Thread by @Dave_Boucher1

The president's video includes multiple false statements about Michigan and its elections process.

They are demonstrably false.

In related news, Rudy Giuliani and MI GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox are holding a Zoom call for Michigan supporters right now.

Giuliani repeated allegations of mass voter fraud. Does not provide any evidence.

Attacking mail-in ballots (remember, President Trump voted absentee)

Giuliani says there was coordinated, nationwide effort to block GOP poll challengers from watching ballot counting in Democratic-controlled cities.

Remember, lots of GOP poll challengers testified at MI Senate hearing *yesterday* that they say they saw misconduct at TCF Center

Giuliani says an affidavit of evidence, saying it has an "extra ring of truth to it."

It's not, and it doesn't.

We read all of the affidavits submitted with a Trump campaign lawsuit. They do not show evidence of widespread voter fraud freep.com/story/news/pol…

Giuliani now saying every ballot that came in late at night in Detroit at TCF Center went for Joe Biden.

He's implying a late-night delivery of ballots is bad, while Trump in his video blasts that it took people too long to count votes.

There were 174K absentee ballots cast in Detroit, a traditionally Democratic city.

Trump received ~13k total votes in the city. As @CraigDMauger and many others have noted, it's not a surprise a large number of ballots at a time would go for Biden

Giuliani now, wrongly, saying Michigan Legislature has an outsized role in choosing state's delegates to electoral college.

Michigan law doesn't allow lawmakers to swoop in and undermine will of voters. Plus, leaders have already said they won't try this freep.com/story/news/loc…

Giuliani, as he has done in many other venues, continues to repeat false information.

He also keeps saying he has evidence. Unclear why he hasn't presented this evidence publicly...

Judi Schwalbach, former mayor of Escanaba and staffer for Sen. McBroom, asks about Antrim issues

Rudy says there's an international conspiracy -- involving Germany and Venezuela -- that altered votes in Antrim/elsewhere.

Says Antrim was an example where "they" went too far.

More on Antrim County, where the GOP clerk says human error temporarily resulted in Biden earning more votes than Trump in the traditionally Republican county freep.com/story/news/pol…

Laura Cox is asked if she's running for MIGOP party chair again.

She says she is, although she says her "number 1 job" is to help Giuliani and Trump

Giuliani speaking in broad generalities about why he says mail-in voting is bad.

Cox says lots of people received applications for absentee ballots.

An application is *not* a ballot.

It's already a crime to submit an application/ballot in the name of someone else

Giuliani asked what was the most egregious thing he saw in Michigan, compared to other places.

"What was unique to you? Trying to think what would be unique. I think it was pretty much the same type of fraud that went on elsewhere."

Giuliani now relying on the idea that because corruption has happened in Detroit before, that it must have happened this year with the election.

Just *zero* evidence of widespread fraud in Detroit, a city where the vast majority of voters have, for decades, been Democrats

Penny Crider says she saw fraud at TCF Center in Detroit "and it was rampant."

This comes like 10 minutes after Giuliani says poll watchers were blocked from seeing fraud at TCF

Giuliani says there was an "awful lot of not asking people for identification."

You don't need ID to vote in Michigan. In MI, you can sign an affidavit instead, per secretary of state michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-1…

Giuliani: "We've kind of given up our freedom of religion with all of the COVID things going on."

With that, Thor Hearne, an attorney working in Michigan for the Trump campaign, is now speaking.

Hearne talking about "ballot harvesting."

This has nothing to do with vote counting in Detroit.

He's upset that, in his lawsuits that he's filed, he hasn't been able to get video surveillance of drop boxes throughout the state

Hearne repeats false claim that 71% of precincts out-of-balance and unable to be recounted in Detroit.

About 72% of all precincts balanced/explained; about 70% of absentee precincts out of balanced w/o explanation.

Still, lack of balance only accounts for few hundred votes

Hearne says only ballots that are certified or notarized should be counted.

An absentee ballot has to be signed by the voter to be valid. It's already a crime for someone to sign someone else's name on a ballot

Alright, legal briefing over.

Giuliani is set to speak before House Oversight Committee at about 6 pm.

As a reminder, committee has no authority to mandate a recount, audit, review or anything similar. Could take up legislation related to election law, but no bills on agenda

You can watch the Giuliani hearing live here, once it starts: freep.com/story/news/pol…

Expect Giuliani to call on lawmakers to take some sort of action in an effort to undermine election results.

