With Compelling New Evidence and Testimony, the January 6 Select Committee Used Republicans’ Own Words to Show Trump’s Criminal Conspiracy
PRESS RELEASE Contact: [email protected]
For Immediate Release
Date: June 13, 2022
Washington, DC – The January 6th Select Committee presented evidence that Trump ignored the advice of his legal team and pushed election fraud claims he knew were false, even before the first votes were cast.
Trump knew he lost, the people around him repeatedly told him he lost, and he still went forward with the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results.
“The evidence presented today showed that Trump and his campaign knew that their election fraud claims had no legal standing,” said Defend Democracy Project Communications Director Nicole Haley. “Even when his own attorney general, Bill Barr, told him election fraud claims were BS, Trump went ahead with his false claims and criminal conspiracy. In the days ahead, we should expect to see more evidence of the need to demonstrate that no one is above accountability – not even former presidents.”
Below are key takeaways from the final part of the hearing:
- Trump knew he lost the 2020 election.
Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, repeatedly told him that the claims of voter fraud were “BS.”
- Barr called the conspiracy theories “nonsense”, “without merit”, “bullshit”, “completely bogus”, “silly”, “just not meritorious”, “based on complete misinformation”, and “crazy stuff”.
On election night, an inebriated Rudy Giuliani was one of the only aides advocating Trump falsely declare victory.
- Despite Jason Miller, Bill Stepien, and others telling Donald Trump that it was too early to call the election in his favor, Trump chose to listen to a reportedly drunk Rudy Giuliani who urged Trump to declare a premature victory.
In fact, Trump had already decided to claim election fraud in the months leading up to the election, encouraging his voters to not vote by mail.
- Even before the first votes were cast, Trump repeatedly made claims of election fraud, priming his supporters to believe that the election would be stolen if he lost. Former Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien, Attorney General Bill Barr and others explained the “red mirage” to Trump – that election night would show a higher number of Trump voters before mail-in ballots were cast. But Trump ignored his advisors and drummed up suspicion around mail-in voters.
- Despite knowing he lost, Trump and his MAGA allies planned, promoted, and paid for a criminal conspiracy to overturn an election they lost.
Trump fired, harassed, and bullied state officials who refused to go along with his scheme, according to new evidence presented today.
- Byung J. Pak, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Al Schmidt, formerly one of three city commissioners on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections, testified to their experiences being bullied and harassed by Donald Trump and MAGA supporters after Trump made false claims of voter fraud.
Even though Trump’s legal arguments lost over and over in court, his campaign fundraised more than $250 million off of their election lies and funneled the money to his businesses and allies.
- Republican election officials personally told Trump and his campaign sent numerous emails fundraising off of their election lies after the election. The Committee says those who donated deserve to know where their money went.
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The Select Committee will continue to lay out real evidence gathered by non-partisan career prosecutors proving that Trump and his MAGA allies planned, promoted, and paid for a criminal conspiracy to overturn an election they lost.
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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