Trump Speaking at Rally in Arizona, USA (Florence AFP=Yonhap News) Former U.S. President Donald Trump is giving a speech at a rally held in Florence, a small town southeast of Phoenix, Arizona, on the 15th (local time). 2022.1.16
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[Asia Economy Reporter Junhyung Lee] It has been revealed that former U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Secretary of Defense to seize voting machines after his defeat in the November 2020 presidential election.
On the 21st (local time), the U.S. political media outlet Politico reported that it obtained a draft executive order from the National Archives containing such content from former President Trump. This draft is one of the 750 documents that the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the House Select Committee to review last January regarding the January 6 Capitol riot by Trump supporters.
According to the report, the draft executive order was written on December 16, 2020, after the election. It contains indications that former President Trump ordered the Secretary of Defense to seize voting machines and even intended to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate election fraud allegations. However, the draft lacks a signature, and it is unclear who authored it.
The three-page draft states, "Effective immediately, the Secretary of Defense shall seize, collect, hold, and analyze all machines, devices, electronically stored information, and data records necessary to possess (voting machines)." It also states that the Secretary of Defense must prepare an evaluation report on the 2020 election within 60 days. Politico explains that the draft executive order may have been a strategy devised by former President Trump to maintain the presidency at least until mid-February 2021.
This plan also aligns with one proposed by Sydney Powell, a former legal advisor to Trump. Earlier, a local media outlet reported that on December 18, 2020, Powell met with former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and others in the White House office to meet with former President Trump. At this meeting, Powell proposed that Trump seize the voting machines and appoint her as a special prosecutor for the election investigation.
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