Natalie Adona, Clerk-Recorder Elect in Nevada County, California: How a Post-Peaceful Election Day Event Was Done
This is one of the highlights of the CNN Opinion series “America’s Future Starts Now” in which experts and people discuss how they have been affected by the biggest issues facing the nation. The views expressed in these commentaries are the authors’ own. CNN has more opinion.
Since that fateful November, we have taken measures to increase security and ensure the safety of our election workers. But the risk of political violence remains – and with it my firm commitment to fight for our democracy.
Election Day in Nevada County, California, was calm and quiet, where I work in the voting process. Most voters in this county cast their votes in the mail. In-person voters cast their ballots in an orderly and respectful fashion.
But they did not stop there. The number of public records requests that election deniers have sent has been unprecedented, and many of my colleagues think they are intended to sabotage our operations. For example, our county has received multiple requests for the same documents – many of which look to be copied and pasted from the same template. In a small office like mine, these requests divert significant amounts of my time and resources that could be otherwise spent on planning the next election.
I left a government career in order to join the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, a cross-partisan organization made up of current and former election officials and law enforcement officers.
Stakeholders from both sides of the aisle must put country before party to keep our elections free and fair. If you think that’s impossible, just let an election official show you how it’s done.
Natalie Adona is the clerk-recorder elect, a non-partisan office, in Nevada County, California. She is a member of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials. Adona is also an advisory board member for the Election Official Legal Defense Network, an editorial board member for the Journal of Election Administration Research and Practice, a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Task Force and a participant in the Issue A campaign about faces of democracy.
Why I’m Not Here: A Philadelphian voter’s horror videotaped as a protest against Donald Trump during a political campaign
Donald Trump winning election night is the final scenario called “contested election results”. In this example, Trump would then declare victory – despite the hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots that remained to be counted.
By week’s end, Biden would take the lead and demonstrations in and around Philadelphia would become violent. The exercise said that there is no end in sight as weeks of civil unrest, legal action and intense scrutiny loom.
During this somewhat prophetic scenario, I watched the top officials in the room express serious concern. It felt plausible as extreme as this scenario sounded.
I went to the convention center to get some air a few days after the election because the votes were still being counted. I was followed outside, verbally attacked and videotaped by a member of Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign. After the video of me was posted on the dark corners of the internet, I received a barrage of attacks, some mocking my appearance and weight – an experience all too familiar to women in politics — and some even threatening my life.
One of the threats turned out to be credible, and I had two plain-clothes Philadelphia police officers assigned to follow me wherever I went – including the bathroom. I did not want to have to explain who my escorts were to my hairdresser, so I avoided getting my hair done.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/opinions/us-election-workers-voting-threats-roundup/index.html
The Philadelphia City Commissioners: Election Workers Voting Truth Roundup – Lisa Deeley and the 2016 November Presidential Election: What Have We Learned About Our State?
Election Day is a significant part of my life. The local committee person in my neighborhood was my mother. Since she was a single mom, wherever she went, I followed – including the polls on Election Day. Back then, our polling place was a barber shop, where I would spend hours spinning on a leather barber’s chair taking it all in.
My mother has a barber shop like mine. We need to invest in our teachers and schools so that they can instill in their students the importance of democratic ideals.
Lisa Deeley, a Democrat, is the chairwoman of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, a three-member bipartisan board of elected officials in charge of elections and voter registration for the city of Philadelphia.
Much of it dates back to 2016, when a hand recount of the election results in Michigan was requested (then halted), and the Russian attempt to interfere in our politics and social media – ripe with disinformation and misinformation about the presidential election – began to play a larger role in electoral politics.
Not surprisingly, it led some to doubt our very election process. Four years later, doubts in the process had grown into a noxious weed that was eating away at the profession.
The November 2020 election only reinforced my worst fears. I oversaw the administration of the most challenging election of my career and everyone was focused on Michigan. The mistake was quickly caught by my team and we corrected it the morning after the election.
However, several days later, a leading national figure held a press conference in Michigan and misrepresented what had happened, falsely claiming that 2,000 votes for one presidential candidate had gone to another – thus pushing my colleagues and I into the national spotlight.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/opinions/us-election-workers-voting-threats-roundup/index.html
Lost Not Stolen: How Donald Trump and his supporters allegedly failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results enough to invalidate the 2020 Presidential election
Election officials and law enforcement can use the five-step process that the committee has developed to prepare for elections. Election officials and law enforcement need to meet and share their situational knowledge, agree on a vision for establishing order and safety around election spaces, plan for a variety of possible disturbance scenarios, and practice their responses ahead of each election.
It is my hope that more election officials follow our guidelines, so that public servants can once again do their jobs without fearing for their lives.
Tina Barton is the Republican candidate for Oakland county clerk. She currently serves as a senior election expert with The Elections Group.
The Select Committee will be in charge to investigate the United States Capitol attack. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. The committee’s approval to release the deposition material was announced by the chair.
Good afternoon and may the United States of America prosper. The committee presented their findings to you, the American people four months ago. Some people watching the proceedings would think the investigation was a partisan exercise, from the beginning.
We will make more specific recommendations in our final report based on the evidence you will hear today. Our hearings last summer began with an outline of President Trump’s multipart plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. We then proceeded to demonstrate each of these elements in detail, with more than 20 hours of evidence.
A group of Republicans, including a group of intellectuals lawyers and former judges, have issued a report about what happened in the courts. In their report entitled, Lost Not Stolen, these prominent Republicans analyzed each election challenge and concluded this. Donald Trump and his supporters failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
What Donald Trump proceeded to do after the 2020 election is something no president has done before in our country. In a betrayal of his oath, Donald Trump tried to plan an attack on a pillar of our democracy. The facts are clear, consistent, and undisputed and is hard to believe.
