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      ‘More to come’: what the January 6 panel has revealed of Trump’s efforts to retain power

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      ‘More to come’: what the January 6 panel has revealed of Trump’s efforts to retain powerIn five hearings, the committee has shown the various paths the ex-president and his team explored to overturn the election02:02The January 6 select committee held its final hearing for this month on Thursday, sharing new details about Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure top justice department officials to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Across the committee’s five hearings this month, investigators have presented a meticulous account of Trump’s exhaustive efforts to cling to power after losing the election to Joe Biden. The panel has shown how Trump and his allies explored every possible avenue – from pressuring the vice-president, Mike Pence, to leaning on state election officials and justice department leaders – to promote lies about widespread election fraud.Capitol attack panel details Trump’s pressure on DoJ to support fraud claimsRead moreAnd Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, said the committee is only just getting started.“At this point, our committee has just begun to show America the evidence that we have gathered,” Cheney said Thursday. “There is much more to come both in our hearings and in our report.”The committee had originally planned to hold only six hearings this month, as investigators prepare to release their final report on the deadly Capitol attack this fall. But Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said Thursday that the hearings had sparked a flood of new tips about the insurrection, necessitating additional hearings next month.“Those hearings have spurred an influx of new information that the committee and our investigators are working to assess,” Thompson said. “We are committed to presenting the American people with the most complete information possible. That will be our aim when we reconvene in the coming weeks.”The committee is also now analyzing footage from British documentarian Alex Holder, who repeatedly interviewed Trump and his family members in the days leading up to and immediately after 6 January. The committee issued a subpoena for Holder for his footage, and he met with investigators on Thursday morning.The common element of all of this was the president expressing his dissatisfaction that the justice department, in his view, had not done enough to investigate election fraud“I have provided the committee with all requested materials and am fully cooperating with the investigation,” Holder said in a statement shared on Twitter. “I have no further comment at this time other than to say that our conversation today was thorough and I appreciated the opportunity to share more context about my project.”Holder’s conversations with Trump could offer new insight into the former president’s knowledge about the possibility of violence during the congressional certification of Biden’s victory. At Thursday’s hearing, Cheney indicated the committee would soon share more evidence about how Trump reacted as the insurrection unfolded.“These efforts were not some minor or ad hoc enterprise concocted overnight. Each required planning and coordination. Some required significant funding,” Cheney said. “All of them were overseen by President Trump, and much more information will be presented soon regarding the president’s statements and actions on January 6.”So far, the committee has detailed Trump’s multi-pronged strategy to stay in power. First, Trump and his team launched dozens of legal efforts to challenge the election results. When those lawsuits failed, Trump and his willing advisers reached out to state election officials to pressure them to send fake slates of electors to Congress. When those officials refused to do so, Trump demanded that senior justice department officials investigate election conspiracy theories.Testifying before the committee on Thursday, former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen said Trump spoke to him about baseless fraud theories almost every day between 23 December and 3 January. At one point, Trump told Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”Rosen told the committee, “The common element of all of this was the president expressing his dissatisfaction that the justice department, in his view, had not done enough to investigate election fraud.”When Rosen made it clear he would not go along with Trump’s fraud claims, the former president attempted to install a loyalist, Jeffrey Clark, as acting attorney general. Trump only backed off the idea after Donoghue and other senior officials warned him that such a drastic step would lead to mass resignations at the justice department. Donoghue issued that warning during a nearly three-hour long meeting in the Oval Office on 3 January. Three days later, the Capitol was under siege.Republicans who aided coup attempt sought blanket presidential pardonsRead moreIn the days after 6 January, several Republican members of Congress who promoted Trump’s election lies allegedly reached out to the White House to request pardons for their role in the insurrection. According to video testimony from senior White House officials that the committee shared on Thursday, at least six House members – Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Scott Perry and Marjorie Taylor Greene – inquired about pardons. Perry has previously denied requesting a pardon.Those pardon requests could play a central role in future hearings, as the committee attempts to build upon its case that Trump and his allies are directly responsible for the January 6 attack. In his closing statement Thursday, Thompson said the next round of hearings would demonstrate how Trump’s increasingly desperate attempts to stay in office culminated in the deadly insurrection.“We’re going to show how Donald Trump tapped into the threat of violence,” Thompson said. “How he summoned the mob to Washington and how after corruption and political pressure failed to keep Donald Trump in office, violence became the last option.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsJoe BidenanalysisReuse this content More

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      Republicans who aided coup attempt sought blanket presidential pardons

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      Republicans who aided coup attempt sought blanket presidential pardonsMatt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ted Cruz among those who requested to be let off after attempting to overturn election results The Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks sought a blanket pardon of members of Congress involved in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden through lies about electoral fraud, the House January 6 committee revealed on Thursday.A witness said Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania also contacted the White House about securing pardons. The same witness, former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, said she heard Marjorie Taylor Greene, an extremist from Georgia, wanted a pardon too.Capitol attack panel details Trump’s pressure on DoJ to support fraud claimsRead moreThe committee displayed an email written by Brooks, of Alabama, on 11 January 2021, five days after the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.Brooks, who delivered a fire-breathing speech at a rally before the Capitol riot, sought pre-emptive pardons for “every congressman and senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania”.A total of 147 Republicans lodged such votes, even after the Capitol was stormed, an attack that endangered the life of the vice-president, Mike Pence, and to which a bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths.Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, potential rivals to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, were among them.For the January 6 committee, the Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger said Brooks “emailed the White House, quote, ‘pursuant to a request from Matt Gaetz [of Florida]’, requesting a pardon for Representative Gaetz, himself and unnamed others.“Witnesses told the select committee that the president considered offering pardons to a wide range of individuals connected to the president,” Kinzinger added.Jan 6 Committee reveals Mo Brooks emailed the White House requesting a pardon for Rep Matt Gaetz and “every Congressman and Senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania” pic.twitter.com/try0PCsiIV— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) June 23, 2022
      It has been widely reported that Trump allies sought January 6-related pardons before Trump left office, and that Trump considered offering pre-emptive pardons to himself and family members. He has repeatedly floated the idea of pardoning Capitol rioters should he return to power.The January 6 committee previously revealed that John Eastman, the law professor who pushed Pence to overturn election results, contacted Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, to ask if a pardon was possible.In testimony played on Thursday, Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer, said of Gaetz: “The general tone was, ‘We may get prosecuted because we were defensive of the president’s positions on these things.’“The pardon that he was discussing, requesting was as broad you could describe, from the beginning of time up until today, for any and all things.“He mentioned Nixon and I said Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad.”Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal, involving political dirty tricks and their cover-up. He was pardoned by Gerald Ford, his successor in office.Barr feared Trump might not have left office had DoJ not debunked fraud claimsRead moreIn other testimony played on Thursday, Hutchinson, a former assistant to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said: “Mr Gaetz, Mr Brooks, I know both advocated for there to be a blanket pardon … pre-emptive pardons.“Mr Gaetz was personally pushing for a pardon … since early December. I’m not sure why. He reached out to me to ask if he could have a meeting with Mr Meadows about receiving a presidential pardon.”Hutchinson listed the other Republicans who requested pardons.On Twitter, Gaetz said: “The last Republican president to be sworn in without congressional Democrats objecting to electors was George HW Bush.” He did not immediately comment about the pardon revelations.Kinzinger said: “The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you’ve committed a crime.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsTed CruzRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 hearings: Barr ‘not sure at all’ transition would have happened had DoJ not resisted Trump – live

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      The January 6 committee has concluded its hearing for the day, with the next sessions expected later in July, when House lawmakers return to Washington from a recess.In his closing remarks, committee’s chair Bennie Thompson outlined what the committee had found thus far and what it expected to show in the future..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Up to this point, we’ve shown the inner workings of what was essentially a political coup and attempt to use the powers of the government, from the local level all the way up, to overturn the results of the election. Send fake electors, just say the election was corrupt. Along the way, we saw threats of violence, we saw what some people were willing to do. In a service of the nation, the constitution? No. In service of Donald Trump.
      When the Select Committee continues this series of hearings, we’re going to show how Donald Trump tapped into the threat of violence, how he summoned the mob to Washington, and how after corruption and political pressure failed to keep Donald Trump in office, violence became the last option.The testimony of the justice department officials who gave the bulk of the day’s evidence has concluded, but before they did, Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, told a tale familiar to those who have watched the committee’s hearings closely: he never heard from Trump on the day of the attack.“I spoke to a number of senior White House officials, but not the president,” Rosen said.What Trump was doing during the attack and who he was talking to are both expected to be focuses of later hearings of the committee.The committee has just unveiled evidence of more Republican congressmen requesting pardons from Trump in his final days in office. NEW on PARDONS: Republican congressman Mo Brooks sent an email on 11 January 2021 seeking pardons for “Every Congressman and Senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania.”— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 23, 2022
      Trump WH aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Brooks and Gaetz pushed for pardons for every Republican lawmaker who participated in Jan. 6 planning meeting — and Reps. Perry, Biggs, Gohmert asked for pardons. Jordan asked whether White House would pardon members.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 23, 2022
      The testimony adds to the list of pardon requests that have emerged as the January 6 committee aired its evidence.Capitol attack pardon revelations could spell doom for Trump and alliesRead moreJeffrey Clark came very close to be the acting attorney general, a position in which he could have used his authority to disrupt the certification of Biden’s election win in several states, according to evidence the committee is airing.On January 3, three days before the attack on the Capitol, the White House had already begun referring to Clark as acting attorney general, according to Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican leading the committee’s questioning today.The committee then turned to exploring a meeting between Trump and the leaders of the justice department that day in the Oval Office, in which Trump repeated specific claims of fraud that had been debunked and expressed his will to see Clark take over the department.Richard Donoghue said he warned of mass resignations to follow if Clark took over the department. “You’re gonna lose your entire department leadership. Every single (assistant attorney general) will walk out. Your entire department of leadership will walk out within hours. And I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t know what the United States attorneys are going to do,” Donoghue said. “My guess would be that many of them would have resigned.”Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general in the final weeks of the Trump administration, is now recounting Trump’s attempt to replace him with Jeffrey Clark, who was playing a major roles in his efforts to have states that voted for Biden overturn their results.In a meeting on a Sunday, Rosen said Clark “told me that he would be replacing me,” and had made the atypical request to ask to meet him alone, “because he thought it would be appropriate in light of what was happening to at least offer me, that I couldn’t stay on his his deputy.”“I thought that was preposterous. I told him that was nonsensical,” Rosen said. “There’s no universe where I was going to do that, to stay on and support someone else doing things that were not consistent with what I thought should be done.”However, Clark also said he would turn down Trump’s offer to replace Rosen if the acting attorney general signed the letter disputing the validity of Georgia’s electors for Biden. Richard Donoghue recounted that Rosen made the decisions to begin informing other department officials about the quandary, and almost all the assistant attorney generals said they would resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark.As this hearing has unfolded, the justice department officials testifying have said they investigated many of the claims of fraud in the 2020 election brought forward by Trump and his allies. The decision to look into these claims in the weeks after polls closed may be more significant than it appears at first glance.In video testimony aired earlier in the hearing, William Barr, Trump’s attorney general during the election, said be believes that the department’s ability to debunk the false claims of fraud as Trump was making them were essential to allowing Joe Biden to assume office.“I felt the responsible thing to do was to be… in a position to have a view as to whether or not there was fraud,” Barr told investigators.“I sort of shudder to think what the situation would have been if the position of the department was, we’re not even looking at this until after Biden’s in office. I’m not sure we would have had a transition at all.”The committee has returned, and is now asking Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, about a request from Trump to seize voting machines.“We had seen nothing improper with regard to the voting machines,” Rosen said he replied, noting that investigators had looked into allegations the machines gave fraudulent results and found nothing wrong. “And so that was not something that was appropriate to do … I don’t think there was legal authority either.”Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, is recounting a meeting with Trump, in which he pushed him unsuccessfully to seize voting machines. By the end, “The president again was getting very agitated. And he said, ‘People tell me I should just get rid of both of you. I should just remove you and make a change in the leadership with Jeff Clark, and maybe something will finally get done,’” Donoghue said.Donoghue said he responded: “Mr President, you should have the leadership that you want. But understand the United States justice department functions on facts and evidence, and then those are not going to change. So you can have whatever leadership you want, but the department’s position is not going to change.”The committee is now in recess, but before they finished, Richard Donoghue described his reaction when he first learned of Jeffrey Clark’s proposed letter to the Georgia legislature asking them to convene to declare alternate electoral college voters.“I had to read both the email and the attached letter twice to make sure I really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me I had a hard time getting my head around it initially,” Donoghue said. He responded in writing to Clark’s letter, saying that its allegations were “not based on facts,” and, in his view, “for the department to insert itself into the political process this way, I think, would have had grave consequences for the country. It may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis. And I wanted to make sure that he understood the gravity of the situation because he didn’t seem to really appreciate it.”Clark himself made a brief appearance in video testimony the committee played before it took its break, responding to questions by asserting his fifth amendment rights and executive privilege.The committee will reconvene in a few minutes.One name that’s coming up a lot in this hearing is Scott Perry, the Pennsylvania Republican congressman who the committee said took part in Trump’s plan to pressure the justice department, and in particular install Jeff Clark at its helm.The committee just showed text messages between Perry and Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, which showed the lawmaker encouraging Meadows to work on promoting Clark. Richard Donoghue also detailed a phone call from Perry where the congressman claimed fraud in the results in Pennsylvania from the 2020 election – which the justice department determined unfounded.The committee had sought documents and requested an interview with Perry last year, but the Republican refused to comply. Last month, Perry was among a group of congressmen subpoenaed by the committee.Capitol attack panel subpoenas five Republicans in unprecedented stepRead moreRichard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, is outlining his efforts to convince the president that the justice department could not interfere with a state’s election.“States run their elections. We are not quality control for the states,” he recalled explaining to Trump. “The bottom line was, if a state ran their election in such a way that it was defective, that is to the state or Congress to correct, it is not for the justice department to step in.”But Trump wanted something simpler, Donoghue said.“That’s not what I’m asking you to do,” Donoghue told the committee Trump said after he explained the department’s position. “Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” the president said.Today’s hearing is focusing on the inner workings of the justice department, but as in previous sessions, the committee has tried to make sure the insurrection isn’t far from viewers’ minds.Case in point: lawmakers just aired video from the day of the attack showing marchers chanting “Do your job!” outside the justice department — evidence that Trump’s most ardent supporters were well aware of the president’s attempts to push government lawyers to interfere with Joe Biden’s victory.But as justice department officials tell it, they never believed in Trump’s fraud claims. Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, said Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone described the letter Clark wanted to send for Trump as a “murder-suicide pact. It’s going to damage everyone who touches it.”The committee’s top Republican Liz Cheney is offering more details about the actions of justice department official Jeffrey Clark, who had his house raided today by federal investigators.According to Cheney, Clark and another justice department lawyer drafted a letter addressed to the Georgia state legislature, which would have said the department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia”, and that the legislature should convene and consider approving a new slate of electors. Joe Biden had won Georgia, but Trump made baseless allegations of fraud in the polls, and the new electors would have presumably given him the state’s electoral votes.“In fact, Donald Trump knew this was a lie,” Cheney said. “The Department of Justice had already informed the president of the United States repeatedly that its investigations had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”Cheney said Clark had met with Trump privately and agreed to help him sway these states’ legislatures without telling his bosses at the justice department. But Cheney said Clark’s superiors – who are the witnesses testifying today – refused to sign it. That was when Trump began considering installing Clark at the helm at the justice department – which he never ended up doing. The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has started its fifth hearing, which will focus on Donald Trump’s efforts to get the justice department to go along with his plans to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Testifying in the chamber will be:
      Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general for the final weeks of Trump’s term, including during the attack on the Capitol.
      Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, who appeared in a video aired at the conclusion of Tuesday’s hearing threatening to resign if Trump appointed Jeffrey Clark to head the justice department.
      Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.
      We’re about 10 minutes away from the start of today’s January 6 hearing, which my colleague Lauren Gambino reports will offer new evidence of how Trump pressured the justice department to take part in his plot to overturn the 2020 election:The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection plans to present new evidence on Thursday about Donald Trump’s brazen attempts to pressure the justice department to overturn the 2020 presidential election that he lost, aides said.After exhausting his legal options and being rebuffed by state and local elections officials, the president turned to the justice department to declare the election corrupt despite no evidence of mass voter fraud, the nine-member panel will seek to show in their fifth and final hearing of the month.Testifying from the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill are Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general; Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general; and Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn electionRead more More

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      Barr feared Trump might not have left office had DoJ not debunked fraud claims

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      Barr feared Trump might not have left office had DoJ not debunked fraud claimsFormer attorney general says ‘I am not sure we would have had a transition at all’ if investigation had not immediately taken place Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, thought Trump might have refused to leave office at all had the Department of Justice not immediately investigated and disproved his lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden.Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn electionRead more“I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all,” Barr said, in startling video testimony played by the January 6 committee on Thursday.The hearing, the fifth in a series set to extend into July, focused on Trump’s attempts to pressure the justice department to aid his attempt to overturn the election result – an attempt which culminated in the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.In December 2020, Barr publicly rejected Trump’s claim of widespread fraud in the November election, and resigned.He was replaced, as acting attorney general, by Jeffrey Rosen. Rosen testified on Thursday alongside his deputy, Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, who led the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel.Questioning led by Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of two Republicans on the committee, focused on Trump’s pressure on the witnesses to go along with his increasingly outlandish claims of widespread fraud.Before that, the deputy committee chair, the Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, introduced Barr’s remarks.She said: “Millions of Americans have seen the testimony of Attorney General Barr before this committee. At one point in his deposition, [Barr] was asked why he authorised the Department of Justice to investigate fraud in the 2020 election.”Barr, Cheney said, was “asked why not just follow the regular course of action and let the investigations occur much later in time, after 6 January”, the day electoral college results were certified at the Capitol.Barr said: “I felt the responsible thing to do was to be in a position to have a view as to whether or not there was fraud. Frankly, the fact I put myself into the position that I could say we had looked at this and didn’t think there was fraud was really important to moving things forward.“I shudder to think what the situation would have been, if the position of the department was, ‘We’re not looking at this until after Biden is in office.’“I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all.”In a previous hearing Barr was shown to have described Trump’s claims about electoral fraud as “bullshit”.He has also said he will still vote for Trump if Trump runs for the White House again.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Republican who livestreamed Capitol attack given three months in prison

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      Republican who livestreamed Capitol attack given three months in prisonWest Virginia lawmaker Derrick Evans, 37, who filmed self-incriminating footage, pleaded guilty to committing civil disorder00:43A West Virginia lawmaker who participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol while livestreaming the deadly insurrection has been sentenced to three months in prison.Derrick Evans, 37, was arrested and charged shortly after the attack, in part thanks to self-incriminating video footage he shot of himself leading and egging on rioters who overwhelmed police at the Capitol.Feds seek delay in Proud Boys conspiracy case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiryRead moreHe resigned, then pleaded guilty to the felony of committing civil disorder in March, but was given bail and appeared virtually from his home for sentencing on Wednesday.Evans, who had been sworn into the Republican-led legislature less than a month before the attack, is among 21 lawmakers known to have joined the rioters trying to overturn the 2020 election. He is the only one to be prosecuted so far.Evans had a penchant for broadcasting live on his Facebook page, Derrick Evans – The Activist, which had 32,000 followers, whom he encouraged to travel to Washington to “fight for Trump”, according to prosecutors.He documented his bus journey to the capital, and then headed straight for the east side of the Capitol. Donning a helmet, Evans shouted out updates to the growing crowd about the violence occurring on the west side of the Capitol, where rioters first breached the building, according to the sentencing memo.Evans narrated as the mob eventually overwhelmed the police and pushed through the Rotunda doors, according to video clips from his account played in court.“We’re taking this house, I told you today! Patriots stand up! … My people didn’t vote for me because I was a coward.” After breaching the building, he said, “We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”He deleted the video later that day, but it had already been widely circulated.Evans is among at least 825 people so far charged in connection with the insurrection, of whom 310 have pleaded guilty.Before January 6, Evans had streamed live footage of himself outside West Virginia’s only abortion clinic, which led to a 10ft fence being built around the building and a clinic volunteer having to obtain a restraining order against him. Evans also broadcast his protests against Black Lives Matter and drag shows.On Wednesday Evans told the judge that he took responsibility for his actions and regretted that his actions would leave his kids “fatherless for months”.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsWest VirginiaRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Panel makes case that Trump campaign knew alternate electors scheme was fraudulent

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      Panel makes case that Trump campaign knew alternate electors scheme was fraudulentText appears to indicate campaign sought to use certificates it knew were not state-certified to obstruct Biden’s victory The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.The panel presented a text message sent on 4 January 2021 that appeared to indicate the Trump campaign was seeking to use fraudulent election certificates they would have known were not state-certified to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s win.‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their livesRead more“Freaking Trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the Senate president,” Mark Jefferson, the executive director of the Republican party in Wisconsin said in the text, seemingly referring to the Trump campaign and then vice-president Mike Pence.The fake electors scheme – so-called because Republican electors in seven battleground states signed certificates falsely declaring themselves “duly elected and qualified” to affirm Donald Trump won the 2020 election – was part of Trump’s strategy to reverse his defeat.The select committee believes, according to sources close to the inquiry, that the scheme was conceived in an effort to create “dueling” slates of electors that Pence could use to pretend the outcome of the election was in doubt and refuse to announce Biden as president.All of this is important because the scheme could be a crime. The justice department is investigating whether the Republicans who signed as electors for Trump could be charged with falsifying voting documents, mail fraud or conspiracy to defraud the United States.It is also a crime to knowingly submit false statements to a federal agency or a federal agent for an undue end. The fraudulent certificates were filed with a handful of government bodies, including the National Archives, the panel has previously said.The select committee appeared to make the case that the Trump campaign violated the law: the panel suggested the Trump campaign must have known the certificates were false and suggested the Trump campaign at least intended to submit them to government bodies.After all, the panel suggested, the Trump campaign must have known they were false since no state legislature had voted to approve a Trump slate of electors, while the text message showed the Trump campaign intended to send them to Congress in time for the certification.The evidence to connect Trump to the fake electors scheme was less clear.Congressman Adam Schiff, the select committee member who led the fourth hearing, introduced a text message from the RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, that was obtained by House investigators, which he suggested showed Trump was directly implicated in the fake electors scheme.Referring to Trump, the text read: “He turned the call over to Mr Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the result.”The text indicated that Trump initiated the call to McDaniel and tried to use the power of his office to pressure the RNC, which could create an inferential case against Trump if viewed in conjunction with other evidence, according to two former assistant US attorneys.But while Trump’s conduct might warrant him becoming the subject of a criminal investigation, it was not clear how prosecutors might move forward with charges against Trump based on what the panel unveiled about the fake electors alone, the former assistant US attorneys said.Congressional connectionsThe other major revelation that came from the select committee’s fourth hearing was the fact that at least one Republican senator, Ron Johnson, the senior senator from Wisconsin, tried on the morning of 6 January 2021 to transmit fake certificates to Pence.According to a text exchange obtained by the select committee, Johnson’s chief of staff, Sean Riley, messaged Pence’s legislative affairs director, Chris Hodgson, seeking advice on how to give the fraudulent certificates to Pence.“Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise,” Riley said. When Hodgson asked what for, Riley gave details, referring to fake Trump slates from Michigan and Wisconsin: “Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them.”The text exchange appeared to show that Johnson intended to transmit false documents to a federal agency or agent. It was not clear whether Johnson knew that they might be used as cover for Pence to reject Biden’s win, but it did suggest he knew what the package was.Proving that last element would be crucial in pursuing charges in the fake electors scheme, the former assistant US attorneys said. It would probably not be enough to just show that Johnson wanted to submit fraudulent certificates to Congress.A spokesperson for Johnson said on Tuesday the senator – then the chairman of the Senate homeland security committee and ardent defender of Trump on Capitol Hill – had “no involvement in the creation of an alternate slates of electors and had no foreknowledge”.The statement addressed accusations never leveled at Johnson. The key question remained whether Johnson knew the certificates were fake – since neither Wisconsin nor any other states certified Trump electors – and whether he tried to give them to Pence for an undue end.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsMike PenceRepublicansMichigannewsReuse this content More

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      Could the fake electors scheme prove to be Trump campaign’s Achilles’ heel?

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      Could the fake electors scheme prove to be Trump campaign’s Achilles’ heel?The justice department is investigating whether the Republicans who signed as electors could be charged The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.The panel presented a text message sent on 4 January 2021 that appeared to indicate the Trump campaign was seeking to use fraudulent election certificates they would have known were not state-certified to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s win.‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their livesRead more“Freaking Trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate president,” Mark Jefferson, the executive director of the Republican party in Wisconsin said in the text, seemingly referring to the Trump campaign and then vice-president Mike Pence.The fake electors scheme – so-called because Republican electors in seven battleground states signed certificates falsely declaring themselves “duly elected and qualified” to affirm Donald Trump won the 2020 election – was part of Trump’s strategy to reverse his defeat.The select committee believes, according to sources close to the inquiry, that the scheme was conceived in an effort to create “dueling” slates of electors that Pence could use to pretend the outcome of the election was in doubt and refuse to announce Biden as president.All of this is important because the scheme could be a crime. The justice department is investigating whether the Republicans who signed as electors for Trump could be charged with falsifying voting documents, mail fraud or conspiracy to defraud the United States.It is also a crime to knowingly submit false statements to a federal agency or a federal agent for an undue end. The fraudulent certificates were filed with a handful of government bodies, including the National Archives, the panel has previously said.The select committee appeared to make the case that the Trump campaign violated the law: the panel suggested the Trump campaign must have known the certificates were false and suggested the Trump campaign at least intended to submit them to government bodies.After all, the panel suggested, the Trump campaign must have known they were false since no state legislature had voted to approve a Trump slate of electors, while the text message showed the Trump campaign intended to send them to Congress in time for the certification.The evidence to connect Trump to the fake electors scheme was less clear.Congressman Adam Schiff, the select committee member who led the fourth hearing, introduced a text message from RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel that was obtained by House investigators, which he suggested showed Trump was directly implicated in the fake electors scheme.Referring to Trump, the text read: “He turned the call over to Mr Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the result.”The text indicated that Trump initiated the call to McDaniel and tried to use the power of his office to pressure the RNC, which could create an inferential case against Trump if viewed in conjunction with other evidence, according to two former assistant US attorneys.But while Trump’s conduct might warrant him becoming the subject of a criminal investigation, it was not clear how prosecutors might move forward with charges against Trump based on what the panel unveiled about the fake electors alone, the former assistant US attorneys said.Congressional connectionsThe other major revelation that came from the select committee’s fourth hearing was the fact that at least one Republican senator, Ron Johnson, the senior senator from Wisconsin, tried on the morning of 6 January 2021 to transmit fake certificates to Pence.According to a text exchange obtained by the select committee, Johnson’s chief of staff Sean Riley messaged Pence’s legislative affairs director Chris Hodgson, seeking advice on how to give the fraudulent certificates to Pence.“Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise,” Riley said. When Hodgson asked what for, Riley gave details, referring to fake Trump slates from Michigan and Wisconsin: “Alternate slate of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them.”The text exchange appeared to show that Johnson intended to transmit false documents to a federal agency or agent. It was not clear whether Johnson knew that they might be used as cover for Pence to reject Biden’s win, but it did suggest he knew what the package was.Proving that last element would be crucial in pursuing charges in the fake electors scheme, the former assistant US attorneys said. It would likely not be enough to just show that Johnson wanted to submit fraudulent certificates to Congress.A spokesperson for Johnson said on Tuesday the senator – then the chairman of the Senate homeland security committee and ardent defender of Trump on Capitol Hill – had “no involvement in the creation of an alternate slates of electors and had no foreknowledge”.The statement addressed accusations never leveled at Johnson. The key question remained whether Johnson knew the certificates were fake – since neither Wisconsin nor any other states certified Trump electors – and whether he tried to give them to Pence for an undue end.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsMike PenceRepublicansMichiganfeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their lives

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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their livesShaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threats In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraudRead moreTestifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”That was a reference to lynching, the violent extra-judicial fate of thousands of Black men in the American south.Moss also said her grandmother’s home had been threatened by Trump supporters seeking to make “citizen’s arrests” of the two poll workers.No Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992 but Joe Biden beat Trump by just under 12,000 votes, a result confirmed by recounts.Tuesday’s hearing detailed Trump’s attempts to overturn that result via pressure on Republican state officials and vilification of Moss and her mother over video supposedly showing them engaged in voter fraud, a claim swiftly debunked.Moss’s mother attended the hearing. In taped testimony, she said: “My name is Ruby Freeman. I’ve always believed it when God says that he’ll make your name great. But this is not the way it was supposed to be.”“For my entire professional life, I was Lady Ruby. My community in Georgia, where I was born and lived my whole life, knew me as Lady Ruby. I built my own business around that name: Ruby’s Unique Treasures. A pop-up shop catering to ladies with unique fashions.”“I wore a shirt that proudly proclaimed that I was and I am Lady Ruby. I had that shirt in every color. I wore that shirt on election day 2020. I haven’t worn it since and I’ll never wear it again.“I won’t even introduce myself by my name anymore. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about people listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned of who’s around me.“I’ve lost my name and I’ve lost my reputation. I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with [Trump] and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”Freeman also said: “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?“The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one. And he targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stood up to help Fulton county run an election in the middle of the pandemic.”Freeman said she had been forced to leave home for two months.Moss described threats also made to her grandmother.“That woman is my everything,” she said. “I’ve never even heard or seen her cry, ever in my life. And she called me screaming at the top of her lungs, like ‘Shaye, Shaye, oh my gosh, Shaye’, freaking me out, saying that people were at her home.”“And they knocked on the door and of course she opened it, seeing who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming they were coming in to make a citizen’s arrest. They needed to find me and my mom, they knew we were there.“And [my grandmother] was just screaming and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t there so I just felt so helpless and so horrible for her. And she just screamed and I called her to close the door. Don’t open the door for anyone.”Moss was asked how her own life had been affected.She said: “My life was turned upside down. I no longer give out my business card. Don’t want anyone knowing my name. Don’t want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name out over the grocery aisle or something. I don’t go to the grocery store anymore.“I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve gained about 60lb. I don’t want to go anywhere, I second-guess everything that I do. It’s affected my life in a major way, every way.“All because of lies.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS elections 2020US politicsGeorgiaRepublicansDonald TrumpRudy GiulianinewsReuse this content More