“We control them all”: Donald Trump Jr. sent Meadows ideas to overturn the 2020 election before it was called

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Trump Jr. reveals a strategy to replace authentic electors with fake Republican electors within a few states. This plan was ultimately orchestrated by former President Rudy Giuliani and executed by his allies.

Trump Jr. identified two dates in December as the deadlines for states that must certify their electoral results to Congress and compels them to do so in his letter to Meadows. Although the dates are mostly ceremonial, Trump Jr. seems to highlight them as weaknesses that could be exploited to cast doubt on the legitimacy and validity of the election results.

Seeking Trump electors

Trump Jr. sent Meadows a November 5 text. This was just as similar ideas of faithless electors began to circulate on conservative social media. Trump Jr. texted Meadows the message at 12:51 pm, minutes after Mark Levin, a conservative radio host, had tweeted a similar idea. He suggested that state legislatures should have the final say over electors.

If secretaries of state were unable to certify the results, Trump Jr. argues in his text to Meadows that they should press their advantage by having Republican-controlled state assemblies “step in” and put forward separate slates of “Trump electors,” he writes.

Trump Jr. states that “Republicans control Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, etc. We get Trump electors.”

Trump Jr.’s text refers to an untested legal doctrine that states houses are the ultimate authority for elections and can intervene in order to present a different slate than the ones chosen by voters. However, this is a ceremonial process, and the outcome is essentially predetermined.

Both the Justice Department and House committee are investigating the plot of fake electors in the context of what happened on January 6th and Trump’s wider effort to overturn it.

Trump Jr.’s strategy is very similar to that of Rick Perry (ex-Texas Governor, Trump Energy Secretary), who sent Meadows a text on November 4, suggesting that three state legislatures ignore their voters and give Trump their votes.

Perry sent a text message saying, “Here’s an aggressive (sic), STRATEGY: Why cannot t (sic), the states of GA NC PENN or other R controlled state house declare this is BS [where conflicts and elections not called that night] and send their electors to vote and have it go the SCOTUS.”

At the time, a Perry spokesperson told CNN that Perry denies authorship of the text. Multiple people who are familiar with Rick Perry have confirmed to CNN that Perry is the person associated with the text message’s phone number.