A month following Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential defeat, a draft White House executive order ordered the nation’s top military official to seize election machinery across the United States, according to documents released Friday.
The explosive document, released by the Politico media and from the National Archives, highlights the extreme measures the former Republican president was willing to take to cling to power.
“As of today, the Minister of Defense must seize, collect, preserve and analyze all machines, all equipment, all electronically stored information” concerning the election, indicates the three-page draft, never signed .
Dated December 16, 2020, the decree also provided for the appointment of a special prosecutor responsible for filing complaints for any allegations of fraud arising from the seizures. To justify this project, the document lists a series of conspiracy theories – repeatedly denied – on the fact that electoral machines would have been hacked. It is not known by whom the text was written.
Republican support still broad
It is among more than 750 documents handed over to the House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol storming, following the Supreme Court denied Donald Trump’s appeal to block their disclosure. The commission did not respond to requests from AFP.
This group, composed mainly of elected Democrats, seeks to establish the responsibility of Donald Trump and his entourage in the assault on the seat of Congress on January 6, 2021.
A year following officially leaving power, Donald Trump maintains that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. According to opinion polls, more than half of Republican voters agree with him.
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp