PRESS RELEASE Contact: [email protected]
For Immediate Release
Date: June 16, 2022
Washington, DC – The third hearing concluded with testimony about the events of January 6th, which include details of Trump harassing Mike Pence for refusing to overthrow the election results and later inciting the violent mob to go to the Capitol to attack Pence himself.
Rep. Pete Aguilar closed his portion of the hearings by saying, “When we began, I asked how we got to this place. I think the answer to that question starts with the fact that people in positions of power put their party over their country. It cannot be allowed to continue.”
“Despite being repeatedly told that the scheme for Pence to unilaterally pick the president was illegal and unconstitutional, Trump incited a violent mob after Mike Pence refused to go along with it,” said Defend Democracy Project Communications Director Nicole Haley. “The evidence shows that Trump knew the plot was illegal and went along with it anyway. The criminal conspiracy to overturn the election has not ended – Trump and his MAGA allies are dead set on ensuring that they have the final say in who leads us, not the American people.”
Here are the top takeaways from today’s hearing:
1. Trump Hatched A Scheme To Overturn The Election, Which He Knew Was Illegal: In early January 2021, Trump attorney John Eastman drafted a memo that said the Vice President could unilaterally decide to overturn the election results and give Trump the presidency.
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- Mike Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, said that, “There is no justifiable basis to conclude that the Vice President has that kind of authority.”
- Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig testified, “I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the Vice President overturn the 2020 election on the basis of that historic precedent.”
- Jacob also testified that John Eastman – the architect of the scheme – admitted in front of Donald Trump that the pressure campaign to get Mike Pence to overturn the election was illegal. And many on Trump’s legal team openly derided the legal argument2.
2. Trump Sent A Violent Mob After Pence After Threatening Him: Trump incited a violent mob to go to the Capitol after Pence refused to go along with the illegal and unconstitutional scheme to overturn the election results.
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- Trump berated Pence in an Oval Office phone call, where witnesses said he called Pence a “wimp” and “the p-word.”
- A Proud Boy informant said that Pence would’ve been murdered if the Proud Boys had found him at the Capitol.
3. MAGA Efforts to Overthrow Elections Are Ongoing. These efforts to sabotage future elections continue today as Trump and his MAGA allies change state laws, threaten state officials and pack election administration offices so that they can have the final say over election results – even when they lose.
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- Luttig closed the hearing by saying “Trump, his allies and followers are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”
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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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