User:NewsAndEventsGuy/111 Outline of Attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election

The following outline is provided to guide the reader through Wikipedia's articles related to the effort to overturn the 2020 US presidential election.

knew he lost and claimed fraud anyway
Blocks of text and refs were copied from each respective article; I'm using this section to do two things. First to gather articles and sections that might be in the outline. Second as a collection of article excerpts, which is intended as research notes to consider a standalone article on this subtopic.

1. Trump had knowledge that he lost the 2020 election, but spread misinformation to the American public and made false statements claiming significant voter fraud led to his defeat;
 * List of conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump
 * Firehose of falsehood


 * 2020 United States presidential election
 * Republican reactions to Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud
 * Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election
 * Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election
 * United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack public hearings


 * Big lie

During his political career, Donald Trump has employed what has been characterized as the propaganda technique of a firehose of falsehood. To support his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, he and his allies repeatedly and falsely claimed that there had been massive election fraud and that Trump was the true winner of the election. U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz subsequently contested the election results in the Senate. Their effort was characterized as "the big lie" by then President-elect Joe Biden: "I think the American public has a real good, clear look at who they are. They're part of the big lie, the big lie." Republican senators Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey, scholars of fascism Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Russian affairs expert Fiona Hill, and others also used the term "big lie" to refer to Trump's false claims about massive election fraud. By May 2021, many Republicans had come to embrace the false narrative and use it as justification to impose new voting restrictions and attempt to take control of the administrative management of elections. Multiple sources:
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.
 * Republicans who opposed the narrative faced backlash.

Dominion Voting Systems, which provided voting machines to many jurisdictions in the 2020 election, is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani. In the lawsuit, Dominion alleges that "he and his allies manufactured and disseminated the 'Big Lie', which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election."

In early 2021, The New York Times examined Trump's promotion of "the big lie" for political purposes to subvert the 2020 election, and concluded that the lie encouraged the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The attack was cited in a resolution to impeach Trump for a second time. During Trump's second impeachment trial, the house managers Jamie Raskin, Joe Neguse, Joaquin Castro, Stacey Plaskett and Madeleine Dean all used the phrase "the big lie" repeatedly to refer to the notion that the election was stolen, with a total of 16 mentions in the initial presentation alone. The phrase, leading up to and including the election period, formed the first section of the "provocation" part of the argument.

On October 7, the Senate Judiciary Committee released new testimony and a staff report, according to which:

"we were only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis as President Donald Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of the Department of Justice (DOJ). They also reveal how former Acting Civil Division Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark became Trump's Big Lie Lawyer, pressuring his colleagues in DOJ to force an overturn of the 2020 election."

In early 2022, The New York Times presented a detailed analysis of the continuing efforts by Trump and his allies to further promote "the big lie" and related lies in their attempts to overturn and influence future elections, including those in 2022 and 2024.

On June 13, 2022, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack presented testimony that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, but nevertheless, promoted the false narrative to exploit donors, and, as a result, raked in "half a billion" dollars.


 * Trumpism


 * Veracity of statements by Donald Trump
 * As part of their attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claimed there had been massive election fraud and that Trump had really won the election. Their effort was characterized by some as an implementation of the "big lie" propaganda technique.
 * break
 * Voting by mail

There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way! May 26, 2020 President Trump repeatedly made false, misleading or baseless claims in his criticism of voting by mail in the United States. This included claims that other countries would print "millions of mail-in ballots", claims that "80 million unsolicited ballots" were being sent to Americans, and claims that Nevada's presidential election process was "100% rigged". Another claim was alleging massive voter fraud. In September 2020, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed by Trump, testified under oath that the FBI had "not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise".
 * break
 * 2020 presidential election
 * 20210609 Trump lies, statements after leaving office - horizontal bar chart.svg reported that through June 9, 2021, Trump had issued 132 written statements since leaving office, of which "a third have included lies about the election"—more than any other subject. ]]


 * During his 2020 presidential campaign, Trump claimed his opponent Joe Biden would "destroy" Americans' "protections for pre-existing conditions", while Trump's administration has said the entire Affordable Care Act, which created such protections, should be struck down.


 * On November 4, Trump delivered a speech inside the White House falsely claiming he had already won the 2020 presidential election. He made numerous false and misleading statements to support his belief that vote counting should stop and that he should be confirmed as the winner. After Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election, Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed Biden had won through ballot fraud against him. He repeated and tweeted false and misleading claims about vote counting, Dominion Voting Systems, poll watchers, alleged voting irregularities, and more. During the two-month transition period to the Biden administration, according to a Huffington Post count of his false claims, Trump said the election was rigged (he made this claim 68 times), stolen (35 times), determined by fraudulent or miscounted votes (250 times), and affected by malfunctioning voting machines (45 times).


