Note: This is the first section of Chapter 4. Unlike the previous three chapters, Chapter 4 does not have an introduction.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr knew there would be trouble before all the votes had been counted. As was expected, the early vote tally favored Republicans on election night because the mail-in ballots were not yet fully counted. This occurred in 2020 and in previous elections. The President knew of this phenomenon but exploited it on election night, as he and his allies had planned to do. According to Barr, President Trump exploited this timing gap and used it as “the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud.”