As soon as the votes were all counted, they knew they would need a coup to keep Trump in power. It was always going to be sedition. They just wanted to inject enough confusion so they could make some excuses. I think it really threw a monkey wrench in their plans when ANTIFA didn't show up on January 6th. Trump could not declare martial law, when the only rioters were his crew.

The fact that Pence refused to leave the Capital screwed their plan as well. The funny thing is that numerous Republican lawmakers seemed to be in on the plan, because they kept on insisting the riot was all ANTIFA members, and there was a lot of talk about Somebody Else running the certification after Pence was presumable evacuated to Alaska.

I assume it's all documented in those "missing" Secret Service texts and the several hour gap in the White House recordings.