FORTY-TWO
Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg had been drawn to Trump since working on his 2016 campaign. Trump took him seriously and paid attention to him. With his broad shoulders and straight jaw, and his gruff manner of speaking, Kellogg had the kind of look Trump liked for his generals.
But in recent years, Kellogg was torn between two worlds: Pence World, where he was the vice president’s national security adviser, and Trump World.
“I make no bones about it. I’m a Trump loyalist,” Kellogg told others. Yet he worked directly for Pence, in a job he accepted after briefly acting as Trump’s national security adviser following the resignation of Michael Flynn.
“I had my own personal nicknames for both of them,” Kellogg said. “Fire and Ice.”
Trump felt comfortable with Kellogg. He could curse around him and not worry.
“I’m dealing with a fucking lunatic,” Trump said in one meeting with Kellogg, referring to his engagement with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Pence was the total opposite of Trump. Pence had an open Bible on his desk and prayed daily. He held Bible study meetings with friends and kept things tight with Marc Short and his wife, Karen Pence, with few others in the know. In four years of being around Pence, Kellogg had never heard him curse—and Kellogg did not curse around him.
Since November, Kellogg had felt pained as he watched Pence suffer silently under Trump’s pressure to contest the election. On one trip on Air Force Two to watch a rocket launch, Kellogg pulled him aside.
“Sir, you got to end this and here’s how you end it,” Kellogg advised. “Walk in there and say, ‘I ain’t going to do it.’ Not just that you can’t do it, you won’t do it.”
He said for Trump, there was no greater quality than being tough. Tough was his language.
Pence did not respond.
Pence had flown to Georgia to campaign for the two GOP senators on January 4. The White House had planned a political doubleheader: Pence would go there early in the day, and then Trump would come to the state late at night. Separate trips.
After long talks with aides, Pence leaned into the idea that the election had problems, but he avoided the words “rigged” and “fraud.” It was his way of staying in Trump’s good graces without going full Giuliani.
“I know we all, we all got our doubts about the last election,” Pence told the crowd in Milner, Georgia, standing before an enormous American flag, “and I want to assure you, I share the concerns of the millions of Americans about the voting irregularities.
“And I promise you, come this Wednesday,” he said. The crowd began to stir at those words. “We’ll have our day in Congress.” Attendees began to roar.
“We’ll hear the objections. We’ll hear the evidence. But tomorrow is Georgia’s day.”
On his flight back to Washington, Pence and his advisers worked on drafting the letter he wanted to release on January 6, explaining his decision to properly count the electoral vote.
Short did not love the idea and suggested at one point that Pence could move forward without issuing a letter at all. Why would you create a target? But Pence wanted a letter.
Sitting in his Air Force Two cabin, they decided not to use the word “fraud” anywhere. Instead, like in his speech, it would be “irregularities.” Fox News was playing on low volume, running a segment on Pence.
“There’s going to be people that aren’t happy about this,” his senior adviser, Marty Obst, said, playing out the conservative response should Pence stick with his plan to not meddle with the count. “But there’s a lot less people than you think.” Obst was trying to buck him up.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Pence said.
Obst later took Pence aside on the flight. He was worried about his longtime boss.
“I’m in a good place,” Pence assured him. “I think there’ll be blowback. We’ll figure it out.”
Pence eyed Obst. He knew Obst, stocky and fast-talking, could get hot. He might be itching to be an attack dog on Pence’s behalf in the coming days.
“You’ll be tempted to engage,” Pence said, but avoid the temptation. “That’s not helpful.”
Back in Washington, Trump was waiting for Pence to return. He told his aides he would not head to Georgia that night, for his late election eve rally, until he had a chance to talk with the vice president.
Once he landed at Joint Base Andrews, Pence was informed the president wanted to see him. Short called Meadows and said they would swing by, but he asked for the number of attendees to be small so the discussion would not drift. Meadows agreed.
When Pence stepped into the Oval Office with Short and Jacob, Trump and Eastman were waiting for them.
Trump was fired up. He went on for minutes about Eastman’s credentials as one of the nation’s best scholars. He made it clear that Pence could act. Eastman spoke up and said it was all sound: Pence could act.
“I’ve been getting guidance that says I can’t,” Pence said, glancing at his counselor, Greg Jacob.
“Well, you can,” Eastman said. His January 2 memo to Lee had since expanded into a six-page memo. Its gist: Have Pence pause the process in Congress so Republicans in state legislatures could try to hold special sessions and consider sending another slate of electors.
It also still asserted there were dueling slates and offered a scenario where “VP Pence opens the ballots” and “determines on his own which is valid.” But Eastman acknowledged those alternative slates remained goals, not something that was legally tangible.
“You really need to listen to John. He’s a respected constitutional scholar. Hear him out,” Trump said. “Listen. Listen to John.”
Marine One was humming steps away outside, ready to go. Jacob and Eastman then quickly agreed to meet, one-on-one, the following day.
Pence thanked Trump for going to Georgia and told him it was important to do so—a trip critical for keeping the Senate. Trump shrugged.
That night in Georgia, Trump tore into the Democrats and indulged conspiracies about the election in a nearly 90-minute speech. He barely mentioned the Senate races and focused on his own hopes of keeping the presidency.
“They’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right now,” Trump told the crowd of thousands packed into grandstands, with cranes hoisting huge American flags.
Lee attended the rally. “Mike Lee is here, too,” Trump said. “But I’m a little angry at him today. I just want Mike Lee to listen to what we’re talking about, because you know what, we need his vote.”
Trump launched a salvo at Pence. His meeting with him hours earlier resolved nothing.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. I have to tell you,” Trump said.
“He’s a great guy,” he added. “Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.” He slapped the side of the lectern as the crowd laughed.
Mike Lee went to bed that night with a deep feeling of frustration and bewilderment. Was there something he was not seeing? Or was it as strange as it seemed?
Meanwhile, people he did not know continued to call his cell phone, urging him to “stop the steal.” The callers were from states where people suggested the courts or state legislatures were about to spring into action.
Was it possible? Lee wondered. He could see plainly the strategy all hinged on Trump lawyer John Eastman’s claim that “7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors.” He had heard nothing from anyone else. Nothing was in the news. Was there even one state doing it? I’ve got to find out if this was true, Lee concluded.
Over the next 48 hours, Lee tracked down the phone numbers of elected officials in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—and through third parties, he sought out information on Arizona.
They all had Republican legislatures. He talked with their leaders. A U.S. senator could get almost anyone on the phone. Lee made dozens of calls.
Every single person he contacted told him the same: Not a chance you would get a majority in either statehouse of any of these states to say that the election had failed, or to decertify their slate of electors. Not one house chamber in any of these states.
Lee soon grew tired of being told the same thing over and over.