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Hours before Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) testified about his refusal to help Donald Trump undo the results of the 2020 election, he sat alone in the Capitol Hill hotel room, reading quotes about the courage of John F. Kennedy and watching a video of the church elder about being a peacemaker.
Bowers, 69, is wearing a new white shirt and a dress he bought years ago, one he wears for special occasions, such as visiting a temple in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although formal, it makes you feel comfortable.
The lifelong Republican had packed a red tie, but he felt too daring, so he put on a blue one. He then walked alone to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and slowly found his way to the courtroom that would become the setting for the highlight of his decades-long political career.
Bowers was summoned by the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 uprising to testify about the events following Trump’s loss of 10,457 votes in Arizona. Bowers had voted for Trump, campaigned for Trump, but would not violate the law for him, and as a result, his political future was jeopardized, his character was questioned, and his family was harassed while his daughter was dying.
He woke up early on Tuesday to read some of the notes he kept during that time, written in italics in his personal notebooks.
“Am I too prepared?” Bowers said in an interview. “I have no idea. We’ll know when you walk into this room.”
When he entered, his goal was to bring a measure of conciliation, not conflict, to that point.
“I would like, for the small part I have, to reduce the conflict and work for a more continuous reconciliation of people,” he said. “I don’t need to earn anything.”
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Shortly before the hearing began, he sent a call from an Arizona House attorney who conveyed that Trump had made a statement stating that Bowers “told me the election was rigged and I won Arizona.” Bowers laughed at the absurdity.
In the courtroom, Bowers sat down with Georgia election officials Brad Raffensperger and Gabe Sterling, who faced similar pressure from Trump and his allies to reverse their loss there. Later that day, the committee heard testimony from former Georgia election worker Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, whose life was threatened after Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani claimed to have participated in a fake voting scheme. Bowers and Moss have received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award this year for their efforts to protect democracy.
Bowers came first and began his testimony by refuting Trump’s statement.
“I had a conversation with the president,” he said carefully and deliberately, his glasses placed at the tip of his nose. “It’s certainly not that. Anywhere, anyone, anytime, has said I said the election was rigged, that wouldn’t be true.”
Trump pressure provoked violence, threats to local officials, the committee shows
Bowers, a professional artist known for his storytelling, recounted his first conversation with Trump and Giuliani, which took place after a church service in the weeks following 2020 elections. Bowers reminded them by asking him to convene the legislature to investigate his unfounded allegations of election fraud and launched a strategy to replace elected voters with another more pro-Trump group. Bowers repeatedly asked them for proof beyond hearing and hints that the election was stolen. Giuliani said he would deliver these tests, but they never arrived. Bowers said he told them his legal theory was strange to him and that he should consult with his lawyers.
“I said, ‘Look, you’re asking me to do something that goes against my oath,'” Bowers said. He told the men that he would not break his oath and that he would uphold the Constitution.
For several weeks, Giuliani and other Trump allies were unable to file the promised documentation, and Bowers refused to authorize an official legislative hearing to review allegations of widespread fraud. There had been a “circus” around these allegations, and Bowers said he did not want to be taken to the Arizona House.
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Instead, another GOP House member and election denialist held a meeting with unrequited claims at a downtown Phoenix hotel. That same day, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) certified the results of the Arizona election.
The next day, December 1, 2020, Bowers attended a face-to-face meeting with Giuliani, attorney Jenna Ellis, Arizona GOP state lawmakers, and others, where he was pressured again to help cancel. the results of the elections.
He recalled something Giuliani said: “He said, ‘We have a lot of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.'”
Bowers then wrote in a newspaper page that he told Giuliani and the group, “The US Constit. Does not say that I can reverse the laws I am working to enforce the color of this same issue.”
In the absence of evidence from Giuliani and others, the Arizona speaker heard that he was being asked to violate his oath in the Constitution.
“I won’t do that, and” Bowers testified, pausing to control his emotions. “More than once, on more than one occasion throughout all this has been raised. And it is a principle of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, of my most basic fundamental beliefs. And so it do it because someone just asked me that it is strange to my being.
On January 3, 2021, an Arizona House attorney spoke with pro-Trump attorney John Eastman, who advanced a legal theory to decertify Arizona voters. The next day, Eastman set out his theory during a call with Bowers, who asked if his strategy had ever been tested. Eastman encouraged him to try it and let the courts decide. Bowers declined.
A final attempt to persuade Bowers came on the morning of January 6, shortly before the Capitol riot.
It came from his own congressman, Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. of 2020. He asked Bowers to support voter desertification.
“I said I wouldn’t,” Bowers recalled.
That firm stance made him the target of protests and nasty accusations. In early December, supporters of “Stop the Steal” gathered in the lobby of the State House. Bowers was out of town at the time, but some in the crowd called his name. On Tuesday, the committee presented a video with these protesters, including Jake Angeli, the “shaman QAnon” who wore a fur hat, horns and face paint when he entered the Capitol on January 6th. It was an ominous sign of the violence to come. .
In the weeks that followed, the Bowers neighborhood in Mesa, a suburb east of Phoenix, was practically occupied at times by caravans of Trump supporters.
They called Bowers through the mechanics, filmed his house, and led parades to ridicule him for presenting a military-style civilian truck. At one point, a man appeared with a gun and was threatening Bowers’ neighbor.
“When I saw the gun, I knew I had to get close,” he stated.
Enraged pro-Trump voters tried unsuccessfully to remember Bowers, and Bowers said they handed out leaflets accusing him of corruption and pedophilia.
As the drama unfolded outside her home, her daughter, Kacey, was dying inside.
She was “overwhelmed by what was going on outside, and my wife is a brave person. Very, very strong. Quiet. Very strong woman,” Bowers said, her chin trembling. “So it was disturbing. It was disturbing.”
Kacey Bowers died on January 28, 2021, as some Republicans’ efforts to deepen doubts about Trump’s loss accelerated and deepened her father’s debate over the 2020 election. his fellow Republicans who are doing the right thing, but with little luck. He faces challengers in the August 2 Republican primary in Arizona.
It is a position he is willing to live with. He thinks that the judgment of the voters is trivial compared to the eventual judgment of its author. At the end of his testimony, Bowers read a December 2020 newspaper entry.
“I may, in the eyes of men, not have the right opinions or act according to their vision or convictions, but I do not take this current situation lightly, fearfully or vengefully,” he said. “I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play by the laws to which I swore allegiance. With any artificial desire toward the deviation from my deep and fundamental desire to follow God’s will, as I believe it led my conscience to embrace. How else will I approach him in the wilderness of life knowing that I am asking for this guidance just to show me a coward in the defense of the course … he led me to take it. “
After testifying, Bowers headed to the airport, home to finish the basic tasks of the state legislature: approving a budget before the end of the fiscal year. This weekend a heavier task awaits her: to collect her daughter’s tombstone.
While eating a salad alone, he realized that he had forgotten to tell the court that he would not be coerced out of public service.
“They can beat me,” he said of the upcoming election, “but they won’t intimidate me.”
The January 6 insurrection
The select committee of the House investigating the January 6, 2021 uprising is holding its third high-profile hearing this month. Find the last one here.
Congress Hearings: The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has conducted more than 1,000 interviews over the past year. He will share his findings in a series of hearings starting June 9th. Here’s what we know about audiences and how to view them.
The riot: On January 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mafia stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of …