Talk About Tennis 2.0

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
Jack Smith has filed the much-anticipated brief in Donald Trump's Jan. 6 election subversion case.
Let's walk through it together in this thread.
https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/a ... c599e6.pdf

First things first, what we are we looking at with this document?
This filing is the framework Smith has set for Chutkan to make her analysis under the parameters of the SCOTUS immunity ruling for former presidents and he has broken it down into 4 parts.

The parts of the immunity brief are broken into 4 sections:
1) What Smith intends to prove at trial
2) The legal principles that govern presidential immunity and how Trump acted as office-seeker, not office-holder
3) How legal principles apply to Trump's conduct
4) Relief sought

Smith writes in brief: when Trump lost the 2020 election, "he resorted to crimes to stay in office" and did so by working with private co-conspirators who launched "increasingly desperate plans to overturn legitimate election results in 7 states he lost"

To do this, Trump is accused of lying to state officials to "induce them to ignore true vote counts" and he attempted to enlist former VP Mike Pence tin his role as president of the Senate to obstruct the certification on 1/6.
"The throughline of these efforts was deceit"

Trump and his co-conspirators "used lies" to advance their conspiracy to interfere with the function of the federal government, they conspired to obstruct the certification and they conspired "against the rights of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted."

At its core, the defendant scheme was a private criminal effort."

Trump's "deceit," Smith writes, was used to "target every stage of the electoral process" and he worked the conspiracy with a slew of private attorneys, political operatives, campaign employees and managers.

Many of the alleged conspiracies began after Election Day 2020, Smith writes but the "groundwork for his crimes" was laid "well before then."

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
1h
Going into the 2020 election, Smith says that Trump's campaign advisers (IDed in redactions as "P6," then a private citizen, and "P2" then Trumps campaign mgr) told him it would be a close election and unlikely to be finalized on ED because of large # of mail in votes amid Covid

Smith says Trump was told explicitly: initial returns could be misleading because his own voters prefer to vote in person while Biden voters favored mail-in ballots that year.

in private however, Smith says that Trump told P6 ("campaign personnel) and P7 (WH Staffer/campaign volunteer) and P8 (VP chief of staff) that "he would simply declare victory before all the ballots were counted and any winner was projected."

Sidebar: This was the Stop the Steal motto. Recall, it was Roger Stone who advocated this same policy, just say you won, because "possession is 9/10ths of the law, (expletive) you, i won"

Trump planted seeds in the public's mind about his refusal to accept the results for months before the actual election. It started in July 2020, Smith notes, when Trump was told he would "have to see" about accepting results and then, despite having voted by mail HIMSELF...

Trump spread the false message that mail-in voting couldn't be trusted.
In August 2020, he was in interviews saying that there was "no way" you can mail-in a vote "without massive cheating." At a campaign stop in WI that Aug, he said he'd lose only if the election was rigged.

During an acceptance speech @ RNC Convention in August '20, he again claimed, "the only way they can take this election away from us is if its a rigged election"
Notably, Smith does not include similar remarks Trump made from the Oval in Sept 20 (distinguish campaign from prez)

Smith moves right into October '20 when, during campaign remarks, Trump said it would be "very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3 instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate"

Trump made the comment in October 2020 "despite or perhaps because his private advisors had informed that it was unlikely the winner would be declared on 11/3"

That October, P1 (IDed as a private political adviser who also worked on Trump's 2016 campaign) started to work on 2020 campaign.

Then, 3 days before Election Day, P1 told a private gathering of Trump's supporters about a plan.

Trump, P1 said, would "just declare victory."



"Immediately following Election Day on Nov. 3, the defendant did exactly that."
His early lead in vote totals eroded as his advisers told him was possible. Fox News projected AZ for Biden.
Campaign adviser P4 said he and Trump were shocked and angry.

