Donald Trump directed Rudy Giuliani to ask the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if it could seize voting machines in three key states, the New York Times reported.

Citing three anonymous sources, the paper said Giuliani made the call six weeks after Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden but before the January 6 Capitol riot, by supporters trying to stop the certification of electoral college results.

A DHS official told Giuliani it did not have the authority to seize the machines, the Times said.

The paper also said Trump turned to his personal lawyer after considering a plan to have the Department of Defense seize the machines, and after being told by his attorney general, William Barr, that the Department of Justice would not do so.

Executive orders to compel the Pentagon and DHS to act are known to have been drafted.

But the newly revealed DHS call, the Times said, “show[s] that Mr Trump was more directly involved than previously known in exploring proposals to use his national security agencies to seize voting machines”.

Trump claims the election was subject to massive voter fraud. It was not.

His efforts to overturn the election – an outcome he admitted seeking in a statement on Sunday – are being investigated by the House committee on January 6 and by a district attorney in Georgia.

The DA, Fani Willis, has requested FBI protection after Trump told supporters they should protest her investigation and others into his business practices in New York.

At his Texas rally last Saturday, Trump also promised pardons for January 6 rioters should he be president again. More than 700 rioters have been charged, 11 with seditious conspiracy.

The Times said a retired US army colonel, Phil Waldron, was at the heart of attempts to acquire the authority to seize voting machines in key states, altering the plan to include the DHS when Giuliani said using the military would be too extreme.

Waldron, from Texas, is linked to Michael Flynn, a retired general who was among conspiracy theorists pressing Trump to seize voting machines.

Trump also pressured officials in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to seize voting machines. They resisted.

Schemes to send “alternate electors” to Congress from battleground states are the subject of a Department of Justice investigation as well as subpoenas from the January 6 committee.

Giulaini is a former mayor of New York and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination but his star has fallen as a result of his work for Trump.

Suspended from practicing law in New York and Washington DC, he is the subject of a subpoena from the January 6 committee.

In a letter to Giuliani last month, the committee chair, Bennie Thompson, said: “Between mid-November 2020 and January 6, 2021 (and thereafter) you actively promoted claims of election fraud on behalf of former president Trump and sought to convince state legislators to take steps to overturn the election results.

“According to witness testimony and public reporting, in December 2020 you urged President Trump to direct the seizure of voting machines around the country after being told that the Department of Homeland Security had no lawful authority to do so.”