Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, was pressed Friday about his role in efforts to legitimize alleged pro-Trump electors from states that Joe Biden won.
“Is that something you ever worked on or would support, for example, in Michigan?” MSNBC host Ari Melber asked him.
“Yes, I was part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors for when, as we hoped, the challenges to the seated electors would be heard, and would be successful,” Epshteyn replied, echoing his comments to The Washington Post, which revealed new details about the plot in a report Thursday.
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Then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, it noted, oversaw the effort. This reportedly involved helping pro-Trump electors access state Capitol buildings, drafting language for phony electoral certificates to send to the federal government, and finding replacements for electors who didn’t want to go along with the plot to subvert the will of the American people.
Throughout the interview with Melber, Epshteyn repeated false claims about election fraud, and cited the 1960 presidential election in Hawaii as a precedent for “alternate” electors even though those circumstances were different. Epshteyn also contended that everything he did was legal.
“So, Ari, everything that was done was done legally by the Trump legal team according to the rules and under the leadership of Rudy Giuliani,” he claimed.
Fraudulent election certificates were submitted to Congress and the National Archives by Republicans claiming to be pro-Trump electors in at least five states, Michigan among them. Last week, that state’s attorney general handed over her case to federal prosecutors, commenting, “I think that you’re talking about a conspiracy, really, to overthrow the United States government.”
Epshteyn was among several “Big Lie” proponents subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday. He was also part of a “command center” at Washington, D.C.’s Willard Hotel that aimed to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election win on Jan. 6.
