title: Mining

text: Ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi. At first, Egyptians used the bright green malachite stones for ornamentations and pottery. Later, between 2613 and 2494 BC, large building projects required expeditions abroad to the area of Wadi Maghareh in order to secure minerals and other resources not available in Egypt itself. Quarries for turquoise and copper were also found at Wadi Hammamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites on the Sinai Peninsula and at Timna.


title: Mining

text: Mining in Egypt occurred in the earliest dynasties. The gold mines of Nubia were among the largest and most extensive of any in Ancient Egypt. These mines are described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus, who mentions fire-setting as one method used to break down the hard rock holding the gold. One of the complexes is shown in one of the earliest known maps. The miners crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust.


title: Mining

text: Mining in Europe has a very long history. Examples include the silver mines of Laurium, which helped support the Greek city state of Athens. Although they had over 20,000 slaves working them, their technology was essentially identical to their Bronze Age predecessors. At other mines, such as on the island of Thassos, marble was quarried by the Parians after they arrived in the 7th century BC. The marble was shipped away and was later found by archaeologists to have been used in buildings including the tomb of Amphipolis. Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, captured the gold mines of Mount Pangeo in 357 BC to fund his military campaigns. He also captured gold mines in Thrace for minting coinage, eventually producing 26 tons per year.


title: Mining

text: However, it was the Romans who developed large-scale mining methods, especially the use of large volumes of water brought to the minehead by numerous aqueducts. The water was used for a variety of purposes, including removing overburden and rock debris, called hydraulic mining, as well as washing comminuted, or crushed, ores and driving simple machinery.


title: Mining

text: The Romans used hydraulic mining methods on a large scale to prospect for the veins of ore, especially using a now-obsolete form of mining known as hushing. They built numerous aqueducts to supply water to the minehead, where the water was stored in large reservoirs and tanks. When a full tank was opened, the flood of water sluiced away the overburden to expose the bedrock underneath and any gold-bearing veins. The rock was then worked by fire-setting to heat the rock, which would be quenched with a stream of water. The resulting thermal shock cracked the rock, enabling it to be removed by further streams of water from the overhead tanks. The Roman miners used similar methods to work cassiterite deposits in Cornwall and lead ore in the Pennines.


title: Mining

text: Sluicing methods were developed by the Romans in Spain in 25 AD to exploit large alluvial gold deposits, the largest site being at Las Medulas, where seven long aqueducts tapped local rivers and sluiced the deposits. The Romans also exploited the silver present in the argentiferous galena in the mines of Cartagena ("Cartago Nova"), Linares ("Castulo"), Plasenzuela and Azuaga, among many others. Spain was one of the most important mining regions, but all regions of the Roman Empire were exploited. In Great Britain the natives had mined minerals for millennia, but after the Roman conquest, the scale of the operations increased dramatically, as the Romans needed Britannia's resources, especially gold, silver, tin, and lead.


title: Mining

text: Roman techniques were not limited to surface mining. They followed the ore veins underground once opencast mining was no longer feasible. At Dolaucothi they stoped out the veins and drove adits through bare rock to drain the stopes. The same adits were also used to ventilate the workings, especially important when fire-setting was used. At other parts of the site, they penetrated the water table and dewatered the mines using several kinds of machines, especially reverse overshot water-wheels. These were used extensively in the copper mines at Rio Tinto in Spain, where one sequence comprised 16 such wheels arranged in pairs, and lifting water about . They were worked as treadmills with miners standing on the top slats. Many examples of such devices have been found in old Roman mines and some examples are now preserved in the British Museum and the National Museum of Wales.


title: Mining

text: Mining as an industry underwent dramatic changes in medieval Europe. The mining industry in the early Middle Ages was mainly focused on the extraction of copper and iron. Other precious metals were also used, mainly for gilding or coinage. Initially, many metals were obtained through open-pit mining, and ore was primarily extracted from shallow depths, rather than through deep mine shafts. Around the 14th century, the growing use of weapons, armour, stirrups, and horseshoes greatly increased the demand for iron. Medieval knights, for example, were often laden with up to of plate or chain link armour in addition to swords, lances and other weapons. The overwhelming dependency on iron for military purposes spurred iron production and extraction processes.


title: Mining

text: The silver crisis of 1465 occurred when all mines had reached depths at which the shafts could no longer be pumped dry with the available technology. Although an increased use of banknotes, credit and copper coins during this period did decrease the value of, and dependence on, precious metals, gold and silver still remained vital to the story of medieval mining.


title: Mining

text: Due to differences in the social structure of society, the increasing extraction of mineral deposits spread from central Europe to England in the mid-sixteenth century. On the continent, mineral deposits belonged to the crown, and this regalian right was stoutly maintained. But in England, royal mining rights were restricted to gold and silver (of which England had virtually no deposits) by a judicial decision of 1568 and a law in 1688. England had iron, zinc, copper, lead, and tin ores. Landlords who owned the base metals and coal under their estates then had a strong inducement to extract these metals or to lease the deposits and collect royalties from mine operators. English, German, and Dutch capital combined to finance extraction and refining. Hundreds of German technicians and skilled workers were brought over; in 1642 a colony of 4,000 foreigners was mining and smelting copper at Keswick in the northwestern mountains.


title: Mining

text: Use of water power in the form of water mills was extensive. The water mills were employed in crushing ore, raising ore from shafts, and ventilating galleries by powering giant bellows. Black powder was first used in mining in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary (now Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia) in 1627. Black powder allowed blasting of rock and earth to loosen and reveal ore veins. Blasting was much faster than fire-setting and allowed the mining of previously impenetrable metals and ores. In 1762, the world's first mining academy was established in the same town there.


title: Mining

text: The widespread adoption of agricultural innovations such as the iron plowshare, as well as the growing use of metal as a building material, was also a driving force in the tremendous growth of the iron industry during this period. Inventions like the arrastra were often used by the Spanish to pulverize ore after being mined. This device was powered by animals and used the same principles used for grain threshing.


title: Mining

text: Much of the knowledge of medieval mining techniques comes from books such as Biringuccio's "De la pirotechnia" and probably most importantly from Georg Agricola's "De re metallica" (1556). These books detail many different mining methods used in German and Saxon mines. A prime issue in medieval mines, which Agricola explains in detail, was the removal of water from mining shafts. As miners dug deeper to access new veins, flooding became a very real obstacle. The mining industry became dramatically more efficient and prosperous with the invention of mechanically- and animal-driven pumps.


title: Mining

text: Iron metallurgy in Africa dates back over four thousand years. Gold became an important commodity for Africa during the trans-Saharan gold trade from the 7th century to the 14th century. Gold was often traded to Mediterranean economies that demanded gold and could supply salt, even though much of Africa was abundant with salt due to the mines and resources in the Sahara desert. The trading of gold for salt was mostly used to promote trade between the different economies. Since the 19th century, gold and diamond mining in Southern Africa has had major political and economic impacts. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest producer of diamonds in Africa, with an estimated 12 million carats in 2019. Other types of mining reserves in Africa include cobalt, bauxite, iron ore, coal, and copper.


title: Mining

text: Gold and coal mining started in Australia and New Zealand in the 19th century. Nickel has become important in the economy of New Caledonia.


title: Mining

text: In Fiji, in 1934, the Emperor Gold Mining Company Ltd. established operations at Vatukoula, followed in 1935 by the Loloma Gold Mines, N.L., and then by Fiji Mines Development Ltd. (aka Dolphin Mines Ltd.). These developments ushered in a “mining boom”, with gold production rising more than a hundred-fold, from 931.4 oz in 1934 to 107,788.5 oz in 1939, an order of magnitude then comparable to the combined output of New Zealand and Australia's eastern states.


title: Mining

text: During prehistoric times, early Americans mined large amounts of copper along Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula and in nearby Isle Royale; metallic copper was still present near the surface in colonial times. Indigenous peoples used Lake Superior copper from at least 5,000 years ago; copper tools, arrowheads, and other artifacts that were part of an extensive native trade-network have been discovered. In addition, obsidian, flint, and other minerals were mined, worked, and traded. Early French explorers who encountered the sites made no use of the metals due to the difficulties of transporting them, but the copper was eventually traded throughout the continent along major river routes.


title: Mining

text: In the early colonial history of the Americas, "native gold and silver was quickly expropriated and sent back to Spain in fleets of gold- and silver-laden galleons", the gold and silver originating mostly from mines in Central and South America. Turquoise dated at 700 AD was mined in pre-Columbian America; in the Cerillos Mining District in New Mexico, an estimate of "about 15,000 tons of rock had been removed from Mt. Chalchihuitl using stone tools before 1700."


title: Mining

text: In 1727 Louis Denys (Denis) (1675–1741), sieur de La Ronde – brother of Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure and the son-in-law of René Chartier – took command of Fort La Pointe at Chequamegon Bay; where natives informed him of an island of copper. La Ronde obtained permission from the French crown to operate mines in 1733, becoming "the first practical miner on Lake Superior"; seven years later, mining was halted by an outbreak between Sioux and Chippewa tribes.


