Former Trump election attorney Rudy Giuliani gave a speech blasting Black Lives Matter instead of watching a congressional hearing that exposed his alleged coup plot.
At a hearing of the House Select Jan. Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that former President Donald Trump "had a direct and personal role" in a plot to use fake electors "as did Rudy Giuliani, as did John Eastman."
"In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level," she explained.
At the same time, Giuliani was appearing at a campaign event for his son Andrew, who is running for governor of New York.
Giuliani spoke at length but did not address his role in what witnesses described as an attempted coup.
"Your people are being killed because of political philosophy," the former New York City mayor said, speaking from the steps of Rochester City Hall. "They are being killed because of progressive Democratic policies that reinvented your police and killed your people!"
"Now how's that for Black Lives Matter?" he asked. "Where are they when the consequences of their policies is a record number of homicides in the city of Rochester? Where was Black Lives Matter then?"
Giuliani insisted that Black Lives Matter "caused those deaths" of murder victims in the city.
"They are an exploitative communist organization, where the top person steals all the money," he ranted. "And they are supported by Black Panthers who have a history of killing police and train them to do it. And at every rally, they say, 'Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon.' In other words, kill the police."
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, explained the harassment and intimidation he and his family endured during the fourth public hearing over the Jan. 6 insurrection on Tuesday.
Bowers testified about the pressure he faced from Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to reverse his state's results. He mentioned that he has been targeted by Donald Trump's supporters and QAnon after refusing to go along with the scheme.
Bowers said they called him "a pervert and a corrupt politician and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood and leaving literature both on my property and arguing and threatening with neighbors and with myself." That has become a key accusation by the right, which has begun falsely alleging anyone they don't like is either a pedophile or is somehow "grooming" children.
He went on to recall a man with a gun who was threatening his neighbor. The man had "three bars on his chest," which indicates he was a member of the Three Percenter militia.
Bowers mentioned that at the time his daughter was "gravely ill" and was very upset about what she was seeing her parents handle. It was at that point, as he also mentioned his wife, that Bowers began to tear up.
"And my wife was and is a valiant person, very strong, quiet. Very strong woman," he said with a pause. "So, it was disturbing." He paused again. "It was disturbing."
Bowers is a sculptor by trade, according to an article on him. He's also a beekeeper and orchardist, but most enjoys spending time with his grandchildren.
The Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives gave powerful testimony on Tuesday about efforts by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
State Rep. Rusty Bowers testified before the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"We’ve got lots of theories we just don’t have the evidence," Bowers testified Giuliani told him.
He went on to testify why he refused to overturn the election even though he supported Trump, and was widely praised for his integrity.
"I've rarely agreed with Rusty Bowers but he deserves credit for standing up for democracy," wrote Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who previously served in the state legislature. "MAGA Republicans in Arizona were ready to stage a coup. Today's hearing reveals yet another example of just how far Trump and his cronies were willing to go to overthrow our government."
"Speaker Bowers and I will never agree on most politics but I hope I can raise my son to have the same integrity as he does," he added.
Gallego was not the only one praising Bowers.
"Mr. Bowers' testimony is bombshell-level," wrote attorney Ryan Goodman. "It adds significantly to Trump-Eastman's criminal exposure for Pence scheme and for Trump in Georgia state crimes. Strong evidence of course of conduct to pressure election officials to betray oaths to overturn election."
Trump biographer Tim O'Brien wrote "Rusty Bowers continues to show what differentiated him (and continues to differentiate him from Giuliani and Trump: They asked him to break the law and be a good Republican. He repeatedly told them that observing the law and his oath to the Constitution and his state came first."
"AZ House Speaker Bowers' fidelity, respect and genuine awe he seems to have for our constitutional political system is inspiring. His heartfelt commitment to our democracy is evident and deeply moving," Prof. Lara Brown wrote.
Conservative writer Tom Nichols wrote, "When you're thinking about coalitions to save democracy: Bowers is a man many liberals will disagree with about everything. But he agrees with those of us who value the Constitution above party or partisan interest. This makes him your ally, and, as you're now seeing, a key ally."