Fwiw, when hearing was announced, the MI House GOP posted on Facebook, "the testimony is not about changing the results of the now-certified election."

Here's more from @clarajanehen on why it's unlikely lawmakers would try to intervene in the selection of electoral college delegates freep.com/story/news/loc…

And a @tsspangler story on MI legislative leaders saying they'll follow the law post certification freep.com/story/news/pol…

Again, Giuliani is expected to say there was rampant voter fraud in Michigan.

Earlier today, I asked a spokesman for MI AG @dananessel (AG investigates election fraud in MI) if Giuliani or anyone from Trump campaign had submitted evidence of voter fraud in Michigan.

"No."

Okay, looks like we might get started soon.

I'm going to live-tweet the hearing with Giuliani, but you can watch it here as well freep.com/story/news/pol…

There are three Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. I asked each a few questions ahead of today's hearing.

Perhaps as expected, all were skeptical that the hearing was a meaningful usage of lawmakers' time.

I'd anticipate at least one of the Democrats may ask Giuliani about the NYT report that he discussed pardons with the president.

nytimes.com/2020/12/01/us/…

Giuliani has refuted this report

Okay, hearing underway.

Official legislative video isn't great, but this livestream on the Michigan House Republican Facebook page is good facebook.com/MichiganHouseR…

Chairman Matt Hall, R-Emmett Township, kinda giving a general overview of the committee's purview.

References subpoenas issued by cmt to the secretary of state freep.com/story/news/pol…

Hall: "Citizens have serious concerns about the election in Michigan...elections must be trustworthy and accurate."

"Citizens become frustrated and demand answers when a large number of precinct tabulations don't reconcile...or when an independent audit is not performed."

Hall says the committee can make a decision on whether voter fraud occurred.

That's not really the role of the Legislature. But it can review processes and pass laws that improve/change how elections are administered

.@darrincamilleri is trying to get Rep. Hall to swear in Rudy Giuliani.

Hall says he's out of order, and that "I'm not going to allow that."

Camilleri says he's appealing the rule of the chair.

After a little back and forth, committee taking a brief break to discuss whether to swear in Giuliani and Jenna Ellis.

Unclear if it requires a full vote of the committee to request swearing in witnesses at a legislative hearing

Hall rules against swearing in Giuliani.

Committee votes 5-3 in favor of the ruling of the chair.

Giuliani and Ellis will not be sworn in

Giuliani wants to say that he's not a witness, because he says if he were to appear as a witness at Congress as a witness, then he'd be under oath.

So he's not under oath.

Giuliani says the media and Trump opponents are wrongly saying there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Says no one has bothered to listen to witnesses. He has affidavits.

We read 100+ affidavits from witnesses at TCF. They didn't show fraud freep.com/story/news/pol…

Says there was "massive cheating" by the Democratic party of Detroit.

At no point has the Trump campaign sued or formally alleged that the Democratic Party of Detroit carried out any fraud or misconduct.

Now Giuliani is spreading misinformation about how votes are counted.

He's repeating the allegations about Dominion Voting System that "in it's infancy had ties to Hugo Chavez."

He's providing inaccurate information usatoday.com/story/news/fac…

Giuliani says he wants to submit letters from several lawmakers, including Sen. Warren and "another lawmaker who I can't remember right now."

Giuliani says there was some indicating vote counting was sent to Frankfurt, Germany or Barcelona.

What?

Now, Giuliani wants to call witnesses. That's not really what people testifying tend to do.

Hall says committee going to allow witnesses. One question per member, no follow ups. Wants committee hearing to be done at 9.

Says @darrincamilleri "shenanigans" will prevent leeway

Ellis, speaking now as a Trump campaign attorney, says question before lawmakers is a legal one, not a political one.

Argues state lawmakers have the authority to ensure "against a corrupt popular vote."

Says going to ask lawmakers to "take action" on this

Ellis: Put aside party affiliation, and look openly and honestly at information presented by witnesses.

Then, after that, she says lawmakers should take action to intervene in the electoral process.

Now Giuliani is asking questions of a woman named Jesse Jacob (sp?)

Again, this is not how legislative hearings generally work.

