According to a report from the HuffPost, the preliminary executive summary from the House select committee that investigated the Jan 6 insurrection paints a damning timeline of Donald Trump moving from lie to lie in an effort to remain in the Oval Office.
The summary, which preceded the release of the full report that is reportedly over 1,000 pages touched on the former president planting the seeds of claiming a stolen election long before the ballots were counted -- then moving from target to target looking for an accusation that might stick.
According to the HuffPost report, "Trump had spent months demonizing mail voting, which swelled in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The then-president also insisted the only way he would lose the election would be by massive voter fraud. When Trump did declare victory early in the morning the day after Election Day, he exploited a quirk in vote counting in which in-person votes, which leaned GOP, were tallied first, putting him temporarily ahead. He demanded that local election officials stop counting outstanding ballots, which leaned Democratic."
The summary details how Trump latched onto conspiracy theories no matter how farfetched and then clung to them when close advisors and Republican election officials pointed out holes in them.
"He claimed that more than 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia, a state he lost by more than 11,000 votes. But Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, corrected him during a Jan. 2 phone call, saying local election officials had researched the question, cross-referencing obituaries and other data," the report details, while noting that the Georgia official told the former president, "The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong.”
Georgia remained a key focus of the former president who later singled out election workers, with the executive summary noting, "Trump complained about purported misbehavior by election workers in the security camera footage to Raffensperger during the Jan. 2 call," with Raffensperger explaining to him, "I think that’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context.”
After offering to send Trump a link to a local Georgia TV station debunking the story, Trump simply replied, "I don’t need a link."
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