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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This week when Special Counsel Jack Smith announced the indictment of Donald Trump on conspiring to defraud the United States and disenfranchise voters in the 2020 election, he made a point to say this.

Special Counsel Jack Smith: The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full.

Brian Lehrer: I encourage everyone to read it in full. Special Counsel Smith also made sure to remind everyone of this.

Special Counsel Jack Smith: I must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation, and that the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Brian Lehrer: Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday. In the spirit of that presumption, and of the constitution in one of the most consequential cases that our democracy could ever see, this is a special edition of The Brian Lehrer Show today as we take on Jack Smith's plea to all Americans. Again, he encouraged everyone to read the indictment in full.

Now, we don't have time in this two-hour show for every word, but what we can do is read a lot of it, letting you hear many of the details of the evidence that the special counsel wants us to judge for ourselves.

We will also save some time at the end of the show for some calls from you to say what jumped out at you from hearing the text that you may not have realized just from the news reports over the last few days. I won't subject you to the torture of hearing just me read for nearly two hours. We're not that mean around here. We have five guest readers lined up who've each agreed to take different sections of the indictment to present as we go, but I will start with the opening section of the 45-page document. It is simply called the introduction and here we go.

Introduction. Paragraph 1. The defendant, Donald J. Trump, was the 45th president of the United States and a candidate for reelection in 2020. The defendant lost the 2020 presidential election. Paragraph 2. Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. For more than two months following election day on November 3rd, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election, and that he had actually won.

These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false, but the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and erode public faith in the administration of the election. Paragraph 3. The defendant had a right like every American to speak publicly about the election, and even to claim falsely that there had been outcome determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.

He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits, challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

Paragraph 4, shortly after election day, the defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In doing so, the defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies, A, conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit, to impair, obstruct and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted and certified by the federal government, in violation of United States Code 371.

B, a conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6th congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified, called the certification proceeding in violation of 18 USC 1512(k) and C, a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted in violation of 18 USC 241. Each of these conspiracies, which built on the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud, targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government.

The nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election, what the indictment then calls the federal government's function. Count one, conspiracy to defraud the United States. The allegations contained in paragraphs one through four in this indictment are alleged and fully incorporated here by the reference. The conspiracy.

Paragraph 6. From on or about November 14th, 2020, through on or about January 20th, 2021 in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the defendant Donald J. Trump did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree with co-conspirators known and unknown to the grand jury to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted and certified by the federal government.

Purpose of the conspiracy. Paragraph 7. The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified. The defendants co-conspirators. Paragraph 8. The defendant enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power. Among these were Co-conspirator 1. I'm going to insert here that co-conspirator one has been widely identified as Rudy Giuliani.

We're going to hear about Giuliani a lot during this reading today. Co-conspirator 1, an attorney who is willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the defendant's 2020 reelection campaign attorneys would not. Co-conspirator 2, an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the vice president's ceremonial role overseeing the certification to obstruct the certification of the presidential election. Co-defendant three, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded "crazy". Nonetheless, the defendant embraced and publicly amplified co-conspirator three's disinformation.

Co-conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters, and who with the defendant attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. Co-conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. Co-conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.

It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. That was the introduction to the indictment of Donald Trump. If you're just joining us, we are reading most of it on the show today in response to Special Counsel Jack Smith encouraging all Americans to read it for ourselves. Now, WNYC's Tiffany Hanssen will read the next section of the indictment called Manner and Means. Tiffany, take it away.

Tiffany Hanssen: All right. The defendant's conspiracy to impair, obstruct and defeat the federal government function through dishonesty, fraud and deceit included the following manner and means. The defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the defendant's opponent Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to electoral votes for the defendant, that is on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote, disenfranchise millions of voters, dismiss legitimate electors and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the defendant.

The defendant and co-conspirators organized fraudulent states of electors in seven targeted states, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Attempting to mimic the procedures that legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws. This included; causing the fraudulent electors to meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes, cast fraudulent votes for the defendant and signed certificate falsely representing that they were legitimate electors.

Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the defendant succeeded in outcome determinative lawsuits within their state, which the defendant never did. The defendant and co-conspirators then caused these fraudulent electors to transmit their false certificates to the vice president and other government officials to be counted at the certification proceeding on January 6th.

The defendant and co-conspirators attempted to use the power and authority of the Justice Department to conduct sham election crime investigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the election outcome that sought to advance the defendant's fraudulent elector plan by using the Justice Department's authority to falsely present the fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors.

That urged on behalf of the Justice Department, the targeted state's legislatures to convene to create the opportunity to choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors. The defendants and co-conspirators attempted to enlist the vice president to use his ceremonial role at the January 6th certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results. First, using knowingly false claims of election fraud, the defendant and co-conspirators attempted to convince the vice president to use the defendant's fraudulent electors, reject legitimate electoral votes, or send legitimate electoral votes to state legislatures for review rather than counting them.

When that failed on the morning of January 6th, the defendant and co-conspirators repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gather supporters, falsely told them that the vice president had the authority to and might alter the election results and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the vice president to take the fraudulent actions he had previously refused.

After it became public on the afternoon of January 6th that the vice president would not fraudulently alter the election results, a large and angry crowd, including many individuals whom the defendant had deceived into believing that the vice president could and might change the election results, violently attacked the capitol and halted the proceeding. As violence ensued, the defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.

Brian Lehrer: Now I'm going to jump in here for a second, Tiffany because I just want to draw everybody's attention to what you're about to read. I think this is one of the most important as well as compelling parts of the entire indictment. The section that you're about to get to called the defendant's knowledge of the falsity of his election fraud claims because I think this will be a key to whether they can prove in court that he had the intent to knowingly lie. I'm going to let you reread that subject title and continue on with the content of it but I just want to draw everyone's attention to what I think is a really key section of the indictment. Sorry for the interruption.

Tiffany Hanssen: No, the subject title is The Defendant's Knowledge of the Falsity of his Election Fraud Claims. It's paragraph 11. The defendant, his co-conspirators and their agents made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election. These prolific lies about election fraud included dozens of specific claims that there had been substantial fraud in certain states, such as large numbers of dead, non-resident, non-citizen, or otherwise ineligible voters had cast ballots or that voting machines had changed votes for the defendant to votes for Biden.

