpetrated by the loser and by the clowns at qanon and oann
if there was fraud, produce the evidence
if this was the most massive complex vote-rigging scheme ever in the USA you should be able to present at least one case that doesn't get thrown out - thrown out by don-appointed conservative judges
thankfully there are still some folks in power who have ethics and concern for our democracy
3rd District Court of Appeals passes the ball into ichi in the low post, he quickly and easily puts it in the basket for another easy score
QuoteThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the campaign's battle to block certification of Pennsylvania's election results based on its unsupported claims that the election system is fraudulent and ballots were processed improperly.
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The decision affirmed a scathing lower court ruling that dismissed the case. In equally withering language, the appeals court denied the Trump campaign's motion for an emergency injunction and refused its request to send the case back to the lower court for additional arguments on a proposed amended complaint.
"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious," wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas as the court ruled in a case where the Trump campaign sought to invalidate millions of ballots. "But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
The campaign's lawsuit tried to block the state from officially certifying Biden's 80,555-vote margin of victory. But Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and Gov. Tom Wolf took actions that certified the outcome Tuesday.
Nevada, another battleground state where Trump challenged a narrow Biden win, certified its outcome Tuesday, too.
oh evidence oh evidence, wherefore art thou?
Quote from: Little George on November 28, 2020, 12:28:14 AM
It now appears that this state will be in the Trump column because of know fraud within the election. This opens new avenues for the same changes In Michigan and Arizona. Michigan will likely flip to Trump. Those two legal battles already underway.
Meanwhile Georgia has a different set of issues concerning the votes. Many expect that state to also flip to Trump as it is so close.
Wisconsin and Nevada will major problems as well with the counts that do not add up. What .at very well happen is the states would e decided by the legislature of each state. That would favor Trump in most of those states. There is a long way to go, but if these things happen, the election is NOT over.
Other states are also getting attention for irregularities including Colorado, where election insiders claim there were some major violations of election laws.
I for one will wait until it is over, but I will demand that all these issues are resolved prior to announcing the next President either way.
😂
The facts were indisputable: President Trump had lost.
But Trump refused to see it that way. Sequestered in the White House and brooding out of public view after his election defeat, rageful and at times delirious in a torrent of private conversations, Trump was, in the telling of one close adviser, like "Mad King George, muttering, 'I won. I won. I won.' "
However cleareyed Trump's aides may have been about his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, many of them nonetheless indulged their boss and encouraged him to keep fighting with legal appeals. They were "happy to scratch his itch," this adviser said. "If he thinks he won, it's like, 'Shh . . . we won't tell him.' "
Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin, for instance, discussed with Trump a poll he had conducted after the election that showed Trump with a positive approval rating, a plurality of the country who thought the media had been "unfair and biased against him" and a majority of voters who believed their lives were better than four years earlier, according to two people familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. As expected, Trump lapped it up.
The result was an election aftermath without precedent in U.S. history. With his denial of the outcome, despite a string of courtroom defeats, Trump endangered America's democracy, threatened to undermine national security and public health, and duped millions of his supporters into believing, perhaps permanently, that Biden was elected illegitimately.
Trump's allegations and the hostility of his rhetoric — and his singular power to persuade and galvanize his followers — generated extraordinary pressure on state and local election officials to embrace his fraud allegations and take steps to block certification of the results. When some of them refused, they accepted security details for protection from the threats they were receiving.
"It was like a rumor Whac-A-Mole," said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Despite being a Republican who voted for Trump, Raffensperger said he refused repeated attempts by Trump allies to get him to cross ethical lines. "I don't think I had a choice. My job is to follow the law. We're not going to get pushed off the needle on doing that. Integrity still matters."
All the while, Trump largely abdicated the responsibilities of the job he was fighting so hard to keep, chief among them managing the coronavirus pandemic as the numbers of infections and deaths soared across the country. In an ironic twist, the Trump adviser tapped to coordinate the post-election legal and communications campaign, David Bossie, tested positive for the virus a few days into his assignment and was sidelined.
Only on Nov. 23 did Trump reluctantly agree to initiate a peaceful transfer of power by permitting the federal government to officially begin Biden's transition — yet still he protested that he was the true victor.
The 20 days between the election on Nov. 3 and the greenlighting of Biden's transition exemplified some of the hallmarks of life in Trump's White House: a government paralyzed by the president's fragile emotional state; advisers nourishing his fables; expletive-laden feuds between factions of aides and advisers; and a pernicious blurring of truth and fantasy.
