In emails obtained by The New York Times, a lawyer for Donald Trump’s campaign acknowledged that a scheme to overturn the former president’s election defeat involved “fake” electors. “We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, who helped organize pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a December 8, 2020, email to Boris Epshteyn, a Trump campaign adviser. In a follow up email, Wilenchik clarifies, saying that “alternative” votes is a better term. Other emails obtained by the newspaper show that lawyers were aware that the scheme to have “alternate” electors claim Trump won in some key states might not be legal.