"Rusty Bowers is the best of the Republican Party," wrote conservative columnist Max Boot. "Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Andy Biggs, et al., are the worst."
"This intertwining of faith with constitutional allegiance is very moving, and important. It takes the faux religious fervor and Christian phonies Trump surrounds himself with directly to task. Faith and prayer were essential to the actions of those who opposed Trump. They own it," wrote CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem.
"This testimony from Bowers is incredible. A genuine profile in courage and integrity," MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes wrote.
"Appreciating the public service of Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers. He refused to go along with Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn his state’s election results just because they were “all Republicans here.” We should expect no less from all public officials," wrote former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade.
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, recalled the White House calling him to pressure him to overturn the 2020 election for the state.
Testifying on Tuesday before the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 insurrection, Bowers said that he got a phone call from the White House in which the operator told him to "hold for the president." Rudy Giuliani came on the phone instead. Both he and former President Donald Trump began their pressure campaign to get him to lead a charge to change the 2020 election results.
Bowers recalled Giuliani saying that there were over 200,000 undocumented immigrants who voted and over 5,000 dead people. Bowers said he asked for the proof, for the names, and was assured he would get them, but never did.
He also explained that Trump's claim that he said the election was rigged was an outright lie.
"Anywhere, anyone, any time has said that I said the election was rigged, that would not be true," Bowers said.
"And when the former president in his statement today claimed that you told him that he won Arizona, is that also false?" asked Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
"That is also false," agreed Bowers.
Schiff went on to ask about Bowers' request for evidence to Trump and Giuliani's claims.
"He said they did have proof, and asked him do you have names? For example, we have 200,000 illegal immigrants. Some large number. 5,000 or 6,000 dead people, et cetera. I said do you have their names? Yes. Will you give them to me? Yes. The president interrupted and said 'Give the man what he needs, Rudy.' He said, 'I will.' And that happened on at least two occasions, that interchange," recalled Bowers.
"And did he ever receive — did you ever receive from him that evidence either during the call, after the call, or to this day?" asked Schiff. Bowers said he never did. "What was the ask during this call? He was making these allegations of fraud, but he had something or a couple things that they wanted you to do. What were those?"
He noted that at one point Trump told him "just do it and let the courts sort it out." Trump frequently told allies that his three Supreme Court Justices would ultimately hand him the election if it went there.
The Arizona Republican also appeared to tear up at one point talking about his faith and the Constitution of the United States.
GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming on Tuesday linked different parts of Donald Trump's schemes to overturn the election together during her opening remarks at the public hearing of the House Select Committee Investigation the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, introduced a panel featuring Arizona House GOP Speaker Rusty Bowers, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia secretary of state chief operating officer.
"Today we will begin examining President Trump's effort to overturn the election by exerting pressure on state officials and state legislators. Donald Trump had a direct and personal role in this effort as did Rudy Giuliani, as did John Eastman," Cheney said.
She then delivered a statement that seemed directed at Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level. Each of these efforts to overturn the election is independently serious. Each deserves attention both by Congress and by our Department of Justice," she explained. "But as a federal court has already indicated, these efforts were also part of a broader plan, and all of this was done in preparation for Jan. 6."
"I would note two points for particular focus today," she continued. "First, today you will hear about calls made by President Trump to officials of Georgia and other states. As you listen to these tapes, keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew at the time he was making those calls. He had been told over and over again that his stolen election allegations were nonsense."
Lawmakers investigating the January 2021 assault on the US Capitol are due to focus at a hearing Tuesday on the pressure that former president Donald Trump mounted on state officials to overturn the 2020 election.
The presentation launches a third week of summer hearings in which the panel has set out its initial findings that Trump led a multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the insurrection in Washington.
Committee aides say they have evidence that Trump and his allies were personally involved in pushing Republican-controlled legislatures to flip the results in several swing states, away from Joe Biden and into Trump's column.
The hearing begins at 1:00 pm (ET). Watch live video below:
WATCH LIVE: Jan. 6 Committee hearings - Day 4
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The panel will hear from several top Republican state officials who found themselves cajoled by the Trump campaign to thwart the will of millions of voters based on bogus claims of election fraud.
