In the Jan. 6 committee hearing on June 13, multiple witnesses said that President Donald Trump and some members of his campaign spread false election claims. [Video: Blair Guild/The Washington Post] Updated June 13, 2022 at 1:46 p.m.
EDT|Published June 13, 2022 at 6:31 a.m. EDT The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection asserted in its second hearing Monday that the Capitol attack was the direct result of Donald Trump’s repeated baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Trump continued pursuing ever-outlandish claims of election fraud — then fundraised off of
those false claims — despite being told repeatedly that Joe Biden had won the race fairly, according to testimony from those who had been close to the former president. View live politics updates The committee played video of its
deposition with former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, in which Stepien said he advised Trump on election night that it was too early to call the race and that they needed to wait until early and mail-in ballots were counted. Trump objected to that advice, Stepien said, and claimed that night that he had won, baselessly calling the race a “fraud” and an “embarrassment.” Here’s what to know
White House lawyers pressured to overturn election after insurrection
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Trump attorney John Eastman continued to pressure White House counsel to work to overturn the 2020 presidential election after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, White House lawyers told Jan. 6 committee investigators.
“I said to him, ‘Are you out of your effin’ mind?’ I said I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on: orderly transition,” White House attorney Eric Herschmann told Eastman during a phone call a day after the insurrection.
Herschmann had defended Trump in the Senate during his first impeachment trial and then joined the White House as a senior adviser.
Analysis: Discomfort wasn’t made public
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The committee just played a string of clips of interviews with some of the highest profile lawyers and advisers to former president Donald Trump who described the professional discomfort they felt in being associated with Trump’s claims of election fraud and the lack of evidence to support those claims. While most of those figures testified they communicated those facts to the president directly, many failed to correct the public record on the issue or speak out against Trump’s false claims. The quiet distancing from people on what former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien called “Team Normal,” in part allowed people such as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell gain even more influence and reach.
Analysis: Making the case that Trump knew election-fraud claims were false
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While the committee has emphatically argued that Donald Trump “knew” the 2020 election was not stolen from him, much of the evidence offered Monday suggests that Trump angrily refused to listen to aides who told him that such election fraud claims were bunk. “Before the election, it was possible to talk sense to the president,” former attorney general William P. Barr told the committee in a videotaped session. “After the election, he didn’t seem to be listening.” That gets at a key issue in any criminal investigation of Trump’s actions — whether he understood the claims of fraud were false.
Hearing ends with video of rioters echoing Trump’s false claims
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The Jan. 6 select committee concluded its second hearing by showing a video montage of Capitol rioters echoing President Donald Trump’s false election claims. [Video: The Washington Post]
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson [D-Miss.], the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, closed Monday’s hearings by tying the false election claims put forward by Donald Trump to the rhetoric of those who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The video montage was an attempt to illustrate how the claims from Trump — which his own advisers and administration officials testified were false — shaped the perspectives of his supporters who stormed the Capitol.
For instance, one man said that he voted early and that “it went well, except [you] can’t really trust the software. Dominion software all over.” Another asserted that a Dominion voting machine she used was connected to the internet and that “they stole that from us twice.”
Analysis: Flipping states through recount was unlikely, campaign manager said
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Trump’s campaign manager testified there was little chance of flipping enough states in recounts to win the election, a prospect that Fox News’s former election desk expert put at “zero” percent chance. As this Ballotpedia analysis shows, from 2000 through 2019 there were 31 recounts in statewide elections of any sort. Just three times did the original leader turn out to lose the election, most famously in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race when Democrat Al Franken won. All three races had initial margins of fewer than 300 votes, dramatically closer than any margin in 2020.
Analysis: Committee’s heavy use of video is a strategy to build credibility
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The committee’s heavy reliance on video has given a polarized country a chance to hear testimonies for themselves, and that’s a deliberate strategy, people involved with the panel say. Instead of making claims themselves, the committee wants top Trump advisers to provide information — on the record, on camera — hoping more people will believe what they have gathered. The committee members have known for months it would be difficult to convince people and believe the best chance they have is to show text messages, emails and recorded interviews.
Lofgren: ‘Not only was there the ‘big lie,’ there was the ‘big rip-off’
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As a closing argument, Rep. Zoe Lofgren [D-Calif.] presented footage the panel compiled showing how Trump and his allies financially benefited from his false claims of election fraud.
Lofgren said Trump and his allies continued to push the false narrative of a fraudulent election, even though their litigation efforts making the same claim had failed, because it helped their fundraising.
“If the litigation had stopped on Dec. 14, there would have been no fight to defend the election and no clear path to continue to raise millions of dollars,” Lofgren said before introducing a presentation describing how Trump “used the lies he told to raise millions of dollars from the American people.”
