The Daily Fuckup

Dec. 13, 2020 was not just another post-election date. It is the date on a Kenneth Chesebro email to Rudy Giuliani that later became one of the paper trails documenting the push to use alternate slates of electors in the fight over the Electoral College count.

The email laid out a theory about how the joint session of Congress might deal with competing slates from states won by Joseph Biden. In the House Jan. 6 committee’s report, the message is presented as part of a broader strategy to pressure the certification process and create a path for alternate electors to matter on Jan. 6. The report places that email inside the larger effort that unfolded after the 2020 election. citeturn0search0turn0search2

A later special counsel report reached the same basic conclusion about the architecture of the scheme. It described fraudulent or false elector slates in several states and cited the Dec. 13 email as evidence of the strategy being developed around the certification vote. That record does not turn the email into a magic proof of every legal theory in the case. It does show that the plan had moved beyond general complaints and into a documented effort aimed at the mechanics of Jan. 6. citeturn0search2turn0search1

That is the significance of the date. Not that it was the first time anyone had tried to contest the election, and not that it alone proves every step of the operation. It is that the email captures the scheme in writing at a point when the focus had shifted to alternate electors, congressional procedure, and the possibility of exploiting the count itself. citeturn0search0turn0search2