A recently published indictment provides deep insights into Donald Trump’s election fraud attempts. It was only by chance that a mistake made by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani had no consequences.
It is an overwhelming amount of evidence: In over 165 pages, special counsel Jack Smith documented how Donald Trump and his team tried to turn the 2020 election defeat into a victory through manipulation. His lawyer Rudy Giuliani played a key role. He almost had the plans exposed in advance: he sent them in detail via SMS – to a wrong number.
This emerges from the revised indictment, which was published partly redacted on Wednesday – and even Trump’s house channel Fox News spoke of Donald Trump’s “crimes” (you can find out more here). Giuliani had tried to persuade two high-ranking Republicans in Michigan to publicly question the election. “You must help make this happen in Michigan,” the first message said.
Rudy Giuliani wanted to turn the election for Donald Trump
A second one gets more specific: “I need you to pass a joint resolution from the Michigan government stating that ‘the election is disputed,’ there is an ‘ongoing government investigation,’ and ‘the electors appointed by Governor Whitmer are not the official electors of the state of Michigan and do not fall within Michigan’s official election deadline of December 8th,'” he wrote to one of the two potential co-conspirators whose names were redacted in the indictment.
However, it never reached the Republican: “The dispatch failed because he had entered the wrong number into the phone,” the indictment says. So Giuliani may have been lucky: the number he entered incorrectly was apparently not in use. Otherwise, any mobile phone user would have received the election fraud plans.
Lawyer with legal problems
The news is an important piece of the puzzle in Smith’s legal argument. After the special investigator sought to indict Trump and his co-conspirators in a shorter version of the complaint in the spring, this was thwarted by a Supreme Court decision. The top constitutional judges ruled in July that the president is immune from prosecution if the crimes occurred within the scope of his office. The new lawsuit now argues that Trump’s election fraud was a private matter for the president – also because his private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, played a key role.
Giuliani must fear further legal consequences. If Trump does not win the election on November 4th and pardon him, the lawyer could also be indicted for his role in the election fraud affair. There have already been the first consequences: in his hometown of New York and the capital Washington DC, Giuliani’s license has already been revoked by the respective bar association. He is no longer allowed to practice there.
Sources: Statement of claim, X