How do we know this? How were we able to show a clear picture of what happened? Because of the testimony we’ve heard and that we have presented to you through these proceedings, because of the documentary evidence we’ve gathered and also made available directly to you, the American people.
But ultimately, the vast majority cooperated with our investigation, and what we’ve shown you over the last four months has been centered on the evidence, evidence that has come overwhelmingly from Republican witnesses. I said in June that the investigation was not about politics. It’s not about party.
Who has that been? Republican state officials and legislators, Republican electors, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, political Professionals who worked at the highest levels of the Trump campaign are just some of the people who have worked loyally for Donald Trump.
Summary of the Commission Committee’s Work on the Investigation of the 2017 January 6th Associated with the Crimes in the U.S.
The committee is scrutinizing additional information from the Secret Service and other sources as evidence that the testimony is not credible. The results of the online activity was being shared and received by the Secret Service. They’d worked closely with other agencies, sharing intelligence about the joint session of Congress derived from social media and other sources.
It’s about the facts, plain and simple. Ensuring our government functions under the rule of law is what it’s about. We will present new evidence today as in previous proceedings. The footage from January 6th that showed Congressional leaders coordinating the response to violence and ensuring the people’s business went forward, was never seen before by the committee.
Today’s proceeding will also be grounded in the facts, but it won’t look exactly like all our other hearings. We’ll also take a step back and look at the evidence in a broader context, providing a summary of key facts we’ve uncovered, facts relevant to former President Trump’s state of mind, about his motivation, and about his intent.
There’s one more difference about today. Pursuant to the notice circulated prior to today’s proceedings, we are convened today not as a hearing but as a formal committee business meeting so that, in addition to presenting evidence, we can potentially hold a committee vote on further investigative action based upon that evidence.
The committee will be conducting further depositions and recalling witnesses based on the additional Secret Service communications from January 5th and January 6th. We’ll give more detail in our final report after that activity.
And according to public reporting, the Department of Justice has been very active in pursuing many of the issues identified in our prior hearings. Our role is not to make decisions regarding prosecution, but we may eventually decide to make a series of referrals to the Department of Justice.
The preamble to the Constitution is supposed to establish justice. The US Department of Justice and the nation’s judiciary are responsible for that. A key element of this committee’s responsibility is to propose reforms to prevent January 6th from ever happening again. The House passed a bill to amend the electoral count act to prevent future attempts to overturn an election.
Today we will see new evidence but, as the chairman said, we will also synthesize evidence you’ve seen before. The evidence is overwhelming and shows that Donald Trump was the cause of January 6th. None of this would have happened without him.
In this video, you can see that even when the top law enforcement officials told him his claims were not true, he continued to repeat them throughout the weeks and months that followed. We start the videotape.
Many of those who stepped forward to help, including Rudy Giuliani, knew they never had real evidence sufficient to change the election results. They admitted they were still trying to locate that phantom evidence on January 5th. Of course, as a result of making intentionally false claims of election fraud, Mr. Giuliani’s license to practice law has now been suspended.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Law is Not Inviolable: President Donald Trump and the House of Representatives Live in the Shadow of a Critic Attack on the Senate January 6th
President Trump may not have gone to the Capitol on January 6th, but what he did from the White House cannot be justified. While Congressional leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, worked with Vice President Pence to try and address the violence, President Trump refused urgent pleas for help from nearly everyone around him.
White House staff, State Republican officials and the Department of Justice worked together to defeat President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
All of these people had a hand in stopping Donald Trump. This leads us to a key question. Why would Americans assume that our Constitution and our institutions and our republic are invulnerable to another attack? Why would we think those institutions wouldn’t let us down again? A key lesson of this investigation is this.
Good faith will make our institutions hold regardless of the political cost. These men and women will not be in place next time. The people who were going to stand in the way of Donald Trump doing what he did in 2020 have been learned.
The President must follow the law and respect our courts if he is to stay in office. President Trump’s closest advisers held that view both then and now. [Begin videotape]
There is no excuse for Donald Trump’s actions. No president can defy the rule of law in a republic. Mr. Chairman, our nation’s federal judges are sworn to do impartial justice to preserve our Constitution and preserve our union. Dozens of these judges have been addressing January 6th cases, and many have given us plain, unmistakable warnings about the direction of our republic.
Those who planned to overturn the election and then bring us to a point of violence must be held accountable. We chip away at the foundation of our republic because of every excuse we can give about the conduct of the former president. Defendingdefensible conduct is not easy. Inexcusable conduct is excused. Without accountability, it all becomes normal and it will recur.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The First Two Years of the First Preliminary Election: The Case for Mail in Ballots: President Donald J. Stepien and Kevin McCarthy
So, as we watch the evidence today, please consider where our nation is in its history. Can we survive for another 246 years? Most people in most places on Earth have not been free. America is not an exception and only because we bind ourselves to our forefathers’ principles.
We recognize that some principles must be beyond politics, inviolate, and more important than any single American who has ever lived. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I let go of it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We begin this meeting very quickly after the election, returning to election night, November 3rd, 2020. We’ve presented testimony before about how the election results were expected. In certain states, ballots cast by mail before Election Day would be counted only after the polls closed that evening.
That meant that the results of the election wouldn’t be known for a while. President Trump did not encourage mail in voting despite advice from his campaign managers, Bill Stepien and Kevin McCarthy. Begin the videotape.
I just remember generally, you know, you had people arguing that we had a — a very, very robust get out the vote effort and that, you know, mail in ballots could be a good thing for us if we looked at it correctly.
