PRESS RELEASE Contact: [email protected]
For Immediate Release
Date: June 21, 2022
Vice-Chair Liz Cheney: “We Cannot Let America Become a Nation of Conspiracy Theories and Thug Violence.”
Washington, DC – In the fourth hearing of the January 6th Select Committee, we learned from an all-Republican panel of witnesses even more about Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional attempt to overturn the results of an election he knew he lost.
“Trump and his MAGA allies planned, paid for, and promoted a conspiracy to overturn the will of the people,” said Defend Democracy Project Communications Director Nicole Haley. “They pressured election officials overseeing elections to falsify results, based on nothing more than lies. They must not be allowed to continue their ongoing assault on our democracy.”
1. President Trump led a months-long, coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and stop the transfer of power.
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- In the last weeks, we saw how Trump was repeatedly told by his aides, lawyers, and family members that he’d lost the election, that the claims of fraud were “bullshit”, that he illegally and unconstitutionally pressured Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally overturn the election he’d lost, and today, how he escalated a pressure campaign on state and local election officials to overturn the election.
2. The Trump campaign was unable to present evidence of fraud in Arizona.
3. Trump and his allies used the power of the presidency to bully and intimidate election workers to falsify election results.
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- Committee Chair Bennie Thompson: “Pressuring public servants into betraying their oath was a fundamental part of the playbook.”
- Giuliani, imploring Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers to go along with the scheme, asked, “Aren’t we all Republicans here?” Instead, Bowers told Trump he had supported him, voted for him, but wouldn’t do anything illegal for him.
- Trump officials like Rudy Giuliani continued to harass state legislators even after they asked him to stop making contact. They told state officials: “you have the power to reclaim your authority to send a slate of electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence.”
- Trump lawyer John Eastman told Rusty Bowers, “Do it, and let the courts decide.”
- The Trump campaign spent millions on ads telling people to call their state officials to tell them to overturn the election.`
4. President Trump’s blatantly illegal actions directly resulted in threats of violence against people doing their jobs and carrying out their oaths to the Constitution.
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- State officials detailed how Trump set his followers on state and local officials, going as far as to post personal phone numbers, and organizing protests in front of their homes.
- Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson feared for her and her son’s safety as Trump followers threatened her home: “Are they going to attack my house? I’m in here with my kid,” she testified.
- Officials received death threats for doing their job and upholding the results of the 2020 election.
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This criminal conspiracy extends well beyond the violence perpetrated on January 6, 2021, that injured 140 police officers, including making it harder for people to vote, attempting to appoint bogus electors to overturn the will of voters, and intimidating state officials to change the results in contested states.
Getting to the truth during these hearings and then demanding accountability at the courts and the ballot box is how we stop the current MAGA campaign to sabotage future elections by changing state laws, threatening state officials, and packing election administration offices so that they can have the final say over election results – even when they lose.
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