Trump had role in weighing proposals to seize voting machines: Report

Former US President Donald Trump had directed his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to call and ask the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if it could legally take control of voting machines in key swing states, according to a New York Times report. 

Trump asked to make the remarkable call six weeks after 3 November, 2020 - the election day, when he could sense his hold on power slipping away.

Before inquiring about the DHS route, Trump reportedly asked the then US Attorney General William Barr on the possibility of the Justice Department seizing the voting machines, a suggestion that was immediately shot down by Barr.

While Giuliani's effort to reach out to the DHS on this issue has been previously reported, Trump's direct involvement in the issue was unknown.

According to the NYT report, the former US president both directly participated in and even backed plans exploring the possible seizure of voting machines.

Trump's advisers had reportedly drafted an executive order to carry out the proposed DHS route along with a previously reported draft order that would have tasked the Department of Defense with seizing voting machines.

A retired army colonel named Phil Waldron reportedly played a key role in pushing the idea of using a federal agency to confiscate voting machines and examine them for possible irregularities.

Last month, Politico reported about the existence of a never-issued executive order that would have ordered the Pentagon to seize voting machines. The draft document reportedly emerged during a congressional investigation into the 6 January Capitol riot.

The three-page draft executive order would have instructed the secretary of defense to "seize, collect, retain and analyze" an unspecified number of voting machines and then submit a report of any possible irregularities within 60 days. The suggested sixty day deadline would have come weeks after the end of President Donald Trump's term.

The draft document justified the seizure using a list of unproven, vague or debunked voter fraud narratives, including the false claim that several voting machines are controlled by foreign entities and designed to rig elections.