'It could appear treasonous': Officials failed to cover their tracks in fake elector scheme, indictment alleges

• Unnamed Trump associates were told that their actions would "appear treasonous" to those who knew of their plan.
• To get around this, they lied to electors about how their signatures would be used, a new indictment alleges.
• The message was cited in special counsel Jack Smith's historic indictment of Donald Trump.

An unindicted co-conspirator working with former President Donald Trump to pass along an alleged fake slate of electors in 2021 said that they were told their actions may "appear treasonous," according to special counsel Jack Smith's indictment released Tuesday.

The scheme, in which unnamed attorneys gathered uncertified electors from swing states to provide electoral votes with false certifications to Congress, was part of an effort to "prevent President Joe Biden from receiving the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure the presidency" on January 6, 2021, per the indictment.

As these unnamed individuals began reaching out to lawyers to help with the plan, one person, only identified as co-conspirator 5 explained to co-conspirator 1 that they were told by a state official and state provisional elector that "it could appear treasonous" for the Arizona electors they had selected to vote on December 14, 2020 — the day that legal electors were to submit their ballots — if "no pending court proceeding..." to challenge election results was filed.

They then suggested that an Arizona attorney file a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court "as a pretext to claim that litigation was pending in the state," according to the indictment. Conspirators later falsely claimed that they would only use the fake certificates if they succeeded in their litigation to assure worried Trump electors, Smith's team alleged in the indictment.

The document identified co-conspirator 1 as an "attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies" that other Trump lawyers would not, while co-conspirator 5 is described as "an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors."

Trump has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

He denied the charges and called it an attempt by the Department of Justice to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.

It is his third criminal indictment.