"Donald Trump knew that there was no widespread fraud -- he knew that those claims were baseless, he knew that the numbers simply weren't there to potentially overturn the election -- and he continued to drive these campaigns anyway," a committee aide said.
"He knew they were false and it became increasingly clear that this pressure campaign could lead to violence, and he continued to do it anyway."
- 'Fake electors' -
US presidents are not elected directly by citizens, but chosen by "electors" named to a body called the electoral college.
Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress and there are 538 in total.
The parties in each state pick their own slate of potential electors and, in almost every part of America, the winning side in the statewide tally for president gets all the electoral votes for that state.
The committee says a key plank of the plot to subvert the 2020 election was getting pro-Trump Republicans in swing states won by Biden to submit official-looking but fake certificates claiming they were the legitimate electors.
The committee says it will demonstrate that the former president pressed his vice president Mike Pence to accept these "fake electors" when he was overseeing certification of Biden's victory on January 6, 2021.
Pence ultimately refused to recognize the pro-Trump slates and the president's supporters rioted for hours at the Capitol in unprecedented scenes of brutality that led to at least five deaths.
The committee will hear from Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump infamously pushed to "find" enough votes to overcome Biden's lead in the battleground state in a phone call that is the subject of a state-level criminal probe.
Rusty Bowers, speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, is expected to testify about pressure to reverse his state's results from Trump, Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
- 'Death threats' -
The committee has asked to speak with Ginni Thomas, who indicated to a conservative news outlet that she was looking forward to the opportunity to "clear up misconceptions."
Also appearing in person will be Shaye Moss, a former Georgia election official who processed ballots in 2020.
Trump and Giuliani falsely accused Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman of "rigging" the presidential election count in Georgia with "suitcases" full of ballots for Biden.
Moss and Freeman -- who received death threats after Trump publicly named them -- are suing Giuliani in federal court.
A committee aide said that Moss would detail how "being targeted by the former president has upended her life and that of her mother."
"They were called professional vote scammers, they were subjected to death threats, intimidation, coercion, forced to go into hiding," the aide said.
He added that the panel would show that threats to election workers continue and the danger to democracy posed by "lies about the 2020 election and lies about future elections" is ongoing.
Trump continued to rail against the committee "of political thugs who have criminalized justice to a level never seen before in our country" on his social media platform Tuesday, reprising debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud and spying on his 2016 campaign.
A Virginia group that bills itself as a "nonprofit, nonpartisan" watchdog group has illegally solicited millions while pushing Republican-aligned messaging, according to a complaint filed by a watchdog organization on Thursday.
Americans for Public Trust, which bills itself as an ethics watchdog, is illegally fundraising in Virginia, according to a complaint filed by the Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group, to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the commonwealth's attorney for the city of Alexandria, where APT is based.
"For a group that claims to be a watchdog, you'd think that APT would have its own house in order, but that appears not to be the case," Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director of Campaign for Accountability, said in a statement to Salon. "If Virginia officials confirm that APT has in fact been soliciting dark money in the state illegally, they should—as APT's website puts it—'ensure that those who disregard the rule of law are held responsible.'"
APT denied any wrongdoing in response to the complaint.
"Americans for Public Trust is fully compliant with state charitable laws," Caitlin Sutherland, the group's executive director, said in an email to Salon.
APT, which describes itself as an "independent" organization that is "dedicated to restoring trust in government," focuses largely on targeting Democrats with election ethics complaints.
The group was founded in 2020 by Sutherland, the former research director for the National Republican Congressional Committee who previously worked at the Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund. Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt served as the group's outside counsel and was branded the "Nevada version of Rudy Giuliani" after leading former President Donald Trump's failed efforts to overturn his election loss (he is already threatening to file lawsuits challenging 2022 votes that haven't been cast). Annie Talley, the group's president, was a "trusted aide" to Trump and shepherdedSupreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's nomination as deputy White House counsel.
