Originally Published: February 7, 2024 9:01 a.m.
The true believers were buzzing.
It was Jan. 2 and former President Trump had just used his "Truth Social" platform to release a 32-page "Summary of Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election in the Swing States." The document rehashed thoroughly debunked claims, promoted blatantly false information, and repeatedly cited other reports that do not actually appear to exist to make the patently absurd assertion there is "no evidence Joe Biden won." In other words, it was everything many hardcore Trump supporters who refuse to accept his defeat had been waiting for.
On the site formerly known as Twitter where election dead-enders have taken advantage of Elon Musk's permissive attitude towards right-wing conspiracy theories, a few thousand pro-Trump activists spent nearly 13 hours in an audio chat discussing the document, which they dubbed "The Nucleus File." But the report was more than an object of fascination for the pro-Trump fringe.
Along with becoming a hot topic in delirious Twitter Spaces, the report was cited in a Jan. 2 federal court filing by Trump's attorneys, part of a wild strategy to argue he was immune from prosecution in the election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
The use of a questionable anonymous document to incorporate election conspiracies into his defense raised eyebrows from legal observers, even those who had grown familiar with the former president's everything-at-the-wall approach to his defense. One lawyer who previously worked for Trump described the move to TPM as not just unlikely to help his case, but akin to bringing up an "alien abduction" before a judge.
"That'll never get off the ground," said the lawyer, Ty Cobb, a veteran defense attorney who was special counsel on Trump's White House legal team during the Mueller investigation and who has since become an outspoken Trump critic.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Trump's team on Tuesday and allowed the prosecution to move forward at the district court level. In their decision, the circuit court panel stuck to the question at hand and completely ignored the assertion from Trump's legal team that the 2020 outcome was up for debate. Instead, the court flatly declared Trump both an election loser and a danger to the democracy.
"Former President Trump's alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government," the judges wrote.
The document may not have had any impact in court, but there are many indications it is part of a larger — and ongoing — project for Trump's presidential campaign that his activist allies describe as a "nuclear" assault. The promotion of the document by the former president and its use in his legal defense ultimately served as proof that Trump is making the fever dream that he won the last election a part of the current one. Trump is dragging all elements of his political universe with him down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, including his campaign team, an army of attorneys, Republican Party leaders, and the activists who have driven the false narrative online and are increasingly targeting election infrastructure in the real world.
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