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Eight hours before Donald Trump took the stage in the Detroit suburbs on Saturday, an army of canvassers darted along the line of people snaking outside the hulking sports complex where supporters of the former president were waiting to get in. You guys think were gonna have a fair election?, one canvasser asked Marco Braggion, 26 and Christian Howard, 25, who was standing in a cowboy hat and jean jacket. We need to be able to work those polls to keep eyes on whats going on.

It was an exchange that underscored how Republicans, stewing in doubts about the 2020 election, are organizing to take control of the machinery of elections how ballots are cast and counted. And when Trump took the stage Saturday evening, his first visit to Michigan since 2020, thats what he was focused on too. He was there to campaign for two-little known candidates who are seeking offices that wield significant power over voting rules in Michigan, one of the most important battleground states in the presidential election.

Trump was stumping for Matthew DePerno, who is seeking the GOP nomination for attorney general, and Kristina Karamo, a Republican running to be Michigan secretary of state, the states chief election official. Both are seeking to earn the Republican nomination at the partys convention in the state this month.

Neither has any prior political experience and their political rise stems almost entirely from their efforts to spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Joe Biden defeated Trump in the state by just over 154,000 votes in 2020, and Trumps efforts to throw out the election. If Karamo and DePerno were elected this fall, it would place two Trump allies in key positions from which they could potentially do what he could not in 2020: overturn an election result.

Remember this is not just about 2022, this is about making sure Michigan is not rigged and stolen in 2024, Trump said in a meandering hour and forty-five minute speech in which he repeatedly insisted, falsely, that he won Michigan in 2020. I have to be honest, I dont do this often for state people, this is so important. What happened in Michigan, its a disgrace.

Karamo is a part-time community college professor who became a celebrity in Republican circles after claiming she witnessed fraud on election night while observing ballots being counted in Detroit. Those claims have been debunked, but she has nonetheless catapulted to the front of the Republican field in the secretary of state race. She joined an unsuccessful Michigans 2020 election from being certified and sought to intervene in an unsuccessful effort at the US supreme court seeking to overturn election results in key swing states. She has called public schools government indoctrination camps and suggested those who attacked the US capitol on 6 January were antifa.

She electrified the crowd packed into the astroturf inside the Michigan Stars Sports Center on Saturday night calling Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat currently serving as secretary of state, an authoritarian leftist who treats the people of Michigan like the unwashed masses.

Theres an army of people across our state who are fighting back. Little MAGA warriors and were getting the job done, she said, using the acronym for Trumps slogan, Make America Great Again.

Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Benson said Michigan was ground zero in the battle for American democracy. She said Trump was seeking to put loyalists in power who might succumb to future requests to undo elections.

Weve also been fighting election-deniers, some of whom now want to take over statewide offices so they can potentially be in a position to block or undo or fail to certify election results that they disagree with in the future. That is simply whats at stake this fall, she said.

DePerno rose to prominence last year as he spread false allegations of fraud in Antrim county, in Northern-Michigan, where a clerk made a mistake on election night and posted incorrect numbers that initially showed Biden leading. DePerno led a lawsuit against the county and spread incorrect information suggesting votes could have been switched. A government review and a separate GOP-led investigation of the incident found no evidence of fraud, and was unsparing in its criticism of DePerno.

No longer will we allow the elites in this country to control our elections and to control us, DePerno said on Saturday. He has pledged to arrest Benson and Dana Nessel, the current Democratic attorney general.

[Trump] wants people who will manipulate the 2024 election to his advantage, Nessel told the Guardian on Friday. Just a handful of years ago, they would have been seen as extreme, fringe candidates that never would have gotten any traction in the Republican party. And now, they are emblematic of the Republican party.

Outside of the rally, a soundtrack of songs that have become staples of Trump rallies - Elton Johns Tiny Dancer among them - blasted while some people played cornhole. Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO got thunderous applause when he briefly appeared.

The most prominent canvassers were those seeking to get rallygoers to sign a petition for a ballot measure to decertify the results of the 2020 election in Michigan, something that is not legally possible. Organizers hoped to get 10,000 signatures at Trumps rally on Saturday, said Janice Daniels, a former local mayor involved in the effort, who was collecting signatures on Saturday. She said she was unmoved by widespread legal agreement that the 2020 election cannot be undone and several reviews in Michigan that have affirmed the result of the 2020 election.