Along with Federal Election Commission complaints targeting Democrats like Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., and former North Carolina Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, the group has spent a lot of money to sink Democrats. APT joined with right-wing groups Heritage Action for America and the Judicial Crisis Network to launch a failed $2 million-plus campaign aimed at sinking Biden's nominations of Health and Human Resources Secretary Xavier Becerra and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. And it funded a recent ad attacking Biden and his administration that is indistinguishable from Republican-funded ads.
A complaint filed earlier this year by End Citizens United, a group that supports campaign finance reform, called on the IRS to revoke the group's tax-exempt status by violating the agency's ban on political activity with "unsupported and misleading" political attack ads.
The Campaign for Accountability filed a separate complaint on Thursday with the state accusing APT of "ongoing violations" of the state's law on soliciting contributions.
State law requires charitable organizations to file a registration statement with the Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs prior to any solicitation. APT has publicly stated that it solicits contributions in Virginia but the state's Charitable Organization Database "contains no record of Americans for Public Trust ever filing such a registration statement in the more than two years that it has been in operation," Campaign for Accountability said in a complaint to Joseph Guthrie, the commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, that it shared exclusively with Salon.
"Moreover, it appears Americans for Public Trust may have illegally solicited millions of dollars in contributions since it began operations in 2020," the complaint said, raising questions about the group's fundraising practices. The group projected that it would raise about $1.65 million in 2020 and proved "remarkably prescient," the complaint said, when it raised $1.489 million despite being in operation for less than a year. The group received $900,000 of that from a single anonymous contribution through Donor Trust, which has been described as the "dark-money ATM of the conservative movement."
The complaint called on the state to investigate APT for potential violations of the law and seek the "maximum penalties permitted by law."
"Given the length of time that APT has been operating in violation" of the law and the "extremely large amounts of money involved," the group also called for the Attorney for the City of Alexandria to "enjoin APT from continuing to solicit and collect contributions and for any other relief that the court may deem appropriate."
Meanwhile, APT's influence continues to grow thanks to its fundraising prowess. The group in a filing to the IRS projected that it would raise about $2 million in 2022. APT has already spent about $1.8 million on ad buys, according to data from End Citizens United, with more than $482,000 of that going toward promoting a "thinly veiled partisan misinformation operation," The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger reported. But as a 501(C)3 "social welfare charity," the group is "absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."
Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, called APT's political ads the "height of hypocrisy."
"APT exists for one reason and one reason alone: to help the Republican Party win elections. It's the height of hypocrisy for this GOP group to launch false political attacks about corruption and unethical behavior, while inappropriately receiving tax benefits as a charitable nonprofit," she said in a statement. "This organization is run by political operatives and Adam Laxalt, a Republican politician with a history of trouble with the law, so it should come as no surprise that they would try to skirt the rules."
On Monday, WRAL reported that Arizona's Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers slammed former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election as "juvenile" in conversation with reporters.
This comes as Bowers is one of a number of Republican officials scheduled to testify at the next public hearing of the January 6 House Select Committee on Tuesday.
"Bowers spoke to The Associated Press after he arrived in Washington on Monday afternoon. He will be questioned about a phone call he got from Trump and attorney Rudy Giuliani in the weeks after the November 2020 election where Giuliani floated a proposal to replace Arizona's Biden electors by having the state's Legislature instead choose those committed to voting for Trump," reported Bob Christie. "Bowers refused, saying the scheme was illegal and unconstitutional. In an interview last year, he said he told the president he would not break the law to help him gain the presidency."
"Bowers said efforts by Trump's backers have harmed the nation, undercut trust in elections and the right of people to vote their conscience," said the report. "'I just think it is horrendous. It’s terrible,' Bowers said. "The result of throwing the pebble in the pond, the reverberations across the pond, have, I think, been very destructive."
A number of other Republican officials stood up to Trump's push to overturn the results in states Joe Biden won.
One of the most famous examples is that of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump pressured to "find" 11,000 extra votes in the leadup to the Capitol attack. That matter is currently under criminal investigation by a state prosecutor in Georgia.
