The select House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol Attack has received a PowerPoint document detailing how former President Donald Trump could illegally hold on to power after he lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
The committee received the document from former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows who is also being investigated for his role in the attack. Being in possession of the document before the attack occurred, makes Meadows aware of plots to illegally keep Trump as president.
The PowerPoint document was found inside more than 6000 documents Meadows turned over to the select committee.
The 38-page document Meadows turned in to the committee is titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan”, which recommended that Trump could remain president despite losing in the election by declaring a state of emergency on the basis of false claims of widespread election fraud.
A second document marked for dissemination with the same title as that received by the select committee, but has 36-pages and has January 5 metadata was reviewed by The Guardian.
As part of the plan, senators and members of Congress should first be briefed about foreign interference, and Trump could declare a national emergency, proclaim all electronic votes as invalid and ask Congress to agree on a constitutionally acceptable solution.
The allegation of election fraud and interference is based on claims, despite Trump-appointed acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and his predecessor, Bill Barr, by Jan. 5 that there was no sufficient evidence of voter fraud to change to outcome of the 2020 election, that the Chinese systematically gained control over America’s election system in eight key states.
For former vice-president Mike Pence, the document advised him to manipulate the ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, when Biden was to be confirmed president by returning Trump to the Whitehouse.
It was also suggested that Pence could take one of the options: seat Trump slates of electors over the objections of Democrats in key states; reject the Biden slates of electors; delay the certification to allow for a “vetting” and counting of only “legal paper ballots”.
Sources cited by the Guardian revealed that the PowerPoint was presented to some Republican senators and members of Congress on Jan. 5. and Trump’s lawyers working at the Willard hotel were not shown the presentation.
After Meadows gave House Investigators the documents, a deal to cooperate with investigators sharply ended when his attorney, announced he would no longer help with the investigation.
The select committee said it would refer Meadows for prosecution for defying a subpoena.
