section_path: First Trump administration (2017–2021)/Director of Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy/Attempts to overturn the 2020 election
section_name: Attempts to overturn the 2020 election
paragraph_text: Attempts to overturn the 2020 election
  
  In October 2020, two weeks before the presidential elections, Navarro's office in the White House had begun preparing allegations of election fraud. In December 2020, Navarro published a report alleging widespread election fraud. The report repeated discredited conspiracy theories claiming election fraud, including allegations that had been dismissed by the courts and Trump's own election security task force. In the report, Navarro wrote that large initial leads by Trump in battleground states, which turned to leads for Biden as vote counting progressed suggested impropriety, Navarro was actually describing the well-known phenomenon of the " blue shift ", caused by the fact that mail-in votes in many states cannot be counted on Election Day itself; those votes tend to lean Democratic, so that an Election Night lead by a Republican candidate can turn into a Democratic lead as the later counts come in. In the report, Navarro cited many biased and unreliable sources of information, such as One America News Network, Newsmax, Steve Bannon 's podcast War Room: Pandemic, John Solomon 's Just the News, and Raheem Kassam 's The National Pulse, because they provided what he termed "alternative coverage".
  
  On January 2, 2021, Navarro, along with Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, participated in a call with Georgia election officials in which Trump urged them to overturn the results of the election. During a January 2, 2021, appearance on Jeanine Pirro 's Fox News program, Navarro asserted, "hey stole this and we can prove it," and falsely asserted Joe Biden's inauguration could be postponed to allow for an investigation.
  
  Navarro and Bannon coordinated an effort on January 6, 2021 – called "The Green Bay Sweep" – with more than 100 Republican state legislators. Navarro later stated, "We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them... My role was to provide the receipts for the 100 congressmen or so who would make their cases… who could rely in part on the body of evidence I'd collected". In the wake of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Navarro appeared on Fox Business Network's Making Money on January 8, telling host Charles Payne that Trump was not to blame and specifically saying that Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, and Mitt Romney "need to shut up". Days later, Navarro reiterated false claims that Trump had won the election.
  
  Later in 2021, Navarro published In Trump Time, a book in which he describes how he, Bannon, and others worked to delay or overturn Congress's counting of the election votes formalizing Biden's victory, in part through a failed scheme to try to get Pence to "reject" electoral votes for Biden, something Pence had no power to do. In December 2021, Navarro was still claiming that his falsehoods were meant "to lay the legal predicate for the actions to be taken", despite no evidence of voting fraud being found.
  
  In October 2020, two weeks before the presidential elections, Navarro's office in the White House had begun preparing allegations of election fraud. In December 2020, Navarro published a report alleging widespread election fraud. The report repeated discredited conspiracy theories claiming election fraud, including allegations that had been dismissed by the courts and Trump's own election security task force. In the report, Navarro wrote that large initial leads by Trump in battleground states, which turned to leads for Biden as vote counting progressed suggested impropriety, Navarro was actually describing the well-known phenomenon of the " blue shift ", caused by the fact that mail-in votes in many states cannot be counted on Election Day itself; those votes tend to lean Democratic, so that an Election Night lead by a Republican candidate can turn into a Democratic lead as the later counts come in. In the report, Navarro cited many biased and unreliable sources of information, such as One America News Network, Newsmax, Steve Bannon 's podcast War Room: Pandemic, John Solomon 's Just the News, and Raheem Kassam 's The National Pulse, because they provided what he termed "alternative coverage".
  
  On January 2, 2021, Navarro, along with Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, participated in a call with Georgia election officials in which Trump urged them to overturn the results of the election. During a January 2, 2021, appearance on Jeanine Pirro 's Fox News program, Navarro asserted, "hey stole this and we can prove it," and falsely asserted Joe Biden's inauguration could be postponed to allow for an investigation.
  
  Navarro and Bannon coordinated an effort on January 6, 2021 – called "The Green Bay Sweep" – with more than 100 Republican state legislators. Navarro later stated, "We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them... My role was to provide the receipts for the 100 congressmen or so who would make their cases… who could rely in part on the body of evidence I'd collected". In the wake of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Navarro appeared on Fox Business Network's Making Money on January 8, telling host Charles Payne that Trump was not to blame and specifically saying that Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, and Mitt Romney "need to shut up". Days later, Navarro reiterated false claims that Trump had won the election.
  
  Later in 2021, Navarro published In Trump Time, a book in which he describes how he, Bannon, and others worked to delay or overturn Congress's counting of the election votes formalizing Biden's victory, in part through a failed scheme to try to get Pence to "reject" electoral votes for Biden, something Pence had no power to do. In December 2021, Navarro was still claiming that his falsehoods were meant "to lay the legal predicate for the actions to be taken", despite no evidence of voting fraud being found.