evidence: - Dec. 8 was "safe harbor" day. Every state except Wisconsin met the deadline to certify its votes free of legal challenges, which locks Congress in to accepting the votes of the state’s electors on Dec. 14. [...] Boxes that were packed with ballots that had already been opened but not counted were resealed and placed under the table for the next session of counting, Watson said in the affidavit. [...] Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) also had cited Hopkins’s story of purported fraud in asking the Justice Department to investigate. Attorney General William P. Barr subsequently authorized federal prosecutors to open probes into credible allegations of voting irregularities. The head of the Justice Department’s Election Crimes Branch stepped down in protest, telling colleagues in an email that Barr’s directive violated a long-standing department policy intended to prevent political interference in election results.