Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.
On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they’d look “terrible” if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.
“We’ve got to fight for our country,” said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”
McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
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If he successfully kept states from certifying their votes, then Congress wouldn’t have been able to name a winner on January 6th. At that point, the vote would have gone to the House. In the House, each states’ Representatives vote and the winner gets that state’s vote. The candidate who wins the most states wins.
The Republicans hold the majority here and Trump would have been elected President regardless of the actual election result. So keeping the election from being certified was a last ditch effort to overturn the election results and “win” despite the fact that he lost.