The House Committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol that occurred on 6 January 2021, held its fourth hearing on Tuesday, 21 June.
It became clear that former US President Donald Trump's team knew that there was no evidence to support his claim that the 2020 election, that made Joe Biden the president, was stolen from Trump. He was also allegedly in the know regarding his team's attempts to push fake pro-Trump electors to prevent the certification of Biden's victory.
Many Republican officials came forward and testified about the relentless pressure and intimidation that they had to endure from the former president's legal team and pro-Trump groups.
Here are three takeaways from the fourth hearing.
Trump's Team Knew There Was No Evidence
More evidence emerged from the hearing that made it clear Trump's team knew that the plot to overturn the 2020 election results had no evidential backing.
Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers of the Republican Party testified that the former president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani had asked him to look into removing Joe Biden’s electors in the state but he refused.
"You're asking me to do something against my oath and I will not break my oath," Bowers had said, according to his testimony.
Bowers also said that Giuliani himself did not have the evidence to promote his theories regarding the election being stolen.
"We've got lots of theories; we just don’t have the evidence," Giuliani once told Bower, according to the latter.
John Eastman, who widely featured in the previous hearing, featured again, after Bowers testified that Eastman urged him to decertify the electors, regardless of what they thought it would mean with respect to the Constitution.
"Just do it, and let the courts sort it out," Eastman told Bowers, according to the Arizona House Speaker.
Eastman, a law professor, fed Trump a theory that Vice President Pence, as the head of the US Senate then, had the power to overturn the results of the 2020 election that Joe Biden won or at the very minimum, delay the certification of the results. This was revealed in the third hearing.
The Fake Electors Scheme
The hearing then went on to reveal in detail how Trump's team tried to decertify Biden electors and put forth fake pro-Trump electors in order to stop the congressional certification of the 2020 election results that took place on 6 January 2021.
Slates of fake electors were to be pushed in key swing states.
Multiple witnesses told the House Commitee that the former president was aware of the scheme. Although, Chairperson of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel said that Trump was not directly or personally involved.
"Essentially, he [Trump] turned the call over to Mr Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the result of any dates," McDaniel said during the hearing.
"I think more just helping them reach out and assemble them but .... my understanding is the campaign did take the lead and we just were helping them in that role," she added.
On the same matter, Arizona House Speaker Bowers told the committee that both Trump and Giuliani had called him and urged him to follow a plan that pushed forward illegitimate, pro-Trump electors from his state.
The Relentless Pressure Campaign
"No matter how many times senior Department of Justice officials, including his own attorney general, told the President that these allegations were not true, President Trump kept promoting these lies and put pressure on state officials to accept them," Democrat Representative Adam Schiff said during the hearing.
Many officials testified about the pressure campaign and intimidation they faced because they refused to be part of the effort to overturn the election. A lot of these testimonies came from Republicans.
Bowers testified that his office received 20,000 emails and "tens of thousands" of voice mails. He went on to describe a "new pattern" in his family's life when groups would reach his home on Saturdays and issue threats.
Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey testified that he received "just shy of 4,000 text messages over a short period of time calling [me] to take action" after the former president retweeted his phone number.
Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler also received daily calls from the legal team of Trump's campaign to overturn the election. Giuliani also kept calling.
Additionally, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his wife was regularly harassed and that "some people broke into my [his] daughter-in-law’s home."
(With inputs from The New York Times, The Washingont Post, CNN, and NPR.)
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