Former President Donald Trump’s campaign orchestrated the effort to file a false certificate declaring he won Michigan’s 16 electoral votes in the 2020 election, according to a report published Thursday by The Detroit News.
Emails obtained by The News suggest the goal was to either reverse the results, hold the total electoral vote count below 270, or simply call the results into question. The emails were between two Trump attorneys and a campaign advisor.
In one of the messages, it appears Trump attorney John Eastman discusses an effort to have a deadlocked electoral vote sent to the U.S. House of Representatives.
"If the Republicans there hold true and vote with their state delegations, Trump should win a bare majority of the states," it says.
The certificate was allegedly signed by the false electors at the Michigan Republican Party headquarters in Lansing before it was sent to the National Archives and to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the official count. The report says Trump’s team not only prepared the formal mailing, but also flew the certificate to Washington themselves.
The account conflicts with Michigan GOP leaders who said that the effort was to have Trump electoral votes on the record in case courts overturned the official results.
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. A Michigan Attorney General’s spokesperson would not comment on “an active and ongoing investigation.”