WASHINGTON (AP) – The House panel investigating the January 6, 2021 uprising systematically argued at its second hearing Monday that Trump and his advisers knew his allegations of fraud in the 2020 election were false.
The argument is key to the committee’s investigation, as the nine-member group details its evidence of what caused the violent uprising. The rioters who stormed the Capitol that day and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory echoed Trump’s falsehoods that he, not Biden, had legitimately won the election.
Monday’s hearing takeaway points:
Watch a recording of Monday’s hearing.
A TESTIMONY REMOVES, BUT THE VIDEO TELLS THE STORY
The hearing began with a brawl when former Donald Trump campaign director Bill Stepien, the panel’s main Monday witness, said he would not appear due to a “family emergency.” The chair of the committee, Mississippi MP Bennie Thompson, said Stepien’s wife was in labor.
But the committee had a plan B: hours from Stepien’s previous interview with the panel that was videotaped. The committee aired several clips of that interview, along with others, as the hearing unfolded.
Stepien told investigators that Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was urging Trump to declare victory on election night, despite Stepien’s warnings that it was “too early” to make a prediction like that.
“My belief, my recommendation, was to say that the votes were still being counted, it’s too early to say, too early to convene the race,” Stepien said in a clip.
However, Trump took the podium in the White House press room and said the first results were “a fraud on the American public” and that “frankly, we won this election.”
“THE MIND WAS BILLED” BY TRUMP
Trump advisers repeatedly told him he had to wait for the results and not declare that there was widespread election fraud. But Trump did not listen and relied more and more on savage claims that were pushed by Giuliani and Trump’s attorney, Sidney Powell, among others, according to witnesses.
The panel featured a video of Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and campaign assistant Jason Miller. Ivanka Trump told the panel that “it was clear” that the election would not be called on election night, and Kushner said he had told Trump at one point that Giuliani’s advice “was not the approach I would adopt “. But Trump responded that he trusted Giuliani.
Miller said there was a meeting on election night in which he told Trump they should not declare victory until they have a better idea of the numbers. But Trump told an advisory room that anyone who disagreed with Giuliani was being “weak.”
Bill Stepien, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, said in a pre-recorded interview with the Jan. 6 panel that “I didn’t mind being characterized as part of the team’s normalcy.” to the electoral statements made by Rudy Giuliani and others. . pic.twitter.com/4jRWNx8qte
– The Associated Press (@AP) June 13, 2022
Stepien
Stepien said his group of advisers was dubbed the “normal team.” Another White House attorney, Eric Herschmann, said fraud theories, including Powell’s claims that voting machines were manipulated to change votes, were “buoys.”
Former Attorney General William Barr, who publicly stated at the time that there was no evidence behind Trump’s allegations of fraud, said the president was “increasingly deviating from reality.”
William Barr told the Jan. 6 panel in a pre-recorded interview with then-President Donald Trump’s reaction to a @AP story where the former attorney general said, “So far, we haven’t seen a fraud on a scale that it could have produced a different result in the election." pic.twitter.com/a7RKQj6lf3
– The Associated Press (@AP) June 13, 2022
ONE MONTH CAMPAIGN
Trump’s allegations of fraud did not begin after election day. The committee showed clips where Trump showed his strategy in speeches throughout his 2020 campaign. In August of that year, he told a hearing that fraud was the only way to lose.
Stepien told the committee that he and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy had met with Trump in the summer of 2020 and put forward a double argument as to why he should stop criticizing postal voting. He and McCarthy told Trump that he was leaving “very random” and that there were GOP party workers on the ground who could help get postal votes for Trump.
McCarthy, who has refused to cooperate with the Jan. 6 panel despite a citation, “was echoing the same argument,” Stepien said.
“But the president was determined,” Stepien said.
THE “RED MIRACLE”
Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News Channel political editor, testified in person at the hearing. Stirewalt made the call on election night that President Joe Biden won Arizona, a moment that sparked “anger and disappointment” at Trump’s inner sanctuary in the White House, Miller said.
Stirewalt explained that the network, along with others, had hoped that there would be a so-called “red mirage” at the beginning of the night as Republican votes arrived in person, and many of the postal votes would be count later would bet Democrat. He noted that it happens in every election.
Not only did Trump take advantage of this pattern to make false allegations of fraud, but he also contributed to his campaign to question postal voting.
“We were going to hurt, and I’m proud of the pain, we went to, to make sure we informed viewers that this was going to happen because the Trump campaign and the president had made it clear that they would. dir Stirewalt.
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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Kevin Freking contributed.