“Georgia election officials on Tuesday certified the victories of two Democrats who won in the state’s hard-fought U.S. Senate runoff elections earlier this month, paving the way for them to take office as early as Wednesday,” the Washington Post reports.

“Rudy Giuliani personally voted in the 2020 election using a voting method he publicly disparaged and bashed in his attempts to overthrow the presidential election results,” CNN reports.

“Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, voted in Manhattan by an affidavit ballot, also known as a provisional ballot, after his name did not appear on the voter rolls when he showed up to vote.”

“Members of President Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.”

“An attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be ‘on site’ during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.”

Axios begins a series looking into President Trump’s final two months:

“For weeks, Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory on election night — even if he lost. But the real-time results, punctuated by Fox’s shocking call, upended his plans and began his unraveling.”

The top federal prosecutor in Harrisburg announced Friday that his office has closed an investigation into nine discarded ballots found in the northeastern part of the state that President Trump had touted to support his unfounded claims of election rigging, saying in a statement that the probe had found “insufficient evidence to prove criminal intent on the part of the person who discarded the ballots,” the Washington Post reports.

ABC News: “Three of the key advisers who helped engineer Donald Trump’s’ rise to the presidency in 2016, and who fell from grace under the weight of federal criminal charges, resurfaced during Trump’s final days in office to help engineer his ill-fated attempt to cling to power.”

“Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn all participated in efforts to promote the Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ event that ultimately devolved into a riotous and deadly melee at the United States Capitol, leaving five dead and causing Trump to become the only president to be impeached for a second time.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) apologized to Black Tulsans on Thursday for not recognizing that his involvement in questioning presidential election results would offend them, Tulsa World reports.

Lankford acknowledges that his actions “caused a firestorm of suspicion among many of my friends, particularly in Black communities around the state. I was completely blindsided, but I also found a blind spot.”

“A dark-money group used by Republican donors funneled millions of dollars to high-profile conservative organizations that pushed or investigated claims of election fraud before and after Joe Biden defeated President Trump,” CNBC reports.

“That group, the Donors Trust, is officially labeled as a nonprofit. The designation allows financiers to give to the organization anonymously. That money is then channeled to other dark-money groups.”

“The acting U.S. attorney for Northern Georgia, who was named after his predecessor reportedly angered President Trump for not finding election fraud, told staffers in a conference call Monday that he dismissed two election fraud cases on his first day,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

Said Bobby Christine: “I closed the two most — I don’t know, I guess you’d call them high profile or the two most pressing election issues this office has. I said I believe, as many of the people around the table believed, there’s just nothing to them.”

The New York Times analyzed a crucial two-hour period to reconstruct how a rally gave way to a mob that nearly came face to face with Congress.

The Trump campaign has not used its millions-strong email list since the riots at the Capitol, Vice News reports.

Salesforce, its email provider, says it has taken action to prevent Republicans from using “our services in any way that could lead to violence.”

“President Trump urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to “find the fraud” in a lengthy December phone call, saying the official would be a ‘national hero,'” the Washington Post reports.

“Trump placed the call to the investigations chief for the Georgia secretary of state’s office shortly before Christmas — while the individual was leading an inquiry into allegations of ballot fraud in Cobb County, in the suburbs of Atlanta.”

“Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have positioned themselves as heirs to President Donald Trump’s base. But their decision to embrace Trump’s election challenge is fueling major blowback — even as they remain largely unrepentant after this week’s deadly riot,” Politico reports.

“Following the insurrection at the Capitol, the potential 2024 presidential candidates are facing Democratic calls to resign and charges from their own party that they incited violence in the name of political opportunism. Cruz said that such allegations were ‘ludicrous.'”