Thread by @AmoneyResists

Here we go… (hearing #2)
#January6thCommitteeHearing

Chairman Bennie Thompson is recapping what the committee laid out during the 1st hearing last week. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. The bedrock of democracy is the votes of the people; Trump didn’t have the votes; he lost in court; then lied to remain in office.

Liz Cheney is now describing how Trump lost in court. She says she will show that Trump lost the election; knew he had lost; & that there was no evidence to support his claims of fraud. She says Trump’s closest campaign advisors urged him not to declare victory on election night.

Trump did not listen. Liz Cheney describes Rudy Giuliani as “slightly inebriated.” Trump’s closest advisors’ testimony confirms they told the former President there was no legitimate argument to overturn the election. Yet Trump claimed victory and went forward with Jan 6th anyway

She highlights how Trump conned his own supporters in claiming the election was “stolen from him.” He used this lie to deceive them into coming to Washington to “stop the steal” of the 2020 election which resulted in the January 6th insurrection. She turns it over to Zoe Lofgren.

Ms. Lofgren outlines how Trump knowingly deceived millions of his own supporters. She showed multiple videos of him spreading lies about fraud in the upcoming election before it even took place. She says he used these claims to grift money from his supporters & incite January 6th

The attack on January 6th was a predictable result of Trump’s unwillingness to admit his lost the 2020 election, and his decision to spread the lie that it had been stolen and his loss was only the result of fraud, a lie that his supporters believed and many continue to believe.

Bennie Thompson introduces the first witness. Mr. Chris Stirewalt—was fired from Fox “News” for accurately reporting that Trump lost the state of Arizona on election night. Fox News was the first network to call Arizona and it totally shifted the attitude of Trump’s campaign.

We are seeing testimony from Trump’s own campaign officials who stated that they met with Rudy Giuliani, who had clearly had too much to drink, “the former Mayor was definitely intoxicated.”They claim Rudy wanted Trump to declare victory at this point. His whole team disagreed.

They asked Ivanka what she believed her father should say. She said she didn’t know but it was becoming clear the race would not be called on election night. The rest of his team wanted Trump to say that results were still coming in & we will wait until they come in. He wouldn’t.

Chairman Thompson asks Chris Stirewalts if Trump had any basis to believe that the election was fraudulent. He said “No.” He asks him who won the 2020 election. He responds unequivocally: “Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.” Zoe Lofgren then asks Stirewalts to explain “the Red mirage”

He explains this refers to how early votes tend to favor Republicans because early votes tend to come in from rural/red counties. But as the count goes on, it tends to shift to favor Democrats because areas with higher populations (cities) and mail-in ballots are tabulated,

As soon as this was explained to Trump on election night, he immediately made the notorious “We want all counting of ballots to stop” speech. Important to note that Trump was never ahead in the electoral vote count despite the red mirage. But Trump went out of his way to deceive.

Ms. Lofgren asks Mr. Stirewalt how he decided to make the call to call the state of Arizona for Biden on election night. He said they had a bipartisan team of experts in place who helped him to do this based on polls they had conducted. He said Trump’s chances became nonexistent.

Trump’s closest campaign advisors knew this as well. They said they told Trump that his chances of winning now were “extremely extremely bleak [5-10%].” The campaign lawyers on his team couldn’t validate any claims of fraud, even those Trump himself was making.

His legal team, including Mr. Stepien, could not validate any of his false claims of fraud. Instead of accepting what these individuals were telling him, he decided to fire his legal team and replace them with even more sycophantic loyalists and conspiracy theorists like Guiliani

He replaced “team normal” (Stepien) with his team of conspiracy theorists including Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and Jenna Ellis. The rest of the team said the claims these individuals were making related to the election results were “absolutely insane” & “divorced from reality”

They asked Kushner if he ever shared his views of Mr. Giuliani with Trump. He says yes, he did. He told him it wasn’t the route he would take. Trump responded that he had “full confidence in Rudy.” Lofgren says even Powell recently said her statements had no basis in reality.

We are now watching more clips of Bill Barr’s testimony that he knew Trump had lost the election; the claims had no merit; he finally went to speak to Trump, who said the election was stolen. Barr said this wasn’t true, Trump became enraged and said Barr needs to investigate it.

Barr continued to say he can’t do this. The campaign’s legal team has to make a case against the individual states. He isn’t Trump’s legal team. He finally made a statement to the public on Dec. 1st saying there was no evidence of fraud. Trump called him to the Oval to berate him

We are getting a very clear picture of how deranged madman Trump was unwilling to face the reality that he lost the election; unwilling to stop spreading lies to the contrary. Barr said there was no interest from Trump in the facts; just advancing conspiracy theories of nonsense.