These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false. In fact, the defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters and who were best positioned to know the facts, and he deliberately disregarded the truth. For instance, the defendant's vice president who personally stood to gain by remaining in office as part of the defendant's ticket and whom the defendant had asked to study fraud allegations told the defendant that he had seen no evidence of outcome, determinative fraud.

The senior leaders of the Justice Department appointed by the defendant and responsible for investigating credible allegations of election crimes told the defendant on multiple occasions that various allegations of fraud were unsupported. The Director of National Intelligence, the defendant's principal advisor on intelligence matters related to National Security disabused the defendant of the notion that the intelligence community's findings regarding foreign interference would change the outcome of the election.

The Department of Homeland Securities, Cybersecurity, and Infrastructure Security Agency known as CISA, whose existence the defendant signed into law to protect the nation's cybersecurity infrastructure from attack joined an official multi-agency statement that there was no evidence any voting system had been compromised and that declared the 2020 election "the most secure in American history."

Days later, after the CISA director whom the defendant had appointed announced publicly that election security experts were in agreement that claims of computer-based election fraud were unsubstantiated. The defendant fired him. Senior White House attorneys selected by the defendant to provide him candid advice informed the defendant that there was no evidence of outcome, determinative election fraud, and told him that his presidency would end on inauguration day 2021.

Senior staffers on the defendant's 2020 reelection campaign known as defendant's campaign or campaign, whose sole mission was the defendant's reelection told the defendant on November 7th, 2020 that he only had a 5 to 10% chance of prevailing in the election and that success was contingent on the defendant's winning ongoing vote counts or litigation in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

Within a week of that assessment, the defendant lost in Arizona, meaning he had lost the election. State legislators and officials, many of whom were the defendant's political allies, had voted for him and wanted him to be reelected, repeatedly informed the defendant that his claims of fraud in their states were unsubstantiated or false and resisted his pressure to act based upon them. States and federal courts as neutral arbiters responsible for ensuring a fair and even-handed administration of election laws rejected every outcome, determinative post-election lawsuit filed by the defendant, his co-conspirators and allies, providing the defendant real-time notice that his allegations were meritless.

Paragraph 12. The defendant widely disseminated his false claims of election fraud for months despite the fact that he knew and in many cases had been informed directly that they were not true. The defendant's knowingly false statements were integral to his criminal plans to defeat the federal government function, obstruct the certification, and interfere with others' right to vote and to have their votes counted. He made these knowingly false claims throughout the post-election time period, including those below that he made immediately before the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

A, the defendant insinuated that more than 10,000 dead voters had voted in Georgia. Just four days earlier, Georgia's Secretary of State had explained to the defendant that this was false. B. The defendant asserted that there had been 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania. The defendant's acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General had explained to him that this was false. The defendant said that there had been suspicious vote dump in Detroit, Michigan.

The defendant's Attorney General had explained to the defendant that this was false and the defendant's allies in the Michigan State legislature, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and majority leader of the Senate, had publicly announced that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in the state.

The defendant claimed that there had been tens of thousands of double votes and other fraud in Nevada. The Nevada Secretary of State had previously rebutted the defendant's fraud claims by publicly posting, "Facts versus myths document explaining that Nevada judges had reviewed and rejected them and the Nevada Supreme Court had rendered a decision denying such claims." The defendant said that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona.

The defendant's own campaign manager had explained to him that such claims were false and the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives who had supported the defendant in the election had issued a public statement that there was no evidence of substantial fraud in Arizona. Finally, the defendant asserted that voting machines in various contested states had switched votes from the defendant to Biden. The defendant's attorney general, acting attorney general, and acting deputy attorney general all had explained to him that this was false and numerous recounts and audits had confirmed the accuracy of voting machines.

Brian Lehrer: Folks, that was WNYC's Tiffany Hanssen reading from pages five through nine of the indictment of Donald Trump regarding his alleged 2020 election fraud and disenfranchisement of voters. Great job, Tiffany. You even said Nevada, the way they say it in Nevada. Not Nevada, the way we generally say it around here. Thank you very much. Thanks for helping out.

Tiffany Hanssen: You're quite welcome.

Brian Lehrer: We will take a break and continue on this special edition of the show. Brian Lehrer on WNYC with a special edition of the Brian Lehrer show. Today, in response to Special Counsel Jack Smith encouraging everyone to read this week's indictment of Donald Trump for ourselves and consider the details of the evidence being presented in the accusation that Trump conspired to defraud the United States and disenfranchise voters, that's in the actual charge. He conspired to disenfranchise voters.

Our next guest reader is WNYC's Kai Wright, host of Notes from America, our National Sunday evening call-in show, which airs at six o'clock New York time. Kai picks it up with a section called The Criminal Agreement and Acts to Affect the Object of the Conspiracy. One note about the section we're about to hear, you'll hear the term Co-Conspirator 1 multiple times and as I pointed out at the beginning, Co-Conspirator 1 is not identified by name in the indictment, but many experts have figured out that it's definitely Trump lawyer and former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

You'll hear what a central role Giuliani allegedly played in trying to persuade state officials in Arizona in this section to cancel Joe Biden's win in that state despite Giuliani being unable to provide any evidence that the election there was stolen. Kai, thanks for helping out, and take it away.

Kai Wright: My pleasure. Since we're annotating, I will add that I think to me this section is where Special Counsel starts trying to tell the story of conspiracy. As I understand it, you've got to tell a story of conspiracy to make a conspiracy case.

Brian Lehrer: Great.

Kai Wright: I will try to rise to that challenge.

The Defendant's Use of Deceit to Get State Officials to Subvert the Legitimate Election Results and Change Electoral Votes.

Shortly after election day, which fell on November 3rd, 2020, the defendant launched his criminal scheme. On November 13th, the defendant's campaign attorneys conceded in court that he had lost the vote count in the state of Arizona, meaning, based on the assessment the defendant's campaign advisors had given him just a week earlier, the defendant had lost the election.

The next day, the defendant turned to Co-Conspirator 1, likely Rudy Giuliani, whom he announced would spearhead his efforts going forward to challenge the election results. From that point on, the defendant and his co-conspirators executed a strategy to use knowing deceit in the targeted states to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function, including as described below, Arizona. On November 13th, 2020, the defendant had a conversation with his campaign manager who informed him that a claim that had been circulating that a substantial number of non-citizens had voted in Arizona was false.

