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With Donald Trump firmly out of office and having fun with(?) his retirement at Mar-a-Lago, the political tell-alls appear to be flocking to the shelves. The most recent insider’s account of Trump’s final days in office sheds some light on how his greatest allies — GOP senators Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell — managed to help derail his last-ditch efforts to hold onto power.

According to journalist David M. Drucker’s new book, In Trump’s Shadow, Trump’s campaign to cast doubt on the 2020 Presidential Election failed thanks in larger part to 2 of his closest associates in Washington. Although the administration’s efforts to overturn election results in key states like Pennsylvania and Arizona fizzled in court, plenty of Republicans on Capitol Hill have been ready to fall in line behind their new conservative messiah, with members like Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Josh Hawley rallying their colleagues to overturn the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6th.

In his book, Drucker explains how rank-and-file members like Cruz and Hawley recruited a dozen or so senators to their cause, and the way both McConnell and Cotton, working quietly behind the scenes, ended up derailing their planned political revolt.

“In mid-December, after the states had certified their results and the Electoral College had voted, Cotton read in McConnell,” Drucker writes, saying the senator had done research into Trump’s claims for months before the vote. “Together, they plotted to countermand Trump’s bid to overturn the election and neutralize interest in objecting to Biden’s victory that was growing in some quarters of the Republican conference.”

Although McConnell was an outspoken opponent of Trump’s voter fraud claims once the Electoral College vote was completed, Cotton was ready to weigh in until after the run-off elections in Georgia. Drucker says the senator had planned to publish an op-ed after that crucial race, contradicting Trump’s claims. He held off because he was “fearful that Republican infighting may tank the party’s chances” in the South.

“Whilst he privately counseled colleagues to comply with the majority leader’s prompts and ignore Trump’s pleadings, he urged that all of them maintain their powder dry until January 6 to avoid an intra-party row which may blow up in their faces in Georgia.”

That wait-and-see approach blew up in his face after Sen. Hawley announced he would object to the certification vote only one week before it was scheduled to happen. Shortly after, Sen. Cruz announced he’d recruited 10 GOP members to vote no as well. That’s when Cotton was pressured to make public his break with Trump.

“With momentum building, Cotton reevaluated,” Drucker writes. “He hopped on the telephone with McConnell, and the 2 mulled strategic options for undercutting what they feared could be a “bandwagon effect” in favor of objecting. After some discussion, McConnell urged Cotton to speed up his timeline for asserting his opposition. The majority leader had been aggressively whipping the issue. However he believed that Cotton, along with his conservative bona fides and reputation as a Trump loyalist, may be more effective at talking teetering Senate Republicans off the ledge by offering cover to those that privately wished to stand behind the certification of Biden’s victory however feared the implications back home.”

He published his dissent on Jan. 3rd, just three days before the insurrection — an event that worked to change even more Republicans’ minds about refusing to certify the vote. However, according to insiders Drucker interviewed, it was McConnell and especially Cotton who ended up having the biggest influences on those on-the-fence Congress members.

A group of 26 Republicans led by Sen. Tom Cottom (R-AR) sent a letter, pressing President Joe Biden for info on the vetting process used on the evacuees from Afghanistan and the U.S. citizens abandoned by Biden from his deadly military withdrawal.

“The signatories of this letter might have differing opinions about whether or not the USA should have maintained a military presence in Afghanistan,” the group of senators explained in their letter. “But all of us agree that the arbitrary and poorly-planned method by which you withdrew from Afghanistan caused this crisis.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on pending judicial nominations on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (TOM WILLIAMS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images).

The group mentioned that the administration is touting evacuating more than 123,000 individuals, “nearly half of whom were evacuated by groups or countries other than the USA.” Only “4.5% of the total evacuees” were part of the “estimated 5,500 ‘self-identified’ American citizens.”

The letter further pointed out that the Biden administration has yet to “released exact numbers of our Afghan partners who had been evacuated,” which the administration “publicly confirmed that fewer than 50% of evacuated Afghans have been Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants or their families.”

Afghans gather on a roadside close to the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20, 2021, hoping to flee from the country after the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images).

“Our immediate priority is the safety and well-being of American citizens, permanent residents, and allies who have been left behind in Afghanistan,” which are part of the questions the group wants to be answered from the administration:

How many American citizens does the administration believe to remain in Afghanistan?

How many green-card holders does the administration believe to stay in Afghanistan?

How many Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants remain in Afghanistan?

According to your administration, more than 50% of evacuated Afghans weren’t SIV applicants or their families, together with vulnerable Afghans such as girls and women at high risk for Taliban reprisals. Of the more than 57,000 Afghans who aren’t American citizens, green-card holders, or SIV applicants or their families, how many had no pending immigration application or status with the USA prior to being airlifted?

“We request thorough, unclassified answers to those questions that may be made available to the general public. Americans must see that the USA won’t abandon them to terrorists abroad forever,” the senators explained in the letter.

President Biden must prove to Americans that the USA won’t abandon them to terrorists abroad forever.https://t.co/sv4VvZsTdf

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) September 2, 2021