Though Trump ultimately failed in his quest to steal the election, his weeks-long jeremiad succeeded in undermining faith in elections and the legitimacy of Biden's victory.
This account of one of the final chapters in Trump's presidency is based on interviews with 32 senior administration officials, campaign aides and other advisers to the president, as well as other key figures in his legal fight, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details about private discussions and to candidly assess the situation.
In the days after the election, as Trump scrambled for an escape hatch from reality, the president largely ignored his campaign staff and the professional lawyers who had guided him through the Russia investigation and the impeachment trial, as well as the army of attorneys who stood ready to file legitimate court challenges.
Instead, Trump empowered loyalists who were willing to tell him what he wanted to hear — that he would have won in a landslide had the election not been rigged and stolen — and then to sacrifice their reputations by waging a campaign in courtrooms and in the media to convince the public of that delusion.
The effort culminated Nov. 19, when lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell spoke on the president's behalf at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee to allege a far-reaching and coordinated plot to steal the election for Biden. They argued that Democratic leaders rigged the vote in a number of majority-Black cities, and that voting machines were tampered with by communist forces in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan leader who died seven years ago.
There was no evidence to support any of these claims.
The Venezuelan tale was too fantastical even for Trump, a man predisposed to conspiracy theories who for years has feverishly spread fiction. Advisers described the president as unsure about the latest gambit — made worse by the fact that what looked like black hair dye mixed with sweat had formed a trail dripping down both sides of Giuliani's face during the news conference. Trump thought the presentation made him "look like a joke," according to one campaign official who discussed it with him.
"I, like everyone else, have yet to see any evidence of it, but it's a thriller — you've got Chávez, seven years after his death, orchestrating this international conspiracy that politicians in both parties are funding," a Republican official said facetiously. "It's an insane story."
Aides said the president was especially disappointed in Powell when Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News's most-watched program, assailed her credibility on the air after she declined to provide any evidence to support her fraud claims.
Trump pushed Powell out. And, after days of prodding by advisers, he agreed to permit the General Services Administration to formally initiate the Biden transition — a procedural step that amounted to a surrender. Aides said this was the closest Trump would probably come to conceding the election.
Yet even that incomplete surrender was short-lived. Trump went on to falsely claim that he "won," that the election was "a total scam" and that his legal challenges would continue "full speed ahead." He spent part of Thanksgiving calling advisers to ask if they believed he really had lost the election, according to a person familiar with the calls. "Do you think it was stolen?" the person said Trump asked on the holiday.
But, his advisers acknowledged, that was largely noise from a president still coming to terms with losing. As November was coming to a close, Biden rolled out his Cabinet picks, states certified his wins, electors planned to make it official when the electoral college meets Dec. 14 and federal judges spoke out.
A simple and clear refutation of the president came Friday from a Trump appointee, when Judge Stephanos Bibas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit wrote a unanimous opinion rejecting the president's request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania's election results.
"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy," Bibas wrote. "Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
For Trump, it was over.
"Not only did our institutions hold, but the most determined effort by a president to overturn the people's verdict in American history really didn't get anywhere," said William A. Galston, chair of the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution. "It's not that it fell short. It didn't get anywhere. This, to me, is remarkable."
Trump's devolution into disbelief of the results began on election night in the White House, where he joined campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Miller, and other top aides in a makeshift war room to monitor returns.
In the run-up to the election, Trump was aware of the fact — or likelihood, according to polls — that he could lose. He commented a number of times to aides, "Oh, wouldn't it be embarrassing to lose to this guy?"
But in the final stretch of the campaign, nearly everyone — including the president — believed he was going to win. And early on election night, Trump and his team thought they were witnessing a repeat of 2016, when he defied polls and expectations to build an insurmountable lead in the electoral college.
Then Fox News called Arizona for Biden.
"He was yelling at everyone," a senior administration official recalled of Trump's reaction. "He was like, 'What the hell? We were supposed to be winning Arizona. What's going on?' He told Jared to call [News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert] Murdoch."
Efforts by Kushner and others on the Trump team to persuade Fox to take back its Arizona call failed.
Trump and his advisers were furious, in part because calling Arizona for Biden undermined Trump's scattershot plan to declare victory on election night if it looked as though he had sizable leads in enough states.
With Biden now just one state away from clinching a majority 270 votes in the electoral college and the media narrative turned sharply against him, Trump decided to claim fraud. And his team set out to try to prove it.
Throughout the summer and fall, Trump had laid the groundwork for claiming a "rigged" election, as he often termed it, warning of widespread fraud. Former chief of staff John F. Kelly told others that Trump was "getting his excuse ready for when he loses the election," according to a person who heard his comments.
