The Significance Of DOJ’s New Reveal About Trump Agent’s Effort To Cause Riot To Stop 2020 Vote Count In Detroit
In a new court filing, Special Counsel Jack Smith has revealed more of the evidence he proposes to introduce during the Washington, D.C. criminal Jan. 6 trial of former President Donald Trump next year.
Smith’s new filing includes a significant, striking, and previously unknown revelation, according to Tom Joscelyn, Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.), and Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, writing in Just Security.
The Special Counsel “alleges that a Trump ‘Campaign Employee’ – also identified as Trump’s ‘agent’ – sought to cause a riot to disrupt the centralized vote counting in Detroit on Nov. 4, 2020,” Joscelyn, Eisen, and Wertheimer write. “That goes beyond allegations of merely exploiting violence by third-parties to raise a new level of alleged wrongdoing.”
While many of the examples cited by Smith in this latest filing, including how Trump encouraged violence against Vice President Mike Pence and two election workers in Georgia, are already well known, “the new allegation merits particular attention,” the authors write.
Joscelyn, Eisen, and Wertheimer unpack in detail the latest evidence from Smith’s filing about the alleged effort by a Trump agent seeking to cause violence to disrupt the 2020 vote count in Detroit.
“There’s much more to the Special Counsel’s latest filing,” Joscelyn, Eisen, and Wertheimer write. “Smith and his team have built a strong case showing that Trump both knowingly lied about the 2020 presidential election and encouraged violence. And Trump’s toxic combination of lies and encouragement directly caused the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. But this previously undisclosed November 4 episode of attempted violence in Detroit merits particular attention.”
The authors discuss what the latest filing from Jack Smith alleges regarding the effort to violently disrupt the vote count at the TCF Center in Detroit and Trump’s continuing to lie about fraud in Detroit even after his conspiracy theories were debunked by his Attorney General William Barr.
According to an excerpt from the Just Security report:
“The Justice Department alleges that a ‘Campaign Employee’ — a person who is also described both as an ‘unindicted conspirator’ and Trump’s ‘agent’ — attempted to cause violence to ‘obstruct the vote count’ at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan.
[…]
“The Special Counsel bases this allegation on ‘a series of text messages’ between the Campaign Employee and ‘an attorney supporting the Campaign’s election day operations at the TCF Center in Detroit.’ The text exchange occurred on Nov. 4, 2020, as the votes were still being counted. The Campaign Employee allegedly ‘encouraged rioting and other methods of obstruction when he learned that the vote count was trending in favor’ of Joe Biden.
[…]
“Special Counsel notes that ‘around the time of these messages, an election official at the TCF Center observed that as Biden began to take the lead, a large number of untrained individuals flooded the TCF Center and began making illegitimate and aggressive challenges to the vote count.’
“Contemporaneous reporting from Nov. 4, 2020 confirms that ‘angry demonstrators attempted to barge inside the TCF Center’ as they chanted ‘stop the count.’ A brief video of the incident is available on the ABC News website.”
“While this incident has long been known,” Joscelyn, Eisen, and Wertheimer write, “the Special Counsel’s filing is the first indication that there was more to the story – and that Trump’s own Campaign Employee – Trump’s agent — had sought to cause a riot.”
The authors continue: “While the mob failed to stop the vote count in Detroit, the alleged motivation for that incident was the same as the much larger riot at the U.S. Capitol two months later: to stop votes from being counted. And in his latest filing, Smith repeatedly emphasizes Trump’s encouragement of violence.”
Tom Joscelyn served as a senior staff member of the House Jan. 6th Committee and was one of the principal authors of its final report. Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.) served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee majority during the impeachment proceedings and trial of President Trump. Fred Wertheimer is the founder and President of Democracy 21.
Read the full analysis on Just Security.
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