edell@post.com wrote

> They called it the “command center,” a set of rooms and suites in the
posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of President
Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one
goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election.
>
> The Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and the ensuing attack on the Capitol by a
pro-Trump mob would draw the world’s attention to the quest to physically
block Congress from affirming Joe Biden’s victory. But the activities at
the Willard that week add to an emerging picture of a less visible effort,
mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by
a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they
claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term.
>
> They were led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former
chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as
the effort’s senior political adviser. Former New York City police
commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was
John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the
presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President
Mike Pence.
>
> They sought to make the case to Pence and ramp up pressure on him to take
actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within his powers, three people
familiar with the operation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to
describe private conversations. Their activities included finding and
publicizing alleged evidence of fraud, urging members of state legislatures
to challenge Biden’s victory and calling on the Trump-supporting public to
press Republican officials in key states.
>
> The effort underscores the extent to which Trump and a handful of true
believers were working until the last possible moment to subvert the will of
the voters, seeking to pressure Pence to delay or even block certification of
the election, leveraging any possible constitutional loophole to test the
boundaries of American democracy.
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-
giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html
>