Apparently drunk, Rudy Giuliani was key to convincing former President Donald Trump to throw the nation into chaos and simply declare victory on election night in 2020, drowning out the voices of some of Trump’s closest advisers who preferred him to wait. the final results.
It was just one of the bombs from the committee’s second hearing on Monday, January 6, as committee members tried to answer a question from another case of presidential inadequacy: What did the president know and when did he find out?
The members of the commission came out on Monday, looking for a definite answer to this question.
MP Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who is chairing the hearing, began her opening statement by saying that Trump “knowingly” relied on false allegations that there had been widespread election fraud to mislead his supporters into believing that the 2020 election was stolen – something he knew was wrong.
“Mr. Trump’s closest advisers knew it. Mr. Trump knew it,” Lofgren said.
The hearing officially began at 10:47 a.m. EDT with a statement from President Benny Thompson (D-MS) that today was to tell “the story of how Donald Trump lost the election and knew he had lost the election.”
Thompson went on to say that “as a result of his loss,” Trump decided to attack our democracy, “trying to rob you and your voice in our democracy, and thus igniting the fuse that led to the horrific violence of Jan. 6.”
Co-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) followed suit, saying Trump was ignoring the evidence and instead “following the advice of the apparently drunk Rudy Giuliani,” who told him to simply reject the results and fight them anyway.
The commission released videos of testimonies from some of Trump’s closest aides – campaign manager Bill Stepien and senior adviser Jason Miller – about the unwanted role played by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
In the videos, Trump’s advisers said Giuliani appeared to have been drunk on election night and repeatedly insisted on talking to Trump just as Fox News called Arizona’s Biden in Arizona and the White House was in a bad mood.
“It was too early to call that way. The ballots were still being counted. The ballots still had to be counted for days, “Stepien testified in February. “My recommendation was to say that the votes are still counting, it is too early to announce the race.
In his testimony, Miller told the committee that “we should not go and declare victory until we understand the numbers better.” But Giuliani became defiant and told them, “We won it, they steal it from us – we have to go and say we won.”
Miller said Giuliani’s aggressive tone was that “anyone who disagrees with this position is weak.”
The former attorney general has also repeatedly said that he told Trump that allegations of widespread voter fraud were untrue.
“I thought, boy, if he really believes in these things, he’s lost touch with – he’s detached from reality, if he really believes in these things,” Barr said.
Bar recalled arranging a luncheon with Associated Press reporter Mike Balsamo, at which the attorney general told him – no doubt – that the Justice Department had not seen levels of fraud that would even come close to affecting the results. since the 2020 election, Bar told the committee he expects to be fired from the White House later that afternoon. Instead, he met with Trump in the Oval Office, where the president was angry and spewed conspiracy theories.
Barr said Trump was “as crazy as I’ve seen” when he told the president he didn’t believe there was anything significant in allegations of voter fraud.
Bar said he was shocked by “idiotic” and “disturbing” allegations about voting machines and alleged secret deliveries of fake ballots that could affect Biden’s election.
“I told them it was crazy and they were wasting their time. That was a serious bear service to the country, “Bar told the commission.
Instead of giving it up, Trump allowed White House adviser Peter Navarro to develop an official conspiracy theory report summarizing fragile and fictitious evidence to call the election into question. The commission released a video of Alex Cannon, a lawyer for the Trump Organization who later joined the candidate’s campaign, in which he recalled his interaction with Navarro shortly after the mid-November election.
When Cannon rejected Navarro’s allegation of mass fraud – and pointed out how the Interior Ministry’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had publicly assured that the 2020 election was indeed secure – he was personally attacked.
“I remember telling him I didn’t believe Dominion’s claims because counting hands in Georgia would solve all the technological problems,” Cannon said.
He recalled that Navarro accused him of being an “agent of the deep state” working against the president.
Cannon swore never to take a call from Navarro again.
Former Fox News political editor Chris Stewworth also testified before the commission on Monday that Biden undoubtedly won in 2020 – and backed his network’s decision to quickly report on Trump’s surprise losses in the otherwise red states of Arizona and Georgia. Over time, he said, Trump’s loss became increasingly apparent.
“We already knew that Trump’s chances were slim and dwindling,” he said.
His testimony was remarkable, given that for weeks after the election, the television network continued to fuel conspiracy theories about missing and destroyed news bulletins that were so detached from reality that the company was eventually sued by a producer. voting machine.
Stepien also had to testify before the commission on Monday, but he had to resign due to a family emergency – his wife was born.
Still, Stepien’s recorded testimony was humiliating enough. He has repeatedly said he does not believe there is evidence to suggest that Trump won the election, and Stepien said Giuliani and Trump’s insistence on a strategy for claiming victory ultimately led him to “withdraw” from the campaign.
During the second half of the hearing, Lofgren spoke to those at the front who were dealing with Trump’s lies. BJay Pak, who was the attorney general in North Georgia, testified Monday that the FBI was investigating an in-depth video that allegedly showed a Fulton County poll worker picking up ballots in a briefcase under his desk – only to find that the officer was actually doing their work and providing ballots in an authorized locked box.
Al Schmid, a former Philadelphia city commissioner, then said the city took “seriously” any allegations of electoral fraud and investigated allegations by Trump’s camp that fake ballots were filed on behalf of dead people.
“Not only was there no evidence of 8,000 dead voters voting in Pennsylvania, there was not even evidence of eight,” Schmid said.
When Trump tweeted directly to the then city commissioner, Schmid said he and his family were inundated with detailed death threats.
“The threats became much more specific, much more graphic and included not only me by name but also family members, their names, age, address, photos of our home, every detail you can imagine,” he said. he. .
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