I invited Kevin McCarthy to join the meeting, he being of like mind on — on the issue with me, in which we made our case for — for why we believed mail in balloting, mail in voting not to be a bad thing for his campaign, but, you know, the President’s mind was made up. [End videotape]
It was expected before the election that the initial count of votes in some states would be more Republican than the actual count on election day, creating a false perception of a lead for President Trump. But as the results of the absentee ballots that were later counted, there could be trends towards Vice President Biden as those mail in ballots were counted.
Donald Trump was told on election night that he should wait for the last votes to be counted and that he didn’t have a factual basis to declare victory. The campaign manager is Bill Stepien. [Begin videotape]
It was far too early to be making any calls like that. Ballots were still being counted. The votes were still going to be counted. And it was far too early to be making any proclamation like that. I was told to say votes were still being counted. It’s too early to tell, too early to call the race.
This is a fraud on the American public. Our country has been embarrassed by this. We were getting ready to win this election. We won this election. It is possible to use this applause. We want all voting to stop. The end of the videotape.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
What does Vice President Pence want to do in the next four years? Reversing the election on January 6th – Early response of Vice President Fitton
President Trump’s pressure campaign targeted Vice President Pence in the days leading up to January 6th. The day before the joint session, on January 5th, Secret Service was aware of increased chatter focused on Vice President Pence, in particular whether he would do what President Trump wanted him to do, reverse the results of the election in the joint session the next day, January 6th. On the morning of the 6th, agents received alerts of online threats that Vice — Vice President Pence would be “a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing.” Another agent reported, “I saw several other alerts saying they will storm the Capitol if he doesn’t do the right thing.” The posts reflected the anger of the people who were angry at President Trump on January 6th.
There was a chance that the White House would make a declaration of victory before the election results are known. And that he was trying to figure out a way of avoiding the Vice President sort of being thrust into a position of needing to opine on that when he might not have sufficient information to do so. Continue videotape.
The Select Committee got this pre-prepared statement from the National Archives. The draft statement, which was sent on October 31st, stated that “we had an election today and I won.” The Fitton memo indicates that a plan which only takes into account the votes counted on Election Day would matter.
Everyone knew that ballot counting would lawfully continue past Election Day, claiming that the counting on election night must stop before millions of votes were counted was as we now know a key part of President Trump’s pre-meditated plan. On Election Day, after 5PM, Mr. Fitton said he’d spoken with the President about the statement.
In the weeks before the election, Steve Bannon, who was an adviser to President Trump and once served as White House chief strategist, spoke to a group of associates from China. Begin the videotape.
He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday, it’s going to be a big deal. Also — also if Trump is — if Trump is losing by 10:00 or 11:00 at night, it’s going to be even crazier, you know, because he’s gonna sit right there and say they stole it.
The Attorney General has been instructed to close ballot places in all 50 states. It’s going to be no he’s not going out easy. If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy shit. [End videotape]
We had an investigation and Mr. Bannon refused to testify. He’s been convicted of criminal contempt of Congress and he’s awaiting sentencing. But the evidence indicates that Mr. Bannon had advance knowledge of Mr. Trump’s intent to declare victory falsely on election night, but also that Mr. Bannon knew about Mr. Trump’s planning for January 6th. On January 5, the leader of the Republican Party, Steve Bannon, said something. Begin videotape.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
It’s going to be up in the air, right? Trump is going to break loose and I’ll be out in the next few months
Tomorrow allhell is going to break loose. It’s all converging and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack, right, the point of attack tomorrow. I can assure you that it’s not going to happen like you think it will. Ok. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. The only thing I can say is strap in. Tomorrow, it’s game day and you have made this happen.
Donald Trump’s associate knew of his intentions. Stone is a political consultant who has a reputation for dirty tricks. In November 2019, he was convicted of lying to Congress and other crimes and sentenced to more than three years in prison. He’s also a longtime adviser to President Trump and was in communication with President Trump throughout 2020. December 23rd was the day Mr. Trump pardoned Roger Stone. And recently the Select Committee got footage of Mr. Stone before and after the election from Danish filmmaker, Christopher Gilbranson [ph], pursuant to a subpoena.
I suspect it’ll be — I really do suspect it will still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is 9/10 of the law.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
Roger Stone, the Proud Boys and the House of Representatives, on December 27th, 2018, During a White House Conference, he Interacted with Donald Trump
Although we don’t yet have all the relevant records of Roger Stone’s communications, even Stone’s own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Donald Trump on December 27th as preparations for January 6th were underway. In this post, you can see how Roger Stone talked about his conversations with President Trump.
He wrote, “I also told the President exactly how he can appoint a special counsel with full subpoena power to ensure those who are attempting to steal the 2020 election through voter fraud are charged and convicted and to ensure Donald Trump continues as our President.” We know that the idea of a special counsel wasn’t just an idea.
In addition to his connection to President Trump, Roger Stone maintained extensive direct connections to two groups responsible for violently attacking the Capitol, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Individuals from both of these organizations have been charged with the crime of seditious conspiracy. Seditious conspiracy is what it is.
This is Roger Stone with Oath Keepers at the Willard Hotel on the morning of January 6th, and here is Mr. Stone testifying before our committee. [Begin videotape]
The video evidence shows that Roger Stone’s connection with the Proud Boys was well documented in phone records the Select Committee obtained. Tarrio is one of several Proud Boys charged with a number of crimes related to the January 6th attack. Tarrio sent a message to other Proud Boys that they did it.
It was premeditated. It wasn’t based on the results of the election or on any evidence of fraud or problems with voting machines. It was a plan to get his supporters to believe he won. And the people who seemingly knew about that plan in advance would ultimately play a significant role in the events of January 6. I return to Mr. Chairman.
