An employee of President Donald Trump’s campaign, whose video appears to be at a meeting in which 11 Arizona Republicans falsely declared themselves state presidential voters, was summoned by the Justice Department on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported.
A man who appears to be Thomas Lane was seen in a video released by the Republican Party of Arizona in December 2020 handing out pieces of paper during a meeting at which Republicans signed documents proving themselves to be “properly elected and qualified voters in Arizona.
In the video, the man is seen wearing a jacket with a zipper and the Trump campaign logo on his right sleeve. The jacket, as seen in the video, had Lane’s last name.
Lane’s apparent presence in the video was first announced Wednesday by the Post.
Federal agents have called on Lane and three other Republicans linked to a scheme to create alternative groups of Republican voters and send those documents to Congress, The Post reported. The FBI’s investigations were part of the agency’s investigation into the causes of the January 6, 2021 uprising in the US Capitol.
Lane, according to his LinkedIn page, graduated from Sandra Day O’Connor’s law school at Arizona State University in 2020. After working for Trump’s campaign, he took over as director of the Republican Party’s election integrity in Virginia. according to his LinkedIn page.
Fake voters are meant to sow confusion, the note said
Voters were part of a multifaceted and complex scheme to fail the 2020 presidential election. The fake recruitment had no legal weight as it was not certified by any civil servant.
But the intention, as stated in a note written by Trump’s lawyer John Eastman, was to sow confusion. Seven states, including Arizona, have sent similar documents to the National Archives and the U.S. Senate.
The existence of alternative lists would allow Vice President Mike Pence, according to the note, to say he was unable to determine which one was official. He could then set aside the official votes and declare Trump the winner based on the votes he could count.
Alternatively, the note said the matter would be referred to the US House of Representatives, where, according to a provision also outlined in the 12th Amendment, each state would receive one vote for president. Most of the states at the time had contingents with a Republican majority, the note said, giving another way to Trump’s victory.
The campaign to implement this scheme in Arizona and other states was the subject of hearings on national television of the House Election Commission’s election commission, which is investigating the Capitol riot.
In testimony before the commission on Tuesday, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers described receiving phone calls from Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York. The men asked him to de-certify the election and get the state legislature to appoint Trump voters.
Bowers refused to go.
So, a second tactic was used in Arizona and six other states.
What happened in the video?
On December 14, 2020, 11 Republicans from Arizona met at the party’s headquarters in Phoenix. The 11 would be Arizona’s official voters if Trump won the state; their names were listed in small print next to Trump’s name in the 2020 general election ballot.
After a prayer, the 11 signed documents incorrectly stating that they were “properly selected and qualified” voters from Arizona.
In the video, Lane, who according to his LinkedIn page was director of operations on Trump’s election day, can be seen handing out a sheet of paper to eight of the 11 voters before disappearing from the screen.
It is not clear from the video what the document is. A document sent to the National Archives, which the agency publishes on its website, shows that all 11 Republicans have signed a list declaring themselves “properly elected and qualified” presidential voters.
For subscribers: Arizona Chamber of Commerce President Rusty Bowers applauds on the plane after testimony
Others are invited to participate
In addition to Lane, the FBI has issued a subpoena to three other people, according to the New York Times.
Two, David Shaffer and Brad Carver, signed as Trump’s fake voters in Georgia. Another, Sean Flynn, was a campaign collaborator in Michigan, the Times reported.
Lane did not sign as a fake voter. His role in the scheme was unclear.
None of the 11 fake voters in Arizona described in detail how they learned where to be on the day of the signing, nor did they explain how the documents they signed were created.
Kelly Ward, the leader of the Republican Party in Arizona, said in a video released the next day that she and others who signed the document believed they represented the “true voters” of Arizona.
“We believe we are the voters for the legally cast votes here in Arizona,” she said.
The House Election Commission’s election commission, which is investigating the January 6 riot, called on Ward, as well as phone records belonging to her and her husband Michael, another fake voter.
The wards filed a lawsuit against the commission in federal court in Phoenix, struggling to uncover their records.
The commission also called on Nancy Kottle and Lorraine Peligrino, who signed the documents as chairman and secretary. Peligrino, in a brief telephone conversation with the Republic in May, said “absolutely nothing” came from the summons.
Other Republicans in Arizona who falsely assert themselves as voters include Republican Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek; former representative Anthony Kern, who is proposing to return to office in 2022; Jim Lamon, US Senate nominee; and Tyler Bower, chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, an advocacy group aimed at engaging young Republicans, founded by Charlie Kirk.
What the fake voters hoped would happen
The documents used by fake voters in Arizona were almost duplicates of the documents used in the other six states, including font and text. Republicans in two states, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, have inserted phrases that they will be voters only under certain conditions. Arizona did not contain such ambiguous language
Four days later, an appeal to the US Supreme Court asked judges to intervene and resolve disputes over voters.
In those court documents, the meeting of the fake Republican voters in Arizona will be mistakenly described as being held in the state Capitol, giving a shine to an official legislative blessing. Voters in Georgia and Wisconsin did meet in the state capital. Republican voters in Michigan tried to enter the Capitol in Lansing, but were denied entry by security.
A group of voters in Arizona later filed a lawsuit against Pence – a “friendly” gesture described by Ward in a video – to ask the courts to clarify that he has the power to decide which group of voters to take.
The idea that Pence had such power was promoted by Eastman, Trump’s lawyer, according to previous testimony from the commission.
Eastman found ambiguity in the procedure for counting the votes of the electoral college, outlined in the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution. In particular, Eastman pointed to the phrase: “… and then the votes will be counted.”
He saw the fact that this phrase was written in a passive voice, meaning that the vice president would have the sole power over which voices to count on.
In 1877, Congress passed a more specific law that dictated how the votes of the electoral college would be counted, in particular how disputes would be settled. But Eastman was among a group of scholars who saw the law as unconstitutional.
Trump says he wanted the legislature to look into fraud
Eastman’s reasoning obviously made sense to Trump.
In a speech in Nashville on Thursday, Trump said he was amazed when other advisers told him that Pence had no authority to cast votes in the states, even if he thought there was fraud. Trump said it didn’t make sense to him that Pence would have “no choice but to be a human conveyor belt.”
On Thursday, Trump said he did not expect Pence to decide the election unilaterally or to ask Congress. Instead, he said he thought Pence should have sent the certificates back to the state legislature.
“I wanted him to send it to the legislature,” Trump said, “if they see the same kind of fraud and if they see the same kind of irregularities that I saw.”
Eastman, according to testimony on Thursday, admitted to members of Pence’s legal team that his scheme would not pass legal tests, acknowledging that he would lose in the US Supreme Court at best by 7-2 votes.
After the uprising of January 6, 2021 and in the weakening days of Trump’s presidency, according to the commission, Eastman asked for a preventive pardon.
“I decided I should be on the pardon list,” Eastman wrote in a text message to Giuliani, “if it’s still in the works.”
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