The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is set Tuesday to outline aggressive efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to pressure state officials to help overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who defeated a Trump-backed candidate’s bid to unseat him in the state’s primary this year, and his top deputy, Gabriel Sterling, are scheduled to be live witnesses.
Appearing with them will be Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers. He is one of five recipients this year along with Jan. 6 committee Republican Liz Cheney of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Another recipient of that award, former Georgia election worker Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, will testify on a second witness panel.
Witnesses will describe how pressure from Trump and his allies on state officials put local officials and their families at risk, boosted the public’s belief the election was stolen, and contributed to the violence on Jan. 6, a committee aide said.
The televised hearing, the fourth of seven planned by the panel, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.
“We will show courageous state officials who stood up and said they wouldn’t go along with this plan to either call legislatures back into session or decertify the results for Joe Biden,” Representative Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the committee who will lead the hearing questioning, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“The system held because a lot of state and local elections officials upheld their oath to the constitution, a lot of the Republicans, as well as Democrats,” he said.
Here are some things to watch for:
More on Trump’s call to Raffensperger:
Raffensperger, the top election official in his state, was personally urged by Trump during an infamous, hour-long call on Jan. 2, 2021 to “find” 11,780 nonexistent votes to award Georgia and its electoral votes to Trump.
Look for the committee — which has privately interviewed Raffensperger — to now delve publicly into that call, including whether language by Trump about repercussions if his demands weren’t carried constituted potentially illegal threats.
Trump’s last White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, was also among those on the call that Raffensperger recorded as a precaution against any effort by Trump to misrepresent it publicly. Look for more details about Meadows’ own involvement in a pressure campaign on Georgia officials.
Raffensperger may also talk about how his standing up to Trump led to calls for him to resign from some in his party and how his family received threats because of his actions.
Raffensperger still faces a general election challenge in November.
Status of Georgia investigation:
A Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury privately heard Raffensperger’s testimony early this month that likely touched on that phone call.
That grand jury also has likely heard from Moss — the former Georgia election worker testifying at the hearing Tuesday in Washington. She will talk about receiving harassing messages, racial taunts and even death threats after being falsely accused by Trump and his supporters of processing fake ballots for Biden.
A grand jury in Washington is also looking into efforts to overturn Biden’s victory, with known interest directed at former Trump legal advisers Rudolph Giuliani and John Eastman.
More details could be revealed in Raffensperger’s testimony.
Arizona speaker resistance:
Look for more details from Bowers, the pro-Trump speaker of the Republican controlled Arizona House, on pressure he received from Trump and Giuliani after the election. He says they asserted in a call that Arizona law somehow permitted the Legislature to retroactively override its voters’ presidential pick. Bowers say he questioned how that could be constitutional.
“I voted for President Trump and worked hard to re-elect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election,” Bowers said in a statement, upon his announced selection as one of this year’s Kennedy courage award recipients was announced.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation noted that Bower had “endured persistent harassment and intimidation tactics from Trump supporters, and later survived an attempt to recall him from the legislature.”
False electors plan:
Look for added information on how — and from whom — other Republican officials in multiple states received instructions to create false electoral slates, certifying that Trump won states he actually lost.
The plan involved creation of bogus slates and certificates in seven battleground states that Biden actually won — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These were then sent to Congress, the National Archives and other government offices in mid-December 2020, in part to cast doubt or confusion.
The committee has met privately with other state officials, including former Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who also was named a Kennedy courage award winner this year.
As many as 20 state officials or party activists tied to the elector slates were subpoenaed to give depositions to the House committee, and their video testimony could surface. The committee also has been examining discussions some House Republican members had with the White House about the plan.
Ginni Thomas’s activities:
The committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, says the panel has requested to speak to Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The decision follows revelations last week that her communications in an unofficial capacity urging the overturning of election results were more extensive than previously known, including email correspondence with Eastman. Her name could pop up Tuesday in discussions about the false-elector scheme and other matters.
There are complaints some of her activities pose a conflict of interest for her husband, especially if the Supreme Court is called to rule on any additional January 6-related cases. At least one Democratic lawmaker, Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, last week called for Justice Thomas to resign from the High Court.
