And (of course) there are Pennsylvania connections and that means there are questions for Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano.
We'll start at CNN:
Former President Donald Trump's advisers drafted two versions of an executive order to seize voting machines -- one directing the Department of Defense to do so and another the Department of Homeland Security -- as part of a broader effort to undermine the 2020 election results, multiple sources tell CNN.
The idea of using the federal government to access voting machines in states that Trump lost was the brainchild of retired Col. Phil Waldron and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, the sources said. Both Army veterans spread misinformation about the election being stolen from Trump.
Much of this story can also be found at The NY Times. After describing Trump's attempts to have Homeland Security and then the Pentagon and then the DoJ seize the machines, the Times reports:
The new accounts show that Mr. Trump was more directly involved than previously known in exploring proposals to use his national security agencies to seize voting machines as he grasped unsuccessfully for evidence of fraud that would help him reverse his defeat in the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the episodes.
And then after a few paragraphs:
The new information helps to flesh out how the draft executive orders to seize voting machines came into existence and points in particular to the key role played by a retired Army colonel named Phil Waldron.
According to people familiar with the accounts, Mr. Waldron, shortly after the election, began telling associates that he had found irregularities in vote results that he felt were suggestive of fraud. He then came up with the idea of having a federal agency like the military or the Department of Homeland Security confiscate the machines to preserve evidence.
And then finally:
Around the same time that Mr. Trump brought up the possibility of having the Justice Department seize the voting machines, for example, he also tried to persuade state lawmakers in contested states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to use local law enforcement agencies to take control of them, people familiar with the matter said. The state lawmakers refused to go along with the plan.
Here we go.
Do you remember this piece in Reuters?
I do.
The important part (for this blog post, at least) is this:
With Pennsylvania a focus, Flynn dispatched Waldron to a state Senate hearing held by Republican lawmakers there.
And:
On November 25, wearing a blue jacket, blue shirt, striped tie and blue COVID mask, Waldron appeared in person at the Pennsylvania Senate hearing to air his fraud claims. He cited his military credentials. “I’m a retired Army colonel, 30 years,” he said. Then he claimed all the voting machine technology in the United States could be hacked.
And:
The White House focus turned to pushing Republican-led legislatures in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia to replace Biden electors with those for Trump. “That whole strategy started from that Pennsylvania hearing,” Waldron said.
And that would be, as I've already posted, the November 25 hearing arranged by Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano.
After that hearing, there was another meeting in DC. They all traveled from Mastriano's hearing to The Oval Office that day, according to the Washington Post:
Waldron said he joined the Pennsylvania lawmakers in the Nov. 25 meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. During that period, the president was meeting with legislators from key states and urging them to reject the official vote counts in their states, according to previous reports.
That was The Oval Office meeting Mastriano had to scurry from as he'd just been informed he tested positive for Covid-19.
ABC News reported that you were in the Oval Office at that meeting with your son (who also tested positive):Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano had gone to the White House last Wednesday with like-minded Republican state lawmakers shortly after a four-hour-plus public meeting that Mastriano helped host in Gettysburg — maskless — to discuss efforts to overturn president-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Trump told Mastriano that White House medical personnel would take care of him, his son and his son’s friend, who were also there for the Oval Office meeting and tested positive. The meeting continued after Mastriano and the others left, the person said.
Senator Mastriano. Did you discuss with Col Waldron his idea of
having a federal agency seize Pennsylvania's voting machines at any time
that day? Either before, during or after your hearing?
Are you expecting to be called to testify before Congress on this matter?
Do you expect that your son will be called to answer questions before the committee on what he knows? How about his friend?
How enmeshed are you in Trump's attempts to overturn the election he lost?
