hands of the leaders of those legislatures and the Members of Congress, and what our people can do is let them know what they think, and that they're not gonna get away with pushing this aside. That the consequences of turning your back on a massive voter fraud are gonna be dire for them, and historically these people are gonna become enemies of the country."[289]
A key component of this plan was to call out Republican officials who rejected President Trump and his team's efforts or claims of fraud. Kerik and numerous other members of the Campaign's legal team did just that. On December 27th, Kerik suggested that Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) was "corrupt" and said that "for any Pennsylvania official to certify their vote, it's malfeasance and criminal."[290] That was entirely consistent with Kerik's past tweets about the election, one of which apparently called public officials "who betrayed" President Trump "spineless disloyal maggots."[291] It wasn't just rhetoric, however, because, as described below, people showed up outside certain officials' home—sometimes menacingly—and, of course, showed up at the Capitol on January 6th.
The pressure in those final days did not stop with the types of activities outlined in the Strategic Communications Plan. January 2, 2021, was a busy day for a Saturday at the Trump White House. That was the day President Trump called on Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to find enough votes for victory in Georgia and participated in a call with Lindsay Graham and Members of the Freedom Caucus to plan for the joint session on January 6th.[292]
It was also the day that the President joined in a virtual briefing for nearly 300 Republican legislators from swing States.[293] The event was hosted by a short-lived organization called "Got Freedom?" that listed Jenna Ellis among its leadership team,[294] and included Giuliani, John Eastman, and Peter Navarro as the program's "featured speakers."[295] A press release by Got Freedom? said that the meeting was hosted by Phillip Kline, a former attorney general of Kansas, who was disbarred in 2013.[296] It indicated that purported proof of voter fraud "should serve as an important resource for state legislators as they make calls for state legislatures to meet to investigate the election and consider decertifying their state election results."[297]
According to the Washington Examiner, when President Trump joined the call he told the participants: "You know that we won the election, and you were also given false numbers to certify." It quoted him saying "[y]ou are the real power" because "[y]ou're more important than the courts. You're more important than anything because the courts keep referring to you, and you're the ones that are going to make the decision." When asked about that quote, specifically, Giuliani, who was on the call, said he didn't
