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Throughout, he was enabled by influential Republicans motivated by ambition, fear or a misplaced belief that he would not go too far.

For every lawyer on Mr. Trump’s team who quietly pulled back, there was one ready to push forward with propagandistic suits that skated the lines of legal ethics and reason

That included not only Mr. Giuliani and lawyers like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, but also the vast majority of Republican attorneys general, whose dead-on-arrival Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to discount 20 million votes was secretly drafted by lawyers close to the White House, The Times found.

With each passing day the lie grew, finally managing to do what the political process and the courts would not: upend the peaceful transfer of power that for 224 years had been the bedrock of American democracy.

The vote-stealing theory got its first exposure beyond the web the day before the election on Mr. Bannon’s show. Because of the Hammer, Mr. McInerney said, “it’s going to look good for President Trump, but they’re going to change it.” The Democrats, he alleged, were seeking to use the system to install Mr. Biden and bring the country to “a totalitarian state.”

with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, backing him, Mr. Barr told the president that he could not manufacture evidence and that his department would have no role in challenging states’ results, said a former senior official with knowledge about the meeting, a version of which was first reported by Axios. The allegations about manipulated voting machines were ridiculously false, he added; the lawyers propagating them, led by Mr. Giuliani, were “clowns.”

Yet as the suits failed in court after court across the country, leaving Mr. Trump without credible options to reverse his loss before the Electoral College vote on Dec. 14, Mr. Giuliani and his allies were developing a new legal theory — that in crucial swing states, there was enough fraud, and there were enough inappropriate election-rule changes, to render their entire popular votes invalid.

As a result, the theory went, those states’ Republican-controlled legislatures would be within their constitutional rights to send slates of their choosing to the Electoral College.

Yet as the draft circulated among Republican attorneys general, several of their senior staff lawyers raised red flags. How could one state ask the Supreme Court to nullify another’s election results? Didn’t the Republican attorneys general consider themselves devoted federalists, champions of the way the Constitution delegates many powers — including crafting election laws — to each state, not the federal government?

In an interview, Mr. Kobach explained his group’s reasoning: The states that held illegitimate elections (which happened to be won by Mr. Biden) were violating the rights of voters in states that didn’t (which happened to be won by Mr. Trump).

The lawsuit was audacious in its scope. It claimed that, without their legislatures’ approval, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had made unconstitutional last-minute election-law changes, helping create the conditions for widespread fraud. Citing a litany of convoluted and speculative allegations — including one involving Dominion voting machines — it asked the court to shift the selection of their Electoral College delegates to their legislatures, effectively nullifying 20 million votes.

One lawyer knowledgeable about the planning, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “There was no plausible chance the court will take this up. It was really disgraceful to put this in front of justices of the Supreme Court.”

The next day, Dec. 9, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana sent an email to his colleagues with the subject line, “Time-sensitive request from President Trump.” The congressman was putting together an amicus brief in support of the Texas suit; Mr. Trump, he wrote, “specifically asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join.” The president, he noted, was keeping score: “He said he will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review.”

Some 126 Republican House members, including the caucus leader, Mr. McCarthy, signed on to the brief, which was followed by a separate brief from the president himself. “This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!” Mr. Trump tweeted. Privately, he asked Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to argue the case.

By the time the bus pulled into West Monroe, La., for a New Year’s Day stop to urge Senator John Kennedy to object to certification, Mr. Trump was making it clear to his followers that a rally at the Ellipse in Washington on Jan. 6 was part of his plan. On Twitter, he promoted the event five times that day alone.

But talk at the rally was tilting toward what to do if they didn’t.“We need our president to be confirmed through the states on the 6th,” said Couy Griffin, the founder of Cowboys for Trump. “And right after that, we’re going to have to declare martial law.”

Though Ms. Kremer held the permit, the rally would now effectively become a White House production. After 12,000 miles of drumbeating through 44 stops in more than 20 states, they would be handing over their movement to the man whose grip on power it had been devised to maintain.