In June, during an Oval Office meeting with political advisers and outside consultants, Trump raised the prospect of suing state governments for how they administer elections and said he could not believe they were allowed to change the rules. All the states, he said, should follow the same rules. Advisers told him that he did not want the federal government in charge of elections.
Trump also was given several presentations by his campaign advisers about the likely surge in mail-in ballots — in part because many Americans felt safer during the pandemic voting by mail than in person — and was told they would go overwhelmingly against him, according to a former campaign official.
Advisers and allies, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), encouraged Trump to try to close the gap in mail-in voting, arguing that he would need some of his voters, primarily seniors, to vote early by mail. But Trump instead exhorted his supporters not to vote by mail, claiming they could not trust that their ballots would be counted.
"It was sort of insane," the former campaign official said.
Ultimately, it was the late count of mail-in ballots that erased Trump's early leads in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other battleground states and propelled Biden to victory. As Trump watched his margins shrink and then reverse, he became enraged, and he saw a conspiracy at play.
"You really have to understand Trump's psychology," said Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime Trump associate and former White House communications director who is now estranged from the president. "The classic symptoms of an outsider is, there has to be a conspiracy. It's not my shortcomings, but there's a cabal against me. That's why he's prone to these conspiracy theories."
This fall, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark, Republican National Committee counsel Justin Riemer and others laid plans for post-election litigation, lining up law firms across the country for possible recounts and ballot challenges, people familiar with the work said. This was the kind of preparatory work presidential campaigns typically do before elections. Giuliani, Ellis and Powell were not involved.
This team had some wins in court against Democrats in a flurry of lawsuits in the months leading up to the election, on issues ranging from absentee ballot deadlines to signature-matching rules.
But Trump's success rate in court would change considerably after Nov. 3. The arguments that began pouring in from Giuliani and others on Trump's post-election legal team left federal judges befuddled. In one Pennsylvania case, some lawyers left the Trump team before Giuliani argued the case to a judge. Giuliani had met with the lawyers and wanted to make arguments they were uncomfortable making, campaign advisers said.
For example, the Trump campaign argued in federal court in Philadelphia two days after the election to stop the count because Republican observers had been barred. Under sharp questioning from Judge Paul S. Diamond, however, campaign lawyers conceded that Trump in fact had "a nonzero number of people in the room," leaving Diamond audibly exasperated.
"I'm sorry, then what's your problem?" Diamond asked.
n the days following the election, few states drew Trump's attention like Georgia, a once-reliable bastion of Republican votes that he carried in 2016 but appeared likely to lose narrowly to Biden as late-remaining votes were tallied.
And few people attracted Trump's anger like Gov. Brian Kemp, the state's Republican governor, who rode the president's coattails to his own narrow victory in 2018.
A number of Trump allies tried to pressure Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, into putting his thumb on the scale. Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — both forced into runoff elections on Jan. 5 — demanded Raffensperger's resignation. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump friend who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, called Raffensperger to seemingly encourage him to find a way to toss legal ballots.
But Kemp, who preceded Raffensperger as secretary of state, would not do Trump's bidding. "He wouldn't be governor if it wasn't for me," Trump fumed to advisers earlier this month as he plotted out a call to scream at Kemp.
In the call, Trump urged Kemp to do more to fight for him in Georgia, publicly echo his claims of fraud and appear more regularly on television. Kemp was noncommittal, a person familiar with the call said.
Raffensperger said he knew Georgia was going to be thrust into the national spotlight on Election Day, when dramatically fewer people turned out to vote in person than the Trump campaign needed for a clear win following a surge of mail voting dominated by Democratic voters.
But he said it had never occurred to him to go along with Trump's unproven allegations because of his duty to administer elections. Raffensperger said his strategy was to keep his head down and follow the law.
"People made wild accusations about the voting systems that we have in Georgia," Raffensperger said. "They were asking, 'How do we get to 270? How do you get it to Congress so they can make a determination?' " But, he added, "I'm not supposed to put my thumb on the Republican side."
Trump fixated on a false conspiracy theory that the machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems and used in Georgia and other states had been programmed to count Trump votes as Biden votes. In myriad private conversations, the president would find a way to come back to Dominion. He was obsessed.
"Do you think there's really something here? I'm hearing . . . " Trump would say, according to one senior official who discussed it with him.
Raffensperger said Republicans were only harming themselves by questioning the integrity of the Dominion machines. He warned that these kinds of baseless allegations could discourage Republicans from voting in the Senate runoffs. "People need to get a grip on reality," he said.
