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      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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      in Elections

      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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      in World Politics

      How It Took Six Years to Achieve the Victory of Polarization

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in Elections

      ‘A dangerous cancer’: fourth hearing reveals how Trump’s big lie destroyed people’s lives

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      ‘A dangerous cancer’: fourth hearing reveals how Trump’s big lie destroyed people’s lives Former president’s attacks on state officials to overturn Biden’s election victory resulted in harassment and threats Donald Trump was the most powerful man in the world. But he was also a paranoid fantasist who did not care how his lies destroyed people’s lives.That was the picture of the former US president that came into focus with startling clarity at Tuesday’s hearing of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.January 6 hearings: state officials testify on Trump pressure to discredit electionRead moreDead people, shredded ballots and a USB drive that was in fact a ginger mint were all part of the delusional narrative of election fraud peddled by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. They would have been as comical as flat-earthers but for the way they posed a danger to both individual citizens and American democracy.“The president’s lie was and is a dangerous cancer on the body politic,” committee member Adam Schiff said at the hearing into how Trump pressured state officials to overturn overturn results.It was worth remembering that Trump once boasted that he had passed a cognitive test by reciting the words, “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,” in the right order. And that, according to the Washington Post, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his four-year presidency.Even on Tuesday, he was repeating the biggest lie of all. Just before the hearing he issued a statement claiming that witness Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, told him “the election was rigged and I won Arizona”.Bowers, a Republican who had wanted Trump to win the election, told the committee that this was false: “Anyone, anywhere, anytime I said the election was rigged, that would not be true.”Bowers also recalled a conversation with Giuliani and lawyer Jenna Ellis about allegations of voter fraud in Arizona. In a phrase that captured the president’s own mindset, Giuliani allegedly said: “We’ve got lots of theories but we just don’t have the evidence.”But the centerpiece of the big lie is Georgia, which Trump narrowly lost and which became his all-consuming obsession for wild conspiracy theories.The committee heard testimony from its secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and his deputy Gabe Sterling, who observed that competing against Trump’s false statements was like a “shovel trying to empty the ocean. I even had family members I had to argue with about some of these things.”The Cannon Caucus Room resounded with Trump’s own voice from a 67-minute phone call with Raffensperger in which the president claimed the people of Georgia “know” he won the state by hundreds of thousands of voters.Not true, Raffensperger told the committee definitively, explaining that Trump had “come up short”.One by one, Trump could be heard making ludicrous assertions without foundation. One by one, Raffensperger and Sterling calmly demolished them.The president was heard claiming that votes were “in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases but they weren’t in voter boxes”. Schiff asked: “Were they just the ordinary containers that are used by election workers?” Sterling testified: “They’re standard ballot carriers that allow for seals to be put on them so they’re tamper proof.”Trump went on during the call: “But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night. You know that, Brad.” Raffensperger told the committee: “There were no additional ballots accepted after 7pm.”The president insisted: “The other thing, dead people. So dead people voted and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.”Raffensperger observed: “No, it’s not accurate … We found two dead people when I wrote my letter to Congress that’s dated January 6 and subsequent to that we found two more. That’s one, two, three, four people, not 4,000.”More sinister yet, Trump claimed that election workers had been shredding ballots, “a criminal offense” that could put Raffensperger at risk. “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”Raffensperger told the hearing: “What I knew is we didn’t have any votes to find.”Tuesday’s hearing spelled out how the big lie has caused hurt way beyond Washington on 6 January 2021. Trump told Raffensperger on the call: “When you talk about no criminality, I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.”The Georgia secretary of state took this as a threat. And sure enough, his family was targeted by Trump supporters.“My email, my cell phone was doxxed and I was getting texts all over the country and then eventually my wife started getting texts. Hers typically came in as sexualized texts which were disgusting … They started going after her I think just to probably put pressure on me: ‘Why don’t you quit and walk away.’”He was far from alone.In a deposition, Michigan secretary of state Jocelyn Benson talked about how her “stomach sunk” when she heard the sounds of protesters outside her home one night when she was putting her child to bed. She wondered if they had guns or were going to attack her house. “That was the scariest moment,” Benson said.But no story better illustrated the callousness of Trump’s assault than Georgia election workers Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, two African American women described by committee chairman Bennie Thompson as “unsung heroes” of democracy.Giuliani accused the pair of passing a USB drive to each other; Moss told the committee that her mother had actually been handing her a ginger mint. With astonishing cruelty, Trump was heard in a phone call describing Freeman as “a professional vote scammer and hustler”.It was false but it was the cue for an onslaught of racist hatred from Trump supporters. Moss, nervous and at times shaking, recalled: “A lot of threats wishing death upon me. Telling me that, you know, I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.”Moss, who left her position, added in wrenching testimony: “It’s turned my life upside down. I no longer give out my business card. I don’t transfer calls. I don’t want anyone knowing my name. I’ve gained about 60 pounds. I just don’t do nothing anymore. I don’t want to go anywhere. I second-guess everything that I do.”Her mother Ruby Freeman said in a deposition: “I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation. I’ve lost my sense of security – all because a group of people … scapegoat[ed] me and my daughter, Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”At the end of his call to Raffensperger, Trump could be heard saying: “It takes a little while but let the truth comes out.”Now, finally, the truth is coming out, but not the one that occupies his fantasies.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpArizonaGeorgiaUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      ‘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

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      in US Politics

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

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      ‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia election workers on 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

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      in US Politics

      Jan 6 hearings: Raffensperger debunks Trump’s baseless fraud claim: ‘The numbers don’t lie’– as it happened

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      Using Trump’s words from a recorded phone call with Raffensperger, the committee is having the two Georgia officials debunk all of his claims of a stolen election in their state.“The numbers are the numbers and numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said, defending his office’s conduct. “Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.”The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.Adam Schiff, the California Democrat leading today’s question, said that the committee has learned that around the time of the dispute over Georgia’s vote, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, wanted to send Georgia election investigators “a shitload of Potus stuff,” in the words of one White House aide. These included coins and autographed Maga hats. “White House staff intervened to make sure that didn’t happen,” Schiff said.The fourth hearing of the January 6 committee explored both the official effort to overturn the 2020 election and the impact of personal attacks by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani against a pair of Georgia poll workers. Meanwhile, Congress is in the midst of a flurry of legislating, with lawmakers days away from taking a two-week break.Here’s what else happened today:
      South Dakota state attorney general Jason Ravnsborg lied to investigators and abused the power of his office after he struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors argued earlier today at the opening of an impeachment trial that could remove him from office.
      Documentary film maker Alex Holder is cooperating with a subpoena by the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and related events. He filmed interviews with Trump and family.
      Congress is inching towards votes on a bipartisan gun control compromise reached between Republicans and Democrats, spurred on by the Uvalde school massacre as well as the racist killings at a grocery store in Buffalo.
      The US Supreme Court has struck down a state-funded program in Maine that covers the costs of some private schools — but only those that are nonsectarian.
      The US politics blog will return tomorrow, but for all the developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as they happen, including news on the visit by US attorney general Merrick Garland, the fate of American citizens fighting on Ukraine’s side, and what’s happening on the ground, do follow our global live blog on the war, here.The testimony by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss was the emotional climax of the January 6 committee’s fourth hearing, as they detailed how being personally attacked by Trump ruined their lives. Their experience is unfortunately not unique.Alexander Vindman, a prominent witness in Trump’s first impeachment investigation, tweeted his support:Lady Ruby and Shaye,I know what it’s like to have the President of the United States attack me. Stay strong. We are better than him and we will prevail. Much love!— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) June 21, 2022
      Former US attorney and Trump foe Preet Bharara weighed in:If Shaye Moss can come testify, so can Mike Pence— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 21, 2022
      A spokesman for Ron Johnson has responded to evidence presented in today’s January 6 hearing that appeared to show the Republican senator cooperated with Trump’s efforts to disrupt the 2020 election results in crucial swing states.The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office.— alexa henning (@alexahenning) June 21, 2022
      The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story.— alexa henning (@alexahenning) June 21, 2022
      In its hearing, the committee detailed a plan by Trump supporters to create “fake elector documents,” which would say that states crucial to Joe Biden’s victory such as Georgia and Arizona actually voted for Trump. The idea was to get these into the hands of Mike Pence, who was to certify Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021. The committee showed an aide for Johnson contacted the vice-president’s staff about getting the documents to Pence, but they ultimately rejected the request.The January 6 committee has finished its hearing for the day, and as is its practice, ended with a preview of its next presentation, set for Thursday.Committee chair Bennie Thompson said the House lawmakers will explore Trump’s “attempt to corrupt and the country’s top law enforcement body, the justice department, to support his attempt to overturn the election.” He played a brief excerpt from the testimony of Richard Donoghue, the acting deputy attorney general at the end of Trump’s term.“The president said suppose I do this, suppose I replace Jeff Rosen with him, Jeff Clark, what do you do? And I said, sir, I would resign immediately. There is no way I’m serving one minute under this guy Jeff Clark,” Donoghue is heard saying.Rosen was the acting attorney general for the final weeks of Trump’s time in the White House. Clark was an assistant attorney general who is accused of plotting with Trump to overturn the election, and is now facing disbarment.Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’Read moreThe committee also showed Trump attacking Freeman as a “vote scammer” in a call with the Georgia secretary of state. Moss and Freeman are ending their testimony with the latter describing how it feels to be personally attacked by the president.“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you? The President of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one. But he targeted me,” Freeman said in recorded testimony played by the committee.Earlier, Moss had described just how intense the attacks from Trump supporters against them became. People would repeatedly make large pizza orders to Freeman’s home, sending delivery drivers to her door. In one instance, Moss said, strangers turned up at Freeman’s home and tried to force their way in to attempt a “citizens arrest” of her. Around January 6, Freeman was advised by the FBI to leave her home for her safety.Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman are detailing how Trump and Giuliani’s promotion of a conspiracy theory that they somehow rigged the vote has disrupted their lives.Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman are passing around USB ports “as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine,” Giuliani said in video testimony to the Georgia senate that the committee just played. In reality, Moss testified, what’s shown being passed in that video was a ginger mint. But that allegation started the campaign of attacks by Trump supporters against the mother and daughter.Moss, who is Black, said people found her Facebook profile and left her “hateful” and “racist” messages, including one saying “Be glad it’s 2020 and 1920.”“I don’t go to the grocery store at all. I haven’t been anywhere. I gained about 60 pounds,” Moss said of the the threats’ effects on her. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I second-guessed everything that I do.”The three Republican officials have now finished their testimony before the committee, and the lawmakers are now hearing from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a Georgia poll worker who, along with her mother, was accused of rigging the vote in a number of conspiracies promoted by Trump supporters.Her mother is seated behind her in the hearing room.Moss has been a Fulton county election worker for 10 years, and began by confirming she never received threats before like she did during the 2020 election.Using Trump’s words from a recorded phone call with Raffensperger, the committee is having the two Georgia officials debunk all of his claims of a stolen election in their state.“The numbers are the numbers and numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said, defending his office’s conduct. “Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.”The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.Adam Schiff, the California Democrat leading today’s question, said that the committee has learned that around the time of the dispute over Georgia’s vote, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, wanted to send Georgia election investigators “a shitload of Potus stuff,” in the words of one White House aide. These included coins and autographed Maga hats. “White House staff intervened to make sure that didn’t happen,” Schiff said.Sterling is detailing some of the conspiracy theories that followed Biden’s election victory in Georgia, and debunking them. But despite the evidence he outlined that the theories weren’t true, he said it was hard to get people to believe him.“It was kind of like a shovel trying to empty the ocean,” Sterling said. “It was frustrating. I even have family members who I had to argue with about some of these things, and I would show them things, and the problem you have is you’re getting to people’s hearts.”“Once you get past the heart, the facts don’t matter as much. And our job, from our point of view, is to get the facts out,” Sterling added.The January 6 committee has resumed its hearing, with the focus turning to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. As with Bowers before him, Raffensperger begins by confirming his bonafides as a conservative Republican who wanted Trump to win.Also answering questions is Gabriel Sterling, Raffensperger’s deputy, who went viral for his speech following the election in which he strongly denounced Trump’s baseless insistence that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia.Sterling is addressing that speech before the committee, saying it was prompted by direct threats to staff members in his office. “I lost my temper,” Sterling said. “But it seemed necessary at the time, because it was just getting worse.” He also noted that he’s not aware of any request from Trump to his supporters not to use violence.The committee is now taking a recess, but before they concluded, Bowers, a Republican who said he voted for Trump in the 2020 election, detailed the costs of his refusal to go along with the former president’s plot to swing Arizona’s electoral votes in his favor.“We received, my secretaries would say, in excess of 20,000 emails, tens of 1000s of voicemails and texts which saturated our offices and we are unable to work,” Bowers said. Every Saturday, Bowers said organizations that he did not name would stage protests near his house. “We have various groups combined. They have had video panel trucks with videos of me, proclaiming me to be a pedophile and a pervert and a corrupt politician and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood, and leaving literature, both on my property and arguing and threatening with neighbors, and with myself,” Bowers said. More

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      Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraud

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      Giuliani told Arizona official ‘We just don’t have the evidence’ of voter fraudFormer Trump lawyer acknowledged his efforts to overturn the election were based on mere ‘theories’, officials recall Attempting to overturn election results in service of Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told an Arizona official: “We’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have the evidence.”January 6 hearings: state officials to testify about pressure from Trump to discredit electionRead moreThe Republican speaker of the Arizona house, Rusty Bowers, told the January 6 committee, “I don’t know if that was a gaffe. Or maybe he didn’t think through what he said. But both myself and … my counsel remember that specifically.”For the committee, staging a fourth public hearing, the California Democrat Adam Schiff asked: “He wanted you to have the legislature dismiss the Biden electors and replace them with Trump electors on the basis of these theories of fraud?”Bowers said: “He did not say in those exact words, but he did say that under Arizona law, according to what he understood, that would be allowed and that we needed to come into session to take care of that.”This, Bowers said, “initiated a discussion about … what I can legally and not legally do. I can’t go into session in Arizona unilaterally or on my sole prerogative.”In extensive questioning of his witness, Schiff asked if anyone at any time provided to Bowers “evidence of election fraud sufficient to affect the outcome of the presidential election in Arizona”.Bowers said, “No one provided me ever such evidence.”Biden won Arizona by about 10,000 votes, a margin slightly increased after a controversial review pursued by state Republicans.Bowers told the hearing that Giuliani, other Trump aides and the 45th president himself made him think of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, a classic novel of mob incompetence by the late New York journalist Jimmy Breslin.“This is a tragic parody,” he said.Bowers described harassment he and his family suffered. Another witness, Shaye Moss, a former Georgia elections worker, described threats and harassment dealt to her, her mother and her grandmother.Schiff said: “Your proud service as an election worker took a dramatic turn on the day that Rudy Giuliani publicised video of you and your mother counting ballots on election night.”Schiff played footage from a Georgia state senate hearing in which Giuliani said Moss and her mother were “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they were vials of heroin or cocaine”.Giuliani claimed it was “obvious to anyone who’s a criminal investigator or prosecutor, they are engaged in surreptitious illegal activity”, and said the women’s places of work and homes “should have been searched for evidence” of voter fraud.What Giuliani said was a “USB port”, Moss said, was in fact “a ginger mint”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS elections 2020Rudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansArizonanewsReuse this content More