Mr. Barr had resigned in December. But behind the back of the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, the president was plotting with the Justice Department’s acting civil division chief, Jeffrey Clark, and a Pennsylvania congressman named Scott Perry to pressure Georgia to invalidate its results, investigate Dominion and bring a new Supreme Court case challenging the entire election. The scheming came to an abrupt halt when Mr. Rosen, who would have been fired under the plan, assured the president that top department officials would resign en masse.

But Mr. Cruz was working at cross-purposes, trying to conscript others to sign a letter laying out his circular logic: Because polling showed that Republicans’ “unprecedented allegations” of fraud had convinced two-thirds of their party that Mr. Biden had stolen the election, it was incumbent on Congress to at least delay certification and order a 10-day audit in the “disputed states.” Mr. Cruz, joined by 10 other objectors, released the letter on the Saturday after New Year’s.

The rally had taken on new branding, the March to Save America, and other groups were joining in, among them the Republican Attorneys General Association. Its policy wing, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, promoted the event in a robocall that said, “We will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” according to a recording obtained by the progressive investigative group Documented.

Mr. Stockton said he was surprised to learn on the day of the rally that it would now include a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Before the White House became involved, he said, the plan had been to stay at the Ellipse until the counting of state electoral slates was completed.

Defiantly, to a great roar from the plaza, Ms. Chafian cried, “I stand with the Proud Boys, because I’m tired of the lies,” and she praised other militant nationalist groups in the crowd, including the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters.

Speakers including Mr. Byrne, Mr. Flynn, Mr. Jones, Mr. Stone and the Tennessee pastor Mr. Locke spoke of Dominion machines switching votes and Biden ballots “falling from the sky,” of “enemies at the gate” and Washington’s troops on the Delaware in 1776, of a fight between “good and evil.”“Take it back,” the crowd chanted. “Stop the steal.”

“What we do now is we take note of the people who betrayed President Trump in Congress and we get them out of Congress,” he said. “We’re going to make the Tea Party look tiny in comparison.”

They ran in different social circles. Where Trump would go to a dinner party hosted by Jeffrey Epstein, Bloomberg would go to editor Tina Brown’s house.

“I’m sure Bloomberg has no gold toilets at his house,” said Rebecca Katz, a New York-based Democratic strategist. “It’s a different kind of money with less to prove.”

Bloomberg has seen his national poll numbers rise within the Democratic primary as he’s poured money into advertising for his campaign.

Trump has criticized Bloomberg as well. In early December, Trump mockingly tweeted that “Mini Mike Bloomberg has instructed his third rate news organization” to investigate “President Trump, only”.

Trump around that time tweeted: “Little Michael Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!”

“I’m for guns, he’s against guns,” Trump said. Though Trump, in the past, had praised Bloomberg’s positions on guns.

Huckabee's comments came after Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said on Monday that in this week's debate the president will bring up allegations that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden met with a Ukrainian business associate of his son, Hunter, as reported by the New York Post last week. 

Democrats, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who said on CNN the emails are part of a smear campaign coming "from the Kremlin," have slammed the report. But Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said on FOX Business on Monday that there is no intelligence to support Schiff's assertion. 

"I think Joe Biden is compromised ... Joe Biden has now dodged this multiple times. Are you the 'big guy?' Are you the 'chairman?' Is Hunter Biden handling family expenses and setting aside money for you?" Miller said on FOX Business

"If Kristen Welker, the moderator, doesn't bring it up, I think you're pretty safe to assume that the president will. Again, these are real simple questions."

The comments by Miller could indicate a renewed focus on attacks on Biden's family from the Trump campaign as the presidential election is just over two weeks away

Haley expressed anger over Trump's treatment of former Vice President Mike Pence on January 6 and said she hasn't spoken with Trump since then.

"When I tell you I'm angry, it's an understatement," Haley told Politico. "Mike has been nothing but loyal to that man. He's been nothing but a good friend of that man. ... I am so disappointed in the fact that [despite] the loyalty and friendship he had with Mike Pence, that he would do that to him. Like, I'm disgusted by it."

She did, however, say that she believes "impeachment is a waste of time."