On November 22nd, eight days before Arizona's governor certified the ascertainment of the state's legitimate electors based on the popular vote, the defendant and Co-Conspirator 1, called the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and made knowingly false claims of election fraud aimed at interfering with the ascertainment of and voting by Arizona's electors as follows. A, the defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 falsely asserted among other things that a substantial number of non-citizens, non-residents, and dead people had voted fraudulently in Arizona.

The Arizona House speaker asked Co-Conspirator 1 for evidence of those claims which Co-Conspirator 1 did not have but claimed he would provide. Co-Conspirator 1 never did so. B, the defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 asked the Arizona House speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing based on their claims of election fraud. The Arizona House speaker refused stating that doing so would require a two-thirds vote of its members and he would not allow it without actual evidence of fraud.

C, the defendant and Co-Conspirator 1 asked the Arizona House Speaker to use the legislature to circumvent the process by which legitimate electors would be ascertained for Biden based on the popular vote and replace those electors with a new slate for the defendant. The Arizona House speaker refused responding that the suggestion was beyond anything he had ever heard or thought of as something within his authority.

On December 1st, Co-Conspirator 1 met with the Arizona House Speaker. When the Arizona House Speaker, again, asked Co-Conspirator 1 for evidence of the outcome-determinative election fraud, he and the defendant had been claiming, Co-Conspirator 1 responded with words to the effect of, "We don't have the evidence, but we have lots of theories." On December 4th, the Arizona House Speaker issued a public statement that said, in part, "No election is perfect, and if there were evidence of illegal votes or improper count, then Arizona law provides a process to contest the election, a lawsuit under state law.

The law does not authorize the legislature to reverse the results of an election. As a conservative Republican, I do not like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him, but I cannot and will not entertain the suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election. I and my fellow legislators swore an oath to support the US Constitution and the constitution and laws of the state of Arizona. It would violate that oath, the basic principles of Republican government, and the rule of law if we attempted to nullify people's vote based on unsupported theories of fraud.

Under the laws we wrote and voted upon, Arizona voters choose who wins and our system requires that their choice be respected. On January 4th, 2021, Co-Conspirator 2 called the Arizona House Speaker to urge him to use a majority of the legislature to decertify the state's legitimate electors. Arizona's validly ascertained electors had voted three weeks earlier and sent their votes to Congress, which was scheduled to count the votes in Biden's favor in just two days time at the January 6th certification proceeding.

When the Arizona House Speaker explained that the state investigations had uncovered no evidence of substantial fraud in the state, Co-Conspirator 2 conceded that he "didn't know enough about facts on the ground" in Arizona, but nonetheless told the Arizona House Speaker to decertify and "let the courts sort it out." The Arizona House Speaker refused stating that he would not "play with the oath he had taken to uphold the United States Constitution and Arizona law." On January 6th, the defendant publicly repeated the knowingly false claim that 36,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's Kai Wright reading from the indictment. Kai, thanks a lot. Since we're annotating a little bit, as you noted, that one line, that quote from Giuliani, if they can substantiate that at trial, that he said, "We don't have the evidence," to the Arizona Speaker of the House. "We don't have the evidence, but we have lots of theories." That may be the single most bombshell line in the whole indictment.

Kai Wright: Yes, we don't have the evidence.

Brian Lehrer: Kai, thanks a lot. We'll be listening to Notes from America, Sunday night. Thank you. Again, listeners, because sometimes you can't tell the players without a scorecard that Co-conspirator 1 who was so central to those Arizona allegations and to some others that I'm about to read from has been widely identified as former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Now, I mentioned at the top of this special edition that we don't have time in this two-hour show to read the whole 45 page indictment and to take some calls with your reactions at the end. We're presenting some major representative chunks. We just heard Kai read the Arizona section of the indictment. We're going to skip over some of the other state specific portions. The details from Arizona seem really clear and so allegedly brazen that we gave you as a prime example of how Trump and his co-conspirators allegedly tried to defraud various swing states into flipping or canceling their results.

There are also state specific sections on Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, each in their own ways as eye popping as the charges we just heard regarding Arizona.

Go ahead and read those for yourselves when you get a chance. I will throw in here the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin sections as well which are much shorter than the Arizona one but here we go with Pennsylvania, paragraph 42 of the indictment.

On November 11th, 2020, the defendant publicly maligned a Philadelphia City Commissioner for stating on the news that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in Philadelphia. As a result, the Philadelphia City Commissioner and his family received death threats. Paragraph 43, on November 25th, the day after Pennsylvania's governor signed a certificate of ascertainment that thus certified to the federal government that Biden's electors were the legitimate electors for the state, Co-conspirator 1 orchestrated an event at a hotel in Gettysburg attended by state legislators.

Co-conspirator 1 falsely claimed that Pennsylvania had issued 1.8 million absentee ballots and received 2.5 million in return. More ballots than voters. in the days thereafter, a campaign staffer wrote internally that Co-conspirator 1's allegation was "just wrong" and there's no way to defend it. The deputy campaign manager responded, "We have been saying this for a while. It's very frustrating."

Paragraph 44, on December 4th, after four Republican leaders of the Pennsylvania legislature issued a public statement that the General Assembly lack the authority to overturn the popular vote and appoint its own slate of electors, and that doing so would violate the state election code and Constitution. The defendant retweeted a post labeling the legislator's cowards.

Paragraph 45, on December 31st and January 3rd, the defendant repeatedly raised with the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General, the allegation that in Pennsylvania there had been 205,000 more votes than voters. Each time the Justice Department officials informed the defendant that his claim was false. On January 6th, 2021, the defendant publicly repeated his knowingly false claim that there had been 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin.

Paragraph 47, on November 29th, 2020, a recount in Wisconsin that the defendant's campaign had petitioned and paid for did not change the election result and in fact, increased the defendant's margin of defeat. Paragraph 48, on December 14th, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected an election challenge by the campaign. One Justice wrote, "Nothing in this case casts any legitimate doubt that the people of Wisconsin lawfully chose Vice President Biden and Senator Harris to be the next leaders of our great country."