title: Mining

text: Mining in the United States became widespread in the 19th century, and the United States Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872 to encourage mining of federal lands. As with the California Gold Rush in the mid-19th century, mining for minerals and precious metals, along with ranching, became a driving factor in the U.S. Westward Expansion to the Pacific coast. With the exploration of the West, mining camps sprang up and "expressed a distinctive spirit, an enduring legacy to the new nation"; Gold Rushers would experience the same problems as the Land Rushers of the transient West that preceded them. Aided by railroads, many people traveled West for work opportunities in mining. Western cities such as Denver and Sacramento originated as mining towns.


title: Mining

text: When new areas were explored, it was usually the gold (placer and then lode) and then silver that were taken into possession and extracted first. Other metals would often wait for railroads or canals, as coarse gold dust and nuggets do not require smelting and are easy to identify and transport.


title: Mining

text: In the early 20th century, the gold and silver rush to the western United States also stimulated mining for coal as well as base metals such as copper, lead, and iron. Areas in modern Montana, Utah, Arizona, and later Alaska became predominate suppliers of copper to the world, which was increasingly demanding copper for electrical and households goods. Canada's mining industry grew more slowly than did the United States' due to limitations in transportation, capital, and U.S. competition; Ontario was the major producer of the early 20th century with nickel, copper, and gold.


title: Mining

text: Meanwhile, Australia experienced the Australian gold rushes and by the 1850s was producing 40% of the world's gold, followed by the establishment of large mines such as the Mount Morgan Mine, which ran for nearly a hundred years, Broken Hill ore deposit (one of the largest zinc-lead ore deposits), and the iron ore mines at Iron Knob. After declines in production, another boom in mining occurred in the 1960s. Now, in the early 21st century, Australia remains a major world mineral producer.


title: Mining

text: As the 21st century begins, a globalized mining industry of large multinational corporations has arisen. Peak minerals and environmental impacts have also become a concern. Different elements, particularly rare earth minerals, have begun to increase in demand as a result of new technologies.


title: Mining

text: The process of mining from discovery of an ore body through extraction of minerals and finally to returning the land to its natural state consists of several distinct steps. The first is discovery of the ore body, which is carried out through prospecting or exploration to find and then define the extent, location and value of the ore body. This leads to a mathematical resource estimation to estimate the size and grade of the deposit.


title: Mining

text: This estimation is used to conduct a pre-feasibility study to determine the theoretical economics of the ore deposit. This identifies, early on, whether further investment in estimation and engineering studies is warranted and identifies key risks and areas for further work. The next step is to conduct a feasibility study to evaluate the financial viability, the technical and financial risks, and the robustness of the project.


title: Mining

text: This is when the mining company makes the decision whether to develop the mine or to walk away from the project. This includes mine planning to evaluate the economically recoverable portion of the deposit, the metallurgy and ore recoverability, marketability and payability of the ore concentrates, engineering concerns, milling and infrastructure costs, finance and equity requirements, and an analysis of the proposed mine from the initial excavation all the way through to reclamation. The proportion of a deposit that is economically recoverable is dependent on the enrichment factor of the ore in the area.


title: Mining

text: To gain access to the mineral deposit within an area it is often necessary to mine through or remove waste material which is not of immediate interest to the miner. The total movement of ore and waste constitutes the mining process. Often more waste than ore is mined during the life of a mine, depending on the nature and location of the ore body. Waste removal and placement is a major cost to the mining operator, so a detailed characterization of the waste material forms an essential part of the geological exploration program for a mining operation.


title: Mining

text: Once the analysis determines a given ore body is worth recovering, development begins to create access to the ore body. The mine buildings and processing plants are built, and any necessary equipment is obtained. The operation of the mine to recover the ore begins and continues as long as the company operating the mine finds it economical to do so. Once all the ore that the mine can produce profitably is recovered, reclamation can begin, to make the land used by the mine suitable for future use.


title: Mining

text: Technical and economic challenges notwithstanding, successful mine development must also address human factors. Working conditions are paramount to success, especially with regard to exposures to dusts, radiation, noise, explosives hazards, and vibration, as well as illumination standards. Mining today increasingly must address environmental and community impacts, including psychological and sociological dimensions. Thus, mining educator Frank T. M. White (1909–1971), broadened the focus to the “total environment of mining”, including reference to community development around mining, and how mining is portrayed to an urban society, which depends on the industry, although seemingly unaware of this dependency. He stated, “[I]n the past, mining engineers have not been called upon to study the psychological, sociological and personal problems of their own industry – aspects that nowadays are assuming tremendous importance. The mining engineer must rapidly expand his knowledge and his influence into these newer fields.”


title: Mining

text: Mining techniques can be divided into two common excavation types: surface mining and sub-surface (underground) mining. Today, surface mining is much more common, and produces, for example, 85% of minerals (excluding petroleum and natural gas) in the United States, including 98% of metallic ores.


title: Mining

text: Targets are divided into two general categories of materials: "placer deposits", consisting of valuable minerals contained within river gravels, beach sands, and other unconsolidated materials; and "lode deposits", where valuable minerals are found in veins, in layers, or in mineral grains generally distributed throughout a mass of actual rock. Both types of ore deposit, placer or lode, are mined by both surface and underground methods.


title: Mining

text: Some mining, including much of the rare earth elements and uranium mining, is done by less-common methods, such as in-situ leaching: this technique involves digging neither at the surface nor underground. The extraction of target minerals by this technique requires that they be soluble, e.g., potash, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, which dissolve in water. Some minerals, such as copper minerals and uranium oxide, require acid or carbonate solutions to dissolve.


title: Mining

text: Surface mining is done by removing surface vegetation, dirt, and bedrock to reach buried ore deposits. Techniques of surface mining include: open-pit mining, which is the recovery of materials from an open pit in the ground; quarrying, identical to open-pit mining except that it refers to sand, stone and clay; strip mining, which consists of stripping surface layers off to reveal ore underneath; and mountaintop removal, commonly associated with coal mining, which involves taking the top of a mountain off to reach ore deposits at depth. Most placer deposits, because they are shallowly buried, are mined by surface methods. Finally, landfill mining involves sites where landfills are excavated and processed. Landfill mining has been thought of as a long-term solution to methane emissions and local pollution.


title: Mining

text: High wall mining, which evolved from auger mining, is another form of surface mining. In high wall mining, the remaining part of a coal seam previously exploited by other surface-mining techniques has too much overburden to be removed but can still be profitably exploited from the side of the artificial cliff made by previous mining. A typical cycle alternates sumping, which undercuts the seam, and shearing, which raises and lowers the cutter-head boom to cut the entire height of the coal seam. As the coal recovery cycle continues, the cutter-head is progressively launched further into the coal seam. High wall mining can produce thousands of tons of coal in contour-strip operations with narrow benches, previously mined areas, trench mine applications and steep-dip seams.


title: Mining

text: Sub-surface mining consists of digging tunnels or shafts into the earth to reach buried ore deposits. Ore, for processing, and waste rock, for disposal, are brought to the surface through the tunnels and shafts. Sub-surface mining can be classified by the type of access shafts used, and the extraction method or the technique used to reach the mineral deposit. Drift mining uses horizontal access tunnels, slope mining uses diagonally sloping access shafts, and shaft mining uses vertical access shafts. Mining in hard and soft rock formations requires different techniques.


title: Mining

text: Other methods include shrinkage stope mining, which is mining upward, creating a sloping underground room, long wall mining, which is grinding a long ore surface underground, and room and pillar mining, which is removing ore from rooms while leaving pillars in place to support the roof of the room. Room and pillar mining often leads to retreat mining, in which supporting pillars are removed as miners retreat, allowing the room to cave in, thereby loosening more ore. Additional sub-surface mining methods include hard rock mining, bore hole mining, drift and fill mining, long hole slope mining, sub level caving, and block caving.


title: Mining

text: Heavy machinery is used in mining to explore and develop sites, to remove and stockpile overburden, to break and remove rocks of various hardness and toughness, to process the ore, and to carry out reclamation projects after the mine is closed. Bulldozers, drills, explosives and trucks are all necessary for excavating the land. In the case of placer mining, unconsolidated gravel, or alluvium, is fed into machinery consisting of a hopper and a shaking screen or trommel which frees the desired minerals from the waste gravel. The minerals are then concentrated using sluices or jigs.


title: Mining

text: Large drills are used to sink shafts, excavate stopes, and obtain samples for analysis. Trams are used to transport miners, minerals and waste. Lifts carry miners into and out of mines, and move rock and ore out, and machinery in and out, of underground mines. Huge trucks, shovels and cranes are employed in surface mining to move large quantities of overburden and ore. Processing plants use large crushers, mills, reactors, roasters and other equipment to consolidate the mineral-rich material and extract the desired compounds and metals from the ore.


