Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
In Nov. 2020, as Michigan’s chief election official I was very aware that then-President Donald Trump and his team actively sought to interfere in Michigan’s certification process. But this week’s reporting in The Detroit News was the first time I learned of the audio evidence of his attempted interference.
There is a direct line between these recordings and the tragedy that occurred at our U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In 2020 Michigan was one of the first battleground states to certify the results of the presidential election. If the then-president had succeeded in delaying or preventing certification in Wayne County or at the state level, that precedent would have been used to delay or block certification in other battleground states, paving the way for the false slate of electors that were developing in each state to be illegally submitted to the National Archives.