Tom Boggioni
October 23, 2021
Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump (Photo via Don Emmert/AFP)
According to a report in the Washington Post, allies and lawyers employed by Donald Trump set up what was called a "command center" in a Washington D.C. hotel the week of the Jan 6th Capitol riot from which they coordinated efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The report states that the center headquartered at the Willard Hotel became home to Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and John Eastman -- the attorney behind the now notorious "coup memo -- among others.
According to the report, while the "Stop the Steal" rally and the ensuing riot was the most visible effort to stop the certification, "...an emerging picture of a less visible effort, mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term," at the hotel.
"They sought to make the case to Pence and ramp up pressure on him to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within his powers, three people familiar with the operation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations," the Post is reporting. "Their activities included finding and publicizing alleged evidence of fraud, urging members of state legislatures to challenge Biden's victory and calling on the Trump-supporting public to press Republican officials in key states."
Sources told the WaPo that work was intense at the command center, "... leading up to and even extending beyond 1 p.m. on Jan 6."
"In those first days in January, from the command center, Trump allies were calling members of Republican-dominated legislatures in swing states that Eastman had spotlighted in his memos, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, encouraging them to convene special sessions to investigate fraud and to reassign electoral college votes from Biden to Trump, two of the people familiar with the operation said," the report notes.
The report goes on to add, " [Bernard] Kerik and Giuliani set up shop in Washington in early November at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, according to Kerik, and in the third week in December moved to the Willard, closer to the White House. The Willard attracted many pro-Trump figures around that time, including 'Stop the Steal' provocateur Roger Stone. Stone was not part of the Giuliani team at the Willard and did not participate in the team's efforts, according to the three people with knowledge of the matter."
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