title: Mining

text: Once the mineral is extracted, it is often then processed. The science of extractive metallurgy is a specialized area in the science of metallurgy that studies the extraction of valuable metals from their ores, especially through chemical or mechanical means.


title: Mining

text: Mineral processing (or mineral dressing) is a specialized area in the science of metallurgy that studies the mechanical means of crushing, grinding, and washing that enable the separation (extractive metallurgy) of valuable metals or minerals from their gangue (waste material). Processing of placer ore material consists of gravity-dependent methods of separation, such as sluice boxes. Only minor shaking or washing may be necessary to disaggregate (unclump) the sands or gravels before processing. Processing of ore from a lode mine, whether it is a surface or subsurface mine, requires that the rock ore be crushed and pulverized before extraction of the valuable minerals begins. After lode ore is crushed, recovery of the valuable minerals is done by one, or a combination of several, mechanical and chemical techniques.


title: Mining

text: Since most metals are present in ores as oxides or sulfides, the metal needs to be reduced to its metallic form. This can be accomplished through chemical means such as smelting or through electrolytic reduction, as in the case of aluminium. Geometallurgy combines the geologic sciences with extractive metallurgy and mining.


title: Mining

text: In 2018, led by Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Bradley D. Smith, University of Notre Dame researchers "invented a new class of molecules whose shape and size enable them to capture and contain precious metal ions," reported in a study published by the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The new method "converts gold-containing ore into chloroauric acid and extracts it using an industrial solvent. The container molecules are able to selectively separate the gold from the solvent without the use of water stripping." The newly developed molecules can eliminate water stripping, whereas mining traditionally "relies on a 125-year-old method that treats gold-containing ore with large quantities of poisonous sodium cyanide... this new process has a milder environmental impact and that, besides gold, it can be used for capturing other metals such as platinum and palladium," and could also be used in urban mining processes that remove precious metals from wastewater streams.


title: Mining

text: Mine operators frequently have to follow some regulatory practices to minimize environmental impact and avoid impacting human health. In better regulated economies, regulations require the common steps of environmental impact assessment, development of environmental management plans, mine closure planning (which must be done before the start of mining operations), and environmental monitoring during operation and after closure. However, in some areas, particularly in the developing world, government regulations may not be well enforced.


title: Mining

text: For major mining companies and any company seeking international financing, there are a number of other mechanisms to enforce environmental standards. These generally relate to financing standards such as the Equator Principles, IFC environmental standards, and criteria for Socially responsible investing. Mining companies have used this oversight from the financial sector to argue for some level of industry self-regulation. In 1992, a Draft Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations was proposed at the Rio Earth Summit by the UN Centre for Transnational Corporations (UNCTC), but the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) together with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) argued successfully for self-regulation instead.


title: Mining

text: This was followed by the Global Mining Initiative which was begun by nine of the largest metals and mining companies and which led to the formation of the International Council on Mining and Metals, whose purpose was to "act as a catalyst" in an effort to improve social and environmental performance in the mining and metals industry internationally. The mining industry has provided funding to various conservation groups, some of which have been working with conservation agendas that are at odds with an emerging acceptance of the rights of indigenous people – particularly the right to make land-use decisions.


title: Mining

text: Certification of mines with good practices occurs through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). For example, ISO 9000 and ISO 14001, which certify an "auditable environmental management system", involve short inspections, although they have been accused of lacking rigor. Certification is also available through Ceres' Global Reporting Initiative, but these reports are voluntary and unverified. Miscellaneous other certification programs exist for various projects, typically through nonprofit groups.


title: Mining

text: The purpose of a 2012 EPS PEAKS paper was to provide evidence on policies managing ecological costs and maximize socio-economic benefits of mining using host country regulatory initiatives. It found existing literature suggesting donors encourage developing countries to:


title: Mining

text: Ore mills generate large amounts of waste, called tailings. For example, 99 tons of waste is generated per ton of copper, with even higher ratios in gold mining – because only 5.3 g of gold is extracted per ton of ore, a ton of gold produces 200,000 tons of tailings. (As time goes on and richer deposits are exhausted – and technology improves – this number is going down to .5 g and less.) These tailings can be toxic. Tailings, which are usually produced as a slurry, are most commonly dumped into ponds made from naturally existing valleys. These ponds are secured by impoundments (dams or embankment dams). In 2000 it was estimated that 3,500 tailings impoundments existed, and that every year, 2 to 5 major failures and 35 minor failures occurred. For example, in the Marcopper mining disaster at least 2 million tons of tailings were released into a local river. In 2015, Barrick Gold Corporation spilled over 1 million liters of cyanide into a total of five rivers in Argentina near their Veladero mine. Since 2007 in central Finland, the Talvivaara Terrafame polymetal mine's waste effluent and leaks of saline mine water have resulted in ecological collapse of a nearby lake. Subaqueous tailings disposal is another option. The mining industry has argued that submarine tailings disposal (STD), which disposes of tailings in the sea, is ideal because it avoids the risks of tailings ponds. The practice is illegal in the United States and Canada, but it is used in the developing world.


title: Mining

text: The waste is classified as either sterile or mineralized, with acid generating potential, and the movement and storage of this material form a major part of the mine planning process. When the mineralised package is determined by an economic cut-off, the near-grade mineralised waste is usually dumped separately with view to later treatment should market conditions change and it becomes economically viable. Civil engineering design parameters are used in the design of the waste dumps, and special conditions apply to high-rainfall areas and to seismically active areas. Waste dump designs must meet all regulatory requirements of the country in whose jurisdiction the mine is located. It is also common practice to rehabilitate dumps to an internationally acceptable standard, which in some cases means that higher standards than the local regulatory standard are applied.


title: Mining

text: Mining exists in many countries. London is the headquarters for large miners such as Anglo American, BHP and Rio Tinto. The US mining industry is also large, but it is dominated by extraction of coal and other nonmetal minerals (e.g., rock and sand), and various regulations have worked to reduce the significance of mining in the United States. In 2007, the total market capitalization of mining companies was reported at US$962 billion, which compares to a total global market cap of publicly traded companies of about US$50 trillion in 2007. In 2002, Chile and Peru were reportedly the major mining countries of South America. The mineral industry of Africa includes the mining of various minerals; it produces relatively little of the industrial metals copper, lead, and zinc, but according to one estimate has as a percent of world reserves 40% of gold, 60% of cobalt, and 90% of the world's platinum group metals. Mining in India is a significant part of that country's economy. In the developed world, mining in Australia, with BHP founded and headquartered in the country, and mining in Canada are particularly significant. For rare earth minerals mining, China reportedly controlled 95% of production in 2013.


title: Mining

text: While exploration and mining can be conducted by individual entrepreneurs or small businesses, most modern-day mines are large enterprises requiring large amounts of capital to establish. Consequently, the mining sector of the industry is dominated by large, often multinational, companies, most of them publicly listed. It can be argued that what is referred to as the 'mining industry' is actually two sectors, one specializing in exploration for new resources and the other in mining those resources. The exploration sector is typically made up of individuals and small mineral resource companies, called "juniors", which are dependent on venture capital. The mining sector is made up of large multinational companies that are sustained by production from their mining operations. Various other industries such as equipment manufacture, environmental testing, and metallurgy analysis rely on, and support, the mining industry throughout the world. Canadian stock exchanges have a particular focus on mining companies, particularly junior exploration companies through Toronto's TSX Venture Exchange; Canadian companies raise capital on these exchanges and then invest the money in exploration globally. Some have argued that below juniors there exists a substantial sector of illegitimate companies primarily focused on manipulating stock prices.


title: Mining

text: Mining operations can be grouped into five major categories in terms of their respective resources. These are oil and gas extraction, coal mining, metal ore mining, nonmetallic mineral mining and quarrying, and mining support activities. Of all of these categories, oil and gas extraction remains one of the largest in terms of its global economic importance. Prospecting potential mining sites, a vital area of concern for the mining industry, is now done using sophisticated new technologies such as seismic prospecting and remote-sensing satellites. Mining is heavily affected by the prices of the commodity minerals, which are often volatile. The 2000s commodities boom ("commodities supercycle") increased the prices of commodities, driving aggressive mining. In addition, the price of gold increased dramatically in the 2000s, which increased gold mining; for example, one study found that conversion of forest in the Amazon increased six-fold from the period 2003–2006 (292 ha/yr) to the period 2006–2009 (1,915 ha/yr), largely due to artisanal mining.


title: Mining

text: New regulations and a process of legislative reforms aim to improve the harmonization and stability of the mining sector in mineral-rich countries. New legislation for mining industry in African countries still appears to be an issue, but has the potential to be solved, when a consensus is reached on the best approach. By the beginning of the 21st century, the booming and increasingly complex mining sector in mineral-rich countries was providing only slight benefits to local communities, especially in given the sustainability issues. Increasing debate and influence by NGOs and local communities called for new approaches which would also include disadvantaged communities, and work towards sustainable development even after mine closure (including transparency and revenue management). By the early 2000s, community development issues and resettlements became mainstream concerns in World Bank mining projects. Mining-industry expansion after mineral prices increased in 2003 and also potential fiscal revenues in those countries created an omission in the other economic sectors in terms of finances and development. Furthermore, this highlighted regional and local demand for mining revenues and an inability of sub-national governments to effectively use the revenues. The Fraser Institute (a Canadian think tank) has highlighted the environmental protection laws in developing countries, as well as voluntary efforts by mining companies to improve their environmental impact.