Thats what the enemies say. They want to discourage you from doing what is right and what is good and what is possible, she said. Extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions. Were in an extraordinary environment where we had a coup detat take over our entire government.

But some people at the rally acknowledged that decertifying the election wasnt really a possibility. I dont think its possible, but it so should have been done. Its a done deal, said Diane Zechmeister, 67. Zechmeister said she didnt follow election administration particularly closely until 2020, when things went sideways.

Some people at the rally said they had not heard of Karamo or DePerno before or both. Trump endorsed them, that got my attention. So Im here to see that, Zechmeister said.

Howard said he had learned about Karamo on Saturday. It sounds like shes supporting a lot of the stuff I support, so Id be happy to have him support her.

A friend who attended with her, Carol Fischer, 68, said nothing could persuade her that the results of the 2020 election were accurate. I will never believe that, she said. Several polls since the 2020 election have shown that many Republicans continue to believe Trump won.

Greg Taylor, 38, also was in line early to get into the rally to ensure he would get a spot inside. Even after state officials, and legislative Republicans in Michigan, have put out several audits and reports debunking conspiracies in Michigan, Taylor couldnt think of anything that would persuade him the results of the election were accurate. Not with what Ive seen. I really, I just cant see that, he said. The only way that we could know is, I guess, through an audit I guess. But who knows about the audit?

Its so hard to trust anybody. I dont trust either side, he said.

Tyler Griffin, who was waiting in line wearing an oversized red cowboy hat, also said nothing could persuade him to accept the 2020 results. I looked at all the numbers and it doesnt add up.

Not everyone at the rally was enthusiastic about Trumps continued focus on elections. Howard, the early rallygoer who was approached about being an election worker, said he hoped Trump would leave the 2020 election in the past.

I hope he kind of lets it go, he said. I know hes not going to, but I hope he does.

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We need to work these polls: Trump stumps for candidates who support the big lie - The Guardian

At 2.26pm on 6 January last year, Donald Trump picked up a White House phone and placed a call to Mike Lee, the Republican senator from Utah. The communication came at a very significant moment.

Thirty-seven minutes earlier, a riot had been declared by Washington DC police. Minutes after that the then vice-president, Mike Pence, was rushed out of the Senate chamber, where he had been presiding over Congresss certification of Joe Bidens victory in the 2020 election, and put into hiding.

Fifteen minutes before Trump made the call his supporters, exhorted by the sitting president to fight like hell against what he falsely claimed was a rigged election, broke through a window in the south front of the Capitol and entered the heart of American democracy.

The January 6 insurrection was under way.

Yet when you look for recorded details of Trumps 2.26pm call which was made, as Hugo Lowell of the Guardian revealed, on an official White House landline, they are nowhere to be found. The Lee call was one of an unknown number that Trump made during a mysterious gap of 7 hours 37 minutes that exists in the call logs precisely the timeframe of the Capitol attack.

Those missing call logs, disclosed by the Washington Post and CBS News, raise several burning questions how did the records disappear? who carried out the excising? but none more urgent than this: what was Trump trying to hide?

A gap like this doesnt happen by accident. Its not a coincidence, said Charlie Sykes, columnist at the Trump-resistant conservative outlet the Bulwark. There is no innocent explanation here somebody made the decision to rip up the record for the crucial hours of January 6 and there has to be a reason why.

What Trump is trying to hide lies at the heart of the House committee investigation into the January 6 insurrection. The former president has consistently tried to block information flowing to the committee pressuring his inner circle not to testify, tearing up documents before they were handed over.

The stakes in the tussle over evidence rose sharply this week when a federal judge said in a ruling that Trump more likely than not dishonestly conspired to obstruct Congress on 6 January. That would be a criminal act.

There has never been any doubt that Trump inspired his supporters to descend on Washington on that fateful day, nor that he encouraged them to protest along the lines of the big lie that the election was stolen from him.

Three weeks before the insurrection he tweeted: Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!

But Trump is a past master at making outrageous comments while simultaneously disguising or leaving ambiguous his actual intentions. What exactly did he mean by will be wild!? How far was he prepared to take that proposition? Critically, would the missing call logs covering the timeframe of the insurrection offer clues to his motivation?

