How Trump's Team Concocted the Big Lie

Trump's lawyer, Rudi Giuliani
"Created the Dominion conspiracy lie out of whole cloth"

Rachel Maddow Reads Damning Giuliani Testimony Showing Roots Of Election Conspiracy | HuffPost UK

Trump's big lie team made a major tactical blunder when they falsely claimed that Dominion, who supplied voting machines, conspired to steal the election for Biden. What they failed to take into account was that Dominion would sue. The result of this is that it gives the Dominion legal team the right to discover the evidence on which the claim was based.

It turns out that not only was there no such evidence, but, questioned under oath, Trump's lawyer and former New York mayor, Rudolph "Rudi" Giuliani admitted he couldn't even remember where he saw the allegation that he went public with, or even where he was at the time or exactly when he heard them (court papers exhibit J-1, transcription pp 34-36), and that the claim of a witness was almost certainly made up. He thought he might have seen it on Facebook! But he wasn't even sure of that and anyway he was too busy to check!

In other words, the entire claim was an invention.

And yet the belief that there is evidence of massive electoral fraud is now central to the Repugnican Party's thinking and is behind much of their legislative program in the states they control, including measures ostensibly to reduce the possibility of electoral fraud but which, in effect, are designed to disenfranchise people more likely to vote Democrat. One such measure, in Georgia, for exmple, makes it illegal to supply people waiting in line to vote with food or water - clearly intended to deter people from voting as the election officials carry out prolonged identity checks. Queues at urban polling stations in Georgia are notoriously long, and urban locations are exactly where most Democrat-leaning voters live.

Court Papers Exhibit J-1

In other words, the Repugnicans are creatively 'solving' a problem that doesn't exist, but which people like Donald Trump and Rudi Giuliani made up, and using that as an excuse to disenfranchise Democrat voters! And this is the party of Abraham Lincoln!

From the transcription:

Q. So let's do this, I guess. Let's talk through your affidavit a little bit more and then we can go on to another topic.

All right, so when we went down this rabbit trail, we were talking about who the legal team was that you referred to. In paragraph 3, and I'll just read it for the record since it's short, you say, "At some point during our legal team's investigation into the election (which included voting security issues with Dominion and Dominion's history with Smartmatic) we" -- I assume you're referring to the team there.

A. Yes, sir.

Q. -- "became aware of media reports circulating regarding Coomer and allegations that he had been overheard telling a radical leftist group words to the effect that he had ensured that Trump would lose the election."

All right, let's talk about that sentence.

You say that we, meaning the team, became aware of media reports. Mr. Giuliani, which media reports are you talking about?

A. They would be online -- online publications that someone else on the team would bring to me and show me and say -- this is probably the first time I heard Mr. Coomer's name -- that this gentleman named Eric Coomer is -- it says in this article that he had a relationship with Antifa and according to the report, he had overheard, and at this point it might have been hazier than it eventually became, that he had said something about ensuring that Trump would be -- assuring these people that Trump would be defeated before -- it was a statement made before the election according to the way it was related to me.

Q. Okay. Let's try to go back in your mind's eye and recall the specific events.

Do you remember where you were when you got this information, where you were and when this was and who gave it to you? That's a three-part question but if you're okay with it, I'll --

A. I'll try. The answer is I'm not exactly sure. The conversation took place maybe two or three times. There was definitely a conversation in the campaign headquarters conference room about it. Could have been one also in my own office.

Someone told him but he isn't sure who, when or where he was at the time!

Q. Is that the one -- this office we're sitting in?

A. No, no, the office I had in Washington. Maybe I should describe the setup.

Q. Let's do that.

[…]

Q. So let me restate what I was about to say. The object of my line of questioning is to find out what you remember learning about Dr. Coomer before you went to the press conference on November 19th. What we were talking about was the online material or media reports as you say in your affidavit -- excuse me, declaration, and then we started talking about office space.

A. Where it was, yeah.

Q. So can you think of, Mr. Giuliani, as you sit here, what media reports you remember seeing, either an article or a media, any kind of statement?

A. I can remember seeing what I would call online media, meaning -- meaning not the Washington Post or The New York Times or the New York Post or NBC, CBS. More like -- not necessarily them but more like The Daily Caller or that category, Breitbart. So it was brought to my attention that there was a media report, maybe two, that there was a guy who worked for Dominion that was -- had a history of being very anti-Trump and that in a conversation that was overheard with Antifa members, he made this statement before the election that the election was fixed, and I said have we run it down and the answer was no, but I'll get back to you.

Q. Who was supposed to get back to you?

A. Phil Waldron was the one who was supposed to get back to me. That conversation I just described could have been with Phil or one of his people and I told them give Phil the action to do it, but I definitely discussed it during that very brief period with Phil and then one of the people who worked for Phil. I don't remember which one.

Q. I see. Did he get back to you?

A. He did, yeah.

Q. What did he get back to you with?

A. I can't tell you the timing for sure, how fast it was or whatever, this was not by any means the focus what I was doing at the time. I was focusing really on the Philadelphia case and on the Michigan case because I was writing, working with Phil Hearn on the draft of that case so this was like an interruption to what I was doing, just so you appreciate that it wasn't main point of what I was doing.