title: Mining

text: In 2007, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) was mainstreamed in all countries cooperating with the World Bank in mining industry reform. The EITI operates and was implemented with the support of the EITI multi-donor trust fund, managed by the World Bank. The EITI aims to increase transparency in transactions between governments and companies in extractive industries by monitoring the revenues and benefits between industries and recipient governments. The entrance process is voluntary for each country and is monitored by multiple stakeholders including governments, private companies and civil society representatives, responsible for disclosure and dissemination of the reconciliation report; however, the competitive disadvantage of company-by-company public report is for some of the businesses in Ghana at least, the main constraint. Therefore, the outcome assessment in terms of failure or success of the new EITI regulation does not only "rest on the government's shoulders" but also on civil society and companies.


title: Mining

text: However, implementation has issues; inclusion or exclusion of artisanal mining and small-scale mining (ASM) from the EITI and how to deal with "non-cash" payments made by companies to subnational governments. Furthermore, the disproportionate revenues the mining industry can bring to the comparatively small number of people that it employs, causes other problems, like a lack of investment in other less lucrative sectors, leading to swings in government revenue because of volatility in the oil markets. Artisanal mining is clearly an issue in EITI Countries such as the Central African Republic, D.R. Congo, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – i.e. almost half of the mining countries implementing the EITI. Among other things, limited scope of the EITI involving disparity in terms of knowledge of the industry and negotiation skills, thus far flexibility of the policy (e.g. liberty of the countries to expand beyond the minimum requirements and adapt it to their needs), creates another risk of unsuccessful implementation. Public awareness increase, where government should act as a bridge between public and initiative for a successful outcome of the policy is an important element to be considered.


title: Mining

text: The World Bank has been involved in mining since 1955, mainly through grants from its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with the Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency offering political risk insurance. Between 1955 and 1990 it provided about $2 billion to fifty mining projects, broadly categorized as reform and rehabilitation, greenfield mine construction, mineral processing, technical assistance, and engineering. These projects have been criticized, particularly the Ferro Carajas project of Brazil, begun in 1981. The World Bank established mining codes intended to increase foreign investment; in 1988, it solicited feedback from 45 mining companies on how to increase their involvement.


title: Mining

text: In 1992, the World Bank began to push for privatization of government-owned mining companies with a new set of codes, beginning with its report "The Strategy for African Mining". In 1997, Latin America's largest miner Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) was privatized. These and other developments, such as the Philippines 1995 Mining Act, led the bank to publish a third report ("Assistance for Minerals Sector Development and Reform in Member Countries") which endorsed mandatory environment impact assessments and attention to the concerns of the local population. The codes based on this report are influential in the legislation of developing nations. The new codes are intended to encourage development through tax holidays, zero custom duties, reduced income taxes, and related measures. The results of these codes were analyzed by a group from the University of Quebec, which concluded that the codes promote foreign investment but "fall very short of permitting sustainable development". The observed negative correlation between natural resources and economic development is known as the resource curse.


title: Mining

text: Safety has long been a concern in the mining business, especially in sub-surface mining. The Courrières mine disaster, Europe's worst mining accident, involved the death of 1,099 miners in Northern France on March 10, 1906. This disaster was surpassed only by the Benxihu Colliery accident in China on April 26, 1942, which killed 1,549 miners. While mining today is substantially safer than it was in previous decades, mining accidents still occur. Government figures indicate that 5,000 Chinese miners die in accidents each year, while other reports have suggested a figure as high as 20,000. Mining accidents continue worldwide, including accidents causing dozens of fatalities at a time such as the 2007 Ulyanovskaya Mine disaster in Russia, the 2009 Heilongjiang mine explosion in China, and the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in the United States. Mining has been identified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as a priority industry sector in the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) to identify and provide intervention strategies regarding occupational health and safety issues. The Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) was established in 1978 to "work to prevent death, illness, and injury from mining and promote safe and healthful workplaces for US miners." Since its implementation in 1978, the number of miner fatalities has decreased from 242 miners in 1978 to 24 miners in 2019.


title: Mining

text: There are numerous occupational hazards associated with mining, including exposure to rockdust which can lead to diseases such as silicosis, asbestosis, and pneumoconiosis. Gases in the mine can lead to asphyxiation and could also be ignited. Mining equipment can generate considerable noise, putting workers at risk for hearing loss. Cave-ins, rock falls, and exposure to excess heat are also known hazards. The current NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limit (REL) of noise is 85 dBA with a 3 dBA exchange rate and the MSHA Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) is 90 dBA with a 5 dBA exchange rate as an 8-hour time-weighted average. NIOSH has found that 25% of noise-exposed workers in Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction have hearing impairment. The prevalence of hearing loss increased by 1% from 1991 to 2001 within these workers.


title: Mining

text: Noise studies have been conducted in several mining environments. Stageloaders (84-102 dBA), shearers (85-99 dBA), auxiliary fans (84–120 dBA), continuous mining machines (78–109 dBA), and roof bolters (92–103 dBA) represent some of the noisiest equipment in underground coal mines. Dragline oilers, dozer operators, and welders using air arcing were occupations with the highest noise exposures among surface coal miners. Coal mines had the highest hearing loss injury likelihood.


title: Mining

text: In addition to the environmental impacts of mining processes, a prominent criticism pertaining to this form of extractive practice and of mining companies are the human rights abuses occurring within mining sites and communities close to them. Frequently, despite being protected by International Labor rights, miners are not given appropriate equipment to provide them with protection from possible mine collapse or from harmful pollutants and chemicals expelled during the mining process, work in inhumane conditions spending numerous hours working in extreme heat, darkness and 14 hour workdays with no allocated time for breaks.


title: Mining

text: Included within the human rights abuses that occur during mining processes are instances of child labor. These instances are a cause for widespread criticism of mines harvesting cobalt, a mineral essential for powering modern technologies such as laptops, smartphones and electric vehicles. Many of these cases of child laborers are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reports have risen of children carrying sacks of cobalt weighing 25 kg from small mines to local traders being paid for their work only in food and accommodation. A number of companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Tesla have been implicated in lawsuits brought by families whose children were severely injured or killed during mining activities in Congo. In December 2019, 14 Congolese families filed a lawsuit against Glencore, a mining company which supplies the essential cobalt to these multinational corporations with allegations of negligence that led to the deaths of children or injuries such as broken spines, emotional distress and forced labor.


title: Mining

text: There have also been instances of killings and evictions attributed to conflicts with mining companies. Almost a third of 227 murders in 2020 were of Indigenous peoples rights activists on the frontlines of climate change activism linked to logging, mining, large-scale agribusiness, hydroelectric dams, and other infrastructure, according to Global Witness.


title: Mining

text: The relationship between indigenous peoples and mining is defined by struggles over access to land. In Australia, the Aboriginal Bininj said mining posed a threat to their living culture and could damage sacred heritage sites.


title: Mining

text: In the Philippines, an anti-mining movement has raised concerns regarding "the total disregard for [Indigenous communities'] ancestral land rights". Ifugao peoples' opposition to mining led a governor to proclaim a ban on mining operations in Mountain Province, Philippines.


title: Mining

text: In Brazil, more than 170 tribes organized a march to oppose controversial attempts to strip back indigenous land rights and open their territories to mining operations. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called on Brazil's Supreme Court to uphold Indigenous land rights to prevent exploitation by mining groups and industrial agriculture.


title: Mining

text: As of 2019, Mponeng is the world's deepest mine from ground level, reaching a depth of 4 km (2.5 mi) below ground level. The trip from the surface to the bottom of the mine takes over an hour. It is a gold mine in South Africa's Gauteng province. Previously known as Western Deep Levels #1 Shaft, the underground and surface works were commissioned in 1987. The mine is considered to be one of the most substantial gold mines in the world.


title: Mining

text: The Moab Khutsong gold mine in North West Province (South Africa) has the world's longest winding steel wire rope, which is able to lower workers to in one uninterrupted four-minute journey.


title: Mining

text: The deepest mine in Europe is the 16th shaft of the uranium mines in Příbram, Czech Republic, at . Second is Bergwerk Saar in Saarland, Germany, at .


title: Mining

text: The deepest open-pit mine in the world is Bingham Canyon Mine in Bingham Canyon, Utah, United States, at over . The largest and second deepest open-pit copper mine in the world is Chuquicamata in northern Chile at , which annually produces 443,000 tons of copper and 20,000 tons of molybdenum.


title: Mining

text: The deepest open-pit mine with respect to sea level is Tagebau Hambach in Germany, where the base of the pit is below sea level.


