‘The Room Where It Happened’: Jack Smith Zeroes In on White House Meeting Where Martial Law Was Discussed With Trump’s Outside Advisers

“The Room Where it Happens” is one of the signature earworms of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s play “Hamilton,” but it could double as description for a meeting that appears to hold increasing interest for Special Counsel Jack Smith in his criminal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The room was the Oval Office, the date December 18, 2020. Four days before, 59 “alternative electors” from seven states won by President Biden claimed to be “duly” pledged to President Trump. That plan would later come to naught when Vice President Pence, as Mr. Pence himself related in his memoir, told Mr. Trump that the Constitution didn’t grant him the power to block the certification of the official tallies.The assembly in the Oval Office the week before Christmas was notable for the range of additional options for keeping Mr. Trump as president that were suggested by a kitchen cabinet of outside advisers that White House staff had reportedly been going to great length — unsuccessfully — to keep away from the president. The proposals from these outside advisers were said to include deploying the military to seize voting machines, declaring martial law, and appointing one of these outside advisers, the attorney Sidney Powell, as special counsel to oversee claims of voter fraud.The assembly at the White House included, among others, Mr. Trump, Mayor Giuliani, Ms. Powell, General Michael Flynn, who served for a few weeks as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, and General Flynn’s confidant, Patrick Byrne, founder of Overstock.com. Patched in via telephone was another former national security adviser, Robert O’Brien. CNN reports that Mr. Giuliani was recently questioned, over the course of two consecutive days, about the meeting under the aegis of a proffer agreement — a species of immunity — with prosecutors. CNN adds that other witnesses have also been asked about this meeting. In fleshing out its contours and potential culpabilities, Mr. Smith is likely to rely on work done by the Democrat-dominated January 6 committee. The power to charge crimes, though, belongs to the executive and not the legislative branch, an assignment given teeth by the Constitution’s prohibition of bills of attainder, or trial by legislature. While voting machines were never seized, martial law was never imposed, and Ms. Powell was never appointed special counsel, the meeting could still provide grist for Mr. Smith’s prosecutorial mill. Section 1512(c) of Title 18, which has been used against 300 January 6 defendants and involves obstructing an official proceeding, requires a defendant to act “corruptly,” or with intent.Also in play for prosecutors is United States Code 18 § 371, or conspiracy to defraud America. Like any conspiracy charge, that would require an agreement between two or more parties, as well as an act in furtherance of that agreement. The conspiracy need not be a success, only sufficiently implemented. In this spirit, the Supreme Court in 1807 held in Ex Parte Bollman, “When war is levied, all those who perform any part, however minute or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are traitors.” That case concerned another one of Mr. Miranda’s protagonists, Aaron Burr, who was acquitted of treason. It appears as if the clutch of outside advisers was strongly opposed by a second group that included the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as well as the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who told the January 6 committee, “I don’t think any of these people were providing the President with good advice, so I did not understand how they had gotten in.”Ms. Powell et al were reportedly escorted into the Oval Office by a young aide to a White House adviser, Peter Navarro, named Garrett Ziegler. The New York Times reports that Mr. Ziegler’s credentials were revoked as a result of that maneuver. In comments to the Sun, Mr. Ziegler denied that account: “This is false. I did not escort them into the Oval Office. What I did is I sent a hyperlink [where] they could fill out of a form and submit to the Secret Service so they could be admitted on to the property. I was not at that meeting.”Ms. Powell, in her own deposition to the January 6 committee, accused Messrs. Meadows and Cipollone of demonstrating “nothing but contempt and disdain of the President.” Derek Lyons, who was staff secretary, glossed to the committee that it “was not a casual meeting. At times there were people shouting at each other, hurling insults at each other. It wasn’t just sort of people sitting around on the couch like, chit-chatting.” Another lawyer, Eric Hershmann, reported to the committee that the meeting was marked by“screaming.” Mr. Hershmann alleges that Ms. Powell told him that “the judges are corrupt” when he observed that allegations of fraud had fallen flat in court. Mr. Cipollone told the committee that seizing voting machines would have been a “horrible idea” with “no legal basis.” Mr. Cipollone also told lawmakers that he was especially perturbed to see Mr. Byrne in the Oval Office, recalling “first of all, the Overstock person, I didn’t know who this guy was. Actually, the first thing I did, I walked in, I looked at him and I said, ‘Who are you?’” Mr. Hershmann labeled the proposals from Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani “nuts.” Mr. Byrne took to Twitter last week to note with respect to the December 18 meeting: “Hi Jack Smith, I take all responsibility. Best of all, with my eidetic memory I can tell you amazing detail about it. ‘Parrot-like,’ say some. Call collect. I’m here to help.” It was in the hours after this meeting — which stretched six hours, and decamped from the West Wing to the president’s residence — that Mr. Trump tweeted to urge his supporters to flock to the District of Columbia on January 6, when the Constitution mandates that electoral votes be certified. He wrote, “Be there, will be wild!”This article has been updated from the bulldog.

‘The Room Where It Happened’: Jack Smith Zeroes In on White House Meeting Where Martial Law Was Discussed With Trump’s Outside Advisers

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