During their “pressure campaign” to get states to independently review or reject their election results, including Georgia and Arizona, the former president Trump and members of his inner circle, according to Rep. Adam Schiff, probably broke “several federal statutes.”
On the fourth day of the publicly broadcast hearings on January 6, the committee is hearing from representatives from those states.
Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer of his office, Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona house, and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, a former Georgia election worker, all gave live testimony during the proceedings that were broadcast on television.
Raffensperger says it was solely Trump’s fault he lost in Georgia
Raffensperger then laid out why Trump actually came up short in Georgia – saying that many Georgians skipped the presidential race and voted in down ballot races for Republican.
‘What happened in the fall of 2020 is that 28,000 Georgians skipped the presidential race and yet they voted down ballot in other races. And the Republican congressman ended up getting 43,000 more votes than President Trump. That’s what happened,’ Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger took center stage in the hearing Tuesday as he was one of the GOP targets of the Trump team’s efforts to get red states to name ‘fake electors’ to derail Biden’s Electoral College victory. Trump also infamously called Raffensperger on January 2, 2021 – just days before the Capitol riot and election certification – to pressure him to ‘find 11,780 votes’ to help him overcome Biden’s lead in the Peach State. The committee replayed the phone call during the hearing.
‘There were no votes to find,’ Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger told the committee he asserted to Trump that he had the right to a recount of the votes. ‘
‘Three counts, all remarkably close, which showed that President Trump did come up short.’
Raffensperger said that an audit proved ballots for Joe Biden were not scanned more than once.
‘Mr. President, we’ll send you the link,’ the Republican Georgia state official said on the call.
‘I don’t care about the link,’ Trump said in the call played at the fourth day of the hearing on Tuesday. ‘I don’t need it. Brad, I have a much better link.’
Afterwards the secretary of state was doxxed and he and his wife were inundated with thousands of threatening text messages, his wife’s were often sexual and ‘disgusting’ in nature. He added that his daughter-in-law’s home was broken into.
‘My son has passed and she has two kids. Wee were very concerned about her safety.’
The former president sought to retaliate against Raffensperger by backing Georgia Republican Representative Jody Hice in the primary race against him for secretary of state this year – but Raffensperger easily overcame the challenge.