Imagine Jacob is on a witness stand and Giuliani is examining her.

Giuliani previously said Jacob had never been heard from before.

Jacob submitted an affidavit with the Trump campaign lawsuit filed in Wayne County Circuit Court. We reported on it here freep.com/story/news/pol…

Here's our review of Jacob's affidavit.

It's worth noting election officials say Jacob, and many others, don't quite understand what they saw. freep.com/story/news/pol…

Interesting. While members of the Michigan legislative committee conducting this hearing get to ask each person testifying one questions, it looks like Rudy Giuliani, the attorney for President Trump's re-election campaign, gets to ask as many questions as he wants

Here's all of Jacob's affidavit (pages 37-39): greatlakesjc.org/wp-content/upl…

Jacobs is taking about dates for when ballots were *sent out* to voters.

Jacobs says a clerk must issue a ballot within 24 hours of the clerk receiving an application.

I'm not sure she understands how the law works.
freep.com/story/news/pol…

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny determined the lawsuit with which Jacob's affidavit was filed included an interpretation of events at TCF Center that was "incorrect and not credible." freep.com/story/news/loc…

I think it's relevant to note that the House Oversight Committee (allowing a partisan attorney who represents a political candidate ask questions of witnesses who came with him) has not had anyone from the city of Detroit (clerk, election advisors, etc) testify since the election

Wow. Now Giuliani is asking Jacob to take off her mask in a room with people.

She didn't want to do it. Lawmakers said they could hear her.

Here's the scene right now at the hearing.

Giuliani asking about people wearing Black Lives Matter gear at what I believe is a clerks office.

Jacob says she "knew it wasn't right" but couldn't do anything.

Nothing (that I'm aware of) in Michigan law prevents someone from wearing Black Lives Matter while voting

Jacob says she used to ask for drivers' licenses, but she was told not to.

In Michigan, you do not need a drivers' license to vote. Here's the rule, from Michigan SOS: michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-1…

Giuliani focused on this misleading concept during mtg with MIGOP ahead of hearing

Now we're talking about people who wanted to vote in person who previously requested absentee ballots.

Lots of people ended up doing this in Michigan freep.com/story/news/pol…

Even if person requested an absentee ballot, tried to cast it, then went in person to vote, *only 1 ballot would count.*

Voting systems/clerks note if the same person tries to vote twice.

Is implication thousands of people voted twice, with their own name, and no one noticed?

We're about an hour in to the hearing. Democratic lawmakers are trying to object to the unorthodox proceedings.

Chairman Hall gavels them out of order, asks Giuliani to keep asking this person questions

Number of questions asked of Giuliani by Michigan lawmakers: 0

Number of questions asked of Giuliani's witnesses by Michigan lawmakers: 0

Number of questions asked by Giuliani of the witness who came with him: A bunch

Evidence of voter fraud: 0

People are gasping in the audience when Jacob recounts what she considers to be problems involving the Qualified Voter File that she says she saw during her time at the TCF Center.

She says ballots were opened improperly

In affidavit, Jacob says she worked at TCF on Nov. 3. Says ballots opened, dated incorrectly, alleging misconduct.

Detroit was allowed to pre-process AV ballots on Nov. 2. That means opening outer envelopes, checking ballots are signed and sorting ballots ahead of Election Day

Chris Thomas, longtime elections official under GOP and Democratic secretaries of state, said clerical error at satellite offices led to issue w/date included in online system for some ballots. The ballots were physically stamped w/date received. None received after polls closed

It's expected lawmakers will have Thomas, TCF Center elections administrator Daniel Baxter, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey and/or others testify at some point.

But by then, all of the allegations/misinformation being shared today will be repeated as "evidence" of fraud

Giuliani trying to get Jacob to say who Daniel Baxter is. She isn't sure what his role is.

Giuliani: "we'll find out what his role was."

He was in charge of elections operations at TCF, and has worked with the Detroit Department of Elections since 1985

I'm still legitimately confused how Giuliani asking Jacob questions in front of lawmakers is easier/more productive than lawmakers just asking Jacob or Giuliani questions.

Jacob says elections officials "treated me like a criminal."

Says she was harassed + intimidated.

Many other GOP poll challengers have expressed similar frustrations w/elections workers who they say didn't take concerns seriously.

Workers say they do not understand process

Jacob says an elections worker threw a badge at her at some point.

