A real electoral ballot preparing to be certified on January 6, 2021Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP

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Shortly after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani came up with a harebrained scheme: hijack the Electoral College by having fake electors sign fake election certificates, and then convince former Vice President Mike Pence to throw out authentic Biden-voting electors and replace them with Trump-voting alternates.

The plan was patently absurd, and Pence refused to go along with it. But that’s not the end of the story. Now, the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is subpoenaing 14 of those illegitimate “electors,” including the chairmen of the Nevada and Georgia GOP and several Republican National Committee members, in hopes that they’ll give more information about exactly how the plan went down.

“We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement. “We encourage them to cooperate with the Select Committee’s investigation to get answers about January 6th for the American people and help ensure nothing like that day ever happens again.”

Let’s see what happens next.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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