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Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more revelations about the Trump kids and their spouses, we got a weekend chockablock with them. On Saturday we learned that Donald Trump’s namesake was texting with his dad’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, about overturning the 2020 presidential election before his father had even been declared the loser. On November 5, 2020, Don Jr. texted Meadows the following message: “It’s very simple … We have multiple paths We control them all.” According to CNN, the rest of the text “outlines a strategy that is nearly identical to what allies of the former President attempted to carry out in the months that followed. Trump Jr. makes specific reference to filing lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results, as well as having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake ‘Trump electors.’” That same day, Junior texted Meadows that, “We have operational control Total leverage. Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now.”
The irony of Junior claiming moral high ground aside, these texts are meaningful because they occurred just two days after the 2020 election, showing that even then Trumpworld was already plotting. Junior previewed the fake-Republican-electors strategy that other Trumpers would later shop.
On Nov. 4, 2020, according to the House January 6 select committee, former Trump energy secretary Rick Perry texted Meadows, “HERE’s an AGRESSIVE [sic] STRATEGY: Why can t [sic] the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS.” Either a lot of people in Trumpworld had the same idea at the same time, or they were all working together. It’s a high bar to prove the latter, but it also seems unlikely that this was all some kind of coincidence.