Giuliani: "Were you shocked at the level of crookedness?"

It sounds like Jacob is getting a little choked up. She says she's a devoted Catholic and very appreciative of everything in the U.S. (she self-identified as an immigrant earlier)

"I hope this will help this nation. That's the only reason I am here."

Rep. Cynthia Johnson, a Detroit Democrat, interjects, says she loves her city and "that's not true."

Democrats on the committee are clearly frustrated here.

Hall: Mr. Mayor, we're not going to to go until 1 or 2 am.

First lawmaker to ask questions is Rep. Beau LaFave, a Republican from the UP.

LaFave repeating some of Jacob's statements, including her recollection of what she says Thomas told her.

(In court, you'd call that hearsay)

Rep. David LaGrand, a Grand Rapids Democrat, up next.

He asks her if she knows that people in Michigan don't need an ID to vote in the state.

Audience members cry out, interject.

Jacob answers question incorrectly.

LaGrand: "Okay, you're confused. Thank you."

Jacob tells Rep. Stephen Johnson, a Republican, that she only saw Democratic poll challengers at TCF.

Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, is asking questions about Jacob's identity.

Chairman Hall: "We're not here to intimidate people."

Rep. @darrincamilleri tries to ask Rudy Giuliani a question, but Chairman Hall won't let him. He says he can only ask Jacob a question.

"This is not Four Seasons Landscaping, this is the Michigan State Legislature," Camilleri said.

Camilleri says Judge Kenny in Detroit ruled her testimony not credible. Kenny ruled that in relation to the entire lawsuit with which she submitted her affidavit.

"I object!" Giuliani says.

"This isn't a court room!" Camilleri said.

Chairman Hall didn't ask Jacob, the only witness apart from Giuliani, to speak so far, any questions.

Hall asking Giuliani to limit testimony to 10 minutes.

Giuliani: "I felt uncomfortable interrupting her."

Hall says Jacob was very brave to come in "a great risk."

(What risk?)

Hall, chairman of the committee, tells Giuliani that lawmakers should be allowed to ask more ?s

Next speaker is Melissa Carone. She testified at the state Senate committee hearing. She says she was a contractor for Dominion Voting System.

She had trouble articulating what she was hired to do during testimony yesterday

She's alleging today, as she did yesterday, staffers ran same ballots through machines multiple "thousands" of times.

That's inaccurate, not how the machines work, and as @clarajanehen notes, would be easily spotted during the routine canvass of the election

Carone: "They were in on it."

Giuliani: "In on what?"

Carone: "They were cheating!"

Rep. Johnson calls a point of order.

"We should have them under oath."

Carone yells back "I have an affidavit!"

Hall: "We've never done that."

I'm willing to bet Hall has never let someone else lead his own committee. Calls format "a little unusual."

Carone: "I am a mother, I have two children, I have two degrees. I don't know any woman in the word that would write an affidavit under oath, just to write it (laughs). You can go to prison for this."

Carone: "I know for a fact there was illegal activity going on there...there is vans full of ballots coming out of that place. If it wasn't for my mother, I would have went there."

Believe she's referring to a place she's called the Chicago warehouse.

Carone: Democrats took every avenue possible to commit fraud.

She keeps saying she saw fraud ("over 20 counts of fraud taking place in front of my face.")

Rep. Johnson chimes tries to speak again. Carone, to a state lawmaker, "I love how you can saw whatever you want to say."

Carone says "at least 30,000" absentee ballots were counted multiple times.

Detroit says 174,000 absentee ballots were cast. So if 30,000 ballots were counted multiple times, then how many people actually voted?

Carone is again having a really difficult time explaining who hired her and what she was actually hired to do on Election Day.

Chairman Hall says Dominion Voting Systems has refused to come before the committee

(Writing a recap of tonight's hearing, so not live-tweeting for a moment. Carone is still testifying, says everything she's said was true.

A Detroit judge previously deemed her allegations, and others in a lawsuit, not credible freep.com/story/news/loc…

Hall asks why others haven't come forward if there was widespread fraud?

Carone says it's because "Democrats like to ruin your lives."

Carone is berating a state lawmaker asking her questions.

Rep. Stephen Johnson, a Republican, asks how 30,000 ballots counted multiple times wouldn't be reflected in the poll book.

