Jan. 6 committee member: 'None of this would have happened without' Trump

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), one of the officials on the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election, spoke to Raw Story about the testimony heard on Tuesday.

The committee spoke to Republican officials, but also spoke with Shaye Moss, who served as an election worker for the 2020 election and ultimately became the target of Donald Trump's supporters. She tearfully described the attacks on her, her mother and grandmother and those who terrorized the women ahead of Jan. 6.

As Raskin explained, "none of this would have happened without him. And Trump's lawlessness inevitably led to and leads to violence."

He went on to say that there must be an end to the attacks on election officials. As Moss testified, none of the workers and supervisors who helped in 2020 have returned to help count the votes. It means that there is a void in people who can be trusted to legitimately count the votes on election night.

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"One of the things we could be looking at is penalties, stiffer penalties against people who intimidate election officials," said Raskin. "Donald Trump's relentless intimidation of election officials had a chilling effect on election officials across the country... It's a serious problem with people who are hired across the country to have people driven out of the business by virtue of this campaign."

He went on to say that the Congress of the United States must make clear that states are on the side of the election workers and not those who try to intimidate the workers.

When asked about others who might come before the committee, Raskin said that because the investigation is ongoing, they continue to receive evidence and it's possible that other witnesses will appear. The question about whether Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, will appear has been in the conversation after it was revealed she was pressuring lawmakers to change the election results.

"The original hearings were going to wrap up in June, but we are picking up new evidence at an enormous velocity," Raskin told Raw Story. "So, we're going to be incorporating and including the new information. Certainly, the hearings will conclude before the end of the summer."

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The information is coming from "diverse" sources, he asked when questions about whether the additional testimony was from the Justice Department.

"I think that people are seeing we're running a serious investigation that is bipartisan in nature and is just focused on getting the facts of what happened and a lot of people are coming forward now with information they have," Raskin continued.

The Committee, he explained, will have a list of recommendations that will come out of the hearing that detail how elections can be fortified to protect against some of these attacks on them in the future. They intend to say as a committee that these actions will not stand.

He was asked about Rep. Andy Bigg (R-AZ) after fellow Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers mentioned that he was among the GOP members in the pressure campaign. Raskin made it clear that if his name had come up multiple times in a congressional probe as someone involved that he would come forward to set the record straight.

There are reasons, however, that Republicans have that they won't come forward or help with the investigation," Raskin told reporters.