The select committee of the House investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol met again on Tuesday for the next of a series of public hearings this month. This hearing focuses on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Arizona and Georgia officials to overturn the 2020 election results.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said in his opening statement that “pressuring public officials to betray their oaths was a key part” of Trump’s “game manual.”
Thompson said Trump’s pressure on these election officials was based on the “big lie.” “The lie has not gone away. It is corrupting our democratic institutions,” Thompson added, noting specifically that a New Mexico County official refused to certify the results of recent primaries.
Thompson, Vice President Liz Cheney, and committee member Rep. Adam Schiff said in their initial statements that Democratic institutions maintained despite Trump’s falsehoods, but that they could “break under pressure.”
“The system was maintained, but barely,” Schiff said. “And the system was maintained because brave people, Republicans and Democrats, like the witnesses we will hear today, put their oath in the country and in the constitution above any other consideration.”
Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the Arizona State House, from the left, Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State, and Gabe Sterling, Georgia’s Deputy Secretary of State, arrive as the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings. of a one-year investigation, at the Washington Capitol, Tuesday, June 21, 2022. Jacquelyn Martin / AP
Three Republicans, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling, director of operations for the Secretary of State’s office, and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified first.
Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, a former election worker from Fulton County, Georgia, will appear on a second panel.
Trump lost Georgia and Arizona to President Biden, but he and officials in his re-election campaign pushed senior officials in those states to overturn the election results, in part through a scheme to present pro-Trump alternative voter tables.
Trump lost Georgia and Arizona to President Biden, but he and officials in his re-election campaign pushed senior officials in those states to overturn the election results, in part through a scheme to present pro-Trump alternative voter tables.
In Georgia, Trump urged Raffensberger in a phone call on January 2, 2021 to “find” enough votes to make him the winner, although Raffensperger repeatedly rejected the president’s efforts and refuted allegations of fraud. widespread election in Georgia.
Both Raffensperger and Sterling defended the integrity of Georgia’s election and faced intense criticism for their actions, receiving death threats and, in Raffensperger’s case, censorship by the state Republican Party. Despite the backlash, Raffensperger defeated Trump-backed MP Jody Hice and two other candidates who challenged him in the Republican primary last month as secretary of state.
The two election officials also testified before a special jury in Fulton County this month investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn election results.
Trump accused Moss, a Fulton County election worker, and her mother of carrying out a false voting scheme and called them professional vote swindlers, allegations that led to death threats and intimidation, and forcing him to hide, committee aides said.
According to written testimony obtained by CBS News before the hearing, Moss will say that she and her mother have been “attacked” only for doing their job as a result of baseless claims spread by Trump, Giuliani and their allies. .
“They said we slipped the ballots into the State Farm Arena with a suitcase. That’s a lie. They said we lied about a broken water pipe to drive out the observers. That’s a lie. They said we counted the ballots several times to try to steal the election. This is a lie, “he wrote in front of the panel. “And they said we passed the flash units to try to hack voting machines. That’s a lie too: what they cared so much about that my mom passed me was a ginger mint. Her favorite sweet. All the accusations made against me and my mother were lies “.
In Arizona, Bowers, who backed Trump in 2020, received a call from Trump and Giuliani, the former president’s attorney, in late November 2020 urging him to replace the state legislature with a list of presidential voters, nullifying Mr Biden’s victory in the state. , according to the Republic of Arizona.
(RL) Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the Arizona House; Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State of Georgia; and Gabriel Sterling, Georgia Secretary of State’s Chief Operating Officer, appear to testify during the fourth hearing on the January 6 investigation at the Cannon House office building on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC . CHIP SOMODEVILLA / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
Bowers also received an email from Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in early November 2020 urging him to select a “clean voter plate,” according to the Washington Post. . The committee has asked to speak with Thomas and told The Daily Caller that he hopes to speak with House investigators.
Trump’s White House officials, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, are expected to be heard during Tuesday’s hearing.
Earlier hearings have focused on the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6 as law enforcement struggled to control the crowd of Trump supporters descending on the complex to stop the counting of state election votes in Congress ; Trump’s decision to declare victory on election night, even though his closest aides knew there was no evidence to support his claims that the election was stolen from him; and the former president’s efforts to bolster Vice President Mike Pence to reject state election votes and unilaterally declare him the winner of the election.
At his third hearing last week, the former vice president’s aides said Trump’s repeated lies about the election pushed the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis and endangered Pence when a crowd of supporters of Trump entered the Capitol building.
“About 40 feet. That’s all there was, 40 feet between the vice president and the mafia,” California Democrat Pete Aguilar said last week. “Don’t get me wrong, the vice president’s life was in danger.”
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to attack the committee, falsely claiming that he won the 2020 election. of statements and accused his members of being “liars and swindlers.”