Heated Oval Office meeting included talk of special counsel and martial law as Trump advisers clash
Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden — an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn’t clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
The meeting was first reported by the New York Times.
White House aides who participated in the meeting, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Pat Cipollone, also pushed back intensely on the suggestion of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations Trump’s own administration has dismissed (or, as seems more feasible, hiring her in the administration for some kind of investigatory role). Powell has focused her conspiracies on voting machines and has floated the notion of having a special counsel inspect the machines for flaws.
Another idea floated in the meeting was an executive order that would permit the government to access voting machines to inspect them.
One person described the meeting as “ugly” as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
“It was heated — people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it,” one of the sources said.
One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump’s aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
