by Phil Villers
During its October 13 meeting, the bipartisan House January 6 committee — through documents, videos, and on-camera testimony — continued to detail the criminal conspiracy to illegally overturn the 2020 election of President Biden. The clear proof of an attempted coup orchestrated by disgraced former president Trump, with many GOP leaders complicit and still covering for him, compels us to act as we wait for the committee’s report.
As of now, the committee has interviewed more than 1,000 voluntary and subpoenaed witnesses, the vast majority of whom were Republican. Activation of the conspiracy by Trump and his many co-conspirators was the political equivalent of shooting a six-barreled handgun; if any one of these illegal “shots” had succeeded it would have given Trump the second Presidential term he so badly wanted.
As revealed by committee witnesses, Trump and his surrogates initiated their “Stop the Steal” strategy as early as June 2020. The first shot of the conspiracy was Trump’s call on election night to stop the vote count and declare victory.
The second shot was to petition 62 courts in key states to reject all or some election results based on various claims of fraud. This failed in 61 decisions, and one suit was dropped.
The third shot was to strong arm Republican officials in several states — as in Georgia, where in a recorded call, Trump asked the secretary of state point blank to “find” 11,780 additional votes, the exact number needed for him to win that state.
The fourth shot — which several of his team suggested, but was fortunately not carried out — was to invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law, and have the military seize ballot-counting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems, claiming that their counts had been tampered with.
The fifth shot was to pressure Vice President Pence on January 6 to throw out the votes of official electors from key states and, instead, substitute the votes of enough non-elected, self-appointed “green electors” pledged to Trump to modify certification of the overall Electoral College count using fake copies of certification documents.
Finally, the sixth shot was to invite organized and armed supporters — the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and others — to have a “wild” time in D.C. on January 6. Trump’s plan was for them to storm the Capitol and prevent Congress from recording the votes of electors. Trump also directly urged VP Pence, contrary to his oath of office, to reject enough ballots from electors to prevent Congress from declaring Joe Biden President-Elect.
Due significantly to the many Americans who remained loyal to their oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution, all six of these strategies failed.
The bipartisan January 6 committee ended its meeting by voting unanimously to subpoena ex-President Trump to come directly before the committee and testify under oath. The challenge now facing us is to prevent a Trump election replay in 2024, and protect our country from such a far-reaching conspiracy that could threaten our democracy again.
As Concord Indivisible members, we play a critical role in galvanizing community awareness and action to protect our democracy in the weeks ahead. With this democracy still under attack across the country, we must assure ongoing accountability from our elected representatives by making sure that true champions of our freedoms win in the November 8 midterms. For information on the many ways you can help in these final weeks, please visit our Action Springboard.