The — I know that the President when the networks called it, of course, he was informed about the — the network decision. That afternoon at some point, myself And a handful of other folks went over and sat down with the President and communicated that the odds of us prevailing in legal challenges were very small.
There is a discussion going on in the Oval. The President says that it could have been Pompeo, but he says words to the effect that we lost. We — we need to let that issue go to the next guy, meaning President Biden.
I remember maybe a week after the election was called, I popped into the Oval just to like give the President the headlines and see how he was doing. And he was looking at the TV and he said, can you believe I lost to this effing guy?
And the President said I think — so he had said something to the effect of, I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. It is necessary that we figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost. [End videotape]
Knowing that he had lost and that he had only weeks left in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business. There is an example of President Trump ordering for large-scale US troop withdrawals. He disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda terrorists.
Knowing he was leaving office, he acted immediately and signed this order on November 11th, which would have required the immediate withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan, all to be complete before the Biden inauguration on January 20th. As you watch these clips, recall that General Keith Kellogg was the national security adviser to the vice president and had served as chief of staff to the National Security Council for President Trump.
The President is said to have signed a memo in November 2020 ordering that troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
I think you’ve seen something like that where there is a memo from Johnny McEntee to Douglas Macgregor. It says, here’s your task, to get US forces out of out of Somalia, get US forces out of Afghanistan. When you first interviewed and met Colonel Douglas Macgregor, is it fair to say you discussed this decision of withdrawing from Somalia and Afghanistan, correct?
He responded to you on the same day and said DOD leadership would not take any of the steps without an order.
I explained in language that should be in the order that I was meeting with McEntee and this was my answer. I said, If you want this to happen or the President wants this to happen, he’s got to write an order.
Well, I sketched on a piece of paper for him some key statements. The President makes the decisions. What is the right word for this?
McEntee duly takes it up, brings it in to the President. The President signs it and boom, it’s over — faxed over e-mail, scanned over. It’s delivered to me by someone.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
Comments on ‘What happened in Afghanistan’ by Macgregor, and the PPO, in the wake of the 2001 January 6 meeting of the Small Business Improvement Commission
I told Macgregor that I would do something physical if I saw something like that, and then I told the PPO. Because I thought what that was then was a tremendous disservice to the nation. And by the way that was a very contentious issue. There were people who did not agree with getting out of Afghanistan.
I’m very appreciative of their concerns. An immediate departure that that memo said would have been a catastrophic. It’s the same thing what President Biden went through. It would have been a debacle. End of videotape.
The order was for an immediate withdrawal. It would have been catastrophic. And yet, President Trump signed the order. The President knows that his term will soon end, so he is taking these consequential actions. At the same time that Trump acknowledged that he had lost the election, he was learning that there was no proof that the outcome had been changed.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Trial of Donald J. Meadows in the High-Energy Cases: No Evidence of Election Fraud, Maladministration, or Irregularities
I remember a call with Mr. Meadows, where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything. And I remember sharing with him that we weren’t finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states.
It would be our job to track it down and come up dry because the allegation didn’t prove to be true. We’d have to relay the news. that, yeah, that that — that tip that your — someone told you about those — those votes or that fraud or, you know, nothing came of it. That will be our job as — as, you know, the truth-telling squad and, you know, not a fun job to be — you know, it’s — it’s an easier job to be telling the President about, you know, wild allegations.
What was generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud, maladministration, abuse or irregularities if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative. And I think everyone’s assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff, Marc Short, myself, and Greg Jacob, was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinant. End videotape.
There wasn’t enough Evidence of Fraud orIrregularities to support the claims. They were baseless because the judges repeatedly recognized them. In none of these 62 cases was President Trump able to establish any viable claims of election fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the election. We shared with you the words judges used to reject the Trump campaign’s claims.
It’s strong language criticizing the lack of evidentiary support for the claims of election fraud in those lawsuits. The charges require specific allegations and proof, according to the federal appeals court in Pennsylvania. We don’t have either here. A federal judge in Wisconsin wrote, quote, the court has allowed the former president the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits.
The judge in Michigan said the claims were speculation and that the votes for President Trump may have been destroyed or changed to vote for Vice President Biden. Sidney Powell, and eight other attorneys, were censured by a judge in Michigan for making allegations in a case that was described as an abuse of the judicial process.
Trump’s allies lost a lawsuit in the Supreme Court on December 11th, which was seen as their last chance at success in the courts. A newly obtained Secret Service message from that day shows how angry President Trump was about the outcome. Quote, just FYI, POTUS is pissed. Breaking news, Supreme Court denied his lawsuit.
He is livid now. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows, was present for that conversation and described it in this way. Begin the videotape
This is the day that the Supreme Court had rejected that case. Mr. Meadows and I were in the White House residence at a Christmas reception. And as we were walking back from the Christmas reception that evening, the President was walking out of the Oval Office and we crossed paths in the Rose Garden colonnade.
The President was fired up about the Supreme Court decision. I had stepped back when I was standing next to him. So I was probably two or three feet catty-cornered, diagonal from him. The President just raging about the decision and how it’s wrong, and why didn’t we make more calls, and just this typical anger outburst at this decision.
December 14th was the day that the states certified their votes and sent them to Congress. And in my view, that was the end of the matter. I didn’t see — you know, I — I thought that this would lead inexorably to a new administration.
I said to him that the Electoral College, which was supposed to determine who will be president and vice president of the country, had met, which meant he wouldn’t be able to pursue litigation.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Dominion Voting Machines: A Turn-Point in the December 13th of the Second Session of the House of Representatives to the United States
Gene Scalia, the secretary of labor, visited President Trump in December and explained the situation to him. Start the videotape.