Paragraph 49, on December 21st, as a result of the state's Supreme Court's decision, the Wisconsin governor who had signed a certificate of ascertainment on November 30th identifying Biden's electors as the state's legitimate electors, signed a certificate of final determination in which he recognized that the State Supreme Court had resolved a controversy regarding the appointment of Biden's electors and confirmed that Biden had received the highest number of votes in the state and that his electors were the state's legitimate electors.

Paragraph 50, that same day in response to the court decision that had prompted the Wisconsin governor to sign a certificate of final determination, the defendant, remember the defendant is Trump. The defendant issued a tweet repeating his knowingly false claim of election fraud and demanding that the Wisconsin legislature overturn the election results that had led to the ascertainment of Biden's electors as the legitimate electors.

Paragraph 51, on December 27th, the defendant raised with the Acting Attorney General and Acting Deputy Attorney General a specific fraud claim that there had been more votes than voters in Wisconsin. The Acting Deputy Attorney General informed the defendant that the claim was false. In paragraph 52, on January 6th, 2021, the defendant publicly repeated knowingly false claims that there had been tens of thousands of unlawful votes in Wisconsin. This is a special edition of the Brian Lehrer Show as we're reading large sections of the indictment of Donald Trump at the request of Special Counsel Jack Smith that all Americans read it through. We'll continue in a minute.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and again, if you're just joining us, we are heating special counsel Jack Smith's request for everyone to read the new 2020 election related indictment of Donald Trump. We are reading out loud major excerpts as the two-hour length of our show permits, with some of your reactions coming up at the end. We'll skip ahead now to a section that lays out some of the allegations in the so-called fake elector scheme and then goes on to how Trump as president allegedly tried to use his powers as president to get the United States Justice Department to use its power to assist in the fraud.

Reading this section will be On The Media's, Micah Loewinger. As some of you know, some of Micah's reporting on the Runup to January 6th was so revealing that he actually got called as a witness at the Seditious Conspiracy trial of members of the Oath Keepers. If you're following along at home, this begins on page 26 of the indictment. Micah, we're all ears.

Micah Loewinger: Thanks for having me, Brian. All right, this is paragraph 65. On December 14th, the legitimate electors of all 50 states and the District of Columbia met in their respective jurisdictions to formally cast their votes for president resulting in a total of 232 electoral votes for the defendant and 306 for Biden. The legitimate electoral votes that Biden won in the states that the defendant targeted and the defendant's margin of defeat were as follows; Arizona 11 electoral votes, 10,457 votes.

Georgia, 16 electoral votes, 11,779 votes. Michigan, 16 electoral votes, 154,188 votes. Nevada, 6 electoral votes, 33,596 votes. New Mexico, 5 electoral votes, 99,720 votes. Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes, 80,555 votes and Wisconsin, 10 electoral votes, 20,682 votes. Paragraph 66, on the same day at the direction of the defendant and Co-conspirator 1, fraudulent electors convened, sham proceedings in the seven targeted states to cast fraudulent electoral ballots in the favor of the defendant.

In some states, in order to satisfy legal requirements set forth for legitimate electors under state law, state officials were enlisted to provide the fraudulent electors access to state capitol buildings so that they could gather and vote there. In many cases, however, as co-conspirator 5 had predicted in the fraudulent elector instructions, the fraudulent electors were unable to satisfy the legal requirements.

Nonetheless, as directed in the fraudulent elector instructions, shortly after the fraudulent electors met on December 14th, the targeted states fraudulent elector certificates were mailed to the president of the Senate, the archivist of the United States and others. The defendant and co-conspirators ultimately used the certificates of these fraudulent electors to deceitfully target the government function, and did so contrary to how fraudulent electors were told they would be used.

We're on to paragraph 68. Unlike those of the fraudulent electors consistent with the ECA, the legitimate electors signed certificates were annexed to the state executive's certificates of ascertainment before being sent to the president of the Senate and others. That evening at 6:26 PM, the RNC chairwoman forwarded to the defendant through his executive assistant an email titled, "Electors Recap Final", which represented that in "six contested states". That's Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The defendant's electors had voted in parallel to Biden's electors. The defendant's executive assistant responded, "It's in front of him! Änd there's an exclamation point there."

We're onto a new section which is titled, "The Defendant's Attempt to Leverage the Justice Department to use Deceit to get State Officials to Replace Legitimate Electors and Electoral Votes with the Defendants." Paragraph 70, in late December, 2020, the defendant attempted to use the Justice Department to make knowingly false claims of election fraud to officials in the targeted states through a formal letter under the acting attorney general signature.

Thus giving the defendant's lies the backing of the federal government and attempting to improperly influence the targeted states to replace legitimate Biden electors with the defendants. On December 22nd, the defendant met with Co-conspirator 4 at the White House. Co-conspirator 4 had not informed his leadership at the Justice Department of this meeting, which was a violation of the Justice Department's written policy restricting contacts with the White House to guard against improper political influence.

On December 26th, Co-conspirator 4 spoke on the phone with the acting attorney general and lied about the circumstances of his meeting with the defendant at the White House, falsely claiming that the meeting had been unplanned. The acting attorney general directed Co-conspirator 4 not to have unauthorized contacts with the White House again, and co-Conspirator 4 said he would not.

The next morning on December 27th, contrary to the acting attorney general's direction, Co-conspirator 4 spoke with the defendant on the defendant's cell phone for nearly three minutes. That afternoon, the defendant called the acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general and said among other things, "People tell me Co-conspirator 4 is great. I should put him in."

Of course, where we just heard Co-conspirator 4 that is not what was said in the call verbatim. The defendant also raised multiple false claims of election fraud, which the acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general refuted. When the acting attorney general told the defendant that the Justice Department could not and would not change the outcome of the election, the defendant responded, "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman."

Paragraph 75, on December 28th, Co-conspirator 4 sent a draft letter to the acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general, which he proposed they all sign. The draft was addressed to the state officials in Georgia and Co-conspirator 4 proposed sending versions of the letter to elected officials in other targeted states. The proposed letter which contained numerous knowingly false claims about the election and the Justice Department including that and there are three subsections here.

A, that the Justice Department had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states." B, the Justice Department believed that in Georgia and other states, two valid slates of electors had gathered at the proper location on December 14th and that both sets of ballots had been transmitted to Congress.