title: Mining

text: The largest underground mine is Kiirunavaara Mine in Kiruna, Sweden. With of roads, 40 million tonnes of annually produced ore, and a depth of , it is also one of the most modern underground mines. The deepest borehole in the world is Kola Superdeep Borehole at , but this is connected to scientific drilling, not mining.


title: Mining

text: During the 20th century, the variety of metals used in society grew rapidly. Today, the development of major nations such as China and India and advances in technologies are fueling an ever-greater demand. The result is that metal mining activities are expanding and more and more of the world's metal stocks are above ground in use rather than below ground as unused reserves. An example is the in-use stock of copper. Between 1932 and 1999, copper in use in the US rose from to per person.


title: Mining

text: 95% of the energy used to make aluminium from bauxite ore is saved by using recycled material. However, levels of metals recycling are generally low. In 2010, the International Resource Panel, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), published reports on metal stocks that exist within society and their recycling rates.


title: Mining

text: The report's authors observed that the metal stocks in society can serve as huge mines above ground. However, they warned that the recycling rates of some rare metals used in applications such as mobile phones, battery packs for hybrid cars, and fuel cells are so low that unless future end-of-life recycling rates are dramatically stepped up these critical metals will become unavailable for use in modern technology.


title: Mining

text: As recycling rates are low and so much metal has already been extracted, some landfills now contain higher concentrations of metal than mines themselves. This is especially true of aluminium, used in cans, and precious metals, found in discarded electronics. Furthermore, waste after 15 years has still not broken down, so less processing would be required when compared to mining ores. A study undertaken by Cranfield University has found £360 million of metals could be mined from just four landfill sites. There is also up to 20 MJ/kg of energy in waste, potentially making the re-extraction more profitable. However, although the first landfill mine opened in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1953, little work has followed due to the abundance of accessible ores.


title: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election

text: After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, then-incumbent Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support and assistance from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of his supporters. These efforts culminated in the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack by Trump supporters, which was widely described as an attempted coup d'état. One week later, Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection but was acquitted by the Senate. In June 2022, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack said it has enough evidence to recommend that the U.S. Department of Justice indict Trump.


text: Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote numerous false claims and conspiracy theories asserting that the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud and an international communist conspiracy. Trump pressed Justice Department leaders to challenge the election results and publicly state the election was corrupt. However, the U.S. attorney general, the director of National Intelligence, and the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agencyas well as some Trump campaign staffdismissed these claims. State and federal judges, election officials, and state governors also decided the claims were baseless.


text: A small group of Trump loyalists, including Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and several Republican lawmakers from the House Freedom Caucus, attempted to keep Trump in power. At the state level, their tactics targeted state legislatures with the intent of changing the results or delaying the electoral vote certification at the Capitol. At the national level, they promoted the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to certify the election results on January 6, 2021. Consequently, hundreds of elected Republicans, including members of Congress and governors, initially refused to acknowledge Biden's victory, though a minority of them later changed their positions.


text: Trump's legal team sought a path to bring a case before the Supreme Court, but none of the 63 lawsuits they filed were successful. They especially pinned their hopes on "Texas v. Pennsylvania", but on December 11, 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear that case. After the failure of "Texas", Trump reportedly considered military intervention, seizing voting machines and another appeal to the Supreme Court.


text: Trump has publicly continued to insist that the election was stolen, telling a group of historians in that the election was "rigged and lost" and publicly stating in August 2022 that he should be declared the president or a new election should be held "immediately". Trump supporters continue attempts to overturn the election results, pushing for state legislature resolutions and new lawsuits, raising concerns among legal experts that public confidence in democracy is being undermined to lay the groundwork for baselessly challenging future elections.


text: Trump has a history of claims of electoral fraud, including for elections in which he did not run and for elections unrelated to politics.


text: Between 2004 and 2006, The Apprentice (which Trump hosted) lost four Emmy awards to The Amazing Race, twice for Outstanding Reality Program, and twice for technical awards. Trump later lashed out over the losses in tweets between 2012 and 2014, falsely accusing the Emmys of fraud, stating in 2012 that the Emmys had "no credibility" and also claimed in 2014, after The Amazing Race won an Emmy that year, that the same shows won repeatedly due to "politics." Trump also stated in a 2012 tweet that "The Emmys are all politics, that’s why, despite nominations, The Apprentice never won — even though it should have won many times over." Trump later repeated his claim of Emmy's fraud during an episode of The Apprentice that aired in January 2015, and also doubled down on this position when Hillary Clintion mentioned it during a 2016 presidential debate stating "Should have gotten it.”


text: In the aftermath of the 2012 presidential election, in which incumbent president Barack Obama won re-election against Mitt Romney, Trump tweeted that "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy", that the election was a "total sham", and that the United States was "not a democracy".


text: During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly suggested that the election was "rigged" against him. During the 2016 Republican primaries, after Trump lost to Ted Cruz in the Iowa Republican caucus, Trump claimed that Cruz perpetrated "fraud" and "stole" the Iowa caucuses. Trump called for a repeat of the Iowa caucuses, or for Cruz's win to be declared void. In the final debate, he cast doubt on whether he would accept the results of the election should he lose, saying, "I'll keep you in suspense". His comment touched off a media and political uproar in which he was accused of "threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy" and "rais[ing] the prospect that millions of his supporters may not accept the results on November 8 if he loses". Rick Hasen of University of California, Irvine School of Law, an election-law expert, described Trump's comments as "appalling and unprecedented" and feared there could be "violence in the streets from his supporters if Trump loses." The next day Trump said, "Of course, I would accept a clear election result, but I would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result." He also stated that he would "totally" accept the election results "if I win."


text: Trump eventually won the election but lost the popular vote. He went on to claim, without evidence, that he had won the popular vote "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," asserting after taking office that around four million illegal immigrants had voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.


text: During the campaign, Trump indicated in Twitter posts, interviews and speeches that he might refuse to recognize the outcome of the election if he were defeated; Trump falsely suggested that the election would be rigged against him. In July 2020, Trump declined to state whether he would accept the results, telling Fox News anchor Chris Wallace that "I have to see. No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no."


text: Trump proposed delaying the presidential election due to COVID-19, until Americans could vote "properly, securely and safely".


text: Trump repeatedly claimed that "the only way" he could lose would be if the election was "rigged" and repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power after the election. Trump also attacked mail-in voting throughout the campaign, falsely claiming that the practice contained high rates of fraud. At one point, Trump said: "We'll see what happens...Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very peacefulthere won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation." Trump's statements have been described as a threat "to upend the constitutional order". In September 2020, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a Trump appointee, testified under oath that the FBI has "not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise."


text: A number of congressional Republicans insisted that they were committed to an orderly and peaceful transition of power, but they declined to criticize Trump for his comments. On September 24, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution affirming the Senate's commitment to a peaceful transfer of power. Trump also stated that he expected the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the election and that he wanted a conservative majority in the event of an election dispute, reiterating his commitment to quickly install a ninth justice following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But concerns were also raised about Republican acceptance of the election result. For example, on October 8 Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeted "We're not a democracy" and "Democracy isn't the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity (sic) are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that."


text: After a consensus of major news organizations declared Biden the President-elect on November 7, Trump refused to accept his loss, declaring "this election is far from over" and alleging election fraud without providing evidence. Privately, he told one aide "I'm just not going to leave," and he told another aide, "We're never leaving. How can you leave when you won an election?"


text: He indicated that he would continue legal challenges in key states, but most of the challenges were dismissed by the courts. His legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, made numerous false and unsubstantiated assertions revolving around an international communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines and polling place fraud to claim that the election had been stolen from Trump. Trump blocked government officials from cooperating in the presidential transition to Joe Biden. Attorney General William Barr authorized the Justice Department to initiate investigations "if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State."


text: Trump and his allies encouraged state officials to throw out legally cast ballots, challenge vote-certification processes, and overturn certified election results. In an early January 2021 phone call, he pressed the Georgia secretary of state to "find" the 11,780 votes needed to secure his victory in the state. He repeatedly urged Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to convene a special session of the legislature to overturn Biden's certified victory in the state, and he made a similar plea to the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House. On a conference call, he asked 300 Republican state legislators to seek ways to reverse certified election results in their states. Republican officials in seven states, directed by Trump's personal attorney, created fraudulent electoral certificates of ascertainment to falsely assert Trump had been reelected.


text: By December 30, 2020, multiple Republican members of the House and Senate indicated they would try to force both chambers to debate whether to certify the Electoral College results. Mike Pence, who as vice president would preside over the proceedings, signaled his endorsement of the effort, stating on January 4, "I promise you, come this Wednesday, we will have our day in Congress." Additionally, Trump and some supporters promoted a false "Pence card" theory that, even if Congress were to certify the results, the vice president had the authority to reject them.


