What did you do on New Year’s Eve 2020? Probably not much. It was the first year of the pandemic and vaccines had yet to be made widely available. But whatever you did was probably better than what Donald Trump’s lawyers did. How did they ring in 2021? By frantically trying to overturn the election their client lost, of course.
Axios (in a bit caught by Raw Story) recently obtained emails between Eric Herschmann, a former White House attorney, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Cleta Mitchell, an activist and Trump lawyer. On Dec. 30, Mitchell had emailed Meadows an “almost final version” of a lawsuit against Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, which had been edited by notorious Trump memo-writer John Eastman. The next day, i.e., Dec. 31, Mitchell forwarded a version a “version from John Eastman with your edits.”
Alas, it didn’t take long for Herschmann to pour cold water on their actions. He pointed out that the lawsuit contained already debunked claims of voter fraud in Georgia, and he cautioned against Trump signing a sworn court statement alleging that they were true, especially when they were not.
Alas, Mitchell wouldn’t let a holiday keep them from keeping the wheels turning. With 30 minutes to midnight and a new year — not to mention less than a week from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — she wrote back to Herschmann, telling him she was frustrated with him and telling him to get on the phone with her “ASAP.”
But Herschmann — who later revealed he’d been exasperated with all the loopy conspiracy theories being bandied about by Trump’s associates — held steadfast, demanding that Trump not sign a draft until there was sound documentation attached. Trump did eventually sign it, but it’s not yet clear how he came to do so. Whatever the case, it doesn’t sound like there was much celebrating by the Trump team on NYE 2020. And there wouldn’t be anytime soon.