Former Georgia election worker Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss will join Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his deputy Gabe Sterling in the fourth public hearing by the House Select Committee addressing the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.
Moss' statement was released by the committee Monday evening showing that she intends to address some of the conspiracy theories claiming that she somehow attempted to steal the election by passing something to her mother, who was also working to count votes after the vote.
Trump and Rudy Giuliani both accused her of fraud which resulted in death threats.
"In early December, former President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and other allies started spreading terrible lies about my mother and me," she intends to tell the committee. "They said we snuck ballots into the State Farm Arena in a suitcase. That is a lie. They said we lied about a water main break to kick observers out. That is a lie. They said we counted ballots multiple times to try to steal the election. That is a lie. And they said we passed around flash drives to try to hack voting machines. That's a lie, too— the thing they got so worked up about my mom passing to me was a ginger mint. Her favorite candy."
A committee aide told the press that they will continue to highlight the pressure campaign by Trump and his allies and those who were on the receiving end of Trump's attacks and the threats by his supporters.
"During this hearing, what we'll demonstrate is that President Trump and his allies drove a pressure campaign based on lies and these lies led to threats that put state and local officials and their families at risk, these lies perpetuated the public's belief that the election was stolen, tainted by widespread fraud. And these lies also contributed to the violence on January 6," the committee aide said. "We will show that the President was warned that these actions, including false claims of election fraud, pressuring state and local officials, risked violence did it anyway."
On Monday, the Daily Heraldreported that Scott Kaspar, a Republican congressional candidate in the Chicago suburbs, spent nearly $20,000 in campaign funds chartering a private plane for Donald Trump ally Rudy Giuliani.
According to the report, he also paid out $15,000 to a consulting company owned by Bernard Kerik, another Trump ally and former New York City Police Commissioner, who had given his endorsement to Kaspar. Kerik went to prison for tax fraud and received a pardon from the former president.
"Kaspar ... spent $18,810 to charter a private jet in May for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, [a] high-profile supporter with Trump ties," reported Russell Lissau. "Kaspar said the plane was used to bring Kerik and Giuliani — Trump's former attorney — to the district for a $500-per-person campaign fundraiser and endorsement announcement in Oak Brook. 'Security is a concern for the mayor, and my campaign was happy to provide the mayor with secure travel accommodations in and out of the district,' Kaspar said."
This report comes as Giuliani faces renewed scrutiny for his role in the plot by Trump allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by having former Vice President Mike Pence throw out electoral votes in states won by President Joe Biden.
He has asserted that everything about the plan was "perfectly legal," even though other Trump legal allies like John Eastman — who drafted the memo to outline the plan — privately admitted it wasn't.
"The newly redrawn 6th District includes much of the West and Southwest suburbs in Cook and DuPage counties," noted the report. "The Democratic candidates are incumbent U.S. Rep. Sean Casten of Downers Grove; U.S. Rep. Marie Newman, who now represents the 3rd District but opted to run in the 6th after new boundaries were drawn; and Chicagoan Charles Hughes."
The fourth Jan. 6 hearing on Tuesday will focus on pressure put by President Donald Trump and his allies on state officials in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The U.S. House hearing will include live testimony from Republican officials in those states, committee aides said Monday. It begins at 1 p.m. ET and will be streamed through the committee website.
The pressure on state-level officials was part of a broader scheme Trump pursued to overturn his election loss, which eventually led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the committee argues.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling will appear before the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6th, 2021, Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a call that was recorded and made public, Trump called Raffensperger following the November election and pressured him to “find” enough ballots to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers will also testify before the panel about how Trump pushed state officials to overturn Biden’s victory in that state. He will discuss pressure he received directly from Trump, Rudy Giuliani and others in the former president’s orbit, committee aides said.
Raffensperger and Bowers both hold elected office as Republicans.
Fake electors
The committee will also take a detailed look at the “unprecedented” scheme to replace legitimate electors with slates of electors who would cast Electoral College votes for Trump, overturning the election results in their states, aides said.
The committee will present text messages from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that show the former North Carolina congressman was directly involved in campaigns to get Republican state officials to reject election results.