Asked how Trump should then be held accountable, Haley replied, "I think he's going to find himself further and further isolated.""I think his business is suffering at this point. I think he's lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. I think he's lost his social media, which meant the world to him," she continued. "I mean, I think he's lost the things that really could have kept him moving."

"I don't think he's going to be in the picture," she said. "I don't think he can. He's fallen so far."She acknowledged that "the love" Republicans have for Trump is "still very strong" and won't "fall to the wayside."

Although Haley left the Trump administration on good terms with Trump, she has occasionally spoken out about his rhetoric, even while supporting many of his policies. The day after January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, Haley told members of the Republican National Committee in a closed-door speech that the President's actions after the election "will be judged harshly by history."

"Never did I think he would spiral out like this. ... I don't feel like I know who he is anymore," she claimed.

"I understand the president. I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged," Haley told the magazine.

If Americans couldn't fully wrap their minds around the arcana of a phone call with the Ukrainian President or the complexities of Russian collusion, or follow the quibbling protests over what the meaning of the word "is" is, they could certainly follow the tragic events from the summer of 2020 up to January 6, which led to five people, including a police officer, losing their lives.

House managers laid them out methodically and holistically, revealing a deeply sinister, calculated plot to overthrow the government; overturn the election' harm or even kill Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers -- and assault any police officers who'd get in their way.

They brought brace knuckles, stun guns and other weapons. They went "hunting" in the halls looking for lawmakers to hurt

it's overwhelmingly clear that the instigator is Trump himself.

The dots were meticulously connected, linking Trump's incitement of his supporters in the months leading up to the November election to the insurrection at the Capitol. There was Trump in his own words, telling them to fight. There were his supporters in theirs, telling him they would.

With everything we now know -- and we don't even know it all yet -- it's clear this trial is not about politics. It's not about Republicans or Democrats.It's not about free speech, and whether we should lock someone up for saying things we don't like.It's about the near-overthrow of our government, the deaths of five people, the assault on our law enforcement, the unimaginable danger our elected officials, their staffs and in some cases their families were put in, and the clear-as-day connection to the most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States. It's nothing less than the "crime of the century."

Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has established her credentials as a tough interrogator with her questioning of officials like William P. Barr, the attorney general. She knows how to make a case. But can she attack Mr. Trump’s handling of the virus — which has come to define his presidency — without veering toward an overly personal attack on a president battling a potentially lethal disease?

Mrs. Clinton, the only woman to serve as a major-party presidential nominee, warned Ms. Harris, in so many words, about the corrosive role that sexism will play onstage.

Mr. Pence is also likely to be pressed to defend Mr. Trump’s actions since his illness was diagnosed — leaving the hospital against the counsel of many medical professionals, minimizing the threat of the virus and dramatically removing his mask when he returned to the White House. The president has offered himself as evidence that Covid-19 can be beaten; does Mr. Pence agree with that?

Ms. Harris is not just a woman but also the first woman of color on a major-party ticket.

Don’t look too angry’ line,” Ms. Lawless said. “These are cliché. But they’re cliché because they’re true.”

“She symbolizes everything that ‘Make America Great Again’ wants to push back on by virtue of being a Black woman,” Ms. Lawless said.

(Step 1); moved quickly to talk about the aspirations of a Trump presidency (Step 2); and swung into an attack on the Democrats (Step 3).

because so many vice presidents, and vice-presidential candidates, eventually run for president.

Specifically, the senator has become convinced that the push to register every young American for the draft, women included, is in fact a stalking horse for Big Government’s push to establish a system of compulsory national service.

One is the move (championed by Senator John McCain) to open the draft to women. The other aims to create a “National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service” that would “consider methods to increase participation in military, national, and public service in order to address national security and other public service needs of the nation.”

Today, more funding is made available to create additional Americorps jobs; tomorrow, 18-year-olds are being forced to man soup kitchens in the name of patriotism.

A second type of algorithm can also see the consequences of particular moves far, far in advance of the game by playing millions and millions or perhaps even billions of combinations of moves. In contrast, human Go experts have their experience to rely on, but it is fuzzy by comparison. Think of this as an intellectual version of John Henry and the jackhammer.

