2020 Fake Electors Plot

Locations

Arizona
Georgia
Michigan
Nevada
New Mexico
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin

Sources

  1. Wikipedia - "Trump fake electors plot" Accessed, August 18, 2025.
  2. Ryan Goodman, Jacob Glick. “Comprehensive Timeline on False Electors Scheme in 2020 Presidential Election.” Just Security, 11 July 2024, www.justsecurity.org/81939/timeline-false-electors/
  3. Wikipedia - "Kenneth Chesebro" Accessed, September 19, 2025.
  4. Wikipedia - "Eastman memos" Accessed, September 19, 2025

Background

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election but refuses to concede, claiming victory prematurely. Trump originally acknowledged that he had lost the election but modified his tone to convey that he would never quit, according to Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for the New York Times.

Statement by Maggie:

Trump seemed to recognize he had lost to Biden. He asked advisers to tell him what had gone wrong. He comforted one adviser, saying, 'We did our best.' Trump told junior press aides, 'I thought we had it,'

Then his mood changed to:

"I'm just not going to leave," Trump told one aide, according to Haberman. "We're never leaving," Trump told another. "How can you leave when you won an election?" He was overheard asking the chair of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, "Why should I leave if they stole it from me?"

In a testimony, Jeanna Ellis, a defendant in the Georgia Election RICO Prosecution, testified to this. Dan Scavino informed Ellis during a White House Christmas party that Trrump would not resign, and Ellis recalled that:

"And he said to me, you know, in a kind of excited tone, 'Well, we don't care, and we're not going to leave.' "The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power."

Timeline

November 4th, 2020: Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, got a text message urging for a "aggressive strategy" of having the Republican-controlled legislatures of three uncalled states "just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the [sic] Supreme Court". The communication was allegedly delivered by Rick Perry, Trump's secretary of energy.

November 5th, 2020: Roger Stone dictated a message stating that "any legislative body" with "overwhelming evidence of fraud" can appoint their own electors to cast Electoral College ballots. That same day, Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows about ways to disrupt the Electoral College process and secure his father's second term. He wrote, "It's very simple. We have multiple paths. We control them all. We have operational control. Total leverage. Moral high ground. POTUS must start second term now." Trump Jr. continued, "Republicans control 28 states Democrats 22 states. Once again Trump wins", adding, "We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021."