Two Arizona Republicans recruited by allies of former President Donald J. Trump to affix an effort to maintain him in workplace after he misplaced the 2020 election grew so involved in regards to the plan that they instructed legal professionals engaged on it that they feared their actions might be seen as treason, in keeping with emails reviewed by The New York Instances.

Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Occasion, and Kelly Townsend, a state senator, had been each mentioned to have expressed considerations to Mr. Trump’s legal professionals in December 2020 about taking part in a plan to signal on to a slate of electors claiming that Mr. Trump had received Arizona, regardless that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had received the state.

The scheme was a part of a broader bid — one of many longest working and most complex that Mr. Trump undertook as he sought to cling to energy after dropping the 2020 presidential election — to falsely manufacture a victory for him by creating faux slates of electors in battleground states who would declare that he had been the true winner.

Among the legal professionals who undertook the trouble doubted its legality, and the emails, which haven’t been beforehand reported, had been the most recent indication that different key gamers additionally knew they had been on shaky authorized floor, and took pains to create a rationale that might justify their actions.

Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer working for Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign, wrote in a Dec. 11, 2020, e mail to different members of the authorized staff that Ms. Ward and Ms. Townsend had raised considerations about casting votes as a part of an alternate slate of electors as a result of there was no pending authorized problem that might flip the outcomes of Arizona’s election.

“Ward and Townsend are involved it might seem treasonous for the AZ electors to vote on Monday if there isn’t any pending court docket continuing which may, finally, result in the electors being ratified because the official ones,” Mr. Chesebro wrote to the group, which included Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s private lawyer.

Mr. Chesebro wrote the phrase “treasonous” in daring.

The usage of the phrase underscored how nicely conscious no less than a few of Mr. Trump’s allies had been that they had been endeavor actually extraordinary steps to maintain him in workplace, a lot in order that they risked being seen as betraying their nation.

Ms. Ward, who pushed for the electors plan to be saved secret, finally joined the trouble and signed a doc that presupposed to be a “certificates of the votes of the 2020 electors from Arizona” and claimed that Mr. Trump had received the state’s 11 Electoral School votes.

One particular person engaged on the plan, the Arizona-based lawyer Jack Wilenchik, conceded in emails that the Electoral School votes the marketing campaign was working to arrange “aren’t authorized below federal legislation” and repeatedly referred to them as “faux,” The Instances has reported.

In a later e mail, Mr. Wilenchik mentioned that the push to file the papers with the Supreme Court docket was “to offer authorized ‘cowl’ for the electors in AZ to ‘vote’” on Dec. 14, 2020, the day the Electoral School was slated to collect and solid votes.

Ms. Townsend didn’t function one of many electors for Mr. Trump, however pushed his claims of a stolen election.

Each Ms. Ward and Ms. Townsend have since obtained subpoenas from the Justice Division asking questions in regards to the faux electors plan and demanding paperwork detailing communications with Mr. Trump’s authorized staff.

The division has widened its investigation into the occasions main as much as the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, together with issuing a subpoena for Pat A. Cipollone, the White Home counsel to Mr. Trump who pushed again on a few of his most excessive efforts to overturn the election, in keeping with an individual conversant in the subpoena.

Ms. Ward, Ms. Townsend, Mr. Wilenchik and Mr. Chesebro didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

The push to arrange slates of false electors concerned hands-on work by Mr. Giuliani, who the emails point out spoke with Ms. Ward and Ms. Townsend because the Trump marketing campaign was apparently urging the electors to vote on Dec. 14.

Mr. Chesebro sought assurances from Mr. Wilenchik that he would shortly file papers to the U.S. Supreme Court docket contesting a ruling by Arizona’s Supreme Court docket affirming Mr. Biden’s win within the state.

“Purpose is that Kelli Ward & Kelly Townsend simply spoke to the mayor in regards to the marketing campaign’s request that every one electors vote Monday in all contested states,” Mr. Chesebro wrote to Mr. Wilenchik, apparently referring to a dialog with Mr. Giuliani.

He mentioned that the priority from Ms. Ward and Ms. Townsend was that activating an alternate group of electors in favor of Mr. Trump “might seem treasonous” within the absence of a pending lawsuit. “Which is a sound level — within the Hawaii 1960 incident, when the Kennedy electors voted, there was a pending recount,” Mr. Chesebro added.

He was referring to an occasion that he and others had been utilizing as a basis for his or her argument that they might put ahead faux slates of electors. In 1960, the results of the election in Hawaii was unsettled because the Electoral School was near assembly. The governor licensed a slate of electors in favor of Richard M. Nixon, who claimed he had received because the recount continued. John F. Kennedy additionally shaped a slate of electors.

When the vote rely was completed, Mr. Kennedy had received, and his slate of electors finally was licensed.

Nevertheless, little in regards to the 1960 incident resembled what occurred in 2020. By the point the Electoral School met on Dec. 14, 2020, the votes had all been counted, Mr. Biden had been declared the winner and numerous courts had tossed challenges filed by Mr. Trump’s allies.

In a follow-up e mail, Mr. Chesebro wrote that he now not noticed “trigger for concern” as a result of a authorized motion among the group deliberate to file was “on the printer” and that the Supreme Court docket considers an motion docketed each time it’s mailed. He wrote that it will be within the mail by the point the Electoral School met.

Mr. Wilenchik filed the petition the identical day, information present. (The Supreme Court docket denied the petition in February 2021. )

Within the weeks after the election, Mr. Chesebro wrote a collection of memos outlining a plan to ship so-called alternate electors to Congress for the certification. Just a little greater than two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Chesebro despatched a memo to James Troupis, one other lawyer for the Trump marketing campaign in Wisconsin, laying out a plan to call pro-Trump electors in that state, which was additionally received by Mr. Biden.

Mr. Chesebro additionally despatched a Dec. 13, 2020, e mail to Mr. Giuliani that inspired Vice President Mike Pence to “firmly take the place that he, and he alone, is charged with the constitutional accountability not simply to open the votes, however to rely them — together with making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes.”

That concept grew to become the premise for Mr. Trump’s strain marketing campaign towards Mr. Pence through which the president tried to persuade his personal vice chairman that he might block or delay the congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.

Mr. Chesebro additionally was concerned in a Dec. 24, 2020, e mail trade with John C. Eastman, the pro-Trump lawyer, over whether or not to file authorized papers that they hoped would possibly immediate 4 justices to agree to listen to an election case from Wisconsin.

In these emails, Mr. Chesebro argued that the “odds of motion earlier than Jan. 6 will turn out to be extra favorable if the justices begin to concern that there shall be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 until they rule by then, both approach.”

Their trade occurred 5 days after Mr. Trump issued a name for his supporters to attend a protest on the Ellipse close to the White Home on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress would certify the electoral vote rely confirming Mr. Biden’s victory. “Be there. Shall be wild!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.