Carone says the poll book is off by 100,000 votes (it's not)

Carone is implying state lawmakers had something to do with poll books in Detroit.

This hearing is going off the rails a bit.

Giuliani says he met Carone for the first time today, and spoke with her for the first time yesterday.

Okay, two new people speaking.

One woman says she was a poll challenger at TCF Center. a man says he was a volunteer on election night. I'm sorry, I missed their names.

I believe the woman speaking, a poll challenger, also testified at the Senate hearing yesterday.

She said poll workers told her stay away six feet (there were COVID rules at TCF Center). She thought this happened because she was wearing a tag identifying her GOP affiliation

The man speaking now also spoke yesterday at the Senate hearing.

Man says election workers were stealing duplicate ballots. Not sure what he means by duplicate ballot.

Man also says early Wednesday morning, approximately 50,000 ballots were brought into the TCF Center.

He's implying the number of ballots and the time they were delivered are both suspicious

Man says it was clear there was a violation of an imbalance of poll workers when Daniel Baxter (Detroit elections official) said over a loudspeaker "This is what Democracy looks like!" and people cheered.

Man also says he only saw one absentee ballot in Detroit cast for Trump. Note, this means he was close enough to see what was on the ballot.

And, again, Detroit is a heavily Democratic city, TCF only counted absentee ballots, and Trump told his supporters not to vote absentee

Man says he saw multiple election workers inappropriately filling out ballots with pens they had at a table.

Says the employees were filling in the Democratic straight ticket bubbles on the ballots.

Man notes that after 2 pm on Wednesday, Nov. 3, some people were barred from returning to TCF and cardboard was placed on some windows at the center.

Some @freep reporting on what happened at TCF freep.com/story/news/loc…

Woman, now speaking, says the fact that the numbers of the ballots appeared to be close made her suspicious.

Again, Detroit was allowed to pre-process ballots on Nov. 2. That means they could sort ballots by precinct. Possible this would lead to a sequence of ballots

The woman testifying says they were told they could break the six-foot COVID rule if they were challenging a ballot, but said staff stringently enforced the six-foot rule.

While Rep. Cynthia Johnson tries to ask ?s, crowd laughs when she confused initials of TCF Center.

She says there are no Detroiters in room. Hall, asking the crowd to stop yelling, asks Johnson to ask a question of these witnesses.

Johnson keeps talking, ruled out of order

Johnson: "You're allowing people to come in here and lie, and I know you're lying."

Giuliani says every witness who has testified today has submitted a sworn affidavit.

Woman who just testified said she would say the same thing she said under oath. Crowd cheers and claps.

Man now explaining what he means by duplicate ballots. If a machine wouldn't read a ballot, then a staffer would fill out a duplicate ballot, he said.

He said these ballots were stolen. Unsure what he means by that though; potentially that they were taken without a need?

Rep. @darrincamilleri asks if ballots were counted multiple times, why wouldn't that be reflected in the poll book?

Woman testifying says she's not an expert, just trying to explain what she saw and experienced.

Woah, the woman speaking says racist comment as an argument as to why voter ID should be mandated in Michigan. I'm not going to repeat the specific statement, but essentially says certain people look the same so IDs should be mandated

Man speaking, now says the state knowingly certified that dead people voted.

That didn't happen.

Hall said both are brave for coming in and what they said they saw was "shocking." freep.com/story/news/pol…

The next speaker, Phil Waldron, has also testified in Arizona when Giuliani spoke there. He said he's done data analysis, specifically "anomalies" and references Antrim County.

It sounds like he's conflating when votes are publicly released with votes being tabulated.

There's no correlation between votes were received, when they were counted and when those results were publicly released

It's also worth noting that President Trump repeatedly said before the election that all votes should be counted as quickly as possible. Now his campaign is focusing on counting ballots all through the night and saying late spikes are red flags.

Waldron said there were several precincts in the state with 100% turnout, and at least six with turnout of above 100%.

Doesn't say where they were, or if those precincts went for Biden or Trump.

Waldron speaking about issues in Antrim County (clerk, state says it was human error and fixed it pretty quickly) freep.com/story/news/pol…

The Antrim County Clerk also already testified at a joint House/Senate oversight committee hearing

Hall notes the Antrim County clerk spoke before. Hall says he didn't think she was very well trained, and that local clerks weren't very well trained.

