FTA:

[T]he conspiracy started many months before, when Trump convinced his followers that only fraud could explain any election that didn't result in his victory. As it became clear that he had lost, and not even that narrowly, Trump used that lie to propel a previously unthinkable attack on democracy. With the help of close aides, faraway operatives and admirers who needed to look no further than the President's Twitter feed to understand what he wanted them to do, Trump tested every vulnerability in the democratic process--every weak point in the electoral system where, perhaps, someone could be convinced or bullied to ignore the will of the people.

Trump's cadres, often at his direct instruction, brought forth frivolous lawsuits, harassed election workers, and twisted the arms of state officials behind the scenes.

As the window for undoing Biden's victory closed ever more tightly, Trump's claims about election fraud became more convoluted, his boasts of how he actually won more sweeping, and his plotting more desperate. In the end, he was reduced to riling up a deranged mob to set upon the Capitol.

Always present, however, was the false insistence--often deployed as a racist appeal--that the election, supposedly plagued by fraud, had been "rigged" against the President.

This article, which traces Trump's attempts to steal the election, could be used as an outline for the impeachment proceedings: For example, what happened the day after the election in Detroit:

As the President tweeted false accusations of ballots being "found" for Democrats, an influx of fresh poll challengers--many of them Republican or affiliated with a conservative "election integrity" group--arrived at the TCF Center.

The number of people inside the hall swelled until the large counting room, originally designed to host the North American International Auto Show, was at capacity. Several of the new arrivals congregated in the lobby outside of the hall, alongside experienced poll watchers of both parties who had left for lunch. At this point, the building's management was refusing to let anyone else inside.

The newcomers who had made it onto thee counting floor became increasingly aggressive, haranguing ballot counters. A handful of people in the room started a chant: "Stop. The. Count." It failed to catch on at first, but it quickly spread to the several dozen wannabe observers stuck in the lobby looking in. Soon, the lobby crowd--mostly white--was banging on the windows to punctuate the chants as election workers--mostly Black--looked on from inside the hall, mere feet away.

"I think they all felt that this is definitely something different, something aggressive," Thomas said of his colleagues.

The night before, in nationally televised remarks from the White House, Trump claimed he had won the election, and any results still coming in showing otherwise were "major fraud" to steal his victory from him. Trump demanded that "voting"--i.e. the continued counting of mail-in ballots--be "stopped."

Trump continued the claims through Wednesday morning, and in a tweet singled out Michigan in particular. Moments later, his campaign announced a lawsuit seeking to stop the state's count.

But the Trump supporters gathered at the TCF Center weren't going to wait for the judicial system. They would take matters into their own hands.

As the "stop the count" chant continued, building management placed cardboard over some of the windows, quickly attracting scorn from GOP officials on social media. Police eventually arrived, lining up between the crowd and the windows. It took several more hours before the Republican activists fully dissipated.

"It unnerved a lot of people, particularly in the room," Thomas recalled.