Different Legal Strategies Are Not A Crime
The Soviet-style show trial has featured testimony from people in Trump’s administration who did not think it wise to keep challenging election results, particularly after the Electoral College had convened. I know and interviewed many of them for “Rigged,” my book on the 2020 election.
They found the post-election day legal efforts led by Trump to be poorly strategized and executed. I share details about some of those debacles in the book, particularly how Rudy Guiliani took a promising Pennsylvania case with superstar attorneys — about disparate treatment of voters — into a case about fraud, thereby ruining it. That decision also led judges in other states to get nervous and impatient about other cases.
It also increased anxiety among establishment attorneys who had previously been part of the legal effort. Many of these attorneys were also having their lives and reputations threatened by NeverTrump groups, who were posting personal information and sending mobs to harass them.
Trump administration officials had major concerns — prior to the election — about the lack of election integrity provided by the rush to widespread mail-in voting. For example, former Attorney General Bill Barr said in September 2020 that expansive mail-in voting was “playing with fire.”
But these officials also believed it wasn’t really the job of the Justice Department to pursue investigations about the issue. They were willing to look into various claims that were swirling about, but considered it to be more of a local or regional crime issue that could rise to the level of DOJ interest, rather than something that should be driven from the headquarters down.
The January 6 show trial has tried to suggest that problems with the 2020 election were thoroughly investigated. Evidence for the claim is lacking. Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bill McSwain has publicly said he was told by Barr to stand down from investigating, a claim Barr publicly denies. McSwain wrote Trump was “right to be upset about the way the Democrats ran the 2020 election in Pennsylvania — it was a partisan disgrace.”