- In 2020, Trump allies proposed alternate slates of electors to deny President Joe Biden's victory.
- The Justice Department is investigating whether laws were broken.
- A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas seeking information on lawyers connected to the scheme.
A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas seeking information on the role that Rudy Giuliani and other then-lawyers for former President Donald Trump may have played in a scheme to steal the 2020 election.
Following Trump's defeat in November 2020, Republicans in seven states came up with unauthorized lists of alternate electors who would support the former president's efforts to cling to power, citing debunked claims of widespread electoral fraud.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that a federal criminal investigation into the effort had zeroed on Trump's team of lawyers, including Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and John Eastman.
Eastman was also the author of a memo providing a dubious legal rationale for former Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors from states such as Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, ostensibly over fraud.
The effort to put forward alternate elector slates had support from the White House.
Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, said of the plan, "I love it," according to a text message sent three days after the election and obtained by the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.
In the weeks following, Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, circulated memos about the alternate elector scheme, claiming that they could be recognized as the legitimate electors on January 6.
Ellis, Eastman, and Giuliani did not immediately respond to requests for comment.