text: In the months between the election and Inauguration Day (January 20), Trump engaged in multiple efforts to overturn the results. He filed numerous lawsuits, urged local and state authorities to overturn the results in their jurisdiction, pressed the Justice Department to verify unsupported claims of election fraud, and worked with congressional allies to get the results overturned in Congress on January 6.


text: Since leaving office, Trump has continued to insist that he really won the 2020 election. He reportedly dislikes the term "former president," and his official statements refer to him as "the 45th President" or simply as "45," as in his new website, www.45office.com. During his public speeches he reiterates his claims that he lost only because of massive election fraud, saying "This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the century" and "We won the election twice [2016 and 2020] and it's possible we'll have to win it a third time [2024]. It's possible."


text: Hope Hicks told Trump to "move on". Trump replied, "Well, Hope doesn't believe in me." Hicks said, "No, I don't. Nobody's convinced me otherwise."


text: Kellyanne Conway claimed in her book that she told Trump privately to accept the loss, and he told her in response to "go back to your crazy husband."


text: Matthew Pottinger, a leading aide on Trump’s China policy, quickly quit in what two sources said was an act of protest against the president’s response to the rioting. He was followed by at least five other senior foreign policy aides. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also resigned in protest.


text: Stop the Steal is a far-right and conservative campaign and protest movement in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that falsely posits that widespread electoral fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election to deny incumbent President Donald Trump victory over former vice president Joe Biden. Trump and his supporters have asserted, without evidence, that he is the winner of the election, and that large-scale voter and vote counting fraud took place in several swing states. The Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Decision Desk HQ, NBC News, "The New York Times", and Fox News projected Biden as the president-elect, having surpassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to claim victory. A "New York Times" survey of state election officials found no evidence of significant voting fraud, nor did the Justice Department, and dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his proxies to challenge voting results in several states failed.


text: "Stop the Steal" was created by Republican political operative Roger Stone in 2016, in anticipation of potential future election losses that could be portrayed as stolen by alleged fraud. A Facebook group with that name was created during the 2020 counting of votes by pro-Trump group "Women for America First" co-founder and Tea Party movement activist Amy Kremer. Facebook removed the group on November 5, describing it as "organized around the delegitimization of the election process". It was reported to have been adding 1,000 new members every 10 seconds with 360,000 followers before Facebook shut it down.


text: On January 11, 2021, Facebook announced that it would remove content containing the phrase "stop the steal" from Facebook and Instagram. On January 12, Twitter announced that it had suspended 70,000 accounts that it said "share harmful QAnon-associated content at scale". All subsequent "Stop the Steal" groups have since been removed by Facebook moderators over their discussions of extreme violence, incitement to violence and other threats, all of which are violations of Facebook's community standards.


text: CounterAction, a social media analytics firm, provided ProPublica and the Washington Post an audit of Facebook groups and posts which identified about 655,000 election delegitimization posts.


text: Several "Stop the Steal" groups were founded by right-wing extremists after Trump published tweets on Twitter encouraging his supporters to "Stop the Count". Many unorganized "Stop the Steal" groups protested in various U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C.; Detroit, Michigan; Lansing, Michigan; Las Vegas, Nevada; Madison, Wisconsin; Atlanta, Georgia; and Columbus, Ohio. Several of these protests included members of extremist groups such as Three Percenters, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, which CNN reported was an illustration of "the thinning of a line between the mainstream right and far-right extremists."


text: In Michigan on December 7, 2020, "Stop the Steal" protestors gathered outside the private home of Michigan's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to shout obscenities and chant threatening speech into bullhorns. President-elect Joe Biden's Michigan win by 154,000 votes had been officially certified by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers in November.


text: On December 12, 2020, post-election protests were held in Washington, D.C., in which at least nine people were transported from the protest by DC Fire and emergency medical service workers for hospital treatment. Among the injured were four people who suffered stab wounds and were said to be in critical condition. Two police officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries, and two others suffered minor injuries. An additional 33 people were arrested, including one for assault with a dangerous weapon. Earlier in the day large groups of protesters and counter-protestors assembled outside the Supreme Court and Freedom Plaza. Although small fights broke out periodically, in general the protests were peaceful. Most participants did not wear masks, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.


text: By March 2021, organizations linked to the Stop the Steal movement, including the Proud Boys and the boogaloo movement, had largely shifted their efforts to spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines as a way of undermining government credibility.


text: On April 7, 2021, the U.S. District Court of Minnesota charged self-proclaimed Boogaloo Bois member Michael Paul Dahlager, a 27-year old from St. Cloud, Minnesota, with illegal possession of a machine gun. Dahlager had travelled to the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul for a December 12, 2020, "Stop the Steal" rally where he scouted law enforcement positions and numbers. Dahlager had discussed with confidential informants his willingness to kill law enforcement members and incite violent uprisings against the government. Dahlager had allegedly planned to carry out an attack in early 2021 on the state's capitol building, but abandoned it after he believed that informants were among his inner circle. Dahlager pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges in July 2021.


text: In the days after the election, Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, exchanged 29 text messages with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, urging him to pursue efforts to overturn the election. Thomas asserted "The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History" and recited a message circulating in right-wing media that the "Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators" were being arrested "to face military tribunals for sedition" at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Thomas wrote, "Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back." In March 2022, Thomas acknowledged she had attended the January 6 Stop the Steal rally but there was no evidence she had been involved in its organization.


text: Multiple conspiracy theories were promoted, such as the claim that billionaire liberal donor George Soros "stole the election". Another is Italygate, a QAnon-adjacent theory originating from a fake news website, which claimed that the election was rigged in Biden's favor by the U.S. Embassy in Rome, using satellites and military technology to remotely switch votes from Trump to Biden. There is no evidence to support this. Republican congressman Scott Perry texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows a link to a YouTube video making the allegation. "The New York Times" later reported that, during Trump's last weeks in office, Meadows emailed the video to the Department of Justice seeking an investigation.


text: These conspiracy theories had multiple origins. They were promoted by Trump and other individuals, and were heavily pushed and expanded on by far-right news organizations such as One America News Network (OANN), Newsmax, and "The Gateway Pundit", as well as by Sean Hannity and some other Fox News commentators. RT, a Russian state media outlet, also promoted the Trump campaign's false claims of electoral fraud. Attempts by Facebook and other mainstream social networks to restrict groups that spread false election claims led to a surge in the popularity of Parler, a right-leaning alternative social networking site that has attracted supporters of Stop the Steal. Parler subsequently went offline after Amazon Web Services withdrew support for the app.


text: As of June 2021, Trump has continued to echo the conspiracy theory that the election was "stolen"; particularly focusing on the efforts of Arizona Senate Republicans to audit the results of the election in Maricopa County and on a lawsuit disputing the results of the election in Georgia. The efforts of Arizona Republicans to audit the results have drawn the attention and support of some Republican politicians, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and the former president. Trump had reportedly told associates he could be "reinstated" as president by August 2021; however, there is no constitutional mechanism to reinstate a president after the results of an election have been certified by Congress. However, several Trump allies denied reports that Trump would be reinstated as president in August, including Lara Trump, Jenna Ellis, Jason Miller, Corey Lewandowski, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.


text: "The Gateway Pundit" published an August 2021 article reporting analysis conducted by Seth Keshel, a former Army intelligence officer, purporting to prove election fraud and that Trump actually won seven states carried by Biden. The analysis was false. Keshel was among a group of military-intelligence veterans including former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn who played central roles in spreading false information about the election.


text: On at least one occasion in November 2020, Trump privately acknowledged that he lost the election. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a White House aide to Trump, recalls him exclaiming "Can you believe I lost to this guy?" while watching Biden on television. This, however, was not Trump's public position.


text: On November 12, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs called the election "the most secure in American history", leading Trump to fire him and Trump attorney Joseph diGenova to call for his execution.


text: Emily Murphy, the administrator of the General Services Administration, delayed the start of the presidential transition until sixteen days after most media outlets had projected Biden to be the winner.


text: On November 4, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows received a text message calling for an "aggressive strategy" of having the Republican-led legislatures of three uncalled states "just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the [Supreme Court]." This was reportedly sent by Trump's secretary of energy, Rick Perry.


text: On November 5, Donald Trump Jr. sent a text message to Meadows outlining paths to subvert the Electoral College process and ensure his father a second term. He wrote, "It’s very simple. We have multiple paths. We control them all. We have operational control. Total leverage. Moral high ground. POTUS must start second term now." Trump Jr. continued, "Republicans control 28 states Democrats 22 states. Once again Trump wins," adding, "We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021." Biden had not yet been declared the winner at the time of the text.


text: On November 9, Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers, including Russell Bowers and Shawnna Bolick, encouraging them to pick "a clean slate of Electors" and telling them that the responsibility was "yours and yours alone".<ref name="Brown_6/10//2022"></ref>


text: On November 18, James R. Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, received a memo from Boston attorney Kenneth Chesebro outlining a plan to create and submit alternate slates of electors in contested states. Another memo three weeks later went to Wisconsin and several other contested states. The memos are evidence that within weeks of the election, the Trump campaign was focusing on January 6, 2021 as the "hard deadline" for determining the outcome of the election.


