U.S. election officials on Tuesday recounted how Donald Trump’s supporters threatened, insulted and harassed them, sometimes appearing in their homes after refusing to help the former president reverse his 2020 election defeat. The congressional hearing about that were exactly where the Trump administration came from. “We have received … more than 20,000 emails and tens of thousands of voicemails and messages that have filled our offices and we could not work, at least not to communicate,” said Rasti Bowers, chair of the House Selection Committee. The committee turned its focus Tuesday to Republican pressure on government officials as it struggled to stay in the White House despite losing the November 2020 presidential election. It was the fourth of at least six public hearings the commission held this month on its near-annual investigation into the attack, which took place as Vice President Mike Pence met with members of Congress to formally confirm Trump’s defeat. Democrat Joe Biden. The commission’s seven Democrats and two Republicans used the hearings to argue that Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat were tantamount to illegal behavior far beyond normal politics. Much of Tuesday’s testimony linked the president directly to the pressure campaign, including an attempt to replace state voters with officials expected to support Trump’s efforts to overturn the election result. Bowers said the harassment continued in the weeks before the Capitol Uprising, with demonstrations at his home, a gunman confronting his neighbor and other threats and insults that continued even when his daughter was seriously ill. He died in January 2021. “It was worrying, it was worrying,” said Bowers, who campaigned for Trump in 2020 and said he wanted to be re-elected. At a tumultuous rally on Jan. 6, Trump urged supporters to march on the Capitol. He had taken advantage of that date, when Pence was going to ratify the election, as the last chance to stay in the White House despite his defeat at the polls. Bowers described talks with Trump and his close aides, including attorney Rudy Giuliani and his adviser John Eastman, who urged Bowers to reject the election results. “You are asking me to do something against my oath and I will not break my oath,” Bowers said, recounting a conversation with Giuliani. The commission also played recordings and videos in which close associates of Trump – and the president himself – urged government officials to reject the election results. Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger and Gabriel Sterling, Chief Operating Officer at Georgia’s’s’s office, have falsely claimed that Trump and his supporters . Raffensperger said the state had conducted nearly 300 investigations into the allegations and found nothing wrong with them. “We checked every complaint. “We ran into the rabbit trail to make sure our numbers were accurate,” he said. The committee also heard from Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, a former Georgia state election official, who filed a lawsuit – including racist threats – against her, her mother and her grandmother after Trump targeted her by name after her victory. of Biden in her state. the presidential election. “It has turned my life upside down,” Moss said. The FBI told Moss’s mother, Ruby Freeman, to leave her home because of the threats. “I do not feel safe anywhere. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to be targeted by the President of the United States? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not one goal. “But it targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, who got up to help Fulton County hold elections in the middle of the pandemic,” Freeman said in a video testimony. Reuters first reported the details of the ordeal Moss and Freeman underwent in December, when they described lynching threats and racist defamation, along with disturbing visits by strangers to their homes. Trump telephoned Rafensperger on January 2, 2021, telling Georgia’s top constituency in a recorded conversation to “find” enough votes to win Georgia. Raffensperger remains a frequent target of Trump criticism. However, the secretary of state last month ousted a Trump-backed Republican challenger, Jodi Hayes, to win the Republican primary as he ran for re-election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing, while repeating false allegations that he lost only because of widespread fraud that benefited Biden. Trump and his supporters – including many Republican members of Congress – dismiss the Jan. 6 commission as a political witch-hunt, but supporters of the commission say it is a necessary investigation into a violent threat to democracy. Former United States President Donald Trump has pressed his vice president, Mike Pence, to reverse his 2020 election defeat, despite being repeatedly told Pence had no authority to do so, Pence’s aides told a congressional committee. investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. . Reuters The Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