 * Regarding the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump said "hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people" had gathered to hear him speak whereas the Associated Press reported it as "several thousand." (About 2,000 later entered the Capitol.)


 * Following the election, Trump continued to claim he had won it and that it was a rigged election. Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime Trump associate who was briefly White House communications director before breaking with Trump, said in July 2022 that the former president knew the election had not been stolen. Scaramucci said that during the 2016 campaign Trump had asked him and others why people didn't realize he was playacting and 'full of it' at least half the time, "so he knows that this is all a lie."


 * Wealth_of_Donald_Trump
 * -- Post-presidency --
 * After Trump lost the 2020 election, Deutsche Bank senior banker Rosemary Vrablic announced on December 22, 2020, that she was resigning from the bank effective December 31. The reasons for her resignation were unknown, but the New York Times provided context: In 2011, Vrablic had taken Trump as a client and loaned him $300 million, although this was controversial within the bank, especially as Trump had defaulted on a large loan they'd given him just three years earlier. She also engaged in personal business transactions with Trump. It was expected that Deutsche Bank employees would be asked to testify before a grand jury in the criminal investigations of the Manhattan DA.


 * Following the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump suddenly lost a number of platforms and relationships, including Twitter, Facebook, Stripe, Shopify, and a PGA Championship that was to be held at one of his golf courses. Deutsche Bank said it would no longer do business with Trump, while Signature Bank (an American company) not only began closing his accounts but also called for him to resign the presidency. New York City revoked its contracts with the Trump Organization, which include ice skating rinks and a carousel at Central Park and the Trump Golf Links at the Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx, for which it had been paying the Trump Organization $17 million per year. The real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield said it would no longer handle leasing for the Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street.


 * As Trump's presidency ended, a number of Mar-a-Lago members were quietly abandoning their paying memberships, according to journalist Laurence Leamer, who had written a book about the resort two years previously. In March 2021, the beach club and dining room were temporarily shut down after staff were diagnosed with COVID-19. In early 2021, after leaving the presidency, Trump was working out of Mar-a-Lago, where he converted a bridal suite into an office.


 * Two months after Biden's inauguration, it was reported that Trump's personal Boeing 757 was in need of repairs and that it had not flown since his presidential term ended.


 * In November 2021, Trump released a coffeetable book, Our Journey Together, that sold for $75 per copy and had gross sales of $20 million within two months. He used images taken by taxpayer-funded White House photographers, though he did not credit the source for any of the images.


 * In February 2022, the House Oversight Committee tried to prevent Trump from selling his lease of the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C. for a $100 million profit, arguing that he had given the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) "at least one financial statement with possible material misrepresentations" and should not be "rewarded" for "seeking to profit off the presidency." He has run the Trump International Hotel since 2016 out of the Old Post Office, where the GSA gave him a 60-year lease in 2013. (1)

(2)

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(5)

--- Fundraising ---
 * After losing the November 2020 election, Trump formed a political action committee (PAC) called "Save America". Beginning the day after the election and continuing until the vote certification on January 6, 2021, Trump's mass emails to his supporters asked for small-dollar contributions to the "Official Election Defense Fund," which did not exist; all the funds raised went to Save America. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the PAC had raised $31 million by the end of 2020 and $255.4 million by the end of January 2021.


 * "Save America" is also entitled to $45 million from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, which raised those funds together with the Republican National Committee (RNC). While Trump had claimed the money would go toward challenging his own 2020 election loss and supporting Republicans in the Georgia Senate runoff election, the money was not used for these purposes. Trump may use this money for his legal defense for his second impeachment trial, or he can donate it to other political candidates. By mid-2022, 69 Trump allies had received $350,000 from Save America. Some of it was also spent at Trump Organization properties.


 * A Trump fundraising email on March 8, 2021, told donors that their money should go to the Save America PAC rather than to "RINOs" [“Republicans in name only,”]. As of March 2021, Trump's website said that 90% of new donations would go to the Save America PAC and the remainder to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) PAC, a new entity he created on February 27, 2021, with the remaining $8 million from the former Donald J. Trump For President campaign committee. He made his first in-person fundraising request in a public setting on February 28 at the Conservative Political Action Conference. In April 2021, The New York Times reported that a Trump adviser claimed that Trump's available political funds ($85 million) roughly equalled the RNC's ($84 million). It was anticipated that Trump would encounter difficulty maintaining his donor lists, however, given that Facebook was still not allowing him to use its platform as of May 2021.


