Comment “What Trump is going to do is just declare victory,” Stephen K. Bannon said. “Right? He’s going to declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just going to do it they say he’s a winner.” Bannon, who took a key role at the command center on Jan. 6, 2021, told a group of aides on Oct. 31, 2020, according to audio obtained by Mother Jones. A few days later, President Donald Trump did just that: He prematurely declared victory on election night, launching a months-long effort to illegally cling to power, culminating in an attack on the Capitol. In the audio, Bannon essentially gave away a critical piece of Trump’s entire corruption. But not in the way it first appears. Bannon has now opened the door to a series of new investigations focusing on this question: How premeditated was an early Trump victory declaration part of the coup plot? The answer may be that this was a more premeditated aspect of the system than we knew. Which would deal a serious blow to Trump’s last defense: That he really believed he had won and innocently exercised legal options in response. It may even increase his criminal exposure. Follow Greg Sargent’s viewsFollow Add Many have noted that the audio confirms that Trump intended to challenge the result regardless of what happened with the vote. Bannon says on the audio that this would cause a “storm,” which would apparently set the stage for the next stage: months of corrupt methods to overturn the results. We already knew that Trump had considered declaring victory on election night no matter what. Axios reported that shortly before the election, Trump privately told advisers that he might do this. But Bannon’s audio should refocus us on this forgotten fact: Trump telegraphed exactly these intentions in July 2020. Speaking to reporters, he attacked by vote, said the winner should be declared on election night, and hinted that “millions” of postal ballots would inevitably be fraudulent. That’s the whole plan there. Trump was vague, but essentially told us about three months before the 2020 election that he would declare victory on election night even with millions of uncounted ballots pendingarguing that they would be illegal. Here’s why Bannon’s voice is so relatable. In it, Bannon says much the same thing: that Trump will be favored on election night because mail-in votes from Democrats would remain pending, and Trump would take advantage of that fact to declare himself the winner. And, of course, Trump ended up doing just that. He declared victory and attacked pending ballots as part of an attempt to steal the election from him. This became the foundation of coup architect John Eastman’s plan to get Vice President Trump to illegally undermine Joe Biden’s electors and have the states flipped with new ones. So Bannon’s advance articulation of the plan begs the question: To what extent was the early declaration of victory discussed and agreed upon in advance? New York University law professor Ryan Goodman says Bannon’s audio should prompt a deeper inquiry into that question. The victory declaration, Goodman notes, was also likely part of a “premeditated strategy well in advance.” “The primary evidence,” Goodman told me, shows that “this was not something that was concocted on the eve of election night.” Bannon’s audio signal, then, calls for more scrutiny as to whether and when this was discussed between Trump and his allies — including but not limited to Bannon. “There’s every reason to believe that this part of the plot laid the groundwork for other parts of the plan,” Goodman says. This could further highlight the extent to which Trump and/or others acted with corrupt intent throughout. Proving this is key to showing that the plan may have violated federal laws, including obstructing the official process of the election count or conspiring to defraud the United States by obstructing that count. The Justice Department, which is investigating some aspects of the Jan. 6 plan, will now have to look into possible communications between Trump and Bannon about the early declaration angle before and after that conversation in the new audio, Goodman said. Bannon, who had been indicted after defying the committee’s Jan. 6 subpoena, has now pledged to cooperate. This is probably a ploy to avoid prosecution for this contempt. But in any case, the committee should ask Bannon directly about whether he and Trump discussed the early statement plan, and who else may have, too. As Goodman put it: “The new sound hints at a far more sinister plot than many have imagined.”
