On December 16, 2020 the Trump Administration prepared an executive order to stage a military coup. Under this draft executive order the President would order the military to immediately “seize, collect, retain and analyze” all voting machines and any all voting equipment, computers, records, etc.
A special counsel would be appointed “to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected and provided all resources necessary to carry out her duties.” Note the female gender “her duties.” That means this special counsel would almost certainly have been Sidney Powell, who has been sanctioned by courts for her election lies and is currently under a federal criminal investigation herself.
In short, the executive order provided for a military coup to keep himself in power, and for the powers of the Department of Justice to be vested in a Trump toady committed to his election lies. All of the records of the election would be in the possession and complete control of the President orchestrating the coup.
Had the EO been carried out it would have been the end of American democracy. Apparently, this plan was dropped under threat of mass DOJ resignations, that included Barr who resigned two days before the date of the draft EO. Instead Trump went with the plan that merely involved forging electoral college certificates, submitting these counterfeits to Congress and the National Archives as a pretext to get Pence to effectively declare our national election a nullity. When Pence did not play along, a mob stormed our Capitol seeking to kidnap members of Congress and assassinate the Vice President.
Never did I dream that in my lifetime an American President would prepare an executive order to stage a military coup. But now, we know, exactly that happened. America was so close to becoming a banana republic, and the risk remains.
