Donald Trump Wants to Seize Voting Machines After the 2020 Election, Ex-Top Security Officials Say

Former top national security officials have testified to a federal grand jury that former President Donald Trump wanted to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, a report said.

Citing three people familiar with the proceedings, CNN reported that Chad Wolf, the former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and his former deputy Ken Cuccinelli appeared before the grand jury earlier this year and were questioned about the former administration's discussion's surrounding the DHS seizing voting machines.

While their testimony had primarily been sealed, CNN revealed that the two told the grand jury that they repeatedly told Trump and his allies that the government had no authority to seize voting machines.

In his testimony, Cuccinelli said he "made clear at all times" that DHS did not have the authority to take such a step, according to one of the CNN sources.

Earlier this year, former Trump administration national security adviser Robert O'Brien had a closed-door interview with special counsel Jack Smith's prosecutors.

He also reportedly talked about the discussions of seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, including during a heated meeting in the Oval Office that the former president had participated in.

Jack Smith Looking at Various Ways Donald Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election

With the secret grand jury testimony and Robert O'Brien's interview details surfacing recently, it showed that special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutors are looking at the various ways Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election despite his top advisors advising him not to.

Smith and his team must prove that the former president and his allies still pushed their efforts despite knowing their fraud claims were false or their ploys were unlawful.

The push to seize voting machines after the 2020 election eventually led to executive orders being drafted in December of that year.

The orders mentioned false claims about voting system irregularities in Georgia and Michigan and directed the military and DHS to seize voting machines despite Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli telling Trump and his allies that their department had no authority to do it.

These orders were reportedly presented to Trump by his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former lawyer, Sidney Powell, during a meeting in Oval Office on December 18, 2020.

Smith and his team are investigating the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and they have turned their attention to this now-infamous White House meeting.

According to Business Insider, Powell falsely claimed that foreign adversaries hacked the electronic voting machines. Powell was sanctioned last year for filing frivolous lawsuits claiming election fraud.

On the other hand, Flynn falsely claimed that COVID-19 was created to help Democrats steal the 2020 election. It was reported that he was the one who pushed the idea of confiscating voting machines.

"He (Trump) could immediately, on his order, seize every single one of these machines," he previously noted in an appearance on the right-wing media outlet Newsmax just a day before the said White House meeting.

That meeting reportedly devolved into a shouting match between Trump's allies and White House lawyers, who pointed out the proposal would be illegal.

Donald Trump Called Jack Smith a 'Lunatic'

Donald Trump has been facing several criminal probes, including the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before he ran for the presidency in 2016.

In this case, a Manhattan Supreme Court grand jury indicted the former president. The indictment against Trump charges him with 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records.

Trump is also facing an election interference investigation in Georgia. He was also being investigated for his role in the January 6 riot and his hiding of top secret documents in Mar-A-Lago.

During his speech after his arrest and arraignment, the former president attacked Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, the judge presiding that case, and Jack Smith, according to the Daily Mail.

"This lunatic special prosecutor named Jack Smith. I wonder what it was prior to a change? Who others of his ilk say he's even worse than they are - is only looking at Trump," the former president said in his speech at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Trump then accused the special counsel of "threatening people" and using squeeze tactics on witnesses by dangling relief.

Trump's statement came on the same day when a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top aides who have been subpoenaed must testify.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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