Trump's Desperate and Deeply Corrupt Plot to Seize Voting Machines

What an asshole:

The crux of the New York Times’ new report is that Trump went farther than previously known in entertaining the use of law enforcement and national security agencies to seize voting machines to cast Joe Biden’s victory as illegitimate. 

Trump’s pressure on Barr unfolded as follows: The meeting with Mr. Barr took place in mid- to late November when Mr. Trump raised the idea of whether the Justice Department could be used to seize machines, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

Mr. Trump told Mr. Barr that his lawyers had told him that the department had the power to seize machines as evidence of fraud. 

It appears Trump was listening to more conspiratorial-minded allies — lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn — about how to thwart the transfer of power, and tried to enlist the Justice Department in the scheme. 

Barr told Trump that the department had no basis for seizing the machines, per the Times. 

But these efforts continued. Indeed, soon after that, the Times reports, Powell and Flynn tried to prevail on Trump to use the military to seize the machines, but this was resisted by Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, a longtime Trump ringleader who for some reason suddenly decided to defend the rule of law. 

At around that time, reports the Times, Trump instructed Giuliani to call a top Homeland Security official to see about executing the scheme. That, too, was rebuffed. 

On the Barr revelations, note that a Senate report already documented that Trump and his allies tried to co-opt the department to help validate fake fraud claims, apparently to create the pretext for his vice president to delay the congressional count of electors. This would kick the election back to states who might then send fraudulent electors. 

Remember, a Trump ally tried to get the department to send letters advising swing states to hold special sessions to consider sending new electors. In this context, Trump’s apparent flirtation with seizing voting machines is probably best understood as another effort to corrupt law enforcement to create a pretext for thwarting the transfer of power in Congress.