“We are on a full, full freight train to decertify certification,” Mr Epshteyn said on the program in January. “We’ll get that. Everyone knows. Everyone knows that election was stolen.”
Last fall, 186 legislators from 39 states followed a letter from Wendy Rogers, a Republican senator from Arizona, who had appeared at events hosted by Mr. Lindell, “urging every state to decertify its constituents if elections were shown to be prematurely and inaccurately confirmed.”
All efforts have either failed to move forward or have been rejected for lack of a legal basis given the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud likely to affect the 2020 election. And while elected Republicans have almost unanimously embraced Mr Trump’s claims that the vote was stolen, many have dismissed the idea that states should equalize their findings, or argued that the effort was only symbolic, noting that it could never be used again.
Still, Mr. Trump is now the front-runner in public opinion polls about the possible Republican presidential field. Although he has not yet declared his candidacy, he has privately told his staff that he plans to run again.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The legal drive to reverse his 2020 loss had repercussions in the Republican Party. With midterm congressional elections less than six months away, the push has put pressure on candidates to either support it or risk the wrath of Mr Trump and his supporters. In Alabama, Rep. Mo Brooks said the former president has repeatedly called for him to “cancel” the election and unseat Mr. Biden. When the congressman said that was impossible, Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement of the Republican primary in the state Senate.
In Pennsylvania, Jake Corman, the top Republican in the state Senate who vowed last year to review the 2020 election results, said he dropped plans to end his run for governor after Mr Trump urged him to “continue.” to fight”. He then moved on to Mr. Bannon’s podcast, where Mr. Corman said there was “no question” about the need to investigate whether voters in battleground states needed to be decertified and promised to “turn the State Department on its head” to do it Find evidence of illegality.
Last year, Mr. Lindell was vocal in supporting the false claim that Mr. Biden’s victory could somehow be overturned. According to Mr. Lindell, Mr. Trump would have been back in office last August. The former president began saying the same thing to his staffers, privately urging supporters to repeat it and urging conservative writers to say it.