 * A number of large companies halted their political contributions to Trump after the storming of the Capitol, and, coincidentally, Trump's largest political donor, Sheldon Adelson, died on January 11, 2021.


 * The Save America PAC raised around $75 million during the first half of 2021. Though some was spent on Trump's travel costs, legal costs, and staff costs, none was spent on ballot reviews of the 2020 election, despite advertisements for donors to "join the fight to secure our elections". By the end of June 2021, the Save America PAC had paid over $200,000 to a legal firm associated with Trump's interactions with the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack while paying nothing for the defense of hundreds of Trump supporters facing charges related to January 6. At that time, the Save America PAC and MAGA PAC combined had nearly $102 million in cash reserves.


 * The Save America PAC donated nothing to other candidates in January 2022 and had $108 million at the end of that month, more than double what the Republican National Committee had. Through February 2022, the Save America PAC gave $205,000 to 41 federal candidates and $145,500 to 29 state candidates while sitting on over $110 million.


 * Donor refunds
 * In September and October 2020, the for-profit donation processor WinRed presented recurring donations as the default option, a feature that was revealed in the fine print. From mid-October 2020 to the end of 2020, the Trump campaign and the RNC refunded over $64 million to online donors who had complained they had only meant to make one-time contributions. During the first half of 2021, another $12.8 million was refunded.

Attempt to co-opt DOJ
2. Trump planned to remove and replace the Attorney General and Justice Department officials in an effort to force the DOJ to support false allegations of election fraud;

Pressured Pence to abandon Constitution
3. Trump pressured Vice President Pence to refuse certified electoral votes in the official count on January 6, in violation of the U.S. Constitution;

Pressured state lawmakers and officials
4. Trump pressured state lawmakers and election officials to alter election results in his favor;

Fake electors
5. Trump’s legal team and associates directed Republicans in seven states to produce and send fake "alternate" electoral slates to Congress and the National Archives;
 * Eastman memos
 * Draft:Trump_alternate_electors_controversy
 * Electoral Count Act
 * Certificate of ascertainment

Summoned the mob, knew they were armed, sent them to capitol
6. Trump summoned and assembled a destructive mob in Washington and sent them to march on the U.S. Capitol; and
 * 1776 Returns

Dereliction of duty during attack
7. Trump ignored multiple requests to speak out in real-time against the mob violence, refused to instruct his supporters to disband and failed to take any immediate actions to halt attacks on the Capitol.

From main cat for the election

 * 2020 United States presidential election
 * 2020 United States presidential primary elections
 * Sanders–Trump voters
 * 2020 Green National Convention
 * 2020 United States presidential election predictions
 * 2021 United States Electoral College vote count
 * Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election
 * Biden-Sanders Unity Task Forces
 * Blue shift (politics)
 * BlueLink (company)
 * Jeffrey Clark
 * 2020 Democratic National Convention
 * Eastman memos
 * John Eastman
 * Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference
 * Fundraising in the 2020 United States presidential election
 * Jeffrey Clark letter
 * Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election
 * Pre-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election
 * 2020 United States presidential debates
 * Presidential transition of Joe Biden
 * Real News Update
 * 2020 Republican National Convention
 * Republican reactions to Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud
 * Social media in the 2020 United States presidential election
 * Texas v. Pennsylvania
 * Ginni Thomas
 * Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election
 * Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election (2017–2019)
 * Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election (January–October 2020)
 * Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election (November 2020–January 2021)
 * 2020–21 United States election protests

attempts to overturn
Attempts to overturn
 * Protests
 * during inauguration week
 * U.S. Capitol attack
 * timeline
 * aftermath
 * second impeachment of Donald Trump
 * trial
 * January 6 commission
 * reactions
 * domestic
 * international
 * Trump–Raffensperger phone call
 * Eastman memos

Lawsuits

 * Filed before Election Day
 * Filed during or after Election Day
 * Arizona
 * Georgia
 * Michigan
 * Nevada
 * Pennsylvania
 * Wisconsin
 * Texas v. Pennsylvania

From category on lawsuits
 do correlation check  Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election from Arizona Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election from Michigan Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election from Nevada Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election from Pennsylvania Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election from Wisconsin Texas v. Pennsylvania

Controversies

 * Russian interference
 * Voting restrictions

Misc
8 Domestic reactions to the 2021 United States Capitol attack
 * fraud precursor 2017-18 Presidential_Advisory_Commission_on_Election_Integrity
 * Lots of mentions of fraud in Donald_Trump_2020_presidential_campaign

templates and categories to look through
look here for more articles to include in outline

Category:Controversies of the 2020 United States presidential election