text: The White House Counsel's Office reportedly reviewed the plans to use alternate electors and deemed them not to be legally sound.


text: After vote counts showed a Biden victory, Trump engaged in what has been called a "post-election purge", firing or forcing out at least a dozen officials and replacing them with loyalists. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was fired by tweet on November 9. Undersecretary for Defense Joseph D. Kernan and Acting Undersecretary for Policy James H. Anderson resigned in protest or were forced out. The White House sought to learn the names of political appointees who had applauded Anderson upon his departure, so they could be fired. The DOD chief of staff, Jen Stewart, was replaced by a former staffer to Representative Devin Nunes. On November 30, Christopher P. Maier, the head of the Pentagon's Defeat ISIS Task Force, was ousted and the task force was disbanded; a White House official told him that the United States had won the war against the Islamic State, so the task force was no longer needed.


text: Trump's allegations of election fraud in battleground states were refuted by judges, state election officials, and his own administration's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). After CISA director Chris Krebs contradicted Trump's voting-fraud allegations, Trump fired him on November 17. Three other Department of Homeland Security officialsMatthew Travis, CISA's deputy director. Bryan Ware, CISA's assistant director for cybersecurity, and Valerie Boyd, the DHS's assistant secretary of international affairswere also forced out.


text: Bonnie Glick, the deputy administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, was abruptly fired on November 6; she had prepared a transition manual for the next administration. She was due to become acting administrator of the department on November 7. Firing her left the position of acting administrator vacant, so that Trump loyalist John Barsa could become acting deputy administrator.


text: Career climate scientist Michael Kuperberg, who for the past five years has produced the annual National Climate Assessment issued by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was demoted on November 9 and returned to his previous position at the Department of Energy. Several media outlets reported that David Legates, a deputy assistant secretary at NOAA who claims that global warming is harmless, would be appointed to oversee the congressionally mandated report in place of Kuperberg, based on information obtained from "people close to the Administration", including Myron Ebell, the head of President Trump's Environmental Protection Agency transition team and director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. As of May 18, 2021, the Biden administration reappointed Kuperberg as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.


text: On November 5, Neil Chatterjee was removed from his post as chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.


text: On November 11, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty resigned from her posts as Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and administrator of the quasi-independent National Nuclear Security Administration, reportedly due to longstanding tensions and disagreements with Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.


text: In October 2020, Trump signed an executive order that created a new category of federal employee, Schedule F, which included all career civil servants whose job includes "policymaking". Such employees would no longer be covered by civil service protections against arbitrary dismissal, but would be subject to the same rules as political appointees. The new description could be applied to thousands of nonpartisan experts, such as scientists who give advice to the political appointees who run their departments. Heads of all federal agencies were ordered to report by January 19, 2021, a list of positions that could be reclassified as Schedule F. The Office of Management and Budget submitted a list in November that included 88 percent of the office's workforce. Federal employee organizations and Congressional Democrats sought to overturn the order via lawsuits or bills. House Democrats warned in a letter that "The executive order could precipitate a mass exodus from the federal government at the end of every presidential administration, leaving federal agencies without deep institutional knowledge, expertise, experience, and the ability to develop and implement long-term policy strategies." Observers predicted that Trump could use the new rule to implement a "massive government purge on his way out the door."


text: Meanwhile, administration officials had ordered the Budget Office to begin work on a 2022 budget proposal that they would submit to Congress in February, ignoring the fact that Biden would have already taken over by that point.


text: After the 2020 United States presidential election, the campaign for incumbent president Donald Trump filed a number of lawsuits contesting election processes, vote-counting, and the vote-certification process in multiple states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Many such cases were quickly dismissed, and lawyers and other observers noted that the lawsuits were unlikely to have an effect on the outcome of the election. By November 19, more than two dozen of the legal challenges filed since Election Day had failed.


text: On November 21, U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania Judge Matthew Brann, a Republican, dismissed the case before him with prejudice, ruling:


text: Prior to November 17, the four-member board of canvassers of Wayne County, Michigan, was deadlocked on election-result certification along party lines with the two Republican members refusing to certify, but on November 17 the board voted unanimously to certify its results. Trump subsequently called the two Republican members of the board, following which the two Republicans asked to rescind their votes for certification, signing affidavits the following day stating that they had voted for certification only because the two Democratic members had promised a full audit of the county's votes. The two denied Trump's call had influenced their reversal.


text: Trump issued an invitation to Michigan lawmakers to travel to Washington. Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, State Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and State Representative Jim Lilly were photographed in the lobby of the D.C. Trump Tower, where they were drinking $500-a-bottle champagne and were not wearing masks. After the meeting, Chatfield and Shirkey released a joint statement indicating that they would "follow the law" and would not attempt to have the legislature intervene in selecting electoral votes. Chatfield later floated the possibility of a "constitutional crisis" in Michigan, while Shirkey suggested that certification be delayed; however, neither took any concrete action to invalidate Biden's victory. On November 21, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and Michigan Republican Party Chair Laura Cox publicly called upon the Michigan State Board of Canvassers to not proceed with the planned certification of election results. On November 23, the State Board of Canvassers certified the election.


text: Starting in November <nowiki>[2020]</nowiki>, the Trump campaign attempted to get local law enforcement agencies to seize voting machines for the Trump operation to review. In one Michigan county, Trump advisors including Rudy Giuliani phoned the county prosecutor on or about November 20<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki>. They asked him to obtain the county's voting machines and turn them over to the Trump team. He refused, but a judge later ordered the machines to be made available to Trump representatives. They later produced a "forensic report" claiming evidence of fraud; election experts have said the conclusion was false and the report "critically flawed".


text: The 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia produced an initial count wherein Biden defeated Trump by around 14,000 votes, triggering an automatic recount due to the small margin. On November 13<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki>, while the recount was ongoing, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina privately called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to discuss Georgia's vote counting. Raffensperger, a Republican, told "The Washington Post" that Graham had asked whether Raffensperger could disqualify all mail-in ballots in counties that had more signature errors. Gabriel Sterling, a Republican election official and staffer to Raffensperger, was present for the call, and Sterling confirmed that Graham had asked that question.


text: Raffensperger viewed Graham's question as a suggestion to throw out legally-cast ballots, although Graham denied suggesting that. Graham acknowledged calling Raffensperger to find out how to "protect the integrity of mail-in voting" and "how does signature verification work?", but declared that if Raffensperger "feels threatened by that conversation, he's got a problem". Graham stated that he was investigating in his own capacity as a senator, although he is the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Graham also claimed that he had spoken to the secretaries of state in Arizona and Nevada. The secretaries, however, denied this, and Graham then contradicted himself, stating that he had talked to the Governor of Arizona but no official in Nevada.


text: The Trump campaign requested a recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, both Democratic strongholds. On November 20<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki>, Wisconsin election officials reported that Trump campaign observers were attempting to obstruct the recount. According to officials, observers were "constantly interrupting vote-counters with questions and comments." At one table, a Republican representative was objecting to every ballot that was pulled for recount. At other tables, there were two Republican observers when only one was allowed; it was also reported that some Republicans had been posing as independents. Completed by November 29, the recounts ended up increasing Biden's lead by 87 votes.


text: On November 25<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki>, one day after Pennsylvania certified its election results, a Republican state senator requested a hearing of the State Senate Majority Policy Committee to discuss election issues. The event, described as an "informational meeting," was held at a hotel in Gettysburg and featured Rudy Giuliani asserting that the election had been subject to massive fraud. Trump also spoke to the group by speakerphone, repeating his false claim that he had actually won in Pennsylvania and other swing states, and saying "We have to turn the election over."


text: In Arizona, a state won by Biden, Republican members of the Arizona Senate promoted Trump's false claims of election fraud. In mid-December 2020, Eddie Farnsworth, Chairman of the State Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed that "tampering" or "fraud" might have marred the election, despite the testimony given by election officials, attorneys, and the Arizona Attorney General Election Integrity Unit at a six-hour hearing, all of whom testified that there was no evidence for such claims. Hearings held in the Michigan Legislature similarly presented no evidence of any fraud or other wrongdoing.


text: Days before the 2020 presidential election, Dennis Montgomery, a software designer with a history of making dubious claims, asserted that a program called Scorecard, running on a government supercomputer called Hammer, would be used to switch votes from Trump to Biden on voting machines. Trump legal team attorney Sidney Powell promoted the conspiracy theory on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on November 6, and again two days later on Maria Bartiromo's Fox Business program, claiming to have "evidence that that is exactly what happened." She also asserted that the CIA ignored warnings about the software, and urged Trump to fire director Gina Haspel. Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), characterized the supercomputer claim as "nonsense" and a "hoax". CISA described the 2020 election as "the most secure in American history," with "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised." A few days later, Trump fired Krebs by tweet, claiming that Krebs' analysis was "highly inaccurate."


