- Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano was the Trump team's "point person" for a "fake" elector scheme.
- Mastriano had concerns the scheme was illegal, per emails obtained by The New York Times.
- The US Department of Justice is investigating the plan to propose "alternate," pro-Trump slates of electors.
That Doug Mastriano purports to believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump is no secret.
But according to emails obtained by The New York Times, even the Pennsylvania Republican — a state senator now running for governor — needed to be convinced that it was actually legal to submit alternate slates of electors who would support the former president in a last-ditch effort to overturn the popular vote in his state.
The US Department of Justice is currently investigating what one Trump lawyer described, per The Times, as a plan to submit "fake," pro-Trump electors in battleground states won by President Joe Biden. The alternate electors, which were appointed by neither a governor nor legislature, were submitted for seven states to the National Archives, an act that some legal experts believe could constitute a conspiracy to defraud the United States.
In Pennsylvania, which Biden won by more than 80,000 votes, the Trump legal team's "point person" for this effort was Mastriano, according to The Times. Although a Trump loyalist who spread false claims of voter fraud, Mastriano had to be reassured that the scheme was not "illegal," per emails sent between the former president's campaign staff.
"Mastriano needs a call from the mayor. This needs to be done. Talk to him about legalities of what they are doing," Christina Bobb, a former on-air personality with the far-right One America News Network who assisted the Trump effort, said in a Dec. 12 email, referring to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "Electors want to be reassured that the process is * legal * essential for greater strategy."
Mastriano, who was endorsed by Trump ahead of the GOP gubernatorial primary in May, did not respond to a request for comment. In June, he hired Jenna Ellis, a Trump campaign lawyer who helped lead the alternate-slate effort.
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