I phoned the president and I put a call in. I might have done that on the 13th. We spoke, I believe, on the 14th, in which I conveyed to him that I thought that it was time for him to acknowledge that President Biden had prevailed in the election. I told the president that when the legal process is over and the electors have voted, that’s the point at which the outcome needs to be expected.
I told him that I did believe, yes, that once the — those legal processes were run, if fraud had not been established that had affected the outcome of the election, then unfortunately I believed that what had to be done was concede the outcome. [End videotape]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It was a turning point during the month of December. President Trump made a decision, a choice, to ignore the courts and his advisers and to push forward to overturn the election. His efforts to overturn the election were not random or disconnected, rather, they were part of a coordinated multipart plan to ensure that he stayed in power.
I specifically raised the Dominion voting machines, which I found to be among the most disturbing allegations, disturbing in the sense that I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations. I told them that it was crazy and that they were wasting their time and it was doing a grave disservice to the country.
There is a company that is very suspect. Its name is Dominion. If you press a button with the change of a chip, the vote goes to Biden. What type of system is this?
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
On the big vote dump, in Detroit: Where are we today? What are we going to tell you about the case of Antrim County?
We definitely talked about Antrim County again. That was sort of done at that point because the hand recount had been done and all that. But we cited back to that to say, you know, this is an example of what people are telling you and what’s being filed in some of these court filings that are just not supported by the evidence.
There is a lot of concern over the voting systems of the state of Virginia. The same voting systems are used in the majority of States in our country, and in one county in Michigan 6,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden.
I went into this and would, you know, tell him how crazy some of these allegations were and how ridiculous some of them were. And I’m talking about some of the ones like, you know, more votes — more absentee votes were cast in Pennsylvania than there were absentee ballots request — you know, stuff like that was just easy to blow up. There wasn’t even an indication of interest in what the facts were.
There were more votes for the person than for the other person. Think of that. You had more votes than you had voters. That’s an easy one to figure, and it’s by the thousands.
Then he raised the — the big vote dump, as he called it, in Detroit. He said people had seen boxes coming in at all hours of the morning. And I said, Mr. President, there are 630 precincts in Detroit. They centralized the counting process so they don’t count in each precinct.
We viewed the tape with regard to Georgia. We interviewed the witnesses. There is not a suitcase. The president kept fixating on this suitcase that supposedly had fraudulent ballots and that the suitcase was rolled out from under the table. And I said, no, sir, there is no suitcase. You can watch it again and again.
There is no suitcase. They move the ballots around in a wheeled bin because there is a wheeled bin where they carry them. There’s no reason to suspect that.
Election officials pulled boxes, Democrats, and suitcases of ballots out from under a table. You all watched it on television. End videotape
The committee’s report will document the lies made in public and how they were not true, as well as the Justice Department’s investigations of Donald Trump’s campaign. Donald Trump maliciously repeated this nonsense to a wide audience over and over again.
His aim was to use it as a ruse. President Trump’s plan also involved trying to coerce government officials to change the election outcome in the states he lost. He personally reached out to numerous state officials and pressured them to take unlawful steps to alter the election results in those states. These actions, taken directly by the president himself, made it clear what his intentions were; to prevent the orderly transfer of power.
Secretary Raffensperger told the president the truth, that he lost the election in Georgia, but President Trump did not accept that answer. He suggested that Secretary Raffensperger could be prosecuted. [Begin videotape]
So, look, now all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. We need only 11,000 votes. We have far more than that as it stands now. We’ll have more. What are we going to do here? If I only need 11,000 votes.
I just want to find 11,780 votes. That’s an extraordinary demand by the president, especially since he already knew from the Justice Department there was no genuine basis for this request. No one could think it would be legal for the secretary of state to simply find the votes the president needed in order to win.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The crime: Hearing a man’s body and murdering his father’s mother in a criminal court system. He’s still fighting
That’s the thing. You know, that’s a criminal — that’s a criminal offense. You cannot let that happen. That’s — that’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That is a huge risk. End videotape
I remember looking at Mark. I told Mark that we can’t possibly pull this off. I think that call was crazy. And he looks at me and just started shaking his head. He was like, no, Cass, you know, he knows it’s over. He knows he lost, but we’re going to keep trying. There are still some good options out there.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
An Attorney General’s Report on the U.S. Investigation of a Coercive Pressure Campaign by the Vice President Mike Pence
Donald Trump and Jeff Clark were involved in an effort to corrupt the Department of Justice. The president wanted Jeff Clark to be the acting attorney general. He did so in the call log we obtained from the National Archives. And here is Mr. Clark testifying before our committee. Begin the video.
President Trump appointed Richard and Jeff Donoghue to the court and they forcefully rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal. Begin the videotape.
And I recall toward the end saying what you’re proposing is nothing less than the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election. But more importantly, this was not based on fact. This was actually contrary to the facts as developed by department investigations over the last several weeks and months.
The President ultimately relented only because the entire leadership of the Department of Justice as well as his White House counsel threatened to resign. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
I don’t remember the exact day when I received the call from the White House switchboard, but I do remember that it was President Trump who contacted me.
He called Mr. Eastman and talked about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case the legal challenges that were ongoing changed the result of any of the states. End video.
The fake electors’ plan was also tied to another plan, the coercive pressure campaign to make Vice President Mike Pence reject or refuse to count certain Biden electoral votes, so that President Donald Trump would, quote, win reelection instead. Vice President Pence talked about this scheme.
President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election, but President Trump is wrong. I didn’t have a right to overturn the election. The American people own the presidency, and they alone are in charge. There is no idea more un- American than having a single person decide the President of the United States.