Senior advisers started suggesting that maybe Trump should "show restraint while counting continued."
But two private advisors - CC1 and CC6 - "suggested that the defendant just declare victory' and then, during televised remarks near 2 am on 11/4, Trump falsely claimed fraud

"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election," Trump, on the campaign stump, told his supporters.
From there, "campaign employee, agent and co-conspirator" P5 tried to "sow confusion" as the count continued in Michigan

P5 was at the TCF Center in Michigan when he learned that the batches of votes leaned heavily toward Biden.
Smith says P5 told a colleague at the center, "Find a reason it isn't" and "Give me options to file litigation" and "even if itbis [sic]" (even if its BS)

When the colleague told P5 "there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot," Smith says P5 responded: "Make them riot" and "Do it!"
Campaign operatives deployed similar methods in Philadelphia.
Now, Trump had his predicate to claim fraud

Privately, however, things were different.
There was a campaign meeting with P2, P3, P4 and "White House staffer P9" who Smith served "as a conduit for information from the campaign to the defendant."
During this mtg on 11/7, Trump is told his chances are slim.

Not only was Trump told by campaign members that his chances were slim but by 11/13 his lawyers were conceding litigation in Arizona.
Trump had lost the election. But that same day, he sidelined his campaign staff who had mounted the election challenges, Smith says

P2 and P3 both told Trump a "truth that he did not want to hear — that he had lost."
So Trump turned to a private attorney, CC1, who was willingly to falsely claim victory and spread that lie far and wide. A flurry of phone calls ensued to P3, CC1 and CC6.

P1 told CC6, another private campaign advisor, that Trump had fired P3 and put CC1 in charge. CC6 was to report to CC1.
Trump sent out a tweet the next day, announcing the staffing change.
CC1 is Rudy Giuliani.


From this Trump tweet we can also discern the IDs in the filing. It appears:
P10 is Joseph diGenova
P11 is Victoria Toensing
CC3 is Sidney Powell
P12 is Jenna Ellis

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
1h
After Election Day 2020, Trump, his agents and co-conspirators "spread lies" that there had been "outcome determinative fraud" and that he had won. There were dozens of claims he made, including that dead people were voting, non-citizens voted or that machines changed vote totals

Again and again, Smith alleges, Trump and his cohorts made "unsupported, objectively unreasonable and ever-changing claims even after they had been publicly disproven or after advisors informed the defendant that they were untrue"
This means Trump knew his claims were false...

Trump made claims of fraud even after close advisors, who were acting not in an official capacity but in a private one or a campaign capacity, told him, his claims of fraud weren't true. That included P9, a WH staffer and campaign conduit, as well as Mike Pence.

P9, Smith points out, knew Trump before he worked for him. P9, who began working in the WH as an assistant to Trump in Aug. 2020 and repped Trump at impeachment I, knew P13 - IDed as "the defendant's son-in-law" - since P13 was a kid. They had met through P14 and then Trump.

In the post-election period, P9 was a "conduit of information from the campaign to the defendant" and throughout the alleged conspiracies, P9 told Trump "the unvarnished truth about his campaign legal team and the claims of fraud that they knew defendant was making."

Smith has examples:
P9 gave Trump his "honest assessment" repeatedly that Giuliani (CC1) couldn't mount a winning legal challenge and didn't have the goods to back it up in court.
Trump responded by saying "the details don't matter"




This is around the time that Pence told Trump he hadn't seen any fraud.
It was "one of many conversations" they had as running mates, where they "discussed shared electoral interests"
Pence "gradually and gently tried to convince" Trump to accept the loss.

Smith points to conversations between Pence and Trump starting on Nov. 4 and continuing through to December including times Pence suggested a "face-saving option" for Trump
'Dont concede but recognize process is over'
The loss should be looked at as an 'intermission'





Smith notes that Pence told Trump of talks he had with governors in Arizona and Georgia "in the context of election challenges"
Pence told guvs to gather info and share it w/Trump. They did. There was no report of fraud and the guvs told Trump, there was no action to take

But Trump, as ever, "disregarded P9 and Pence in the same way he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies' legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states, including those in his own party, who...

"... stated publicly that he lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false."
Elections officials were forced to combat the disinformation Trump spread.
They sent out press releases. They sent out public statements.

A White House staffer ID'ed as P15, was traveling with Trump and said they overheard Trump tell his family members:

"It doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell."

The deliberate disregard for truth is a pattern Smith says he'll show at trial.

