Though it's been nearly two months since the 2020 election, President Donald Trump, his lawyers and his allies in both chambers of Congress have still not given up in their fight to expose alleged widespread voter and ballot fraud.
The president raised eyebrows in the media today, according to the Washington Examiner, as he chose to come home early from his vacation at Mar-a-Lago, in order to prepare for an upcoming battle to challenge the Electoral College results in Congress when it convenes on January 6.
The matter is apparently so pressing that Trump skipped out on a planned New Year's Eve party in Florida - a party where many had already gathered under the impression that the president would make his usual appearance, but instead returned to the nation's capital in a rare move.
According to CNN, another person familiar with the president's last-minute move reported that Trump had expressed concern that Iran would attempt to retaliate against the United States on the one-year anniversary of the U.S. military strike that killed top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
It was also reported that during his time at Mar-a-Lago, Trump dialed in on the upcoming Electoral College certification challenge, even attempting to lobby more of his allies in Congress to join efforts to overturn the results in a number of battleground states.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is the first sitting senator to agree to join the cause, which means if he follows through in joining House Republicans in rejecting the certification for a given state, it will trigger an official debate on whether or not to certify that state's Electoral College votes.
The plan has been heavily criticized by members of both parties as a long-shot, hail-mary attempt to overturn election results. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly warned Republican senators to stay far away from such efforts, with most Senate Republicans falling in line.
Trump has also made a number of references to an upcoming protest - which could amount to tens of thousands of Trump supporters - on the same day that Congress convenes to count the votes. The president has even teased the upcoming protests as an event that will be "wild."
While Trump's early return to Washington D.C. has fueled a number of conspiracy ideas, only time will reveal the true reason why he chose to come back home early. Hopefully, he and his allies will have more luck with their new plan than they did while attempting to convince the courts that the election was rigged.