There was this meeting in the Oval Office, in February 2020. Trump’s polls were doing pretty good. The primaries were beginning, and the Democrats really didn’t have any viable candidates for President yet. Joe Biden was not deemed a threat at all. Trump had just survived hir first impeachment with the only republican Senator not supporting him was that scoundrel, from Utah, Mitt Romney. Trump was riding a nice way. But this COVID thing was lurking in the background.

So, back to this meeting at the Oval Office. It was about election security. Trump was encouraged by how well US election security was. He was fine with paper ballots, security audits of vote counts and mail-in ballots. The only tense part of the meeting was when his officials suggested that Russia preferred him over Biden, if Biden did become the Democrat candidate for President.

With COVID lurking in the background, Trump wanted a feel-good story to distract Americans from the COVID threat. During the meeting, Trump suggested that spokesmen from the FBI and Homeland Security hold a press conference touting the strengths of US election security. Why not. Trump was going to win the 2020 election and his win would be validated by a secure US election security system. this would eliminate the bad taste of the 2016 Russian interference.

Two months later, in April, when Trump began to realize that he might lose the election, he did a 180 degree turn on election security. He was claiming that the system was fraught with flaws and open to voter fraud. He needed an excuse if he lost.

The February meeting has now caught the attention of Jack Smith. The process that Trump in February was still the same process, in April. Smith is investigating Trump’s mindset. Was Trump conspiring to overturn the election results (should he lose) as far back as April 2020, months before the election?

As per former federal prosecutor Elie Honig,

“Should [Trump] reasonably have known that there was no fraud and he lost?” Or does he have some sort of claim that he was acting in good faith, or acting on the reasonable advice of his advisers in contesting the election?”

“It’s one more piece of the larger puzzle, It’s one more indicator that Jack Smith has looked under every rock.”

An indictment is coming soon, perhaps this week. If Smith can prove mindset, if he can prove that Trump knew he lost the election, Trump will be done like dinner.