More troubling to Raffensperger were the many threats he and his wife, Tricia, have received over the past few weeks — and a break-in at another family member's home. All of it has prompted him to accept a state security detail.
"If Republicans don't start condemning this stuff, then I think they're really complicit in it," he said. "It's time to stand up and be counted. Are you going to stand for righteousness? Are you going to stand for integrity? Or are you going to stand for the wild mob? You wanted to condemn the wild mob when it's on the left side. What are you going to do when it's on our side?"
On Nov. 20, after Raffensperger certified the state's results, Kemp announced that he would make a televised statement, stoking fears that the president might have finally gotten to the governor.
"This can't be good," Jordan Fuchs, a Raffensperger deputy, wrote in a text message.
But Kemp held firm and formalized the certification.
"As governor, I have a solemn responsibility to follow the law, and that is what I will continue to do," Kemp said. "We must all work together to ensure citizens have confidence in future elections in our state."
On Nov. 7, four days after the election, every major news organization projected that Biden would win the presidency. At the same time, Giuliani stood before news cameras in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, near an adult-video shop and a crematorium, to detail alleged examples of voter fraud.
The contrast that day between Giuliani's humble, eccentric surroundings and Biden's and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris's victory speeches on a grand, blue-lit stage in Wilmington, Del., underscored the virtual impossibility of Trump's quest to overturn the results.
Also that day, Stepien, Clark, Miller and Bossie briefed Trump on a potential legal strategy for the president's approval. They explained that prevailing would be difficult and involve complicated plays in every state that could stretch into December. They estimated a "5 to 10 percent chance of winning," one person involved in the meeting said.
Trump signaled that he understood and agreed to the strategy.
Around this time, some lawyers around Trump began to suddenly disappear from the effort in what some aides characterized as an attempt to protect their reputations. Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, who had appeared at a news conference with Giuliani right after the election, ceased her involvement after the first week.
"Literally only the fringy of the fringe are willing to do pressers, and that's when it became clear there was no 'there' there," a senior administration official said.
A turning point for the Trump campaign's legal efforts came on Nov. 13, when its core team of professional lawyers saw the writing on the wall. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia delivered a stinging defeat to Trump allies in a lawsuit trying to invalidate all Pennsylvania ballots received after Election Day.
The decision didn't just reject the claim; it denied the plaintiffs standing in any federal challenge under the Constitution's electors clause — an outcome that Trump's legal team recognized as a potentially fatal blow to many of the campaign's challenges in the state.
That is when a gulf emerged between the outlooks of most lawyers on the team and of Giuliani, who many of the other lawyers thought seemed "deranged" and ill-prepared to litigate, according to a person familiar with the campaign's legal team. Some of the Trump campaign and Republican Party lawyers sought to even avoid meetings with Giuliani and his team. When asked for evidence internally for their most explosive claims, Giuliani and Powell could not provide it, the other advisers said.
Giuliani and his protegee, Ellis, both striving to please the president, insisted Trump's fight was not over. Someone familiar with their strategy said they were "performing for an audience of one," and that Trump held Giuliani in high regard as "a fighter" and as "his peer."
The next day, a Saturday, Trump tweeted out that Giuliani, Ellis, Powell and others were now in charge of his legal strategy. Ellis startled aides by entering the campaign's Arlington headquarters and instructing staffers that they must now listen to her and Giuliani.
"They came in one day and were like, 'We have the president's direct order. Don't take an order if it doesn't come from us,' " a senior administration official recalled.
Clark and Miller pushed back, the official said. Ellis threatened to call Trump, to which Miller replied, "Sure, let's do this," said a campaign adviser.
It was a fiery altercation, not unlike the many that had played out over the past four years in the corridors of the West Wing. The outcome was that Giuliani and Ellis, as well as Powell — the "elite strike force," as they dubbed themselves — became the faces of the president's increasingly unrealistic attempts to subvert democracy.
The strategy, according to a second senior administration official, was, "Anyone who is willing to go out and say, 'They stole it,' roll them out. Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell. Send [former acting director of national intelligence] Ric Grenell out West. Send [American Conservative Union Chairman] Matt Schlapp somewhere. Just roll everybody up who is willing to do it into a clown car, and when it's time for a press conference, roll them out."
Trump and his allies made a series of brazen legal challenges, including in Nevada, where conservative activist Sharron Angle asked a court to block certification of the results in Clark County, by far the state's most populous county, and order a wholesale do-over of the election.
Clark County Judge Gloria Sturman was incredulous.
