What Was Trump’s ‘Sophisticated Seven-Part Plan’ to Prevent the Transfer of Power to Biden? Jake Tapper Breaks it Down

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CNN anchor Jake Tapper broke down then-President Donald Trump’s “sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the 2020 election and prevent the transition of presidential power” that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) discussed during the Jan. 6 Committee hearing on Thursday night.

Tapper tweeted out a thread, “with background info from source,” explaining exactly what that seven-point plan Cheney referred to entailed.

Tapper noted that step one in Trump’s plan was to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election – an effort Trump undertook with intense energy and lead to a rift between the president and some of his closest advisers, including his own daughter.

“Trump repeatedly and aggressively lied to the public falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him,” Tapper wrote was “part one” of the plan.

“Part two: Corruption of Justice Dept. –Trump sought to replace the Acting Attorney General with a loyalist so as to weaponize DOJ to use the force of the law to support his election lies,” Tapper continued.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who refused to go along with Trump’s false allegations that the 2020 election was stolen featured prominently in Thursday night’s hearings and was a roadblock Trump needed to be removed to stay in power, according to his plan.

“Part three: Trump corruptly and repeatedly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to violate the U.S. Constitution and the law by refusing to count certified electoral votes on January 6,” adds the CNN anchor.

The committee played Trump’s speech that coincided with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, highlighting Trump’s strong rhetoric against Pence. The committee later showed a tweet from Trump lambasting Pence for refusing to not certify the election being read aloud by rioters as they stormed the Capitol and attacked police.

Tapper continued, laying out steps four and five of the plan:

Part four: Trump improperly pressured state election officials and legislators to change their states’ election results and undermine the will of the voters in their states by flipping the state from Biden to Trump.

Part five: Trump’s team, including his lawyers, told GOPers across the country to manufacture fake slates of electors and send those fake elector slates to the U.S. Congress and the National Archives.

The next step of the plan resulted in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6:

Part six: Trump summoned and assembled a mob of supporters to D.C. and directly told them to march to the US Capitol.

Part seven: Despite the violence against police and in the Capitol, Trump ignored myriad pleas for help and folks begging him to take immediate action to stop the violence and tell the MAGA mob to leave the Capitol.

The last part of the plan was repeatedly highlighted by Cheney and the committee, which noted that as the attack unfolded and people died at the Capitol, Trump made no contact with law enforcement to stop the violence. Cheney has lambasted Trump for waiting so long that day to send out a message urging his supporters to stop the violence and eventually praising them for their actions.

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