In Saginaw, Trump reiterates claims that the 2020 election was rigged amid federal court action

Former President Donald Trump doubled down on claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged during a Thursday rally outside Saginaw. 

His remarks came one day after a revelatory 165-page motion was unsealed in federal court outlining the prosecution’s assertions that Trump attempted to overrule the will of the people in the 2020 election through various plots in battleground states like Michigan.

The crowd of thousands at the rally on Saginaw Valley State University’s campus erupted into cheers as Trump called on Republicans in Michigan to ensure their turnout at the polls was “too big to rig.”

Fight breaks out between vendors before Trump’s rally kicks off in Saginaw

“Last time, we did great in 2016, a lot of people don’t know we did much better in 2020. … It was a rigged election,” Trump said.

Michigan chose Trump over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 by less than 11,000 votes, but the swing state went for President Joe Biden over Trump in 2020 by over 154,000 votes.

The documents unsealed in a federal court case against Trump Wednesday offer insight on how the prosecution is planning to contend with the U.S. Supreme Court’s July ruling that U.S. presidents have broad immunity from criminal charges — which sapped momentum from efforts to prosecute Trump for crimes around efforts to toss out the results of the 2020 election so he could retain the presidency.

Although the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court, which has three Trump appointees, ruled that U.S. presidents should be granted full immunity for their official “core constitutional” acts, the court said there would be no immunity for unofficial acts.

Now-released court documents outline special counsel Jack Smith’s plan for prosecution to create a timeline of Trump’s “private criminal conduct” where Trump would have to stand trial “as would any other citizen.”

“Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted — a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role,” Smith wrote.

Smith made several allegations involving Michigan, including Trump pressuring Republican leadership in Michigan’s Legislature to find evidence of mass voter fraud in 2020 and asking other political allies to distribute false information about the election.

Smith further argues that Trump and a “co-conspirator” “tried to sow confusion” as votes were being counted in Democratic-dominated Detroit at the former TCF Center in Detroit.

According to Smith’s filing, when a colleague told the co-conspirator that efforts to claim Trump had received more votes than he did in Detroit would lead to a situation similar to the “Brooks Brothers Riot,” a violent Republican-led effort to shut down the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, the co-conspirator said, “Make them riot.”

After the court filing became publicly available, Trump told Michiganders Thursday that if he hadn’t won in 2020, he wouldn’t be running again, he’d be “on the beaches of Monte Carlo.” 

“But if I had my choice of being here with you today or being on some magnificent beach with the waves hitting me in the face, I would take you every single time,” Trump told the crowd.

For nearly an hour-and-a-half, Trump outlined his plans to make life better for Michiganders and other Americans through strict border policies, tax cuts and major tariffs on goods made outside of the U.S.

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