"How do you get to that's sufficient to throw out an entire election?" she said. She noted the practical implications of failing to certify the election, including that every official elected on Nov. 3 would be unable to take office in the new year, including herself.
Sturman denied the request. Not only was there no evidence to support the claims of widespread voter fraud, she said, but "as a matter of public policy, this is just a bad idea."
As Trump's legal challenges failed in court, he employed another tactic to try to reverse the result: a public pressure campaign on state and local Republican officials to manipulate the electoral system on his behalf.
"As was the case throughout his business career, he viewed the rules as instruments to be manipulated to achieve his chosen ends," said Galston of the Brookings Institution.
Trump's highest-profile play came in Michigan, where Biden was the projected winner and led by more than 150,000 votes. On Nov. 17, Trump called a Republican member of the board of canvassers in Wayne County, which is where Detroit is located and is the state's most populous county. After speaking with the president, the board member, Monica Palmer, attempted to rescind her vote to certify Biden's win in Wayne.
Then Trump invited the leaders of Michigan's Republican-controlled state Senate and House to meet him at the White House, apparently hoping to coax them to block certification of the results or perhaps even to ignore Biden's popular-vote win and seat Trump electors if the state's canvassing board deadlocked. Such a move was on shaky legal ground, but that didn't stop the president from trying.
Republican and Democratic leaders, including current and former governors and members of Congress, immediately launched a full-court press to urge the legislative leaders to resist Trump's entreaties. The nonpartisan Voter Protection Program was so worried that it commissioned a poll to find out how Michiganders felt about his intervention. The survey found that a bipartisan majority did not like Trump intervening and believed that Biden won the state.
House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said they accepted the invitation as a courtesy and issued a joint statement immediately after the meeting: "We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan."
A person familiar with their thinking said they felt they could not decline the president's invitation — plus they saw an opportunity to deliver to Trump "a flavor of the truth and what he wasn't hearing in his own echo chamber," as well as to make a pitch for coronavirus relief for their state.
There was never a moment when the lawmakers contemplated stepping in on Trump's behalf, because Michigan law does not allow it, this person said. Before the trip, lawyers for the lawmakers told their colleagues in the legislature that there was nothing feasible in what Trump was trying to do, and that it was "absolute crazy talk" for the Michigan officials to contemplate defying the will of the voters, this person added.
Trump was scattered in the meeting, interrupting to talk about the coronavirus when the lawmakers were talking about the election, and then talking about the election when they were talking about the coronavirus, the person said. The lawmakers left with the impression that the president understood little about Michigan law, but also that his blinders had fallen off about his prospects for reversing the outcome, the person added.
No representatives from Trump's campaign attended the meeting, and advisers talked Trump out of scheduling a similar one with Pennsylvania officials.
The weekend of Nov. 21 and on Monday, Nov. 23, Trump faced mounting pressure from Republican senators and former national security officials — as well as from some of his most trusted advisers — to end his stalemate with Biden and authorize the General Services Administration to initiate the transition. The bureaucratic step would allow Biden and his administration-in-waiting to tap public funds to run their transition, receive security briefings and gain access to federal agencies to prepare for the Jan. 20 takeover.
Trump was reluctant, believing that by authorizing the transition, he would in effect be conceding the election. Over multiple days, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, one of the president's personal attorneys, explained to Trump that the transition had nothing to do with conceding and that legitimate challenges could continue, according to someone familiar with the conversations.
Late on Nov. 23, Trump announced that he had allowed the transition to move forward because it was "in the best interest of our Country," but he kept up his fight over the election results.
The next day, after a conversation with Giuliani, Trump decided to visit Gettysburg, Pa., on Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving, for a news conference at a Wyndham Hotel to highlight alleged voter fraud. The plan caught many close to the president by surprise, including RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, three officials said. Some tried to talk Trump out of the trip, but he thought it was a good idea to appear with Giuliani.
A few hours before he was scheduled to depart, the trip was scuttled. "Bullet dodged," said one campaign adviser. "It would have been a total humiliation."
That afternoon, Trump called in to the meeting of GOP state senators at the Wyndham, where Giuliani and Ellis were addressing attendees. He spoke via a scratchy connection to Ellis's cellphone, which she played on speaker. At one point, the line beeped to signal another caller.
"If you were a Republican poll watcher, you were treated like a dog," Trump complained, using one of his favorite put-downs, even though many people treat dogs well, like members of their own families.
"This election was lost by the Democrats," he said, falsely. "They cheated."
Trump demanded that state officials overturn the results — but the count had already been certified. Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes will be awarded to Biden.
"The Emperor Has No Clothes"