That is Co-conspirator 4's letter sought to advance the defendant's fraudulent elector plan by using the authority of the Justice Department to falsely present fraudulent electors as a valid alternative to the legitimate electors.

C, the Justice Department urge that the state legislature convene a special legislative session to create the opportunity to, among other things, choose the fraudulent electors over the legitimate electors. Paragraph 76, the acting deputy attorney general promptly responded to Co-conspirator 4 by email and told him that his proposed letter was false, writing, "Despite dramatic claims to the contrary, we have not seen the type of fraud that calls into collection the reported and certified results of the election." In a meeting shortly thereafter, the acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general again directed Co-conspirator 4 not to have unauthorized contact with the White House.

Brian Lehrer: That dear listener was WNYC's Micah Loewinger from On the Media reading that portion of the indictment. Micah, a great job. Thanks a lot for lending your voice. We'll hear you on OTM.

Micah Loewinger: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Again, just to recap a little bit 'cause we are skipping the end of that section, but I think that was enough for you to get a very healthy impression, a very important section of the indictment that was called The defendant's attempt to leverage the Justice Department to use deceit to get state officials to replace legitimate electors and electoral votes with the defendants.

This is a special edition of the Brian Lehrer Show, responding to special counsel Jack Smith's encouragement that everyone read for ourselves, this week's indictment of Donald Trump on charges of defrauding the United States obstructing an official proceeding and disenfranchising voters from having their votes counted after the 2020 election. Now we have two main sections to go.

We have two more guest readers, Elie Mystal from The Nation Magazine and former Watergate prosecutor, Jill Wine-Banks. Those will be from the detailed pressure on Mike Pence portion of the allegations and then why Trump is charged with exploiting the violence. They use that term in the indictment, exploiting the violence on January 6th itself to continue even then to try to overturn Biden's election.

At the end, Jill Wine-Banks will hang around and do some analysis as we also take some of your reactions on the phones to hearing all these details. We already see some texts and tweets coming in, so we will be asking you later on what you heard that was new to you in this reading this morning, and how you reacted to things that were new to you in this reading, not just your general impressions of Trump and January 6th and things we've heard a million times.

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It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone as we continue with our special edition today, responding to Special Counsel Jack Smith's encouragement. He used the word, "I encourage everyone to read for ourselves this week's indictment of Donald Trump on charges of defrauding the United States. That's one charge. Obstructing an official proceeding. That's another charge. Disenfranchising voters, third charge from having their votes counted after the 2020 election."

We're reading extended excerpts as fits our two-hour time slot. Our next guest reader is Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation Magazine, host of the podcast Contempt of Court and author of the book, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution. Elie's going to read part of the long section of the indictment that details how Trump and his co-conspirators allegedly broke the law in the course of pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to join their scheme and refuse to certify Joe Biden on January 6th.

This section of the indictment is really interesting, partly for how specifically chronological it is following Trump and his alleged co-conspirators ongoing pressure on Pence on many specific days after the election. As we will hear at the start, that even included Christmas Day for the religious Mike Pence. Elie, hi, and just before you read, I have to take care of a little bit of housekeeping and read our legal ID for close to the top of the hour. I just wanted to say hi.

Elie Mystal: Hello. How are you doing, Brian? Thank you so much for doing this. I think it's a real public service. Just to be clear, this is the part of the indictment-- you were asking your listeners tell you what they heard was new today. This is the part of the indictment that was new to me because the vice president didn't testify in front of the January 6th committee, but he did testify at the Jack Smith's grand jury.

Brian Lehrer: All right. That's even more reason for us to listen. If Elie Mystal found it new as deeply as he reads into this stuff all the time, I'm sure many of us will too. Elie, take it away.

Elie Mystal: Starting with paragraph 90, Section A. On December 25th when the vice president called the defendant to wish him a Merry Christmas, the defendant quickly turned the conversation to January 6th and his request that the vice president reject electoral votes that day. The vice president pushed back telling the defendant as the vice president had already done in previous conversations, "You know I don't think I have the authority to change the outcome."

B, on December 29th, as reflected in the vice president's contemporaneous notes, the defendant falsely told the vice president that the Justice Department was finding major infractions. C, on January 1st, the defendant called the vice president and berated him because he had learned that the vice president had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the vice president had the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution. The vice president responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the defendant told the vice president, "You are too honest." Within hours of the conversation, the defendant reminded his supporters to meet in Washington before the certification proceeding, tweeting "The big protest rally in Washington DC will take place at 11:00 AM on January 6th. Locational details to follow. Stop the steal."

1. On January 3rd, the defendant again told the vice president that at the certification proceeding, the vice president had the absolute right to reject electoral votes and the ability to overturn the election. The vice president responded that he had no such authority and that a federal appeals court had rejected the lawsuit making that claim the previous day.

Paragraph 91. On January 3rd, Co-conspirator 2-- edit note, I believe this to be John Easton. On January 3rd, Co-conspirator 2 circulated a second memorandum that included a new plan under which contrary to the Electoral College Act, the vice president would send the elector legislates to the state legislatures to determine which slate to count.

92. On January 4, the defendant held a meeting with co-conspirator 2, the vice president, the vice president's chief of staff, and the vice president's counsel for the purpose of convincing the vice president based on the defendant's knowingly false claims of election fraud that the vice president should reject or send to the States Biden's legitimate electoral votes rather than count them. The defendant deliberately excluded his White House counsel from the meeting because the White House counsel previously had pushed back on the defendant's false claims of election fraud.

Paragraph 93. During the meeting as reflected in the vice president's contemporaneous notes, the defendant made knowingly false claims of election fraud, including, "Bottom line, we won every state by hundreds of thousands of votes," and, "We won every state," and asked regarding a claim his Senior Justice Department officials previously had told him was false, including as recently as the night before. "What about 205,000 votes more in Pennsylvania than voters?"

The defendant and Co-conspirator 2, then asked the vice president to either unilaterally reject the legitimate electors from the seven targeted states, or send the question of which slate was legitimate to the targeted state's legislatures. When the vice president challenged Co-conspirator 2 on whether the proposal to return the question to the states was defensible, Co-conspirator 2 responded, "Well, nobody's tested it before."

The vice president then told the defendant, "Did you hear that? Even your own counsel is not saying I have that authority?" The defendant responded, "That's okay. I prefer the other suggestion of the vice president rejecting electors unilaterally."

