Ted Cruz Developed Plan to Overturn Election and Keep Trump in Power After 2020 Election Loss, Per Report

A new report delves into the lengths to which Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) tried to help former President Donald Trump overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

The Washington Post reports that in December of 2020, Trump called Cruz to ask if he would help him by arguing in favor of a lawsuit filed to the Supreme Court with the aim of overturning the election

“Would you be willing to argue the case?” Trump asked. Cruz answered that if the court granted a hearing “I’d be happy to [make the argument].”

The report says the January 6 Committee is looking into Cruz’s conduct before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, which occurred the same day he objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. The Committee is said to be particularly interested in Cruz’s friendship with John Eastman, the former Trump lawyer who proposed the plan for how former Vice President Mike Pence could’ve supposedly overturned the 2020 election.

While Eastman was coming up with his plan to have Pence block the certification of the Electoral College results, the Post says Cruz was working on his own plan that ran parallel with the goal of nullifying the election:

As Eastman outlined a scenario in which Vice President Mike Pence could deny certifying Biden’s election, Cruz crafted a complementary plan in the Senate. He proposed objecting to the results in six swing states and delaying accepting the electoral college results on Jan. 6 in favor of a 10-day “audit” — thus potentially enabling GOP state legislatures to overturn the result. Ten other senators backed his proposal, which Cruz continued to advocate on the day rioters attacked the Capitol.

The committee’s interest in Cruz is notable as investigators zero in on how closely Trump’s allies coordinated with members of Congress in the attempt to block or delay certifying Biden’s victory. If Cruz’s plan worked, it could have created enough chaos for Trump to remain in power.

Eastman has invoked the Fifth Amendment by refusing to say whether he was in communication with Cruz while they planned to challenge the 2020 election.

U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, who Cruz once said was “like a father to me,” said the senator played a key role in the attempt to overturn the election.

“Once Ted Cruz promised to object, January 6 was all but foreordained, because Cruz was the most influential figure in the Congress willing to force a vote on Trump’s claim that the election was stolen,” Luttig told the Post. “He was also the most knowledgeable of the intricacies of both the Electoral Count Act and the Constitution, and the ways to exploit the two.”

Cruz initially agreed to an interview with the Post, but the paper says he cancelled shortly before it was supposed to happen and refused to speak with their reporters. The Post goes on to say they sent several written questions to his office, but “only some of which were addressed directly by Cruz’s spokeswoman.”

The report continues by touching on how Cruz amplified Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen, plus his cooperation with Trump’s repeated attempts to legally dispute the results. This was the foundation for the Post’s assessment that “Cruz’s actions between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021, shows just how deeply he was involved, working directly with Trump to concoct a plan that came closer than widely realized to keeping him in power.”