Trump’s ‘false’ victory speech was a ‘premeditated plan’ to stay in office: Jan. 6 hearing

Donald Trump's 2020 election night speech was part of a "premeditated plan" to try and stay in office despite losing to Joe Biden, according to Thursday's televised hearings by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Following opening statements by Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), Rep. Zoe Lofgren presented evidence of how Trump attempted to take advantage of the "red mirage."

The California Democrat said, "we have previously presented testimony about how the election results were expected to come in that night. In certain states, ballots were cast by mail before election day would be counted only after polls closed that evening. That meant that election results would not be known for some time."

She noted that Trump advisors had urged him to use voting by mail, but he refused, meaning the ballots that would be counted later trended Democratic.

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"It was expected, before the election, that the initial counts in some states, in other words, the votes cast on election day, would be more heavily Republican," Lofgren said. "This would create a false perception of a lead for President Trump, a so-called red mirage as the results of the absentee ballots that were later counted, there were trends towards Vice President Biden as mail-in ballots were counted. On election night, Donald Trump's advisors specifically told him that he did not have a factual basis to declare victory and he should wait for the remaining balance to be counted."

"We now know more about President Trump's intention for election night," Lofgren said. "The evidence shows his false victory speech was planned well in advance, before any votes had been counted. It was a premeditated plan by the president to declare victory no matter what the actual result was, he made a plan to stay in office before election day."

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