WASHINGTON (AP) – The rebels, who made their way to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, managed – at least temporarily – to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s election to the White House.
Hours earlier, Representative Jim Jordan had been trying to do the same.
Sending messages to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, a close ally and friend, near midnight on Jan. 5, Jordan offered a legal basis for what President Donald Trump publicly demanded – that Vice President Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role presiding over the census in the election, somehow asserting the power to reject voters from states won by Biden.
“Pence” should call for all the electoral votes he says are unconstitutional, as there are no electoral votes at all, “Jordan wrote.
“I insisted on that,” Meadows said. “I’m not sure it’s going to happen.”
The exchange of text messages, in a April 22 lawsuit from a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, is in a group of shocking evidence showing the deep involvement of some Republicans in the House of Representatives in Trump’s desperate attempt to stay in power. A review of the evidence reveals new details of how, long before the attack on the Capitol unfolded, several Republican lawmakers were directly involved in Trump’s campaign to reverse the results of free and fair elections.
This is a link that members of the House of Representatives committee highlighted on January 6 as they prepare to launch public hearings in June. The Republicans conspiring with Trump and the rebels attacking the Capitol were in line with their goals, if not the crowd’s violent tactics, creating a convergence that almost overturned the peaceful transfer of power to the nation.
“A significant number of members of the House of Representatives and several senators appear to have played more than a fleeting role in what happened,” Benny Thompson, chairman of the committee’s Democrats on January 6, told the Associated Press last week.
Since launching its investigation last summer, the commission has been slowly gathering new details since January 6 on what lawmakers said and did in the weeks leading up to the uprising. Members asked three GOP lawmakers – Jordan from Ohio, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and House of Representatives minority leader Kevin McCarthy of California – to testify voluntarily. Everyone refused. Other MPs may be called in the coming days.
So far, the committee has refrained from issuing subpoenas to lawmakers since January 6, fearing the consequences of such an extraordinary move. But the lack of co-operation from lawmakers did not prevent the committee from receiving new information about their actions.
The latest court document, presented in response to a lawsuit by Meadows, contains excerpts from just a handful of more than 930 interviews conducted by the commission on January 6th. It includes information on several summits attended by nearly a dozen Republicans in the House of Representatives, where Trump’s allies flirted with ways to give him a new mandate.
Ideas include naming fake voter lists in seven different states, declaring martial law and seizing voting machines.
Efforts began in the weeks after the Associated Press announced Biden as newly elected president.
In early December 2020, several lawmakers attended a meeting at the White House office, where the president’s lawyers advised them that the plan to present an alternative voter list declaring Trump the winner was not “legally sound.” One MP, Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, withdrew. The same was done by GOP representatives Matt Gaetz from Florida and Louis Gomert from Texas, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant at the Trump White House.
Despite a warning from the lawyer’s office, Trump’s allies moved forward. On December 14, 2020, after properly elected Democratic voters in seven states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – met at the headquarters of their state government to cast their ballots, the fake voters also gathered.
They declared themselves legitimate voters and presented fake certificates to the Electoral College, declaring Trump the real winner of the presidential election in their states.
These “alternative voter” certificates were then sent to Congress, where they were ignored.
Since then, a majority of lawmakers have denied involvement.
Georgia’s spokeswoman Marjorie Taylor Green testified during a hearing in April that she did not recall conversations she had with the White House or texts she sent to Meadows about Trump’s martial law.
Homert told the AP that he also did not remember being involved and that he was not sure he could be useful in the commission’s investigation. Georgia’s Jodie Hayes belittled his actions, saying it was routine for members of the presidential party to come in and out of the White House to speak on a number of topics. Hise is now running for secretary of state in Georgia, a position responsible for the state election.
Arizona spokesman Andy Biggs did not deny his public efforts to challenge the election results, but called recent reports of his deep involvement false.
In a statement Saturday, Arizona lawmaker Paul Gossar reiterated his “serious” concerns about the 2020 election. “Discussions on the Census Act were appropriate, necessary and justified,” he added.
Requests for comment from other MPs were not returned immediately.
Less than a week after the meeting in early December, another plan emerged at the White House. During a meeting with members of the Caucasus for Freedom of the House and representatives of the White House of Trump, the discussion turned to the decisive actions that they think Pence can take on January 6.
Those present virtually and in person, according to the committee, were Hayes, Biggs, Gossar, Perry, Goetz, Jordan, Homer, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Debbie Lesko of Arizona, and Green, then an elected congresswoman.
– What was the conversation like? the commission asked Hutchinson, who frequently attended meetings in December 2020 and January 2021.
“They thought he had the power to excuse me if my wording wasn’t right, but to send votes back to the states or voters back to the states,” Hutchinson said, referring to Pence.
Asked if any of the deputies disagreed with the idea that the vice president has such powers, Hutchinson said he had no objection from any of the Republican deputies.
In another meeting on Pence’s potential role with Trump’s attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis were reunited by Perry and Jordan, as well as Green and Lauren Beabert, a Republican who has also just been elected to the Colorado House of Representatives.
Communication between lawmakers and the White House has not weakened as January 6 approaches. The day after Christmas – more than two months after the Biden election was called – Perry sent Meadow a countdown message.
“11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to take office,” the text read. “We have to go!” Perry called on Meadows to call Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general who supported Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results. Perry admitted that he introduced Clark to Trump.
Clark has clashed with Justice Department officials over his plan to send a letter to Georgia and other states on the battlefield questioning election results and calling on their state legislatures to investigate. It all culminated in a dramatic meeting at the White House, at which Trump was considering appointing Clark as attorney general only to step down after senior Justice Department officials made it clear he would resign.
Legislative and White House pressure on the Justice Department is among several areas under investigation in the January 6 investigation. MP Jamie Ruskin, a Democratic member of the Maryland committee, has hinted that more revelations are pending.
“As the mob smashed our windows, bled our police and stormed the Capitol, Trump and his accomplices plotted to destroy Biden’s majority in the Electoral College and overthrow our constitutional order,” Ruskin wrote on Twitter last week.
When the results of the commission’s investigation came out, Ruskin predicted: “America will see how the coup and the uprising come together.
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