There is lightning, and then there is thunder. This is the thunder. SOMETHING BAD had to happen as a result of Trump winning the 2016 election. This prosecution is one such thing. It is too late to say it's a bad idea; all responses to Trump are bad ideas, because Trump was a bad idea. (Trump himself is the thunder after Mitch McConnell's destruction of comity. And so it goes.)

I don't believe Trump has any legal defense to the "fake electors" scheme, other than that he had no part in it, which is not a legal defense any more than an alibi is.

The means of redress is the crime, regardless of its otherwise "righteous" purpose. OJ Simpson was convicted of trying to take back stuff that he may well have thought was his. But the state did not have to prove that he knew the stuff wasn't his. The state had to prove that he knew he was breaking and entering. So it's not clear to me why anyone cares that Trump "thought" he won or that he had a Constitutional right to claim he won. The fake electors were sent to obstruct the counting of the votes.

For my money - I am not a prosecutor - the fake electors are the clearest crime here. If Trump was involved in their creation, the government must prove that he knew they were fake, not that he knew he lost the election.

Trump's knowledge may be relevant to his efforts to influence state officials if the charge is that he tried to defraud the US by lying to those officials. But I have a hard time saying it's a crime to grasp at straws, and it's hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not just doing that. To use the OJ analogy, if OJ had badgered the police to get his stuff back, he might be guilty of "lying to the police" (which we can assume is a crime) if it can be shown that he knew the stuff wasn't his. Whether that line of reasoning supports a fraud charge against Trump based on his lying to state officials is, indeed, an interesting legal question, one I have done no research about.

So I'm back to the fake electors, where Trump has no defense, including reliance on legal counsel. I don't believe there's a legal opinion anywhere, even from Mr. Eastman, suggesting that alternate electors can just show up pretending to have been officially certified and ask to be counted.