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FLORENCE, ARIZONA - JANUARY 15: Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona. The rally marks Trump's first of the midterm election year with races for both the U.S. Senate and governor in Arizona this year.
Former United States President Donald Trump reportedly drafted an executive order while he was in office that was going to direct the country's defense secretary to seize voting machines, a new investigation into Trump White House records has shown.
Additionally, the House Select Committee also found among the records that the former president's lawyers tried to shield from them a document titled "Remarks on National Healing." The text of the draft executive was reviewed and published by Politico for the first time.
Trump's Unreleased Executive Order
Trump's unreleased executive order would have also appointed a special counsel to probe the 2020 elections, which the Republican businessman has repeatedly claimed was a fraud. The remarks on the separate document were found to be a draft of a speech that the former president gave the next day.
When put together, the two documents suggested the wildly divergent perspectives of White House advisers and allies during the last leg of Trump's presidency. While it remained unclear who wrote the executive order, the document was dated Dec. 16, 2020.
The draft order's content was consistent with proposals that lawyer Sidney Powell made to the former president. Powell, on Dec. 18, 2020, Michael Flynn, former Trump national security adviser, Emily Newman, former Trump administration lawyer, and Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, met with the former president in the Oval Office, Politico reported.
The House Select Committee was able to acquire the documents after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week in rejection of Trump's request to shield White House records under executive privilege. The draft executive order detailed plans for the Pentagon to take voting machines and ordered the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to assess the machines within 60 days of their seizure, Business Insider reported.
Seize Voting Machines
The draft order wrote that the Secretary of Defense, effective immediately, was required to "seize, collect, retain, and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention." It was first reported in December 2020 that there existed a draft of Trump's plan to appoint a special counsel.
Furthermore, the document repeats conspiracy theories related to the hacking of voting machines that Flynn and Powell pushed onto the public. Powell has been known to be a conspiracy theory-promoting conservative lawyer. She has lobbied to have herself appointed as the special counsel to investigate the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 elections.
The draft order would have appointed the special counsel to be in charge of overseeing the operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected. It would also have provided all resources necessary to carry out Powell's duties consistent with federal laws and the Constitution.
The unreleased executive order also bases the need for unprecedented action on Powell's debunked allegations of voter fraud and foreign interference in the 2020 election. The document cites a "forensic report" that was championed by Powell that falsely claimed Dominion Voting System machines were "intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results," CNBC reported.
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