Contiinued ...
Quote:... The meeting was already getting heated.
White House staff had spent weeks poring over the evidence underlying hundreds of affidavits and other claims of fraud promoted by Trump allies like Powell. The team had done the due diligence and knew the specific details of what was being alleged better than anybody. Time and time again, they found, Powell's allegations fell apart under basic scrutiny.
But Powell, fixing on Trump, continued to elaborate on a fantastical election narrative involving Venezuela, Iran, China and others. She named a county in Georgia where she claimed she could prove that Dominion had illegally flipped the vote.
Herschmann interrupted to point out that Trump had actually won the Georgia county in question: "So your theory is that Dominion intentionally flipped the votes so we could win that county?"
As for Powell's larger claims, he demanded she provide evidence for what — if true — would amount to the greatest national security breach in American history. They needed to dial in one of the campaign's lawyers, Herschmann said, and Trump campaign lawyer Matt Morgan was patched in via speakerphone.
By now, people were yelling and cursing.
The room was starting to fill up. Trump's personal assistant summoned White House staff secretary Derek Lyons to join the meeting and asked him to bring a copy of a 2018 executive order that the Powell group kept citing as the key to victory. Lyons agreed with Cipollone and the other officials that Powell's theories were nonsensical.
It was now four against four.
Flynn went berserk. The former three-star general, whom Trump had fired as his first national security adviser after he was caught lying to the FBI (and later pardoned), stood up and turned from the Resolute Desk to face Herschmann.
"You're quitting! You're a quitter! You're not fighting!” he exploded at the senior adviser. Flynn then turned to the president, and implored: "Sir, we need fighters."
Herschmann ignored Flynn at first and continued to probe Powell's pitch with questions about the underlying evidence. "All you do is promise, but never deliver," he said to her sharply.
Flynn was ranting, seemingly infuriated about anyone challenging Powell, who had represented him in his recent legal battles.
Finally Herschmann had enough. "Why the bugger do you keep standing up and screaming at me?" he shot back at Flynn. "If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down." Flynn sat back down.
The meeting had come entirely off the rails.
Byrne, backing up Flynn, told Trump the White House lawyers didn't care about him and were being obstructive. "Sir, we're both entrepreneurs, and we both built businesses," the former Overstock CEO told Trump. "We know that there are times you have to be creative and take different steps."
This was a remarkable level of personal familiarity, given it was the first time Byrne had met the president. All the stanchions and buffers between the White House and the outside world had crumbled.
Byrne kept attacking the senior White House staff in front of Trump. "They've already abandoned you," he told the president aggressively. Periodically during the meeting Flynn or Byrne challenged Trump's top staff — portraying them as disloyal: So do you think the president won or not?
At one point, with Flynn shouting, Byrne raised his hand to talk. He stood up and turned around to face Herschmann. "You're a quitter," he said. "You've been interfering with everything. You've been cutting us off."
"Do you even know who the bugger I am, you idiot?" Herschmann snapped back.
"Yeah, you're Patrick Cipollone," Byrne said.
"Wrong! Wrong, you idiot!"
The staff were now on their feet, standing behind one of the couches and facing the Powell crew at the Resolute Desk. Cipollone stood to Herschmann's left. Lyons, on his last day on the job, stood to Herschmann's right.
Trump was behind the desk, watching the show. He briefly left the meeting to wander into his private dining room.
The usually mild-mannered Lyons blasted the Powell set: "You've brought 60 cases. And you've lost every case you’ve had!"
Trump came back into the Oval Office from the dining room to rejoin the meeting. Lyons pointed out to Powell that their incompetence went beyond their lawsuits being thrown out for standing. "You somehow managed to misspell the word 'District' three different ways in your suits," he said pointedly.
In a Georgia case, the Powell team had misidentified the court on the first page of their filing as "THE UNITED STATES DISTRICCT COURT, NORTHERN DISTRCOICT OF GEORGIA." And they had identified the Michigan court as the "EASTERN DISTRCT OF MICHIGAN."
These were sloppy spelling errors. But given that these lawsuits aimed to overturn a presidential election, the court nomenclature should have been pristine.
Powell, Flynn and Byrne began attacking Lyons as they renewed their argument to Trump: There they go again, they want to focus on the insignificant details instead of fighting for you.
Trump replied, "No, no, he's right. That was very embarrassing. That shouldn't have happened."
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Inside the craziest meeting of Trump presidency (Read 714 times)