Says he didn't think she knew how to run her ballot tabulation machines.

Hall: Initially the clerk said it was a technical glitch, then said it was human error.

Based on what she said, that looked like it was human error.

Again, more on Antrim here freep.com/story/news/pol…

Waldron said his "forensics team" went to Central Lake Township to review election results.

It's a small township, with roughly 3,000 people, in Antrim County.

In this township: Trump received 565, Biden received 340.

Not sure where he's going with this

Waldron is saying all of this to say a tabulation machine in Antrim County made a lot of mistakes.

He said that's the only machine he's examined.

Rep. Stephen Johnson says results come in all at once because counties upload votes in batches, noting reporting has no correlation to when votes counted.

Waldron arguing his data shows time when voting was counted.

Johnson: It's logical you'd have a lot come in at one time

Johnson notes ballots were processed (counted) all day long.

Waldron says "they" are uploading results throughout the day.

No results are reported for absentee ballots until polls close after 8 p.m.

Useful factcheck here from USA Today usatoday.com/story/news/fac…

LaFave goes back to Waldron statement about precincts at 100% or more than 100% turnout.

Waldron doesn't know how many votes were counted in these precincts

Hall is clearly upset that representatives from Dominion won't come in to testify before his committee. He says he'd like to review the company's machines and software to get a better understanding of how they operate

Hall is trying to ask questions, but Giuliani interrupts and again just takes over.

Asks Waldron to talk about how Hugo Chavez and confederates helped craft an election system used in the US now.

None of this is evidence of any fraud in Michigan

Hall: In press, every time we read about this, they say this is debunked. Why are they saying that?

Waldron: People aren't rationally asking how election results updated in real time.

Anyone who watched election results in MI know they weren't publicly available in real time

Monica Palmer, chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, is now testifying.

Palmer is one of two members who initially voted against certifying local results, then voted to certify, then filed an affidavit saying she wanted to rescind her vote.

She says she was at TCF Center as a GOP challenger for 27 hours, but didn't challenge anything.

She said she's hear to testify about the canvass.

Palmer said the Wayne County board of canvassers did not have enough time to verify and work through issues with out-of-balance precincts in Detroit.

Palmer said the board received updated voter lists too late into the process

Hall said he heard stories about Palmer being attacked by "radical left-wing people" and that she's courageous to testify.

Rep. @darrincamilleri asks why the focus at the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting was on Detroit, when there were other communities in the county with out-of-balance precincts.

Palmer said during the meeting, she was provided info on Detroit and "out of county"

Palmer said she did mention Detroit first, but says she also had questions about Livonia (another city in Wayne County)

Everyone who has testified tonight has presented the information in other venues (court, press conferences, previous legislative hearings).

Individually and cumulatively, there is still no evidence of widespread election fraud or misconduct.

Palmer notes that the number of ballots in question regarding out-of-balance precincts is about 400 votes

More context here on out-of-balance precincts in Detroit and what that means here freep.com/story/news/pol…

Okay, Giuliani is asked to make closing remarks.

"I find it puzzling that there seems to be such confusion about it. Maybe because of my background as a prosecutor, it's obvious what happened here."

Giuliani: "This is a swindle, this is a con job. It's the theft of an election."

Says Detroit is "one of the most corrupt cities in the United States" according to a check online.

"They stole the election."

There's just no evidence of this

Giuliani says "they steal elections in Detroit." Rep. Cynthia Johnson tries to intervene, isn't allowed.

Giuliani says there is a coordinated Democratic effort in 10 cities to carry out mass fraud and a conspiracy.

There is (you guessed it) no evidence to support this.

Giuliani now talking about COVID and religion. The people in the crowd at the hearing are eating it up, cheering and clapping.

Giuliani says citizens of Michigan should be "ashamed" of vote counting at TCF

Giuliani says "founding fathers" gave the Michigan Legislature the authority to determine how honest or not the election is in the state.

This isn't going to happen, and is wildly misleading

Giuliani now saying ballots were being driven in from New York. What?

"There's no way this wasn't stolen."

Again, no evidence of a "stolen" election.

Hall interjects, asks crowd to stop cheering.

Rep. LaGrand gets first question: Why didn't you ask for a recount?

Giuliani: Because you'd just count the same fraudulent ballots.

