Axios has published a massive 3,000-word-plus report detailing what it describes as "the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency."
The meeting revolves around conspiracy-spewing attorney Sidney Powell, along with former national security adviser Mike Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, storming into the Oval Office and trying to convince former President Donald Trump to command federal law enforcement officials to seize Dominion voting machines.
The report is filled with moments of slapstick comedy that highlight the ineptitude of the former president's allies. Here are the five funniest parts.
1. Sidney Powell gets called out for claiming Dominion flipped a county that Trump won.
During the meeting, Powell told Trump that she could prove that Dominion voting machines flipped votes to President Joe Biden in a Georgia county.
White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann, however, immediately spotted a flaw in Powell's claims: Namely, Trump had actually won the county in question.
"So your theory is that Dominion intentionally flipped the votes so we could win that county?" he asked her incredulously.
2. Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne gets utterly humiliated after trash talking Trump's staff members.
Byrne, who had never before met the president in person, nonetheless didn't hesitate to throw his weight around and accuse his staff members of being disloyal for not doing enough to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election.
"You're a quitter," Byrne told Herschmann.
"Do you even know who the f*ck I am, you idiot?" Herschmann asked him.
"Yeah, you're Patrick Cipollone," Byrne said.
"Wrong!" Herschmann shouted. "Wrong, you idiot!"
3. Sidney Powell gets lambasted for making embarrassing spelling mistakes in her legal filings.
White House staff secretary Derek Lyons quickly ran out of patience with Powell, whose "kraken" lawsuits infamously crashed and burned when brought before courts.
"You've brought 60 cases," Lyons told Powell. "And you've lost every case you've had!"
Lyons not only ripped into Powell's legal arguments, but her sloppy spelling and grammar.
"You somehow managed to misspell the word 'District' three different ways in your suits," he told her.
4. Patrick Byrne claims that he gave Hillary Clinton an $18 million bribe as part of an FBI sting.
In one of the more nonsensical portions of the meeting, Byrne repeatedly claimed that he knew the FBI to be corrupt because they used him to catch Hillary Clinton taking bribes but somehow never arrested her.
"I know how this works," he said. "I bribed Hillary Clinton $18 million on behalf of the FBI for a sting operation."
Herschmann was incredulous and demanded to know what Byrne was talking about. The former Overstock CEO never elaborated, and yet still stood by his claim that he had successfully bribed the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
5. Mark Meadows and other staffers scrambled to stop Trump from appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud.
Powell tried to convince Trump that he needed to appoint her as special counsel to probe voter fraud allegations, which is something Trump did not have the authority to do.
Former chief of staff Mark Meadows could not believe that such a proposal was being contemplated and quickly tried to throw cold water on it to dissuade the president from trying to make it happen.
"Meadows indicated that he was trying to wrap his mind around what exactly Powell's role would entail," reports Axios. "He told Powell she would have to fill out the SF-86 questionnaire before starting as special counsel. This was seen as a delaying tactic. The sense in the room was that Trump might actually greenlight this extraordinary proposal."
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