And Dr. Eastman confirmed this in writing. Recall this email written on January 6 in which Vice President Pence’s counsel asked Dr. Eastman; did you advise the President that in your professional judgment, the Vice President does not have power to decide things unilaterally? Dr. Eastman said he had been advised.
Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel, was aware that the plan was illegal. Here is Mr. Cipollone’s testimony. [Begin videotape]
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Donald.WIN Attack on the Capitol: Do You Remember the President Calling Her Father? When Vice President Pence Comes to Washington, he Tells Thousands to Come to the Capitol
I apologized for being impolite but do you remember that she told you that the President called her father?
2:30 p.m. Knowing the deadly riot was now bearing down on his own Vice President, President Trump composed and sent a tweet attacking Vice President Pence, accusing him of cowardice for not unilaterally rejecting Electoral College votes for Joe Biden and simply handing Trump the presidency. The impact on that tweets was well known.
On December 19th, President Trump first told his supporters to come to Washington. In this and numerous other tweets, he fraudulently and repeatedly promoted January 6 as the day Americans could come in and change the election outcome. After his speech on the Ellipse on January 6, President Trump decided to host a rally in the Capitol, with an assembled crowd of angry supporters. We obtained a text message that one rally organizer sent on January 4th. It reads that POTUS is going to have us march at the Capitol.
As my colleague Mr. Schiff just described, the Secret Service reported that thousands in the crowd near the Washington Monument would not enter the rally area because magnetometers used in screening attendees would detect any prohibited items they carried. Mr. Trump knew this. His Secret Service had told him about it that morning.
Since our last hearings, the select committee has received greater cooperation from the Secret Service. Nevertheless, Secret Service text messages from this period were erased in the days and months following the attack on the Capitol, even though documents and materials related to January 6th had already been requested by the Department of Justice and Congress.
As the time for the Ellipse rally approached, an email was circulated among intelligence officials, including Secret Service intelligence official, attaching communications among rally goers that specifically contemplated violence. “Trump has given us marching orders,” a post on The Donald.WIN stated. If you’re east of the Mississippi, you can and should be there.
I recall that he was nearly like a prophet during these calls. Norquist says during one of these calls, the greatest threat is a direct assault on the Capitol. I’ll never forget it. End videotape.
This email, for example, was an alert that the Secret Service received on December 24th with the heading, Armed and Ready, Mr. President. Multiple users on the internet instructed others to march into the chambers of Congress on January 6th to make sure they knew who to fear, according to the intelligence.
The source said that their plan was to kill people. Please, investigate the tip seriously and not be afraid to do so. The source pointed out that the Proud Boys had a detailed plan on multiple websites. So let’s take some time here. The Secret Service had advance information more than ten days beforehand regarding the Proud Boys’ planning for January 6th. We know now, of course, that the Proud Boys and others did lead the assault on our Capitol building.
The FBI told the Secret Service that right-wing groups were planning on using armed quick reaction forces as soon as January 6th. Groups like the Oath Keepers were standing by at the ready should POTUS request assistance by invoking the Insurrection Act, agents were informed.
One report from the rally site stated that a few members of the crowd were wearing body armor and carrying items such as radios and backpacks. Another from 9:30 a.m. said that there were possibly OC spray, meaning pepper spray, and/or plastic riot shields. One of the possible armed individuals reported at 11:23 a.m. was a glock with a rifle.
Over the next hour, agents reported a possible person with a gun, a pistol on top of a tree, and a person with an assault rifle.
Minutes before President Trump began his speech, members of the Federal Protective Service, an agency tasked with protecting federal buildings, were alerted about an arrest of a protester with a gun on his waistband. And during the speech, the weapons related arrests continued. A man with a rifle was arrested by the Park Police in front of the World War II Memorial. The agents speculated that the situation could get worse when they mentioned the number of weapons that had been seized that day.
You have heard that The Donald.win was on one of these sites. The Select Committee has obtained a text message that Jason Miller, a senior communications adviser, sent to Mark Meadows less than a week before January 6th. “I got the base fired up,” he wrote in all caps. He put a link to this page on the internet.
On January 6th, there were comments on the linked web page. Take a look at the comments. “Gallows don’t require electricity.” There will be hell to pay if the filthy commie maggots push their fraud through. “Our lawmakers in Congress can leave one of two ways; one, in a body bag, two, after rightfully certifying Trump the winner.” Mr. Miller said he had no idea about the hundreds of comments that were sent to him.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
Judd Deere, a White House Press Secretary, Rehearing on the Capitol, December 30, 2016. [End videotape] The White House was robbed of power
If I had seen something like that, I probably would have flipped it to someone at the White — or if I had seen something of that nature, I would have said we gotta flag this for Secret Service or something of that nature.” [End videotape]
The same day Jason Miller sent his text message, agents received reports about a spike in activity on another platform called Parler. The date was December 30th. In this email, an agent received a report noting a lot of violent rhetoric on Parler directed at government people and entities, including Secret Service protectees.
On the evening of January 5th, President Trump gathered a few of his communications staffers in the Oval Office. The president and others were able to hear the sounds of the crowd at Freedom Plaza when the door was open. President Trump could clearly see that his supporters were angry. Here again is Judd Deere, a deputy White House press secretary describing the president’s reaction.
They were fired up just that. They were angry. He talked about the election being stolen and the fact that it was rigged for a little while. [End videotape]
The president knew the crowd was angry because he made them angry. He knew that they believed that the election had been rigged and stolen because he had told them falsely that it had been rigged and stolen. It was only after he incited the mob to march on the Capitol that he realized they were all out to stop the transfer of power.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Commission on Investigating a Pedestrian’s Mistake about Defending the Secret Service with Weapons: Jan 6 Hearing Transcript
The gentleman is yielding. At this point our — in our meeting, we’ll take a brief recess. The chair has the right to declare the committee in recess for a period of about 10 minutes. In break. The chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Aguilar, for an opening statement.
