Jan. 6 panel details coordinated efforts targeting election officials
Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers, R, on Tuesday told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that he resisted repeated overtures from President Donald Trump and his allies to change his state’s 2020 presidential election results because he saw no evidence supporting Trump’s claims of fraud and didn’t want to be
“used as a pawn.”
Georgia state officials also testified, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, R, whom Trump asked to “find” enough votes to flip the election in that state, and his deputy, Gabe Sterling. During his testimony, Raffensperger debunked claims of fraud that Trump used to pressure him.
The committee also heard from Shaye Moss, a Georgia election worker who was wrongly accused of committing election fraud by Trump and his allies. She was subject to vile attacks as a result.
The hearing also revealed that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., offered to deliver fake electors to Vice President Mike Pence. The committee showed text messages between a staffer for Johnson and a staffer for Pence just minutes before the beginning of the joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes on Jan. 6.
However, a spokesperson for Johnson disputed accusations from the committee that the senator was directly involved with a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
“The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office,” Johnson press secretary Alexa Henning wrote in a tweet Tuesday afternoon.
Henning did not contest the authenticity of the text messages, saying instead that Johnson was not involved in the “creation” of the fake elector certificates themselves. Henning’s statement does not contest the committee’s core claim, which is that Johnson lobbied the vice president to accept fake elector certificates in an effort to subvert the 2020 election.
Rep. Liz Cheney, RWyo., the committee’s vice chair, praised election worker Ruby Freeman for her service to the country and also her courage after facing death threats and more harassment from Trump supporters wanting her to help change the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Thank you for your courage,” she said in her closing testimony. “Thank you for your strength.
Thank you for being here today. It means so much for everyone to hear your story. So thank you for that. We have had tremendous testimony today.”
Cheney said Freeman’s testimony of not succumbing to pressure — even at her home — by those supporting the former president to break the law is proof of her commitment to America’s electoral process.
“We’ve been reminded that we’re a nation of laws, and we’ve been reminded by you and by Speaker Bowers and Secretary of State Raffensperger, Mr. Sterling [Georgia state official Gabe Sterling], that our institutions don’t defend themselves,” Cheney said.
The panel played a witness account from Freeman, a Georgia election worker and mother of Shaye Moss, another election worker. The women were the target of threats and harassment after Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani falsely accused them of tampering with the election results.
In a recorded account, Freeman told investigators the false accusations cost her her name. She used to go by “Lady Ruby,” a moniker she was proud of in her hometown.
“Now, I won’t even introduce myself by my name anymore,” Freeman told investigators. “I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about who’s listening.”
“I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation,” Freeman added. “I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people, starting with Number 45 [Trump] and his ally, Rudy Giuliani, decided to scapegoat me and my daughter.”
Moss, speaking live to the panel, recounted similar experiences, saying her life has been turned upside down.
“I no longer give out my business card, I don’t transfer calls. I haven’t been anywhere at all,” Moss said. “I gained about 60 pounds, I just don’t do nothing anymore. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, DCalif., said he would give Freeman the final word.
Trump, Freeman said, targeted a “small-business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who [stood] up to help Fulton County run an election in the middle of a pandemic.”
“There is nowhere I feel safe,” Freeman told investigators. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”
In setting the stage for Tuesday’s session, Schiff said the committee’s evidence would reveal the depth of Trump and his allies’ efforts to harass state officials, often using rhetoric that instigated his supporters into eventually ransacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Schiff said the committee will present “evidence of the former president and his top adviser’s direct involvement in key elements of this plot” to overturn the 2020 election result by pressuring officials at all levels of government to manipulate or invalidate the official counts of ballots.
Schiff also said the committee will highlight that Trump’s repeated false claims of a stolen election fomented death threats against and harassment of lawmakers and election officials for carrying out basic administrative tasks. One such incident, captured in a recording played by the committee, showed a crowd of Trump supporters outside the house of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson late at night.
“The uncertainty of that was the fear. Are they coming with guns? Are they going to attack my house? I’m in here with my kid,
I’m trying to put him to bed. That was the scariest moment, just not knowing what was going to happen,” Benson said.