Drive to overturn election became ‘marketing tactic’ for Trump and allies
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The House select committee investigating the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol says it followed the money — and, in the words of Rep. Zoe Lofgren [D-Calif.], found that the “big lie” was also a “big rip-off.”
Fundraising appeals issued by Trump and his allies, Lofgren said, “misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for.”
Amanda Wick, a committee investigator who has previously prosecuted financial crimes, said the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021. The emails asked supporters to “step up to protect the integrity of the election” and promoted an “Official Election Defense Fund.”
Philly city commissioner: No evidence of dead voters voting in Pa.
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A Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia who investigated Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the city testified Monday he found no evidence of the former president’s insistence that dead people voted there in the 2020 election.
Al Schmidt, part of the three-member board that oversees elections in Philadelphia, also detailed the torrent of threats he and his family faced once Trump named him in a tweet that falsely claimed he was ignoring the accusations.
For instance, Schmidt told the committee, his commission looked into a claim put forward by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that 8,000 deceased people voted in the election.
Expert GOP election lawyer described what happened in court: Trump lost
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On June 13 GOP election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg said that in each legal challenge, President Donald Trump’s campaign produced no credible evidence of fraud. [Video: The Washington Post]
The committee was unlikely to convince a sitting judge who heard a post-election challenge brought by the Trump campaign to testify, so they turned to the next best thing: Esteemed Republican election lawyer Benjamin L. Ginsberg.
Ginsberg testified that he had analyzed the more than 60 post-election legal challenges brought by the campaign and found that over and over again, Trump’s claims were dismissed in court. “The simple case is the Trump campaign did not make its case,” he testified.
Ginsberg, who represented President George W. Bush in his 2000 election litigation, also punctured a frequent falsehood told by Trump and his supporters: That judges refused to hear the merits of their allegations of fraud but instead dismissed cases only on procedural grounds. Ginsberg testified that his analysis showed that only about half the cases were dismissed for procedural reasons. In the other half, Ginsberg said judges considered the merits of Trump’s case — and found them wanting. “They did have their day in court,” he said.
Analysis: Trump claimed fraud in 2020 Philly vote yet received record tally
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If there was anything particularly unusual about the Philadelphia vote in 2020, it was the tally for Donald Trump. The GOP incumbent president set a modern record for votes for any Republican presidential nominee in Philadelphia, receiving 132,740 votes, according to state records. That’s 24,000 more votes than Philly gave him in 2016. In this century’s six races, only George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign came close to Trump’s vote, with 130,099 ballots in Philly.
Analysis: Threats received by election officials and their families draw shock
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Former Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt [R] testified on June 13 that after President Donald Trump tweeted about him, he began receiving threats. [Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post]
When Al Schmidt called out Trump shortly after the 2020 election for baselessly claiming that 8,000 dead people voted in Pennsylvania, the now former city commissioner of Philadelphia and his family faced a barrage of violent threats.
“You lied. You a traitor,” reads a text he received shortly after the election. “Rino stole elections we steal lives.”
Schmidt’s wife received an email saying he would “BE FATALLY SHOT” and “COPS CANT HELP YOU … HEAD ON SPIKES, TREASONOUS SCHMIDTS.”
As the images flashed on the screen in the hearing room, House Chaplain Margaret G. Kibben stared intently. Sitting beside her was Rep. Kathy E. Manning [D-N.C.], who just shook her head in disbelief, mouth agape.
Former DOJ prosecutor debunks Giuliani claims of fraud during ballot counting in Atlanta
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One of the most enduring claims of election fraud stemmed from surveillance video at State Farm Arena, a central mail-ballot counting facility in Fulton County, Ga., the home of Atlanta.
At today’s hearing, former federal prosecutor Byung J. “BJay” Pak offered more details about why he concluded that the claims were false.
At the heart of the allegation was a claim that election workers had smuggled in “suitcases” filled with fraudulent ballots, and another that they had double- and in some cases triple-counted ballots. Rudy Giuliani, one of President Donald Trump’s top lawyers at the time, led the charge and even described the alleged fraud in a hearing of the Georgia Senate.
Donoghue, in talks with Trump, said he batted away multiple fraudulent election claims
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The Jan. 6 committee shared testimony of former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue on June 13 about how Trump was entertaining conspiracy theories. [Video: The Washington Post]
A voting machine in Michigan did not have a 68 percent error rate — not even close. There was no suitcase packed with fraudulent ballots in Georgia. And no, Native Americans were not paid to vote.
Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, told committee investigators how he and Justice Department lawyers systematically investigated claims about potential election fraud — and found that none had merit.
“I said something to the effect of, ‘Sir, we’ve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed,’ ” Donoghue said in his videotaped deposition about his conversations with Donald Trump.