He was mad that he wasn’t allowed to go through the mags with weapons because the Secret Service deemed them to be weapons. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don’t f’ing care that they have weapons.
They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f’ing mags away. Let my people in. They can walk to the Capitol from here. Let people in. Take those mags away. End videotape.
If those tens of thousands of people would be allowed, I think we’d thank the police, law enforcement and the military. You’re doing a good job. [Applause] But I’d love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just allow them to come up?
“They’d expressed to me that the president was irate, you know, on the drive up. The president was irate. Mr. Engle was aware of that. That of course corresponds closely with the testimony you saw this summer from Cassidy Hutchinson, a Metropolitan Police officer who was in the motorcade, and from multiple sources.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Secret Service and a White House Priamalty: When President Trump walked out of the Capitol, he rode along in the Presidential Limo
This will also be noted by me. The committee is reviewing testimony regarding potential obstruction on this issue, including testimony about advice given not to tell the committee about this specific topic. We will address this in our report.
A few minutes later, they were told the president would leave for the Capitol in two hours. The president’s lead Secret Service agent said to stand down at about 1:45 PM. “We are not doing an OTR to the Capitol.” The law enforcement men and women were attacked by the rioters when they tried to protect the Capitol.
We were all in a state of shock at the same time. Because why? Because — because we just — one, I think the actual physical feasibility of doing it, and then also we all knew what that indicated and what that meant, that this was no longer a rally, that this was going to move to something else if he physically walked to the Capitol.
I — I don’t know if you want to use the word insurrection, coup, whatever. We knew that this would move from a democratic to something else. Why were we concerned?
President Trump was still considering traveling to the Capitol even after returning to the White House. He knew the Capitol was going to be a violent place when he woke up. He was aware of what was going on. But his motorcade was held on West Executive Avenue outside the White House because he still wanted to join the crowd.
Here’s Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, describing an — an exchange she had with the president as soon as he arrived back at the White House. [Begin videotape]
So, to the best of my recollection, I recall him being — wanting to — saying that he wanted to physically walk and be a part of the march, and then saying that he would ride the beast if — if he needed to, ride in the presidential limo. [End videotape]
Take a look at the Secret Service email from 1:19 PM on January 6th, the minute that President Trump got out of the presidential vehicle back at the White House. As soon as the president left his motorcade, leadership from the Secret Service contacted Bobby Engel, the lead agent for the presidential detail, and warned him that they were “concerned about an OTR,” an off the record movement to the Capitol.
I can’t talk about conversations with the president, but I can generically say that I said, you know, people need to be told — there needs to be a public announcement fast that they need to leave the Capitol.
Approximately when? The people who were getting into the Capitol in a violent way was very frightening to me.
I — I don’t — I can’t think of anybody, you know, on that day who didn’t want people to get out of the — the Capitol once the — you know, particularly once the violence started, no. I mean.
Oh, I’m sorry. I — I am sorry. I thought you said who on — who else on the staff. Yeah, I — I can’t reveal communications, but obviously I think, you know — yeah. End videotape.
Mr. Cipollone’s testimony is corroborated by multiple other White House staff members, including Cassidy Hutchinson. Here’s Ms. Hutchinson describing what she heard from Mark Meadows. [Begin videotape]
He had said something to the effect of, you know, you heard him, Pat. He doesn’t want to do anything more. He does not believe they’re doing anything wrong. End video.
A former White House employee with national security duties similarly recalled an exchange between Mr. Cipollone and Eric Herschmann about President Trump’s inaction against the mob assault underway at the Capitol. Mr. Herschmann said something to Mr. Cipollone. He seemed to relay that, you know, the president didn’t want anything done.
Throughout this period, some of the president’s most important political allies, family members, and senior staff all begged him to tell his supporters to disperse and go home. Donald Trump Jr., the House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and officials in the cabinet and the executive branch were among those included.
Donald Trump ignored all of their appeals as he rejected all of them. There were many witnesses who said that Donald Trump was watching the violence on television in the dining room. He did not call his secretary of defense, the National Guard, or the chief of the Capitol Police.
And to your knowledge, was the president in that private dining room the whole time that the attack on the Capitol was going on, or did he ever go to — again, only to your knowledge, to the Oval Office, to the White House Situation Room, anywhere else?
Yeah. What did they say during the brief encounter with you in the dining room? What do you recall? I think they were — everyone was watching the TV. Do you know whether he was watching TV in the dining room when you talked to him on January 6th?
Was the violence at the Capitol visible on the screen when you were in the dining room?
You’ll see how everyone involved was working actively to stop the violence, to get federal law enforcement deployed to the scene, to put down the violence and secure the Capitol complex. Not just Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, but Republicans like Vice President Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Majority Whip John Thune, and countless other appointees across the administration.
We’re starting to get surrounded. They’re taking the scaffolding. Unless we get more munitions, we are not going to be able to hold. People are getting into the Capitol after the door was broken.
It is important to maintain the sense that people believe government can work, and that we can elect the president of the United States. Did we go back in session?
Everybody on the floor has been put on tear gas masks to prepare for a breech after we went back into session. I’m trying to get more information.
I can’t. We need a area for the House members. They’re all walking over now through the tunnel. Bring her out here. We’re going in if you don’t bring her out.
I’m calling the secretary of DOD. We have some Senators who are still in their hideaways. They need a lot of personnel. Can you have the Maryland National Guard come as well?
