Topline
Allies of former President Donald Trump circulated a memo in the aftermath of the 2020 election that called for Trump to enlist the National Security Agency and Department of Defense—and the electronic data the NSA gathers—to find proof of election fraud, the Washington Post reports, which would have raised privacy concerns and gone beyond other Trump efforts to overturn the election.
Former President Donald Trump gives a fist pump to the crowd as he arrives to speak at a rally on ... [+]
Key Facts
A memo developed by several Trump allies called for him to assemble an advisory team who would perform “targeted inquiries” using NSA data to determine whether there was foreign interference in the election that changed the vote totals, according to a copy of the memo published by the Post.
If the group found evidence of interference—which there is no evidence of—it would have used that to direct the Department of Defense to challenge the election and “defend the Constitution in a manner superior to current civilian-only judicial remedies,” the memo states.
The memo calls for using “unprocessed raw signals data” from the NSA; while it’s not clear exactly what that entails, the Post notes the agency gathers such information as “text messages, phone calls, emails, social media posts and satellite communications” from Americans.
The memo—which notes it should be “dispose[d] of via shredding”—was developed by a military-linked attorney, a former National Security Council official who was fired for spreading conspiracy theories and a failed GOP congressional candidate, the Post reports, and was sent to several Republican senators.
There’s “no evidence” the memo actually made it to Trump, the Post reports, though people reportedly tried to get him to see it.
The process of using the NSA data would be “done confidentially” and its findings could be used to support other fraud inquiries that were trying to overturn the election, the memo notes.
Tangent
The Post reports several senators received the memo after attending a previously unreported meeting on January 4, which was organized by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and reportedly pushed baseless theories about election fraud and hacked voting machines that are unsubstantiated by evidence. Lindell told the Post the meeting was meant to garner congressional support for opposing the election results, though senators who attended the meeting—including Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Mo.)—appeared to be unpersuaded by the arguments. “Honestly, I was not impressed by these people,” Cramer told the Post.
Crucial Quote
“To use an overused term, all of this would have been completely unprecedented,” Obama administration cybersecurity coordinator and Cyber Threat Alliance CEO Michael Daniel told the Post about the memo, which he described as a “crazy tangle of things” that misunderstood White House operations. “It would have been a radical departure from normal procedure.”
Key Background
There is no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election or of any widespread election fraud. The NSA proposal was part of a broader effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the presidential results, though the Post notes the plan would have carried “particular legal and ethical concerns” that differentiate it from other election plots, given its use of NSA data. The Post report also follows a recent New York Times report that Trump considered using the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in key battleground states, due to a far-right conspiracy linking voting machines to election fraud that there is no evidence to support. Though Trump’s broader efforts to flip the election were well documented at the time, his campaign has come under new scrutiny as the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 riot looks into the lead-up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol building and how Trump and his allies’ efforts played into it. Proposals like the NSA effort have become a “particular focus” of the committee’s inquiry, the Post reports.
Further Reading
Memo circulated among Trump allies advocated using NSA data in attempt to prove stolen election (Washington Post)
Fake GOP Electors Subpoenaed By January 6 Committee (Forbes)
