By JAMELLE BOUIE
Donald Trump knew as well as anyone that he had lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square. He knew there was no conspiracy to commit voter fraud — no mysterious mail ballots, no “illegal” voting, no suspicious activity in key swing states. When he told his supporters that the election had been “rigged,” he was lying.
His monthslong effort to “stop the steal,” culminating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, was an exercise in deception. And we know it was an exercise in deception because Trump’s aides and allies said so. On the record. Under oath.
“The Defendant’s vice president,” reads the indictment in United States v. Donald J. Trump, “told the Defendant that he had seen no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud.” His attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, said the same. So did his director of national intelligence, senior White House attorneys and the top staff members and strategists on his campaign.
Everyone told Trump that he had lost. They showed him the numbers. They urged him to relent. The party was over, and Joe Biden would be the next president.
Even Trump seemed to acknowledge, in private, that he had lost the election. “Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?” he said while watching Biden on television, according to testimony given by a former White House aide, Alyssa Farah Griffin.
To say, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that there was systematic voter fraud is to lie. And Trump, again, was lying. But he was...
By JAMELLE BOUIE Donald Trump knew as well as anyone that he had lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square. He knew there was no conspiracy to commit voter fraud — no mysterious mail bal...