Mr Secretary, I have something to say. I will call the mayor of Washington DC to see what other outreach she has for other police departments, as Leader Hoyer mentioned.
Hi, Governor. Nancy is this one. Governor, I don’t know if you have been approached about the Virginia National Guard. In order to come in to another jurisdiction, you probably need the Ok of the federal government, but I didn’t think Mr. Hoyer was connect. Thank you very much.
They said someone was shot. It’s horrendous. And all at the instigation of the president of the United States. Ok, thank you, Governor. I’m happy with what you’re doing. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay in touch. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you.
The Governor said that 200 state police and a unit of the National Guard were sent. They’re breaking windows and going in, obviously ransacking our offices and all the rest of that. That’s nothing. We worry about personal harm.
Personal safety is more than one thing. But the fact is on any given day, they’re breaking the law in many different ways, and quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States. And now if he could — could — at least somebody.
The president can tell them to leave the Capitol, Mr. Attorney General, in your law enforcement responsibility.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Capitol, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Attorney General Jeff Rosen: It’s a big problem, but it’s going to take a long time
I’m not going to say that because I don’t want to say who the leadership is responsible for executing the operation. Because they are meeting on the ground and they’re the experts It is said that it is inaudible.
Well, just pretend — just pretend for a moment it was the Pentagon or the White House or some other entity that was under siege. Let me say you can logistically get people there as you make the plan. We’re trying to figure out how we can get this job done today. We talked to him about it. He’s not in the room right now, but he was with us earlier and said, you know, we want to expedite this and hopefully they could confine it to just one complaint, Arizona, and then we could vote and that would be — you know, then just move forward with the rest of the state.
The overriding wish is to do it at the Capitol. We are told it will take days for the Capitol to be back to normal. We’ve gotten a very bad report about the condition of the House floor, defecation and all that kind of thing as well. I don’t think that it’s a big problem to clean up but I think it is more important to make certain that nobody is in the building and how long it will take.
It may take days to get back, because it may take a long time to clean up the poo poo that they are making all over the Capitol.
Nancy, so I’m at the Capitol building. I’m literally standing with the Chief of Police of — you know, the US Capitol Police. PaulIrving, your Sergeant-at-Arms, told me that they believe that the House and Senate will be able to come back in about an hour.
In this video, you just saw Senator Chuck Schumer urging Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen to get President Trump to call off the rioters. AG Rosen and a lot of other officials defended the government. President Trump was recognized by Congressional leadership on a bipartisan basis as the only person that could end the siege of the Congress.
It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. He was the only one who could. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the administration. The President did not act quickly. He didn’t do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored.
Mick Mulvaney, who was President Trump’s former chief of staff, has also given her the truth about what happened. [Begin videotape]
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, said he called Donald Trump and he finally got through to him. and he said, you have got to get on TV. You need to get on the social media platform. They have to be called off. You know what the President said to him? This is what is happening.
He said, well, Kevin, these aren’t my people. These are fascists. And Kevin responded and said, no, they’re your people. They just came through my office windows, and my staff are running for their lives. They’re running for their lives. You need to stop talking to them. The President’s response to Kevin was very chilling.
He said that they were more upset about the election than Kevin was. And that’s — you know, you’ve seen widespread reports of Kevin McCarthy and the President having a — basically a swearing conversation. The President was saying, “no, I’m” when the swearing in took place. I’m ok with it.
I had — I had a conversation at some point in the day or week after the — the riot with Kevin McCarthy. Yeah, It was very similar to what Jaime had, the conversation she had retold about how he called and asked the President to get them to stop. And the President told him something along the lines of, Kevin, maybe these people are just more angry about this than you are, maybe more upset.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
The Vice President’s Secret Service Hearing Committee on ‘Hanging Mike Pence’ – A View from Anika Navaroli
Let me be very clear, the President is responsible for his actions, no ifs or buts, and I have been very clear to him. I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Is he upset about what happened? He told me, he does have some responsibility for what happened and he need to acknowledge that.
The mob was chanting ” hung Mike Pence” and it made them even more violent. This deliberate decision to further enrage the mob against Vice President Pence cannot be justified by anything that President Trump might have thought about the election. The Vice President’s Secret Service detail is more concerned about his safety than the general public.
As the afternoon progressed, the company detected a surge in violent hashtags on the platform, including lines of lethal incitement like, execute Mike Pence. Listen to this former Twitter employee, Anika Navaroli, who first came to the committee anonymously, but has now bravely agreed to be named because she wants to speak out about the magnitude of the threats facing our people.
Also after in response to this. It fanned the flames again because I think that as many of Donald Trump’s statements did, it did. The individuals were already building gallows, who were willing to execute someone, and looking for someone to be killed. The individual who was called upon to start this coup is pointing the finger of blame at another person while they are ready to do this.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1125331584/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript
Donald Trump has screwed us up. That’s the word I keep hearing. What happened in the early morning hours of President Trump’s tweet
Mike Pence will not stick up for Donald Trump. Mike Pence was a traitor. If you haven’t heard yet, Mike Pence has messed us up. What happened? What happened? I keep hearing that Mike Pence has screwed us. That’s a word I hear all the time that Mike Pence has messed with us. End tape.
Between 2:30 and 2:35, within 10 minutes of President Trump’s tweet, thousands of rioters overran the line that the Metropolitan Police Force’s Civil Disturbance Unit was holding on the west side of the Capitol. This was the first time in the history of the Metropolitan Police Department that a security line like that had ever been broken.
President Trump’s conduct that day was so shameful and so outrageous that it prompted numerous members of the White House staff and other Trump appointees to resign. In prior hearings, you’ve heard Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger and Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews explain why they felt compelled to resign on that day.
We have talked to