One call that it is known Trump made within the black hole of those missing hours between 11.17am and 6.54pm was to Pence. Late on 6 January the incumbent president made one final attempt to persuade his deputy to commit an illegal act to delay certification of Bidens win in contravention of his constitutional duties.

According to a leaked account of the call to the New York Times, Trump cajoled Pence with the immortal words: You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.

Pence went down in history as a patriot by doing his constitutional duty and certifying the legitimate result. But that phone call marked an important point in the chronology of Trumps coup attempt: it amounted to a point of no return his last move to hang on to power through political persuasion.

Had Trump strayed beyond that point, he would have entered much darker territory. As Sykes put it: When he got off the phone to Mike Pence, who did he call next? Once he knew the vice-president was not going to do his bidding, what next?

David Frum, a former White House speechwriter for George W Bush, writing in the Atlantic, said there were two major lines of inquiry: did Trump give a go-ahead to the Capitol insurrection in advance, and did he coordinate in any way with the attackers.

The January 6 committee has its focus firmly locked on the so-called War Room the gaggle of Trumps close aides that gathered at the Willard hotel in Washington as the command centre of Trumps efforts to subvert the election. They included his former strategist Steve Bannon, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, the conservative law professor who prepared a detailed plan of how Trump could hold on to power illegitimately.

As the Guardian has reported, Trump conveyed to the group Pences refusal to go along with the coup plot. But beyond that we remain in the dark.

As a result of the missing logs it is unclear whether the then president remained in touch with the Willard Hotel group as the insurrection unfolded. Nor is it known whether they discussed any further tactics.

The gap in official records could also hamper the committees attempt to ascertain whether there were direct contacts between Trump and January 6 organisers. Ali Alexander, who instigated the Stop the Steal movement and who planned a One Nation Under God rally in the Capitol grounds that was canceled amid the violence, has been a figure of interest to the committee.

Before the insurrection he spoke to Kimberly Guilfoyle, the partner of Trumps son Don Jr. CNN has reported that he also said in videos posted before the attack that he planned to reach out to the far-right groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to request they provide security for his rally.

Both organisations have members who are being prosecuted for criminal acts on January 6. Earlier this month the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested on conspiracy and other charges. The founder of the Oath Keepers and 10 other members have been charged with seditious conspiracy.

Alexander testified before the January 6 committee in December. In his opening remarks, he said: I had nothing to do with any violence or lawbreaking that happened on January 6. I had nothing to do with the planning. I had nothing to do with the preparation. And I had nothing to do with the execution.

Those words could easily have come from the mouth of Donald J Trump. The challenge facing the committee, in the absence of the vanishing phone logs, is to establish are they true.

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What is Trump hiding? The Capitol riot-sized hole in White House call log - The Guardian

Former President Donald Trump reportedly claimed during a campaign rally Saturday in Michigan that he has won the the states Man of the Year award.

It is something Trump has claimed before.

And he even has a story to go with it.

I got up and I said, Theyre stealing your car business, Trump said. And, I was really rebuked. That said that wasnt a very nice thing to say. But, its the truth that I was right. That was a long time ago, Man of the Year in Michigan. Weve been doing this stuff a long time actually.

Heres the thing, though: nobody can find an organization that has such an award or that has ever honored Trump as the states Man of the Year.

Per Business Insider, multiple news organizations have tried to verify the claim since (Trump) started saying it in 2016. None have succeeded.

Business Insider said The Detroit News does keep a Michiganians of the Year, list, but it says that Trump has never been a winner there. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce told Snopes it does not give out such an award, too.

Its an odd claim, especially, because it has repeatedly been debunked and yet the former President continues to roll it out. The Detroit News did its best to get to the bottom of why he would do that in 2019, and while it said no one in Michigan seems to know what he is talking about, it did say Trump was given a framed copy of the Gettysburg Address while attending a 2013 Lincoln Day dinner in the state. And, it speculated that, perhaps somehow Trump may have confused that with the Man of the Year award which does not exist.

Trump spoke Saturday at the rally at the Michigan Stars Sports Center in Washington Township, Michigan where he is backing Matthew DePerno for attorney general and Kristina Karamo for secretary of state.

