January 6 Committee Hearings

Day 4 of the January 6 Committee hearings were broadcast on TV yesterday. Just before the hearing the disgraced twice-impeached former president issued a statement claiming that witness Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, told him “the election was rigged and I won Arizona.”

Bowers, a Republican who had wanted Trump to win the election, told the committee that this was false: “Anyone, anywhere, anytime I said the election was rigged, that would not be true.”

Bowers also recalled a conversation with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Jenna Ellis about allegations of voter fraud in Arizona. In a phrase that captured the president’s own mindset, Giuliani allegedly said: “We’ve got lots of theories but we just don’t have the evidence.”

But the centerpiece of the big lie is Georgia, which Trump narrowly lost and which became his all-consuming obsession for wild conspiracy theories. The committee heard testimony from its secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and his deputy Gabe Sterling. 

Excerpts from a 67-minute phone call between Trump and Raffensperger were heard during the hearing. One by one, Trump could be heard making ludicrous assertions without foundation. One by one, Raffensperger and Sterling calmly demolished them.

The president was heard claiming that votes were “in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases but they weren’t in voter boxes.” Sterling testified: “They’re standard ballot carriers that allow for seals to be put on them so they’re tamper proof.”

Trump went on during the call: “But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night. You know that, Brad.” Raffensperger told the committee: “There were no additional ballots accepted after 7 pm.”

The president insisted: “The other thing, dead people. So dead people voted and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.” Raffensperger observed: “No, it’s not accurate ... We found two dead people when I wrote my letter to Congress that’s dated January 6 and subsequent to that we found two more. That’s one, to, three, four people, not 4,000.” 

More sinister yet, Trump claimed that election workers had been shredding ballots, “a criminal offense” that could put Raffensperger at risk. “So look. 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.” Raffensperger told the hearing: “What I knew is we didn’t have any votes to find.” 

At the end of his call to Raffensperger, Trump could be heard saying: “It takes a little while but let the truth comes out.” Now, finally, the truth is coming out, but not the one that occupies his fantasies. 

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The Guardian     06/21/2022