Second draft order by Trump advisers sought to ask DHS to seize voting machines: report

Advisers to former President Trump drafted another version of an executive order that would have directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize voting machines, CNN reported on Monday, citing multiple sources.

Earlier this month, Politico obtained a draft order from the Trump administration that would have instructed the Department of Defense to seize voting machines.

Now, according to multiple sources who spoke with CNN, the Trump administration also drafted another version of that executive order that had the intention of ordering DHS to seize voting machines. CNN reported there were now two versions of the same document.

The idea was spearheaded by retired Col. Phil Waldron and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, CNN’s sources said, with one source saying Flynn was committed to the idea of seizing election equipment and personally reached out to a senior defense official for help with the plan.

The Hill has reached out to DHS for comment. 

In December 2020, Flynn suggested in an interview on Newsmax that Trump could deploy the military to “rerun” the 2020 election. During the interview, he also publicly floated the idea of Trump seizing all voting machines in the country and then deploying the military to swing states in which he lost.

“He could order, within the swing states if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and basically rerun an election each in those states,” he said, claiming that such an action was “not unprecedented,” though the military has never been deployed in a nationwide effort to seize voting machines in U.S. history.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told CNN earlier this month that the draft document for the Pentagon was “an extraordinary document.”

“We’ve got no evidence at this point that there were steps taken in the Department of Defense to implement that memo but … it’s a lawless document and really breathtaking in its approach,” she told the network.