Former Georgia election worker Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss will also testify. Trump accused Moss by name of election fraud, leading to threats of violence, aides said.
In addition to the live witnesses, the panel will present recorded testimony from officials in other states who were pressed by the Trump campaign and White House to overturn legitimate election results, aides said Monday.
Other states Trump and his allies targeted in the fake electors scheme include Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Witnesses appearing via taped testimony would also include Trump White House and campaign officials, aides said.
Debunked claims
Trump’s complaints about the election’s integrity are not based in fact and have been widely debunked. Trump knew the claims were not true — and that they could lead to violence — but continued to push them anyway, the committee will show, aides said.
Raffensperger will testify that his office investigated claims of election fraud and could not substantiate any, committee aides said.
Sterling will talk about the increasing threats of violence because of Trump’s continued untrue fraud claims, aides said.
The panel will also show Trump was warned that his actions could incite further violence, but continued to push false fraud claims anyway, aides said.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who also chairs the Select Intelligence Committee, will lead the presentation of the state-official pressure scheme, aides said.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the plot to overthrow the 2020 election is set to meet again on Tuesday for a public hearing at 1 p.m. EST.
Speaking about the issues the committee will deal with, CNN legal expert Elie Honig noted that thus far, Americans have seen the way in which former President Donald Trump pressured Mike Pence and "weaponized the Justice Department." On Tuesday, Honig noted that the committee will show, among other things, how Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to magically "find" 11,780 votes so he could win the 2020 election.
"I think what we will see on Tuesday, the most audacious of all those efforts to get state officials to hand him their electoral votes," said Honig. "The Constitution tells us state legislatures do have the right to decide how they'll award their electoral votes, but the problem is they decided that many, many years ago, whoever wins the popular vote in the state gets all the electoral votes and Donald Trump quite aggressively thinks he can pick up the phone, call state officials and get them to flip that and hand him the electoral votes. And to the credit of those state-level officials, many Republicans, they said, no, that would violate the Constitution, violate our oaths. It would violate the law. Ultimately, this scheme really backfired and self-destructed in remarkable fashion."
Host Pamela Brown cited an ABC/Ipsos poll showing that 58 percent of Americans support charges against Trump after seeing just two hearings from the committee. That doesn't necessarily mean that prosecutors will form a decision based on that.
"DOJ and prosecutors are supposed to be separate from politics and from whatever the public thinks, but I do think the poll is interesting," Honig said. "I think it reflects the fact the committee has made a powerful evidentiary showing. The committee has given us new facts and re-established things we knew. Donald Trump tried to steal this election and most importantly, they've shown us inside Donald Trump's mind what prosecutors called intent. I think they've made a really powerful argument that he knew he had lost the election, that he knew there was no evidence of widespread election fraud, that he knew his legal schemes were completely unconstitutional and invalid. I think the committee has shown us a really strong foundation that prosecutors ought to be working off of."
Trump's defense has been that he believed legal experts who told him that the election was fraudulent. While many of his legal experts had advised him that the election couldn't be changed, even John Eastman confessed on Jan. 4, 2021, that the attempt to stop the certification on Jan. 6 wouldn't work. Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell were among the few maintaining that Trump could change the results.
"I think you've hit on what Donald Trump's defense will be. 'I'm entitled to believe who I want to believe,'" suggested Honig. "The comeback from prosecutors here is going to be something called willful blindness. As a prosecutor, you can prove intent in two ways: the person actually knew the truth, or the person was what we call willfully blind. Judges describe it as like an ostrich burying his head in the sand. I think the argument would be Donald Trump knew the truth. He understood what the real truth was, but he chose to shut out those people, the people Bill Stepien called 'Team Normal', and only listened to those who would tell him what he wanted to hear. There is an out route to get around the difficult question of how do you prove what someone knew. It's enough to say, okay, but he shut out certain input and only heard what he wanted to hear."
On June 16, 2022, the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol used its two-hour hearing to paint a picture of a relentless campaign by former President Donald Trump and his allies to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence into throwing the election to Trump.