Paragraph 94. Also on January 4th, when Co-conspirator 2 acknowledged to the defendant's senior advisor that "no court would support his proposal," the senior advisor told Co-conspirator 2, "You're going to cause riots in the streets." Co-conspirator 2 responded that there had previously been points in the nation's history where violence was necessary to protect the Republic.

After that conversation, the senior advisor notified the defendant that Co-conspirator 2 had conceded that his plan was not going to work. Again, edit note, we believe Co-conspirator 2 to be John Eastman.

Paragraph 95. On the morning of January 5th at the defendant's direction, the vice president's chief of staff and the vice president's counsel met again with Co-conspirator 2. Co-conspirator 2 now advocated that the vice president do what the defendant had said he preferred the day before, unilaterally reject electors from targeted states.

During this meeting, Co-conspirator 2 privately acknowledged to the vice president's counsel that he hoped to prevent judicial review of his proposal because he understood that it would be unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court. The vice president's counsel expressed to Co-conspirator 2 that following through with the proposal would result in a disastrous situation where the election might have to be decided in the streets.

Paragraph 96, that same day, the defendant encouraged supporters to travel to Washington on January 6th, and he set the false expectation that the vice president had the authority to and might use his ceremonial role at the certification proceeding to reverse the election outcome in the defendant's favor, including issuing the following tweets:

A, at 11:06 AM, "The vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors." This was within 40 minutes of the defendant's earlier reminder, "See you in DC." B, at 5:05 PM, "Washington is being inundated with people who don't want to see an election victory stolen. Our country has had enough, they won't take it anymore. We hear you and love you from the Oval Office." C, at 5:43 PM, "I will be speaking at the Save America rally tomorrow at the ellipse at 11:00 AM. Arrive early. Doors open at 7:00 AM Eastern. Big crowds."

Paragraph 97. On January 5th, the defendant met alone with the vice president. When the vice president refused to agree to the defendant's request that he obstruct the certification, the defendant grew frustrated and told the vice president that the defendant would have to publicly criticize him. Upon learning of this, the vice president's chief of staff was concerned for the vice president's safety and alerted the head of the vice president's Secret Service detail.

Paragraph 98. As crowds began to gather in Washington and were audible from the Oval Office, the defendant remarked to his advisors that the crowd on the following day on January 6th was going to be angry.

Paragraph 99. That night, the defendant approved and caused the defendant's campaign to issue a public statement that the defendant knew from his meeting with the vice president only hours earlier was false. "The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act."

Brian Lehrer: That, dear listeners, was Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, host of the podcast Contempt of Court, and author of the book Allow Me to Retort. Elie, I want to allow you to retort a little bit and annotate just a bit of what we heard.

I want to draw a little bit of attention to that last line that you just read from paragraph 99, the quote that was attributed to Trump after all that evidence that Pence kept saying, "No, I don't have the power to overturn the election," that Trump went public and said the vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act." Did you know about that quote before

Elie Mystal: I knew that he had said that. I didn't know all the lead-up to it. I knew that he had made that statement falsely that Pence had the power to do something. I didn't know that he was meeting with Pence hours before, where Pence was telling him he didn't have that authority.

That quote, that line, that statement, Brian, that's what put Mike Pence's life at risk. That's why those people showed up on January 6th with gallows waiting to hang Mike Pence. It's that lie that's at the central part of this conspiracy to obstruct the process. That not only makes a lot of the prosecution's case that Trump's intent was to obstruct the tabulation, vote certification on January 6th, but he also makes the moral case that Trump was trying to get Mike Pence hurt.

Brian Lehrer: Anything else that was new to you there, since you had said before you went into the reading that you found a number of things from the Mike Pence section of the indictment new to you?

Elie Mystal: Yes. The "you're too honest" line, that's just "whooh," not just from a schadenfreude situation. Again, part of this case is that you have to prove that Trump knew what he was doing was fraud. When he says directly to Mike Pence, "You're too honest," that is a real clear indication that Trump knows that he's a liar and that he is trying to lie to defraud the American people. That is big.

Again, just because all this comes from either Pence directly or Pence's chief of staff directly, the fact that they were taking contemporaneous notes, which is what I think everybody who ever talks to Donald Trump should do, just to defend themselves, and that obviously, Smith has these notes. Whenever this goes to trial, this is going to be a big day when Pence and the chief of staff testify to what is said here on the indictment. That's going to be huge against Trump.

Brian Lehrer: We remember from the firing of Jim Comey way back near the beginning of the Trump administration that Comey, realizing early on what kind of a player Trump was, was taking contemporaneous notes after his various meetings with Trump. People will remember that perhaps about Jim Comey. This is a revelation, I think that Mike Pence as vice president was doing that, too.

Elie Mystal: Yes. Look, if Trump asked me to get him a sandwich, I would wear a wire. You need to document what this man is telling you. Look, Mike Pence does not deserve any credit for how he has handled himself after this. He could have been a leader in holding Trump accountable. Instead, he was a coward in holding Trump accountable. I will give him credit that if his resistance to doing what Trump wanted him to do on January 6 saved democracy in some-- It's critical. It's critical.

You can imagine a different vice president not standing up to him in this. Even if it's the only good thing Mike Pence did in his life, it was a good day. He had a good day on January 6. He did the right thing. Other vice presidents maybe wouldn't have done that, so I give him credit for that part.

Brian Lehrer: To me, there are three big quotes. They're each short, but big, that jump out to me is perhaps the three biggest lines in this whole 45-page indictment, having read the whole thing now. The two of them that you just cited from this Pence section, where Trump is quoted-- After Pence says he doesn't have the authority, Trump is quoted as saying to him, "You're too honest."

The one that I mentioned earlier of Rudy Giuliani trying to convince the Arizona state legislature to flip the election results there, and the speaker of the Arizona House telling him, "Well, show me the evidence," and Giuliani saying, "Well, I don't have the evidence, but we have theories."

Then that quote at the end that we were just talking about where Trump right after talking to the vice president and the vice president disagreeing that he has the authority, Trump going public and saying, "The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act."

