WASHINGTON — Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and former Attorney General Bill Barr recounted in video depositions their repeated admonitions to former President Donald Trump that his election fraud claims were groundless, in the second hearing this month by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection focused on the former president’s decision to spread false allegations of election fraud.
Several of Trump’s closest aides in the White House and his campaign told the committee of their growing dismay when Trump dismissed multiple warnings between the Nov. 3, 2020, election and Jan. 6, 2021, that the claims he pushed had been investigated but could not be proved.
In a deposition presented at the hearing, Barr recounted a conversation he had with Trump the day the Electoral College met and voted, in which the president told Barr new purported evidence of problems with voting machines in rural Michigan would assure Trump would serve a second term.
