This scheme was defended by a fringe legal theory developed by Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman, detailed in the Eastman memos, which claimed a vice president has the constitutional discretion to swap official electors with an alternate slate during the certification process, thus changing the outcome of the electoral college vote and the overall winner of the presidential race.

"[13] On November 4, the day after the election, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows received a text message calling for an "aggressive strategy" of having the Republican-led legislatures of three uncalled states "just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the [Supreme Court]".

[15] That same day, Donald Trump Jr. sent a text message to Meadows outlining paths to subvert the Electoral College process and ensure his father a second term.

"[17] Senator Mike Lee and Meadows exchanged a series of text messages referring to Sidney Powell's alleged interest in pursuing a fake electors plot.

[34] Both Meadows and Giuliani were informed that a White House Counsel's Office review of the plans to use alternate electors concluded that the scheme was not legally sound.

It showed that Mike Roman, Trump's 2020 director of election day operations, had spoken with teams around the country focused on the effort to appoint false electors, reported developments back to her, which she then relayed to the email recipients.

Those recipients included Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn and one-time Trump attorneys Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing.

Wilenchik wrote of a strategy by Kelli Ward, the Arizona Republican Party chair, "to keep it under wraps until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6th (so we can try to 'surprise' the Dems and media with it) – I tend to agree with her.

"[2] On December 13, 2020, Robert Sinners, the campaign's election operations director for Georgia, emailed state Republicans planning to cast alternate electors for Trump.

Sinners wrote: "Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion."

Senator Ron Johnson and Representative Scott Perry, as well as GOP Congressional staff, took part in plans to deliver the fake certificates to Pence.

[42] The alternate elector certificates for Pennsylvania and New Mexico contained language indicating they would take effect only if the Trump campaign's challenges to the election results were sustained by the courts.

To placate their concerns, the alternate elector certificates were reworded to contain language indicating that they would only hold legitimacy if Trump prevailed in court efforts to overturn the election results.

[62] Also in December 2023, CNN reported that Kenneth Chesebro, who was also a defendant in the previously mentioned civil suit, was cooperating with officials in Wisconsin, the first indication that a formal investigation was underway in the state.

The strategy was explicitly spelled out in the John Eastman memo: the existence of "competing" slates of electors was intended to provide justification for Congress to disallow the results from the seven states.

Troupis told the president that his chances of winning Wisconsin were over, but Chesebro said the fake electors gathered in Arizona and six other states still gave Trump an opening to continue challenging the results.

He was among the members of a Trump team present in a Willard Hotel "command center" that sought to prevent Pence from certifying Biden's election on January 6.

The January 6 committee disclosed during a June 2022 hearing that Sean Riley, chief of staff to senator Ron Johnson, attempted to pass fraudulent elector certificates to a top Pence aide minutes before the vice president was to certify the election results, but was rebuffed.

[74] Jeffrey Clark, the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, was introduced to Trump by Republican congressman Scott Perry.

If any state did not return their electoral slate by that date, neither Trump nor Biden would hold a majority, so the election would be thrown to the House for a vote to determine the winner.

Per the Constitution, in such a scenario the vote would be conducted on the basis of party control of state delegations to the federal House of Representatives, with Republicans holding 26 of 50, presumably giving Trump the victory.

[83] On January 5, congressman Jim Jordan forwarded to Meadows a text message he had received from Joseph Schmitz, a Trump 2016 campaign foreign policy advisor.

[85][86][87] Despite assumptions about Eastman's role, the January 6 committee's final report, which was released on December 22, 2022, named lesser known lawyer Kenneth Chesebro as the plot's original proponent.

[63] In early 2021, the watchdog group American Oversight obtained copies of the false documents from the National Archives via a Freedom of Information request; they published them on their website in March 2021.

[101] By this time, at least eight of the sixteen Republicans who allegedly participated in the Georgia scheme had accepted immunity deals to cooperate with Fani Willis in her investigation.

[47] In March 2024 Mayes issued subpoenas to several of the fraudulent electors and unidentified members of the Trump campaign requiring them to appear before a grand jury.

[112] The case was later dismissed after Trump won the 2024 United States presidential election due to the Justice Department's policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents.

The defendants, who included Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Meadows, Chesebro, Sidney Powell, David Shafer and Shawn Still among others,[114] were charged with a variety of offenses, many of which related to involvement in the fake electors plot.

Among those named were former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward and Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point USA.

The Washington Post reported the redacted individuals were Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman.