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By Elizabeth Williamson
Report from Washington
Richard Grenell’s quest for secretary of state at a time when Trump’s tenure began late on Election Day 2020, when the defeated president sent his loyalists to conduct chaotic operations to “stop flights” in battleground states.
President Donald J. Trump asked Grenell, his combative former ambassador to Germany, acting head of national intelligence and special envoy to the Balkans, to fly on a personal plane to Nevada, where Grenell was installed, his dog Lola, his lawyers and a team of activists in a suite at the Venetian Resort, which served as the band’s stage in Las Vegas. During a multi-day exhibition, Trump’s team filed a lawsuit and false accusations of fraud, adding one that falsely implicated many members of the military.
This is all a farce. Mr. Grenell told the team in the stage room, two Republican agents. Agents recalled that, in fact, Nevada’s vote had not been stolen. The officers, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Mr. Grenell, said he told the team that the only goal was to “throw spaghetti against the wall” (deputies described Mr. Grenell making a theatrical throwing gesture as he spoke) to prevent the media from calling Nevada as the election war raged in neighboring Arizona.
In retrospect, one of the officers said, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has subpoenaed everyone in the room, the officer himself added.
Grenell declined to be officially interviewed, even though he said in an email that he would “do whatever it takes with the final product to properly order the record and show the errors. “
This article is based on interviews with 40 people, totaling about three dozen Republicans. Most asked for anonymity because they didn’t need to hurt their chances of playing a role in a long-term Trump administration or provoke the ire of Grenell, who lashes out at those he’s not with. I disagree on social media. A former Republican operative said that after a recent disagreement, Grenell revisited five years of the agent’s tweets to fuel an online attack that lasted weeks.
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