text: On November 13<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki>, the Trump campaign's deputy director of communications, Zach Parkinson, asked his staff to review the claims regarding the voting machines; the staff concluded these claims were baseless.


text: During a November 19<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki> press conference, Powell alleged without evidence that an international Communist plot had been engineered by Venezuela, Cuba, China, Hugo Chávez (who died in 2013), George Soros, the Clinton Foundation, and antifa to rig the 2020 elections. She also alleged that Dominion Voting Systems "can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden." The source for many of these claims appeared to be the far-right news organization One America News Network (OANN). She also repeated a conspiracy theory spread by Texan Congressman Louie Gohmert, OANN and others: that accurate voting results had been transmitted to the German office of the Spanish electronic voting firm Scytl, where they were tabulated to reveal a landslide victory for Trump nationwide (which included implausible Trump victories in Democratic strongholds such as California, Colorado, Maine statewide, Minnesota, and New Mexico), after which a company server was supposedly seized in a raid by the United States Army. The U.S. Army and Scytl refuted those claims: Scytl has not had any offices in Germany since September 2019, and it does not tabulate any U.S. votes. In a March 2021 report, the Justice and Homeland Security Departments flatly rejected accusations of voting fraud conducted by foreign nations.


text: In a subsequent interview with Newsmax on November 21<nowiki>, [2020]</nowiki>, Powell accused Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, of being "in on the Dominion scam" and suggested financial impropriety. Powell additionally alleged that fraud had prevented Doug Collins from winning a top-two position in the November 2020 nonpartisan blanket primary against incumbent Kelly Loeffler in the Senate race in Georgia. She also claimed that the Democratic Party had used rigged Dominion machines to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary and that Sanders had learned of this but had "sold out." She stated that she would "blow up" Georgia with a "biblical" court filing. Powell suggested that candidates "paid to have the system rigged to work for them." On the basis of these claims, Powell called for Republican-controlled state legislatures in swing states to disregard the election results and appoint a slate of "loyal" electors who would vote to re-elect Trump, based on authority supposedly resting in . "The Washington Post" reported that on December 5 Trump asked Kemp to convene a special session of the Georgia legislature for that purpose, but Kemp declined. Trump also pressured Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler to overturn the result and use electors loyal to Trump, but Cutler declined, saying that the legislature had no power to overturn the state's chosen slate of electors.


text: Conservative television outlets amplified baseless allegations of voting machine fraud. Fox News host Lou Dobbs had been outspoken during his program supporting the allegations, but on December 18 his program aired a video segment debunking the allegations, although Dobbs himself did not comment. Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo had also been outspoken in supporting the allegations, and both their programs aired the same video segment debunking the allegations over the following two days.


text: Smartmatic, a company accused of conspiring with Dominion, demanded a retraction from Fox News. Smartmatic wanted corrections to be "published on multiple occasions" during prime time to "match the attention and audience targeted with the original defamatory publications." They also threatened legal action. On February 4, 2021, Smartmatic filed a lawsuit against Dobbs, Bartiromo, Pirro, and Fox News itself, as well as against Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, seeking $2.7 billion in total damages.


text: In December 2020, Dominion sent a similar letter to Sidney Powell, demanding that she retract her allegations and retain all relevant records; the Trump legal team later instructed dozens of staffers to preserve all documents for any future litigation. The company filed a $1.3 billion defamation suit against Powell in January 2021. While fighting the lawsuit in March 2021, Powell's attorneys claimed that her speech was protected because she was sharing her "opinion" and that, because she was serving as an attorney for the Trump campaign, it was her role to make accusations against Dominion. Dominion had complained that Powell's comments were "wild," "outlandish," and "impossible." Powell's attorneys seemed to concede that Powell had been obviously lying, saying that "reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact" and therefore that she had not defamed Dominion.


text: After Biden won the election, angry Trump supporters threatened election officials, election officials' family members, and elections staff in at least eight states via emails, telephone calls and letters; some of the menacing and vitriolic communications included death threats. Officials terrorized by the threats included officials in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona, as well as a few less competitive states. Some officials had to seek police protection or move from their homes due to the threats. The director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, described the threats as frightening and said, "These threats often go into areas related to race or sex or anti-Semitism. More than once they specifically refer to gun violence." Prominent Republicans ignored or said little about the threats of violence.


text: On November 15, the Georgia Secretary of State reported that he and his wife were receiving death threats. On November 30, Trump attorney Joseph diGenova said the recently fired head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, should be "taken out and shot" for disputing the president's claims about election fraud. On December 1, Republican Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling publicly condemned Trump and Georgia Senators Perdue and Loeffler for making unsubstantiated claims and for failing to condemn the threats of violence against election workers, including those made against a young, low-level Dominion employee and his family. After Democratic Georgia State Senator Elena Parent spoke out against the false claims of voter fraud, she was targeted by online vitriol, threatened with death and sexual violence, and had her home address widely circulated online. Parent attributed the onslaught to Trump, saying, "He has created a cult-like following and is exposing people like me across the country to danger because of his unfounded rhetoric on the election."


text: In early December, an "enemies list" circulated on the web falsely accusing various government officials and voting systems executives of rigging the election, providing their home addresses, and superimposing red targets on their photos.


text: The Arizona Republican Party twice tweeted that supporters should be willing to "die for something" or "give my life for this fight." Ann Jacobs, chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said she had received constant threats, including a message mentioning her children, and photos of her house had been posted on the web.


text: On January 1, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence asked a federal judge to dismiss a suit naming him as the defendant; filed by Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert and others, the ultimately unsuccessful suit asserted that the vice president had the sole constitutional authority to conduct the congressional certification of Electoral College results without restriction. Attorney Lin Wood, a conspiracy theorist and QAnon promoter who had worked with Trump attorney Sidney Powell to file baseless lawsuits alleging election fraud, tweeted that day that Pence and other prominent Republican officials should be arrested for treason and that Pence should "face execution by firing squad". Two weeks earlier, Wood had tweeted that people should stock up on survival goods, including "2nd Amendment supplies." Emerald Robinson, a White House correspondent for pro-Trump One America News, tweeted "Folks, when [Lin Wood] tells people to prep, I listen."


text: After Trump urged his supporters to protest in Washington as Congress convened to certify the election results, some posters in far-right online forums interpreted it as a call to action, with one asserting, "We've got marching orders," while others made references to possible violence and to bringing firearms to the protest. In a discussion of how to evade police blockades and the District of Columbia’s gun laws, one poster remarked, "We The People, Will not tolerate a Steal. No retreat, No Surrender. Restore to my President what you stole or reap the consequences!!!"


text: On December 1, 2020, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said U.S. attorneys and FBI agents had investigated complaints and allegations of fraud, but found none of significance. On December 3, 2020, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said no evidence had yet been found of foreign interference.


text: Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who had received a presidential pardon shortly after the election, on December 1 publicly called on the president to suspend the Constitution, silence the press, and hold a new election under military supervision.


text: On December 5, Trump placed a call to Georgia governor Brian Kemp in which he urged the governor to call a special session of the state legislature to override the election results and appoint electors who would support Trump. He also called the Pennsylvania speaker of the house with similar objectives, and had earlier invited Michigan Republican state officials to the White House to discuss election results in that state. The Georgia and Pennsylvania contacts were made after Biden's victories had been certified in those states; Biden's Michigan victory was certified three days after the Trump White House meeting.


text: After Georgia had twice recounted and twice certified its results, Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger received death threats. He was pressured to resign by others in his party, including the state's two senators. On December 23, Trump called the investigations chief in the Georgia Secretary of State's office, who was then investigating allegations of mail ballot fraud, and urged the official to "find the fraud" (a misquote that was amended by "The Washington Post" in March 2021 to "[you would] find things that are gonna be unbelievable"); the investigation ultimately concluded that the allegations had no merit. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued the state and three others, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate the states' voting results, alleging that they had violated the Constitution, citing a litany of complaints that had already been rejected by other courts. Trump and seventeen Republican state attorneys general filed motions to support the case, the merits of which were sharply criticized by legal experts and politicians. The day the suit was filed, Trump warned Georgia attorney general Chris Carr to not rally other Republican officials in opposition to the suit.


text: On December 4, 2020, 64 Republican members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly signed a letter urging the state's congressional delegation to reject Biden's electoral votes. Kim Ward, the Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania senate, said that Trump had called her to say there had been fraud in the election, but she had not seen the letter before it had been released. She stated that Republican leaders were expected to support Trump's claims and if she had announced opposition to the letter, "I'd get my house bombed tonight."


text: On December 10, 2020, after several lawsuits had been dismissed, Trump tweeted, "This is going to escalate dramatically. This is a very dangerous moment in our history. ... The fact that our country is being stolen. A coup is taking place in front of our eyes, and the public can't take this anymore."


text: Before and after the election, Trump said he expected the outcome would be decided by the Supreme Court, where conservative justices held a 6–3 majority, with three of the justices having been appointed by Trump.