Trump adviser Peter Navarro reveals how he and Steve Bannon planned to topple Biden’s election victory

A former Trump White House official says he and the right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon is actually behind the last line, coordinated efforts by rogue Republicans in Congress to stop Certification of the 2020 election results and kept President Donald Trump in power earlier this year, in a plan dubbed the “Blue Bay Sweep”.

In his recently published memoir, Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to President Donald Trump at the time, detailed how he stayed in close touch with Bannon as they put the “Green Bay Sweep” into action with help from loyal members of Congress. politics.

But in an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro shed more light on his role in the activism and their coordination with politicians like Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“We spent a lot of time queuing up more than 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started off perfectly. At 1pm, Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them,” Navarro told The Daily Beast. “It was a perfect plan. And all predict peace and quiet on Capitol Hill. We don’t even need any protesters, because we already have over 100 congressmen committed to it. “

That pledge comes as Congress is certifying the 2020 Electoral College votes that reflect Joe Biden’s defeat of Trump. Senator Cruz signed again Congressman Gosar officially protested to tally Arizona’s electoral votes, an effort that has been supported by dozens of other Trump loyalists.

Cruz and Gosar staff did not respond to requests for comment. There is no public indication whether the Jan. 6 Committee sought testimony or documents from Senator Cruz or Representative Gosar. But the committee is only just beginning to seek evidence from members of Congress who have been involved in a joint effort to keep Trump in the White House, such as Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Representative Scott Perry (R-PA).

This last-minute maneuver never had any chance to actually confirm the election results, a point Navarro was quick to admit. But their hope is to run the clock as long as possible to increase public pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to send electoral votes back to the six contested states, where the governing bodies Republican-led legislation could try to overturn the outcome. And in their minds, increasing pressure on Pence will require media coverage. While the most respected news organizations refuse to recover unproven conspiracy theory About popular voter fraud, the plan hopes to force journalists to cover up the allegations by creating a historic delay to the certification process.

“Green Bay Sweep has been very well thought out. It was designed to get us 24 hours of televised hearings,” he said. “But we thought we could bypass the corporate media by putting this content on television.”

He said part of Navarro’s ploy was supplying raw materials. That came in the form of a three-part White House report he compiled during his final weeks in the Trump administration with episode titles like “Immaculate Deception” and “The Art of Stealing.” .

“My role is to provide receipts to the 100 or so congressmen who will bring their cases…who can rely in part on the evidence base that I have gathered,” he said. with The Daily Beast. “To set the legal predicate for the actions to be taken.” (Ultimately, the states did not find any evidence of voter fraud above the norm, which is extremely small.)

The next stage of the plan was described by Bannon, Navarro in his memoirs, During Trump’s time.

“Steve Bannon’s role was to figure out how to use this information – what he called ‘receipts’ – to overturn election results. That’s how Steve came up with the Green Bay Sweep idea,” he wrote.

“The political and legal beauty of the strategy is this: by law, both the House and Senate are required to spend up to two hours debating each state on each required challenge. For the six battleground states, that would stretch to 24 hours of nationally televised hearings in two chambers of Congress. “

His book also notes that Bannon was the first person he communicated with when he woke up at dawn on January 6, writing, “I checked my messages and was pleased to see Steve Bannon gave We’re totally ready to do Green Bay Sweep on Capitol Hill. Call the play. Run the play. ”

Navarro told The Daily Beast he feels lucky that someone canceled his scheduled appearance to speak to Trump supporters that morning at the Ellipse, a park south of the White House that will acts as a front staging area violent attack on the US Capitol.

“I’d better spend that morning working on the Green Bay Sweep. Just checked to see that everything was in order, the congressmen were on board,” he said in the interview. “It was a pretty calming morning for me. I’m sure everything is in place. ”

Later that day, Bannon mentioned some football themed strategy on his daily podcast, War Room Pandemic.

“We’re on the cusp of victory,” Bannon said on the show. “It’s pretty simple. The game is called. Mike Pence, run the game. Let’s play. Take the cards from midfield. You’ve got guards in front of you. You’ve got big guys. , strong in front. Just do your duty.”

This idea has been in the works for weeks. Although Navarro told The Daily Beast he doesn’t remember when “Brother Bannon” came up with the plan, he says it started to take shape like “Stop stealing“Legal challenges to election results in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have gone up in smoke. The courts will not side with Trump, thanks to what Navarro describes in his book as a “highly counterproductive farce” in the Sydney Powell and her Kraken case. So instead, they pushed a never-before-seen plan through the legislative branch.

Navarro begins his book chapter on this strategy by mentioning that “Stephen K. Bannon, me, and President Donald John Trump” are “the last three people on God’s good Earth who want to witness violence.” outbreak on Capitol Hill” disrupts their plan.

When asked if Trump himself was involved in the strategy, Navarro said, “I never spoke to him directly about it. But he was definitely involved in this strategy. Just heard his speech that day. He was briefed on the law and how Mike [Pence] authority over it. “

Indeed, Trump’s legal advisor John Eastman wrote a Remember board (First revealed by journalists Robert Costa and Bob Woodward in their book, Hazardous) outlines how Trump might stage a coup. And Trump explicitly mentioned the plan in his January 6 speech, when he said, “I hope Mike does the right thing. I hope so too. I hope so… all Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states for recertification and we become president and you are the happiest.”

Instead, when Pence certified the electoral votes, he became what Navarro’s book describes as “the person most responsible… for President Trump’s ultimate betrayal.”

Although the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 violence has requested testimony and records from dozens of Trump allies and protest organizers believed to be involved in the attack on the nation’s democracy, Navarro said he has yet to hear from them. The committee did not respond to our questions about whether it intended to dig into Navarro’s activities.

And while he had text messages, phone calls and memos that could show how closely an active White House official was involved in the effort to keep Trump in power, he said. Investigators will not find anything to suggest that the Green Bay Sweep scheme involved violence. Instead, Navarro said, the committee will find that the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol actually foiled their plans, as it encouraged Pence and other Republicans. Follow with certification.

“They don’t want any part of me. I vindicate Trump and Bannon,” he said.

However, the committee was involved in a Bitter battle with Bannon. Former Trump White House Chief Strategist refuse to appear to deposit or turn over the document, and he is now indicted by the Department of Justice for contempt of Congress.

Navarro said he was still surprised when people at Trump’s rally turned violent, given the impression he had when he went to see them in person during a gym session that morning.

“I’m telling you, it’s peaceful. I don’t feel angry. Not available. Zero,” he said.