The committee’s palette included video excerpts from witness interviews, live testimony from associates of both Pence and Trump, and clips showing crucial notes or excerpts from emails. The hearings, of which this was the third, run for approximately two-hour chunks of time. That’s a long time in today’s era of quick scrolling, one-minute TikToks and 240-character hot-take tweets.
But what the Jan. 6 committee hearings have shown so far is not the antithesis of social media. On the contrary, these hearings appear to be made for social media, given the elements of the presentation. The quick video cutaways, pithy sound bites and short interview clips, such as former Attorney General William Barr saying “bullshit” on repeat, are all easily broken off from the larger hearings to be repackaged as social media content.
So was the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In the days following the Jan. 6 attack, many pundits seemed baffled that the insurrectionists had stormed the Capitol with phones in hand, taking videos and selfies. This seemed self-incriminating, and it turned out to be. Yet scholars of the far-right have long discussed how social media has been essential to that community.
Those who stormed the Capitol had a history of using platforms like Reddit, Twitter and YouTube and internet messaging types like memes to spread their views. Storming the Capitol included a simultaneous internet component because the internet was part of the plan from the beginning. It was no surprise that the insurrectionists documented their actions.
It makes sense that the Jan. 6 committee hearings are equally tuned for social media. The goal of the Jan. 6 committee hearings is to impart information and tell the whole story of what really happened that day, and ideally, to reach as many in the American electorate as possible. Doing so also means understanding today’s media landscape, where clips shared on social media are just as important as the primary broadcast.
Being on social media doesn’t always guarantee that your message will go viral, however.
Attention by the numbers
With the frequent use of video interviews from the highest-ranking people in Trump’s circle, including Barr, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Jan. 6 committee has turned Trump surrogates’ words into clips that can be easily separated from the broader hearings and shared online.
For instance, a Democratic SuperPAC has posted a TikTok video of a clip from a committee interview with Jason Miller, a member of President Trump’s inner circle, with the word “admission” stamped across it. Similar TikToks boast in all caps SHOCKING REVELATION FROM J6 HEARING over a clip of Republican Congresswoman and Select Committee Co-Chair Liz Cheney discussing Trump.
Social media may be playing a role in how the Jan. 6 committee structures its hearings, but the creation of content doesn’t always translate into consumption. Younger generations don’t seem to be flocking to social media platforms to catch up on the hearings. At the time of writing, videos on TikTok with the hashtags #january6hearing, #january6thhearing and #j6hearings had less than a million views combined, and the hashtag #january6thcommission has 15.5 million views.
Even the hashtag #january6, which includes videos of all aspects of the insurrection dating back to when the attack happened, has just 90.3 million views.
The Jan. 6 committee’s use of short video clips has provided fodder for social media.
Compare this to how the recent defamation trial between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard played out on TikTok, where the hashtag for those supporting Depp had over 18 billion views. Though TikTok counts a view as the video merely starting, not finishing, this is still a staggering number.
Breaking through the noise
The internet has been described as an attention economy in which there is more possible content than any one person could ever consume. The supply massively outpaces the demand.
So what do people, and politicians, do to break through the barrage of content online? Politicians have always chased soundbites, but on social media, grabbing attention is a practice and a mindset. People tend to perform in certain ways to produce content that is likely to stand out online. The Jan. 6 committee is no exception.
While viral moments can stand out from big, televised events like the Olympics, fewer and fewer people are tuning in to these in real time.
Crafting the Jan. 6 committee hearings to stand out on social media may not be having the committee’s desired effect. There could be numerous explanations for the lack of viral moments from the Jan. 6 committee hearings, from so-called Trump Fatigue Syndrome to being so inundated by large media events – war, mass shootings, Supreme Court rulings – that it becomes harder and harder to stand out.
But that’s not today’s media landscape. And as hyperpartisanship abounds, with Fox News refusing to air the hearings in prime time, trying to make noise on other media becomes crucial as a strategy to get a message out there.
While there is an argument that the hearings shouldn’t be about chasing internet fame, getting through to the public is important. And bits of information from the Jan. 6 committee are better than nothing.