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
48m
Smith says it started with the claim among Trump and co-conspirators that 36k non-citizens voted in Arizona. (Sound familiar?)
3 weeks later, the minimum # they cited was 40 or 50k. Then they said it was 250k. But then they went back to 32k.
All false figures, never corroborated

Trump's "steady stream of disinformation" culminated in the speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 before the certification of the election for Joe Biden.
During the speech, Trump repeated the same lies about fraud in AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA, WI. All claims publicly debunked at this point

Smith says Trump targeted state electoral processes by zeroing in on their officials. As POTUS, he had no official responsibility related to the states' administration of the election or appointment of their electors. He contacted them "in his capacity as a candidate"

So, again, in his capacity as candidate, Trump is calling state officials, and "tellingly," Smith says, they're only state officials in his political party, were his political supporters and in states he lost.

The deceit focused on AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA, WI and states w/certain voting machines.

At trial, Smith say he elicit testimony from election officials in these targeted states to establish the "objective falsity — and often, impossibility — of the defendant's claims."

At this point in the brief, Smith lays out evidence pertaining to each state.
He starts with Arizona.

Arizona:
1. Trump, "on notice" that there was no widespread evidence of fraud within a week of the 2020 election, calls the AZ Guv on 11/9. Fox projected Biden won, but ABC, NBC, CNN, NYT hadn't projected a winner yet.
P16 explained margins, saying they favored Biden.

Trump raised claims of fraud in AZ and P16 asked Trump to send him evidence. Trump said he would.
He was "packaging it up."
"But he never did," Smith said.

At that pt in AZ, P2, a campaign mgr, told Trump "directly" the fraud claim he and campaign members had been shopping about non-citizens voting in AZ was false. The campaign conceded their defeat in the litigation in Arizona but Trump kept pushing Giuliani to influence P16.

Smith says Giuliani tried to contact P16 on 11/22/20. That was the same day Giuliani reached out to then AZ Speaker Rusty Bowers. Within a week of that call, P16 signs the AZ certificate declaring Biden's electors as the legitimate electors for AZ.
Trump/Pence call P16.

Smith says in this call, P16 tells Trump and Pence AZ certified election. Trump again brings up his fraud claims. P16 is "eager" to see it and asks Trump for the receipts. Trump, again never shows them.

Instead, that night and then into the next morning, Smith notes that Trump goes on the attack online, lashing out at P16 and P17 on Twitter.

Here's the tweet Smith cites below:
So, P17 is Brian Kemp.
And P16 is Doug Ducey.




Smith notes how Giuliani called P18, Speaker of the AZ House - Rusty Bowers.
Trump and Giuliani "levied multiple false fraud claims" during the call, beating the same drum: dead ppl voting en masse, non citizens etc.

Trump asks Bowers to use these bogus claims of fraud as a basis to call the state legislature back into session so they can replace the real electors with illegitimate ones for Trump. Bowers expressed his skepticism and refused. Giuliani leans on him, Smith says.

"We're all kind of Republicans and we need to be working together," Giuliani says on the call with Bowers.
Bowers refused. He asked Giuliani to show him proof.
Giuliani "never did," Smith writes. A week later, Bowers and Giuliani meet face to face and still, Giuliani has zero

There's a "hotel hearing" on 11/30 with GOP legislators. More bogus claims of fraud are circulated here. The next day, state legislators press Giuliani and P12 for evidence to support their claims of fraud. Giuliani says, "we don't have the evidence but we have a lot of theories"


Giuliani is shocked that people are upset he can't come up with the fraud he's been shilling.

"Man, I thought we were all Republicans.. [T]his is a little more hostile a reception. I'm amazed at the reception I'm getting here."

On 12/4, Bowers puts out a stmt saying he doesn't have authority to reverse the legislature or results of the election and if he did so, it would nullify the people's vote on supported theories of fraud.
Reminder here: Bowers voted for Trump but wouldn't go along with this.

P19, IDed as a "campaign staffer who worked with C6" attacked Bowers on Twitter, saying Bowers was "intentionally misleading the people of Arizona to avoid the inevitable"
Trump RT'd this "false post and praised her."
P19 is Christina Bobb.