He recalled not reading a media report about what someone had said but q report that "there was a media report, maybe two, that there was a guy who worked for Dominion who overheard someone say something…" And that 'report about a report about a rumour about an overheard comment might have been in one of the notorious pro-Trump, right-wing disinformation sites like Steve Bannon's Brietbart. So he asked Phil Waldron to 'run it down', but he isn't sure when Waldron got back to him on it! And when he did, he couldn't recall exactly what he had found… Something of major significance if true and he can't quite recall when Waldron reported back on his findings or what they were!

Well, it's those long hours, you know!

He would come back to me at various times with many, many things and in it he said -- he said at some point Coomer came up, he said we have a -- we've got this -- there's a witness now, there's a witness now that says -- there's an identifiable witness who says this conversation took place before the election. He said this guy Coomer -- sometimes I go and look myself online when stuff comes up. This time I didn't have the time to do it. I was virtually working 22 hours a day. But he had. He said this guy, you're not going to find anything right now because they took down a lot of his media, a lot of his social media stuff, and it looks like Dominion is trying to hide him but either he or -- he said some people captured a good deal of what he had been posting and it's awful. He said there's really all kinds of crazy S-H-I-T. I said like what? Things like he has to be removed, things suggesting he's crazy. I said any violence? He said you'd have to really interpret that, you would know that better than I would.

But when Waldron did get back he thinks he said there was a witness (this guy Coomer) who posted stuff on line - which inconveniently (or maybe conveniently) had been taken down now. But Giuliani was too busy to check! 'Evidence' of a major felony by a named individual, fundamental to Trump's claim, and Giuliani, a top lawyer, was too busy to check, and instead of going to the police, he went to the press!

Yep! That's perfectly understandable!

I have been a United States attorney, Associate Attorney General and I did a fair number of threats on the president cases, meaning I handled the Hinckley case.

And I said okay, see if you can get me something. We'll take a look at it but he said I think the guy is gone now, I think they are burying him. By burying him, he didn't mean killing him.

Q. I get your point.

A. He meant putting him under the rug, and I'll see what I can get you. I should emphasize this was a very, very small part of the conversation and that's why I have trouble locating exactly when it was. Maybe in the day that he talked to me about this, this took up maybe four minutes of the 20 hours I was working.

And anyway, it's all been hidden now! How convenient! But, he thinks some (unspecified and unnamed) people might have captured a good deal of it. Did he try to identify those people and see what they had captured? Of course not! Far too busy! But they definitely captured it!

[…]

Q. Okay. So as I'm --

A. Could I get more water? Anybody?

Q. As I'm hearing your testimony, in terms of eyes on information about Dr. Coomer, we've got some media reports that you generally described and then you looked at some Facebook postings that you described?

A. I don't remember if it was Facebook. Those social media posts get all one to me.

Q. I apologize.

A. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Q. Social media postings.

A. I think it was Facebook.

Well, you know how it is! A top lawyer hired by Trump to prove there was massive electoral fraud, and he can't quite recall where he saw the 'evidence'. and when told there is some, he's far too busy to follow it up and find it!

No notes, no screen captures… nothing… just a hazy recollection of 'something, somewhere'. It night have been Facebook.

His evidence is something he thinks he saw on Facebook, and we only have his word for that!

Q. Anything else that you laid eyes on?

A. Right now, I can't recall anything else that I laid eyes on.

And that's it! That's the basis of the Republican Party's claim that the election was stolen by massive electoral fraud!

On the basis of uncorroborated rumours that Giuliani thinks he remembers being repeated by members of his team, at a time and a place he can't recall, and on the basis of something he thinks he might have seen on some social media platform or other (maybe Facebook) which he says has now been taken down, he went to a press conference with specific accusations that an employee of Dominion had claimed to have rigged the election to ensure Trump lost. He also asserted that there were witnesses to the employee making that claim, but he can't recall when the person he asked to investigate this report of a serious crime got back to him about it or what he said he had found, and anyway there was no point in pursuing it because the evidence had been hidden! He remembered that much!

Uncorroborated rumours of repots about reports of rumours of hearsay evidence! Yep! That'll stand up in court!
And he constantly blames working 20 (or is it 22?) hours a day for this incompetence and cavalier regard for the truth and accuracy of his claims.

And yet the GOP have swallowed the whole thing, hook, line and sinker, with the same cavalier disregard for the truth and accuracy of Guiliani's claims and are busy disenfranchising Democrat voters on the basis if those uncorroborated rumours of reports about reports of rumours… well, you get the picture!

What we have here is the classic tactic of the Big Lie, where a lie is repeated often until it becomes accepted orthodoxy. It's the classic politics of deception. And as a result of this deception 78% of Republican Party voters now believe the election was fraudulent, that Biden is not the legitimate president and that Trump was unlawfully deprived of a second term.

Giulian's licence to practice law in New York is currently suspended. A decision whether to lift the suspension or make it permanent is pending…

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