Trump Asked His Top Intelligence Official to Explore Insane Conspiracy Theory That Chinese Thermostats Changed Votes in the 2020 Election: New Book

A new book reports that former President Donald Trump asked his top intelligence official to investigate an absurd conspiracy theory that Chinese thermostats changed votes in the 2020 election.

In an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released Betrayal by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl, which was shared on Sunday’s edition of This Week, the former president was said to be “intrigued” by the theory – which was presented to him by Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who Trump wanted to install as acting attorney general.

“[Clark] believed that wireless thermostats made in China for Google by a company called Nest Labs might have been used to manipulate voting machines in Georgia,” Karl wrote. “The idea was nuts, but it intrigued Trump, who asked Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to look into it.”

Clark was very much in Trump’s good graces by this points for his unrelenting efforts to overturn the election. But he met a ton of resistance from senior officials at the DOJ when he tried to make Clark acting attorney general. According to Karl, senior DOJ officials, along with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, told Trump they would resign en masse if Clark were made attorney general. Karl reports that Trump then reluctantly backed off.

Trump, according to Karl, asked about what would happen to Clark next. The former president was told that he was the only person who could fire Clark. He opted not to do so.

“After Jeffrey Clark tried and failed to engineer a coup at the Justice Department, he kept his job,” Karl said on This Week.

Watch above via ABC.