Just tell me one more thing from you as a legal analyst, and listeners, we're obviously pausing a little bit for some analysis with Elie Mystal because of what he does for a living. We will do it again after the final section coming up with Legal Analyst Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor. These quotes, do they have to somehow prove them in court? Can they prove that they were stated in these contexts in court? I don't know that any of these three things that I just cited are on tape, and I imagine Trump will deny them and Giuliani will deny them.

Elie Mystal: Yes. That's why we have a jury system. They'll have the quote. They'll have witnesses to testify to those quotes. They'll have the contemporaneous notes. They will have the credibility of their witnesses versus the credibility of Trump's witnesses, who's like, "I didn't say that."

Brian, remember, for Trump to say, "I didn't say that," he's got to get on the stand. I don't think Donald Trump wants to get on the stand. I don't think if I was Donald Trump's lawyer, I would advise him to get on the stand. Impeaching the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses can't just come from the lawyers. It's got to come from Trump, from Giuliani, from somebody taking the stand and saying, "I did not say that."

Brian, I just don't think that Trump or Giuliani or any of these people are going to take the stand and open themselves up to cross-examination just to rebut the testimony here. I think these statements are going to lie in the trial itself, and it will come down to whether or not the jury finds the prosecution's witnesses credible.

Brian Lehrer: Elie Mystal, thanks a lot.

Elie Mystal: Thanks so much for doing this, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Continuing the reading, we now get to January 6th itself, and this is still in the Mike Pence section. I'll read a little bit of this before we bring on Jill Wine-Banks. This is paragraph 100 from the indictment.

On January 6, starting in the early morning hours, the defendant again turned to knowingly false statements aimed at pressuring the vice president to fraudulently alter the election outcome and raised publicly the false expectation that the vice president might do so.

Letter A. At 01:00 AM, the defendant issued a tweet that falsely claimed, "If Vice President Mike Pence comes through for us, we will win the presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect and even fraudulent numbers in a process not approved by their state legislatures, which it must be. Mike can send it back." That's at one o'clock in the morning.

Letter B. At 08:17 AM, the defendant issued a tweet that falsely stated, "States want to correct their votes which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud plus corrupt process, never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the states AND WE WIN." That's in caps, "AND WE WIN". "Do it, Mike. This is a time for extreme courage." Unquote from that tweet."

Paragraph 101. On the morning of January 6th, an agent of the defendant contacted a United States Senator to ask him to hand deliver documents to the vice president. The agent then facilitated the receipt by the Senator's staff of the fraudulent certificates signed by the defendant's fraudulent electors in Michigan and Wisconsin, which were believed not to have been delivered to the vice president or archivist by mail.

When one of the Senator's staffers contacted a staffer for the vice president by text message to arrange for delivery of what the Senator's staffer had been told were alternate slates of electors for Michigan and Wisconsin, because archivists didn't receive them, the vice president staffer rejected them.

Paragraph 102. Again, this is on January 6th. At 11:15 AM, the defendant called the vice president and again pressured him to fraudulently reject or return Biden's legitimate electoral votes. The vice president again refused. Immediately after the call, the defendant decided to single out the vice president in public remarks he would make within the hour, reinserting language that he had personally drafted earlier that morning, falsely claiming that the vice president had authority to send electoral votes to the states, but that advisors had previously successfully advocated he removed. He put it back in.

Paragraph 103. Earlier that morning, the defendant had selected Co-conspirator 2 to join Co-conspirator 1, Giuliani, in giving public remarks before his own. When they did so based on knowingly false election fraud claims, Co-conspirator 1 and Co-conspirator 2 intensified pressure on the vice president to fraudulently obstruct the certification proceedings.

Letter A: Co-conspirator 1 told the crowd that the vice president could, "Cast the ECA," the Electoral Count Act, "aside and unilaterally, decide on the validity of these crooked ballots." He also lied when he claimed to "have letters from five legislatures begging us" begging us to send elector slates to the legislatures for review and called for trial by combat." Many of you heard that Giuliani soundbite from January 6th called for trial by combat.

B: Co-conspirator 2 told the crowd, "All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at one o'clock, he let the legislatures of the states look into this so we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not."

It continues. The defendant also said that regular rules no longer applied, stating, And fraud breaks up everything, doesn't it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules. From Trump. Letter D. Finally, after exhorting that we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore, the defendant directed the people in front of him to head to the Capitol, suggested he was going with them and told them to give members of Congress, "the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country."

Paragraph 105, it's just one sentence. During and after the defendant's remarks, thousands of people marched toward the Capitol.

All right, and now we get to the final section of the 45-page indictment, the section that alleges ways that Trump and his co-conspirators broke federal laws even after the violence began on January 6th afternoon.

Our final guest reader, who will also stay on afterwards for some analysis and to help take reactions from you on the phones, is Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor, author of the book, The Watergate Girl, host of the Podcast SistersInLaw and IGenPolitics, and an MSNBC Legal Analyst. Jill, thanks so much for doing this with us. The floor is yours.

Jill Wine-Banks: Thank you, Brian. This is a really exciting way to make sure that everyone has the benefit of reading the indictment, which reads like a novel. The part I'm reading is about the defendant's exploitation of the violence and chaos at the Capitol. It starts with paragraph 106.

Shortly before 1:00 PM, the vice president issued a public statement explaining that his role as president of the Senate at the certification proceeding that was about to begin did not include "unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not."

Paragraph 107. Before the defendant had finished speaking, a crowd began to gather at the Capitol. Thereafter, a mass of people, including individuals who had traveled to Washington and to the Capitol at the defendant's direction, broke through barriers cordoning off the Capitol grounds and advanced on the building, including by violently attacking law enforcement officers trying to secure it.

Paragraph 107. The defendant, AKA Donald J. Trump- I added the AKA, just to remind you who the defendant is- who had returned to the White House after concluding his remarks, watched events at the Capitol unfold on the television in the dining room next to the Oval Office.

Paragraph 109. At 2:13 PM, after more than an hour of steady violent advancement, the crowd at the Capitol broke into the building. Paragraph 110. Upon receiving news that individuals had breached the Capitol, the defendant's advisors told him that there was a riot there and that rioters had breached the building. When advisors urged the defendant to issue a calming message aimed at the rioters, the defendant refused, instead repeatedly remarking that the people at the Capitol were angry because the election had been stolen.