Christina Bobb
@christina_bobb
·
Dec 4, 2020
Rusty Bowers is intentionally misleading the people of Arizona to avoid the inevitable. @realDonaldTrump won his state and he’s trying to avoid declaring him the winner. x.com/ali/status/133…

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
18m
Just 2 days before 1/6, CC2, who is another Trump private attorneys and a co-conspirator, Smith says, calls Bowers and Bowers' attorney, who is IDed as P20. They again try to get Bowers to decertify and overturn valid results. With no evidence, Bowers refuses. CC2 keeps at it

CC2, the private Trump atty, concedes he "didn't know enough about facts on the ground" in AZ and said Bowers should claim he had authority to convene the legislature at "let the courts sort it out."
Bowers again refused and a harassment campaign ensued.







By 12/3, Giuliani sets up a presentation for the Judiciary Subcommittee of the Georgia State Senate.
But the morning before, Smith says Giuliani speaks to Trump by phone for almost 20 minutes.

At the hearing, Giuliani is accused of arranging "for co-conspirators and agents to repeat the false dead voter claim.'
This was "so patently false," Smith emphasizes, "that everyone around the defendant knew it"

At the hearing,Chief of Staff P21 & P9 - who is a WH staffer - exchange texts on personal phones "confirming that a campaign attorney P22 had verified that CC1 [Giuliani] claim of more than 10k dead voters was false & actual # was around 12 and could not be outcome-determinative"



Trump's private attorney P23 claims over 10k dead people vote in GA. Then, "an agent" of Trump', P24, plays misleading excerpts of closed-circuit camera footage from State Farm.

CC2, who has already been a private lawyer for Trump but did not disclose that the hearing, Smith says, pushes for the decertification of GA's valid electors.



W/in a week, claims of misconduct at State Farm Arena "are disproven publicly and directly to Trump."

After the hearing, P25, who is identified by his title at the GA Secy of State's Office, posts publicly that there has been "normal ballot processing."
P25 is Gabriel Serling

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
31s
On 12/8, Trump calls the GA AG who is P26, Chris Carr. Carr knew the call was about litigation specific to the election, Smith says; a US Senator, P27, told him Trump heard Carr was "whipping" or lobbying AGs to support a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Texas v Pa case

Elmo is at it again...

Something went wrong. Try reloading.

Both feeds I was following now have notices saying "something went wrong"

Here is Nicole Wallace reporting on MSNBC

Okay Brandi is back.

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
15m
On 12/8, Trump calls the GA AG who is P26, Chris Carr. Carr knew the call was about litigation specific to the election, Smith says; a US Senator, P27, told him Trump heard Carr was "whipping" or lobbying AGs to support a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Texas v Pa case

An agreement is struck to speak to Trump but Smith points out: Carr wasn't lobbying against the lawsuit, and he told P27 that. P27 asked Carr if he'd speak with Trump.





P4 again tells Trump claims of fraud are false. The research team and campaign legal team "can't back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see now why we're 0-32 on our cases."

P4 would hustle but it would be tough when "it's all just conspiracy (expletive) beamed down from the mothership," the adviser wrote.

Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman
·
41s
Sorry 1 earlier tweet deleted because I forgot we already figured out CC3 is Powell
Tweet deleted said:
They discuss how it is important to reelect the P27 and P28. W/in a day, Trump in private capacity as candidate for prez, intervened in support of Texas v Pennsylvania lawsuit

She's going to go through all the shenanigans that took place in all the states. I'll leave her to it for now.

My only thought is that even though we knew this was crap the callousness behind it, and the venality of those who tried to implement this for him like P4, is still surprising.

Txs for all that, Ti. Almost impossible to digest all that info quickly.
Let's hope this is the guy that puts him in prison (ha, ha, ha, I know)

Katie Phang
@KatiePhang
From p. 142 of Jack Smith's filing:

"Upon receiving a phone call alerting him that Pence had been taken to a secure location, [PERSON 15] rushed to the dining room to inform [Trump] in hopes that the defendant would take action to ensure Pence’s safety. Instead, after [P15] delivered the news, the defendant looked at him and said only, “So what?""

This is still the money quote.