Barr audibly laughs when he mentions D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” movie, which he said has no bearing in facts or provides any tangible evidence of fraud or illegal voting whatsoever. Up until the election, Barr thought it was possible to talk sense to Trump. Barr resigned on Dec. 14th

Lofgren states that Barr wasn’t the only one who told Trump that his claims of fraud were without merit. His own legal counsel, chief of staff (Meadows), Vice President, and Navarro also knew this. Testimony from his legal counsel confirms they told all of these officials this.

They told Trump outright “We’ve looked into all of these claims of fraud in all of these states and there was no evidence to support any of them.” Trump would shift to another allegation that was equally groundless. “We looked at it, it’s false.” Then he’d shift to another.

Trump delved deeper and deeper into conspiratorial nonsense. “Dead people are voting. People are voting twice. Dominion voting machines are switching votes to Biden.” The committee is now entering into evidence confirming the legitimacy of the results of the 2020 election.

Committee is now in recess for 10 minutes. This is utterly devastating for Trump and Republicans. Stay tuned.

The committee is back. The three witnesses—an election attorney, former U.S. attorney, and former Philadelphia city commissioner—were sworn in. Ms. Lofgren asked Mr. Pak (former U.S. attorney for the northern district of GA) about Giuliani’s claims of fraud.

Mr. Pak said that the alleged “suitcase full of ballots” was in fact a verified lockbox of legitimate ballots. Mr. Giuliani presented this as a “smoking gun” to the senate committee, despite knowing that this claim was not credible and was false.

Richard Donohue (former Acting Attorney General) told Trump that they looked at the video and interviewed the witnesses, and there was no evidence of fraud. Mr. Pak says even his successor who was installed by Trump as a loyalist could not find any evidence of voter fraud in GA.

Barr is debunking Trump’s claims that “more people voted in Philadelphia than lived in Philadelphia.” Barr said this claim was “absolute rubbish.” Barr found specious claims of fraud by Giuliani “annoying.” He repeatedly found no evidence to support any of these claims.

Ms. Lofgren is now questioning the election commissioner from Philadelphia about Trump’s claims of “8,000 dead people voting in Pennsylvania.” He says not only did they not have evidence of 8,000 votes from “dead voters,” they couldn’t even find evidence of 8.

Ms. Lofgren asks Al Schmidt to describe the threats he received after Trump targeted him by tweet. He says up until this, he had only received general threats. But afterwards, he received specific threats to his own life and the life of his family members.

He received threats saying “You’re a traitor. Your head will be on a pike. You’re what the second amendment is for. We’re coming for you.” This is first-hand evidence of what Trump’s tweets did when he targeted someone by name. Ms. Lofgren apologizes that he had to endure this.

Mr. Ginsberg, the top Republican election attorney who represented Bush in Bush v. Gore is now testifying. Ms. Lofgren asks him if he saw any evidence to substantiate any of Trump’s claims of fraud. He says flat out “No, I did not.” He said the election wasn’t close. Trump lost.

She asks Mr. Ginsberg to comment on Trump’s teams’ claims that they weren’t given their day in court. He says “they absolutely had their day in court.” Ms. Lofgren is now showing a stream of 60 judges’ comments all stating that Trump’s claims had no basis in facts or reality.

Even Judge Carter described Trump’s abuse of the judicial branch of government as “a coup in search of a legitimate legislative purpose/argument.” The second group of witnesses is now dismissed. Ms. Lofgren is recognized for her closing statement.

She states that litigation of elections typically ends on the safe harbor date of December 14th and yet Trump continued pursuing litigation and pushing falsehoods about the election in an effort to continue to fundraise. The Trump campaign knew these statements were false.

The claims that the election were stolen were so successful, they raised nearly $250 million in the first few weeks. The “Save America PAC” was a complete grift that pushed lies about election fraud. These emails continued to spread lies about a “stolen election” up to Jan 6th.

Ms. Lofgren says it wasn’t just Trump’s “Big Lie” that jeopardized our Republic, but his “Big Rip Off” in employing these lies to scam money from his supporters. She now turns it over to Liz Cheney for her closing remarks.

Congresswoman Cheney thanks the witnesses who appeared today. She plays a clip one of Trump’s top advisors telling Mr. Eastman the day after Jan 6th “Are you out of your f*cking mind? All I want to hear from you are 2 words from now on: orderly transition.”

In closing, Chairman Thompson shows clips of Trump supporters who were at the Capitol on January 6th echoing all of Trump’s false statements about a “stolen election” that was “rigged by democrats” and “dominion software.” These people were merely useful pawns to Trump.

The second hearing is adjourned. This committee continues to do a brilliant job of making their case to the American people that Trump knowingly and deliberately tried to stay in power illegitimately. Next hearing is set for Wednesday morning.