All Trump wanted was some semi-independent arbiter to declare the election fraudulent—whether that was the governor of Arizona, the Georgia secretary of state, or the U.S. Justice Department. This much was clear even then, but Trump’s endgame was not. After all, Democrat Joe Biden’s lead was wide enough that a single state declining to certify or a single fraud case couldn’t have erased it. Trump, despite his weakness for conspiracy theories, understood that. But he didn’t need any of these officials to set aside the results on their own. He just needed enough ammunition, no matter how tenuous, that he could derail certification of the election in Congress.
If the election couldn’t be decided based on the results, then it would go to the House of Representatives. Though Democrats held a majority there, the presidency would have been decided by state delegations, of which Republicans controlled more…
What is becoming clear is that the violence, though abhorrent, was simply a part of the bigger and more dangerous plot, not the culmination of it. Although Trump clearly had no problem with the riot, there is no evidence that Trump envisioned a violent coup, and as the attack on the Capitol unfolded, he watched, bemused, from the White House, neither calling off the attackers nor doing anything more to spur them on.
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