Paragraph 111. At 2:24 PM, after advisors had left the defendant alone in his dining room, the defendant issued a tweet intended to further delay and obstruct the certification. "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones, which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!"

Paragraph 112. One minute later, at 2:25 PM, the United States Secret Service was forced to evacuate the vice president to a secure location.

Paragraph 113. At the Capitol throughout the afternoon, members of the crowd chanted, "Hang Mike Pence. Where is Pence? Bring him out and traitor Pence."

Paragraph 114. The defendant repeatedly refused to approve a message directing rioters to leave the Capitol as urged by his most senior advisors, including the White House Counsel, a Deputy White House Counsel, the chief of staff, a deputy chief of staff, and a senior advisor. Instead, the defendant issued two tweets that did not ask rioters to leave the Capitol, but instead falsely suggested that the crowd at the Capitol was being peaceful, including the following tweets.

At 2:15 PM, "Please support our Capitol police and law enforcement. They are truly on the side of our country. Stay peaceful." Subparagraph B. At 3:13 PM, the defendant tweeted, "I am asking for everyone at the US Capitol to remain peaceful, no violence. Remember, we are the party of law and order. Respect the law and our great men and women in blue. Thank you."

Paragraph 115. At 3:00 PM, the defendant had a phone call with the minority leader of the United States House of Representatives. The defendant told the minority leader that the crowd at the Capitol was more upset about the election than the minority leader was. Paragraph 118. At 4:17 PM, the defendant released a video message on Twitter that he had just taped in the White House Rose Garden. In it, the defendant repeated the knowingly false claim that 'We had an election that was stolen from us' and finally asked individuals to leave the Capitol while telling them they were "very special" and that "we love you."

Paragraph 117. After the 4:17 PM tweet, as the defendant joined others in the Outer Oval Office to watch the attack on the Capitol on television, the defendant said, and I'm quoting, "See, this is what happens when they try to steal an election. These people are angry. These people are really angry about it. This is what happens."

Paragraph 118. At 6:01 PM, the defendant tweeted, "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever."

Paragraph 119. On the evening of January 6th, the defendant and Co-conspirator 1, Rudy Giuliani, attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them based on knowingly false claims of election fraud to delay the certification including A, the defendant through White House aides attempted to reach two United States senators at 6:00 PM. B, from 6:59 PM until 7:18, Co-conspirator 1 placed calls to five United States senators and one United States representative. C, Co-conspirator 6 attempted to confirm phone numbers for six United States senators whom the defendant had directed Co-conspirator 1 to call in attempt to elicit in further delaying the certification.

Subparagraph D. In one of the calls, Co-conspirator 1 left a voicemail intended for a United States senator that said, "We need you, our Republican friends to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you, and I know they're reconvening at 8:00 PM tonight, but the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow, ideally into the end of the day tomorrow."

Subparagraph E. In another message intended for another United States senator, Co-conspirator 1 repeated knowingly false allegations of election fraud, including that the vote counts certified by the states to Congress were incorrect and that the governors who had certified knew they were incorrect, that illegal immigrants had voted in substantial numbers in Arizona, and that "Georgia gave you a number in which 65,000 people who were underage voted." Co-conspirator 1 also claimed that the vice president's actions had been surprising and asked the Senator to, "Object every state and kind of spread this out a little bit like a filibuster."

Paragraph 120. At 7:01 PM, while Co-conspirator 1 was calling United States senators on behalf of the defendant, the White House Counsel called the defendant to ask him to withdraw any objections and allow the certification. The defendant refused.

Paragraph 121. The attack on the Capitol obstructed and delayed the certification for approximately six hours until the Senate and House of Representatives came back into session separately at 8:06 PM and 9:02 PM, respectively, and came together in a joint session at 11:35 PM.

Paragraph 122. At 11:44 PM, Co-conspirator 2, John Eastman, emailed the vice president's console advocating that the vice president violate the law and seek further delay of the certification. Co-conspirator 2 wrote, "I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation of the Electoral College Act and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that has occurred here." Paragraph 123. At 3:41 AM on January 7, as president of the Senate, the vice president announced the certified results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.

Brian Lehrer: At 3:41 AM, most Americans still awake, watching the end of the proceedings, exhaled as the peaceful transition of power was maintained, if only by a thread, and with considerable injury and even loss of life.

That's my annotation to the end of the 45-page indictment as that narrative does end, as we just heard from Jill Wine-Banks at 3:41 AM. Jill reading from the dramatic final section of the indictment of Donald Trump detailing what he and his co-conspirators allegedly did, even after the violence and successful obstruction of the Senate proceedings began on January 6th, 2021, through to the end of the sequence of events at 3:41 AM on January 7th. Jill, thanks for lending your clear-as-a-bell Chicago-infused voice for that reading.

Jill Wine-Banks: [laughs] Thank you very much, Brian. It was a great section to get to read because you didn't have to add very much drama to see the drama of the events unfolding and the corruption that was going on in the White House. It's really terrifying.

Brian Lehrer: There's one particular statement that I'm going to go back with you to after a break. From near the end of that narrative, we will hold that as a little bit of a mystery for the moment as to what that is.

Listeners, Jill will stay with us for some analysis now. Listeners, at this point, we will also invite some phone calls from you, after all that reading from the indictment for the last hour and a half.

Here's my main question to you, listeners. What jumped out at you from hearing any part of the indictment read out loud in detail like that during the show? What did you learn this morning that you didn't already know? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Again, what jumped out at you from hearing any part of the indictment read out loud in detail like that during the show? What did you learn this morning that you didn't already know or believe? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Listeners and screeners, we're really hoping to get closer to exactly that. We all have our opinions about Trump in January 6th and these charges, generally. Many of you follow the January 6th congressional committee hearings very closely. Some of this was repetitive from that, but we did this reading because Special Counsel Jack Smith brought some new things to the table. He encouraged everyone to actually read the indictment, not just listen to news headlines about it in order to form the most informed opinions for yourself.

We've been trying today to contribute to that transparency by reading these extended excerpts, so now you get to react. Do answer this question. What jumped out at you from hearing any part of the indictment read out loud in detail like this during the show? What did you learn this morning that you didn't already know? 212-433-WNYC. You can also text to that number. You can tweet @BrianLehrer. We'll get to your calls, texts and tweets, and analysis from Jill Wine-Banks right after this.

 

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