A newly released book claims that allies of former President Trump tried to push a top Defense Department official into overturning the 2020 election.
According to the journalist Jonathan Karl’s book “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” which was published Tuesday, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell both made calls to Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was then acting as under secretary of Defense for intelligence and security, while Cohen-Watnick was traveling in the Middle East, ABC News reported.
Flynn and Powell were among Trump’s most vocal allies as the former president sought to overturn the 2020 election based on unproven claims of voter fraud.
Powell has since been hit with multi-billion dollar lawsuits from Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic over her election claims.
Flynn, who was previously Cohen-Watnick’s boss at the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Council, told the Pentagon official that he needed to immediately return to the United States because “there were big things about to happen,” per the book.
Flynn reportedly told Cohen-Watnick “he needed to get orders signed, that ballots needed to be seized, and that extraordinary measures needed to be taken to stop Democrats from stealing the election.”
But Cohen-Watnick dismissed Flynn’s demands, telling his former boss, “Sir, the election is over,” the book claims. “It’s time to move on.”
Flynn allegedly shouted back, “You’re a quitter! This is not over! Don’t be a quitter.”
Powell later called Cohen-Watnick to push a baseless claim that then-CIA Director Gina Haspel had been hurt and arrested in Germany while on a mission to destroy an election-related computer that allegedly held evidence that “hundreds of thousands, maybe millions” of votes were rigged, the book claims.
Powell, who was then advising Trump, wanted the Pentagon to send a special operations team to “get the server and force Haspel to confess,” according to the book.
The book says Cohen-Watnick then reported the call to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
The Pentagon referred comments about the calls to The White House.