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Donald Trump said again Saturday he was once named Michigans Man of the Year. The award does not exist - PennLive

I cannot get very excited about the strength of the Fulton County, Georgia case where Trump in a tape-recorded conversation appears to have pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes the margin by which Trump lost the state. There, a special grand jury will not begin its inquiry until May 1. There is a court order authorizing Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis to proceed with her investigation. Under the order, she will have a year to complete it, although she has said she expects to decide whether to indict Trump no later than the first half of this year. Despite the fact that a Brookings report concluded that Trumps post-election conduct in Georgia had put him at substantial risk of possible state charges, including racketeering, election fraud solicitation, intentional interference with the performance of election duties and conspiracy to commit election fraud, this is not, in my opinion, a strong case for the prosecution because there is a reasonable doubt that Trump acted with criminal intent.

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Will Donald Trump beat the rap after all? - New York Daily News

Jack Colwell| South Bend Tribune

Donald Trump is right. If he were still president, the situation would be far different in Ukraine.

If Mike Pence had ignored his Hoosier values of truth, justice and the Constitution and cooperated in overturning the election results, Trump could now be president.

There would be no danger of armed conflict between Russia and NATO over Ukraine.

There would be no NATO. Trump contended throughout his first term that NATO was outdated. He belittled and insulted leaders of European nations in the alliance. He was reluctant to support the collective-defense agreement known as Article 5. By now in a second term, he would have pulled out of the alliance and scuttled it.

There would be no suggestion from a President Trump that Vladimir Putin is a butcher and must go after Russia invaded Ukraine. Trump praised the genius of Putin as Russia amassed troops for the invasion. And he wouldnt let a little thing like Russia seeking to dominate its neighbor ruin his bromance with Putin. Hey, he pulled out of Syria and let Russia dominate there.

There would be no long, heroic stand by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He would have been dead a month ago. Trump holds a grudge. Zelenskyy didnt announce an investigation of Joe Biden before the election, even when Trump held up needed defensive weapons for Ukraine to force it. Fervent Trump supporters like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn havent forgotten. They call Zelenskyy a thug and corrupt. Trump, if still president, wouldnt forget and wouldnt coordinate massive arms shipments and sanctions to save Zelenskyy and thwart friend Putin.

There would be no Ukraine. Without the United States and a unified NATO providing the help to stall the invasion, Russia would have smashed into Kyiv and disposed of Zelenskyy, still with a terrible toll in Ukraine civilian deaths but with less delay against an outgunned Ukrainian military left without needed weapons.

Trump, though no longer president, still speaks out, claiming that he really won re-election and demonstrating how he would be responding to Putin if still in the White House.

Trump calls for Putin to do something now, something very important.

It wasnt a call for Putin to halt the massacres in Ukraine. It was a call for Putin to release possible dirt on President Bidens black-sheep son Hunter.

Trump resurrected and embellished a controversial, last-minute 2020 campaign contention that Hunter Biden might have (or might not have) received money through funding of a firm by the wife of Moscows mayor.

She gave him $3.5 million, Trump stated as fact. Why? I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it, Trump said. I think we should know that answer.

Putin would of course be believed if he announced, Yes, the Bidens accepted millions in bribes along with that thug Zelenskyy to set up a Nazi government and germ warfare labs in Ukraine.

Well, U.S. intelligence agencies didnt believe Putins claims that troops on Ukraines border werent going to invade. They wouldnt believe he had turned truthful now after a life of lies.

But Trump would believe. He famously declared at a meeting with the Russian leader that he believed the word of Putin over findings of his own intelligence agencies.

If Putin did provide dirt helpful for Trumps election in 2024, it would pretty much cinch that Trump, if president again, would approve Putins conquest of Ukraine and signal no concern over Putins desire to return other countries, Poland, Hungary and the Baltics, to their status in the old Soviet Union.

While investigations continue into what Hunter Biden and Donald Trump Jr. might have done wrong, the possible transgressions of either child of a president, proven or not, shouldnt hinder the efforts to save all those children in Ukraine.

Jack Colwell is a columnist for The Tribune. Write to him in care of The Tribune or by email atjcolwell@comcast.net.

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Colwell: Things would surely be different in Ukraine if Trump were president - South Bend Tribune