The GOP's embrace of patriotism and American exceptionalism ramped up after 9/11 and especially when Democrats began to question the war in Iraq. Some on the right fought back by arguing that this was unpatriotic or that war skeptics opposed U.S. troops.

And it was a fixture of the opposition to Barack Obama, whom Republicans regularly accused of "apologizing" for America.

This was a major theme of Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign against Obama, and back in 2015, Rudy Giuliani accused Obama of believing "that American exceptionalism is no more exceptional than the exceptionalism of any other country in the world."

Giuliani is now a key Trump confidant, and Trump is espousing almost that exact view that Giuliani ascribed to Obama. And now the likes of Giuliani and Pence are left to explain it.

eeds to make it clear that if the President won't stand to protect America from wholesale open borders, then Republicans will."

In a radio interview with Bill Bennett, Ryan also said he has tasked all committees of jurisdiction to come up with recommendations about how to ensure the thousands of Syrian refugees the President wants to settle in the United States won't be involved in terrorism

"When I hear folks say that maybe we should just admit the Christians and not the Muslims (refugees), when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted -- when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that's shameful. That's not American," Obama said

The refugees have been admitted to 138 cities and towns in a total of 36 states -- with California, Texas, Michigan, Arizona and Illinois taking the most, according to wrapsnet.org, where the U.S. government keeps its official numbers

"Scapegoating an entire religious community and rejecting those fleeing ISIL's terrorism and persecution is what the terrorists want," O'Malley said in a statement.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, took a more direct shot at Obama in previewing a Thursday subcommittee hearing on the Syrian refugee crisis.

"When will President Obama take ISIS threats seriously, as well as the warnings of national security officials within his own administration, and cease his plan to bring thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States?" Goodlatte said in a statement. "His disconnectedness to reality is needlessly jeopardizing national security and Americans' lives."

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence similarly ordered his state to suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees, "pending assurances from the federal government that proper security measures have been achieved."

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan is the only Democrat to oppose Syrian refugees' resettlement in the United States -- a stance that's particularly notable since she is challenging Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte in 2016. A spokesman said Hassan "believes that the federal government should halt acceptance of refugees from Syria.

“My heart is so heavy and I am having trouble believing he is gone,” she added. “Mike was an example in the way he lived and loved. God be glorified!”On Saturday, the missionary organization provided a detailed account of Mr. Riddering’s trip to Ouagadougou. It said he went to the capital on Friday with a co-worker, identified only as Pastor Valentin, to meet a group of missionaries who had just arrived from the United States.

“It appears that Pastor Valentin was somehow separated from Mike during the attack and hid somewhere in the Cappuccino Cafe,” the missionary group said.The pastor was later rescued by security forces but did not know what had happened to Mr. Riddering, and for many hours it was unclear. Another missionary, Philip Matheny, found his body on Saturday in a morgue.Sheltering Wings said that in addition to his wife and daughter Delaney, Mr. Riddering is survived by three other children Haley, Biba and Moise.

“It’s now a process designed to measure not how much progress we’re making, but how much damage is being done,” the senior administration official said.

If the trip is another failure, internal critics and some in Congress will push for more pressure on North Korea, more sanctions, a resumption of U.S.-South Korea military exercises, and other measures to show Kim he can’t jerk around the United States. The argument against these measures is that they could create a rift in the U.S.-South Korea alliance and risk sinking the whole process — with the blame falling on the U.S. government.

But the fundamental problem with the Trump-Kim scheme remains: Until there is tangible evidence Kim is actually willing to denuclearize, each concession only plays into his strategy to stall for time, relieve financial pressure and normalize his regime’s status as a de facto nuclear state.

Trudeau suggested as much when he said Thursday that he canceled a trip to Washington to meet with Trump about an agreement on NAFTA because Vice President Mike Pence told him that a meeting could only go ahead if a sunset clause were added to the pact. Canada views such a clause—one in which NAFTA would be renegotiated every five years—as a red line because it creates exactly the kind of economic uncertainty that deals like NAFTA are meant to eliminate.