Fwiw, Republican lawmakers crafted recount process in MI

.@darrincamilleri up next. Notes clerks (GOP and Democrats) at previous hearings said there was no evidence of fraud.

Brings up Barr statement to AP yesterday that DOJ found no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the election

.@darrincamilleri asks about reported attempts to seek a pardon from Trump.

Giuliani asks Camilleri "be disciplined for that" and says that is "a defamation of my character."

Giuliani doesn't answer the question about the pardon, as reported by NYT nytimes.com/2020/12/01/us/…

Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, up next. She thanks Giuliani for coming and says she doesn't have a question.

Johnson is trying to give a statement, but Hall says she needs to be asking a question. She's screaming since someone appears to have turned off her microphone

After Hall gavels down Johnson for making a statement, Rep. John Reilly, R-Oakland Township, is allowed to speak at length about his opinions about the election.

Rep. Stephen Johnson, R-Wayland Township, up next. Says Dominion's refusal to come become the committee means their contract should be reviewed.

But, says only way to know if Dominion changed votes would be through a hand recount. He notes Trump campaign didn't request one

Johnson: Instead, we hear a lot of thoughts, a lot of allegations, but the Trump campaign did not request a recount.

Johnson: The Detroit city clerk should resign.

However, Johnson notes that (uncertified) Detroit results show Biden earned fewer votes in Detroit than Clinton.

Certified results showed Biden earned about 6,000 more votes than Clinton

Johnson: If someone were cheating, wouldn't those numbers have been different?

Giuliani: No, it might have gone up higher if there was a legitimate vote. (That's not right.)

Again repeats misinformation about veracity of a hand recount.

Giuliani seems shocked (shocked!) that Trump didn't win the majority of the votes in Michigan cast via mail or absentee.

Again, Trump told his supporters not to vote by mail

Interesting strategy here: Giuliani says he'd rather have a forensic examination of the voting machines than actually recount votes in Michigan.

Seems to think the forensic examination would find more votes? Or invalidate Biden votes?

Rep. LaFave asks Giuliani: what do you want us to do? Hand the president the 16 electoral votes of Michigan?

Giuliani: No, I say you "take back your power" and take a look at what happened (that is what he and Ellis are asking)

LaFave: Certifiers certified the vote, and know your ask to the Legislature to take evidence "and put my name to it" and say this is definitely what happened.

Giuliani is just avoiding the heart of the question now.

Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, asks Giuliani if he thinks he and the president are honest men.

Giuliani laughs, says "do I have to answer that?"

Hall says she's out of order.

Now Jenna Ellis is giving a closing statement.

Ellis says "In this particular legislature, it's very apparent that the circus has only been on one side."

Ellis arguing that lawmakers should take some action to intervene in the results of the 2020 election in Michigan

Ellis: What the constitution obligates you to do is to take back your power "because the certification was false."

"What we're asking you to do is not something that's unheard of."

Says lawmakers have an "absolute power" to stop or affect certification of the vote

Ellis says lawmakers have more than enough information to "reclaim your authority."

Again, despite what Giuliani said, they're asking lawmakers to intervene in the certification and ultimate outcome of the election in Michigan

Ellis: Your state has not actually selected anyone for president.

All 83 Michigan counties and the Michigan Board of State Canvassers have certified results showing Joe Biden earned about 154,000 more votes than Trump in the state.

Ellis: Legislature can take back power to send delegates. I'm sure she means people who will cast electoral college votes.

Again, this is asking lawmakers to intervene in election outcome. MI legislative leaders, Republicans, say they aren't going to do that

Hall, in closing: I was disappointed today, because I felt that there were opportunities to ask good questions, and those were not taken. Says lawmakers interjected and attacked.

He's apologizing to witness who had to endure "partisan rhetoric."

And with that, the meeting is over.

Story out soon

Story: During a more-than 3-hour hearing, Michigan lawmakers watched Rudy Giuliani question his own witnesses on election issues.

We heard allegations, accusations and a reference to Four Seasons Landscaping. We did not see evidence of mass voter fraud freep.com/story/news/pol…

Today, like many other days this election season, I received a ton of fact-checking help from @clarajanehen.

You should read her thorough review of the allegations made today at the Giuliani hearing and in President Trump's Facebook video freep.com/story/news/loc…