Giuliani’s attempts to overturn 2020 election partly thwarted by wrong number

Rudy Giuliani texted the wrong number as he tried to persuade Michigan legislators to help overthrow the 2020 election.

According to a document unsealed in federal court on Wednesday, on 7 December 2020, Giuliani tried to send a message urging someone unspecified to help in the plan to appoint a slate of fake electors.

“So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the legislature that states the election is in dispute, there’s an ongoing investigation by the legislature, and the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official electors of the state of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline under Michigan law,” Giuliani wrote.

As Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, his allies sought to appoint alternate slates of electors in states that he lost to send to Congress. These false slates of electors met in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona and signed certificates in which they represented that they were valid electors in their states. Trump allies then attempted to send those certificates to Congress for counting on 6 January 2021. The plan failed.

Some of the electors have since been charged criminally, while others have not. Some have said they were told that they were instructed they were acting as a backup in case Trump won court cases challenging the election results.

Prosecutors said Giuliani failed to send the message because “he put the wrong number into his phone,” prosecutors wrote.

The detail was included in a legal brief by the special counsel Jack Smith that was unsealed by the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal election interference case against Trump.

The brief, which contains several new details about Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 race, argues why Trump should be held accountable – specifically, why he is not entitled to immunity after the US supreme court held that presidents cannot be charged for “official acts” while in office.

Giuliani is an unnamed co-conspirator in the case.

He also faces criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona over his efforts to overturn the election results.

He has had his law license suspended in New York and has been disbarred in Washington DC over his involvement in the scheme. He is also appealing a judgment that he owes two Georgia election workers nearly $150m for defaming them after the 2020 election.

Giuliani has a history of sloppy cellphone use. According to New York magazine, he once accidentally called an NBC reporter and left a message in which he could be heard discussing overseas business and said: “We need a few hundred thousand.”

He also once appeared to accidentally text a reporter one of his passwords.