One curious point of consideration for the family that morning—prescient for how events would shortly unfold—was a follow-up to a discussion initiated some months before by aides and family. Trump representatives, working with Trump family members, had approached Parler, the social network backed by Bob Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, far-right exponents and large Trump contributors. They had been floated a proposition that Trump, after he left office, would become an active member of Parler, moving much of his social media activity there from Twitter. In return, Trump would receive 40 percent of Parler’s gross revenues, and the service would ban anyone who spoke negatively about him.

Parler was balking only at this last condition.

This was now being offered by the family as a carrot to entice the president out of the White House (it was also a potential future family revenue stream): Trump could do what he loved to do most and potentially make a fortune off it. It was a given in the Trump White House that he was one of social media’s most valuable assets, and that he would like nothing better than to share, monetarily, in that value.

The Giuliani group, now in its tenth week in DC, had moved out of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and over to the Willard. Giuliani had spent the evening with John Eastman, their constitutional authority, rehashing the Pence situation. Rudy was now in hyper-drive over Pence. It had all come down to this, and it was all going to happen now—everything was on Pence. Giuliani had failed in every single instance of legal strategy and positioning in the election challenge and had now put all his eggs into the Pence basket. It might have seemed that he was trying to set Pence up to take the blame for what he himself had so abjectly failed to accomplish. To the president, Rudy was still offering good odds that the vice president would come through. To others, Giuliani was now saying that Pence just didn’t have the balls to do what could be done.

Giuliani left the Willard with Eastman, Bernie Kerik, and Boris Epshteyn at a little before 10 a.m. They ran into Roger Stone in the lobby of the Willard. Stone was asked if he was going to the rally, but he said he hadn’t been invited. He didn’t even know who had organized it, he said.

The four men were let out of their car and had to walk across the grass to the Ellipse. They were already freezing by the time Giuliani went on, at about 10:50: