The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is expected to show at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that Donald Trump and top advisers coordinated the scheme to send fake slates of electors as part of an effort to return him to the White House.
The panel is expected to also examine Trump’s campaign to pressure top officials in seven crucial battleground states to corruptly reverse his defeat to Joe Biden in the weeks and months after the 2020 election.
At the afternoon hearing, the select committee is expected to focus heavily on the fake electors scheme, which has played a large part in its nearly year-long investigation into Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election at the state level.
The panel will show how the fake electors scheme – which may have been illegal – was the underlying basis for Trump’s unlawful strategy to have his vice-president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify Biden’s win in certain states and grant him a second term.
If the 2020 election cycle had been like any other when the electoral college convened on 14 December 2020 and Democratic electors attested to Biden’s victory over Trump, that would have marked the end of any post-election period conflict.
But that year, after the authorized Democratic electors met at statehouses to formally name Biden as president, in seven battleground states, illegitimate Republican electors arrived too, saying they had come to instead name Trump as president.
The Trump electors were turned away. However, they nonetheless proceeded to sign fake election certificates that declared they were the “duly elected and qualified” electors certifying Trump as the winner of the presidential election in their state.
The fake electors scheme was conceived in an effort to create “dueling” slates of electors that Pence could use to pretend the election was in doubt and refuse to formalize Biden’s win at the congressional certification on 6 January.
And, the select committee will show, the fake election certificates were in part manufactured by the Trump White House, and that the entire fake electors scheme was coordinated by Trump and his top advisers, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“We will show evidence of the president’s involvement in this scheme,” congressman Adam Schiff, the select committee member leading the hearing alongside the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, and vice-chair, Liz Cheney, said on CNN on Sunday.
Members of Trump’s legal team insist this is a distorted characterization of the scheme, saying the so-called alternate slates were put together and signed in case that states did re-certify their election results for Trump and they needed to be sent right away to Congress.
But that explanation is difficult to reconcile given Trump lawyer John Eastman admitted in a 19 December 2020 the Trump slates were “dead on arrival” if they were not certified, and yet still pushed Pence to reject Biden’s slates even though Trump slates were still not certified.
The fake electors scheme is important because it 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.
If Trump was involved in the scheme, and the justice department pursues a case, then the former US president may also have criminal exposure. At least one federal grand jury in Washington is investigating the scheme and the involvement of top Trump election lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani.
The select committee is also set to closely focus on Trump’s pressure campaign on leading Republican state officials in the weeks and months after the election, according to a committee aide who previewed the hearing on a briefing call with reporters.
Among other key flash points that the panel intends to examine include Trump’s now-infamous 2 January 2021 call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger – who will testify live at the hearing – when Trump asked him to “find” votes to make him win the election.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during the conversation, a tape of which was obtained by the Washington Post and House investigators working for the select committee.
The select committee will describe Trump pressuring other state officials to investigate election fraud claims his own White House and campaign lawyers knew were false, relying on testimony from Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers.
And the panel will additionally hear testimony from Shaye Moss, a Georgia election worker in Fulton County, who was falsely accused by Giuliani and others of sneaking in “suitcases” of ballots for Biden – a conspiracy debunked by election officials.
Hope he likes lock up too.
Love interest of tfg, aka his daughter, said she trusted billy barr. But she had a different pile of BS for a filmaker. I just read this in The NY Times. Some bits of the article below.
Ivanka Trump, the elder daughter of former President Donald J. Trump, told a documentary film crew in the middle of December 2020 that her father should “continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted” because people were questioning “the sanctity of our elections.”
The video, which was played for The New York Times by someone with access to it, was part of a trove that the filmmaker Alex Holder turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. He recorded several hours of interviews with Mr. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, some of Mr. Trump’s adult children and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Holder is expected to be interviewed by the committee on Thursday.
“I think that, as the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard, and he campaigned for the voiceless,” Ms. Trump replied. “And I think a lot of Americans feel very, very disenfranchised right now, and really, question the sanctity of our elections, and that’s not right, it’s not acceptable.”
She went on, “And he has to take on this fight. Look, you fight for what you love the most and he loves this country and he loves this country’s people, and he wants to make sure that their voice is, is heard and not muted.”
She said that he “will continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted and that’s what he should do.”
Biggest lie of the day " he loves this country and he loves this country’s people"
These 3am hearings suck.
Not as much as the subject though.
Fuck Trump, just die already.
And kavanaugh if I hear one fucking whiny word about protesters outside your house...
Have not had a chance to see the testimony yet nor read through the comments (so looking forward to it though) but I did come across two things of interest. First, as I pointed out in comments on the last two SAV entries (between whining about the space lasers stealing my “First Post (fraud)“ badge) the GQP is NOT interested in electing people who are interested in governing or public service. The GQP (actually the funders of campaigns and think tanks and especially ALEC) just want distractors and useful idiots so they can carry out their onward march towards Qristo-fascism. Exhibit one: MTG takes House floor for an hour during hearings to whine about how poorly and criminally she has been treated.
https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657540205/
Exhibit two: This author gets it and lays it out quite well about how the Orange Shitgibbon is and was merely another useful tool, or as Grover Norquist once put it, a monkey with an opposable thumb ready to sign into law the bills they send to Oval Office. The reality is ALL the participants in the GQP who have not denounced BOTH the Orange Shitgibbon and his coup attempt AND the continued march towards electing fascist and unqualified hacks (yeah Oz and Herschel are just two examples among far too many) are as guilty as those who planned, funded, and participated in the Jan 6 sedition. https://www.rawstory.com/next/trump-grifters-jan-6/
Will the hearings' effect last until November? The American public has a notoriously short attention span. What they will remember on November 8 is that they just paid $8 a gallon for gas. And don't expect the Biden administration to go after Trump, ever. Joe is not going to open that box.
Thanks for the party and your hard work Bunker Boy!
I think that they shouldn't say who is going to be speaking in the hearings, just for safety reasons. Let it be known the day of, so that tRump doesn't know.
I am over the moon with today's hearing. I thought the last two were amazing, and there's more to come. They made it so personal today, making sure Americans know that it's personal, it has upended and destroyed peoples lives.
Can't wait for the next hearing. Looks like there might be more "never before seen" video:
https://www.politico.com/playbook
Why can't Ruby Freeman and her family sue Psycho Donnie for slander? Hit 'im back! Her daughter shouldn't feel sad, she should be mad as hell.
After I retired 2 years ago, I started working at the polls on election days. This makes me more determined than ever to keep doing that. Anybody crosses me like they did these Georgia workers and I'll be all "DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE!!!!"
I love the statement from the guy from Arizona, " I DON'T WANT TO BE A WINNER BY CHEATING".
I hope tRumps asshole was puckering. And the bastard released a statement once again lying about a lot of shit.