investigate the january 6th

attack on the united states capitol will be in order. without objection, the chair is authorized to declare they committee in recess at any point. pursuing the house deposition authority regulation ten, the chair announces the committees approval to release the deposition material presented in today's hearing. good afternoon. in our last hearing we told this story of a scheme driven by donald trump to pressure

former vice president mike pence to illegally overturn the election results. we showed that when the pressure campaign failed and mike prints failed his constitutional obligations donald trump turned a violent mob loose on him. he showed that the mob came within roughly 40 feet of the vice president. today we will show what happened to mike pence was not an isolated part of donald trump's scheme to overturn the election. in fact, pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook. a handful of election officials in several key states stood between donald trump and upending american democracy. as we begin today, it is important to remember when we count the votes for president,

we count the votes state by state. for the most part, the candidate who win the popular vote in a state winds all of these states electoral college votes. and, whoever wins a majority of electoral college votes wins the presidency. when donald trump tried to overturn the election results, he focused on just a few states. he wanted officials at the local and state level to say the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and throughout the results. even though, as we showed last week, that was not any voter fraud that could have overturned the election results. and, like mike pence this public servants would not go along with donald trump's scheme there. when they would not embrace the big lie and substitute the will of the voters with donald trump's will to remain in power, donald trump worked to ensure

they would face the consequences. threats to people's livelihood, and lives. threats of violence that donald trump knew about and amplified. and, in our other hearings we cannot just look back at what happened in late 2020 and early 2021 because the danger had not gone away. a mighty test on january 6th and in the days before. we say our on students piled. what does that really mean? democratic institutions are not obstructions or ideals. they are local officials that oversee elections. secretaries of state, people with whom we have placed our trust that they will carry out their duties. what if they do not? two weeks ago the mexico held its primary elections. one county commission refused

to certify the results, citing they had vague, unsupported claims dealing with dominion voting machines. the courts stepped in, saying the mexico law required the commission to certify the results. two of the three members of the commission finally relented. one still refused, saying his vote is not based on any evidence, it is not based on any facts. it is only based on my gut feeling and my own intuition. that is all i need. by the way, a few months ago this county commissioner was found guilty of illegally entering the capitol grounds on january 6th. this story reminds us of a few things. first, as we have shown in our previous hearings, claims that widespread mode earth rod tainted the 2020 presidential

election have always been a lie. donald trump knew they were a lie and he kept amplifying them anyway. anything we described today, the relentless destructive pressure campaign on state and local officials was all based on a lie. donald trump knew it, he did it anyway. second, the lie has not gone away. it is corrupting our democratic institutions. people that believe that liar now seeking positions of public trust. and, as seen in new mexico their oath to be to the people they serve will take a backseat to their commitment to the big lie. if that happens, who will make sure our institutions do not break under the pressure? we will not have a close calls, we will have a catastrophe. my distinguished colleague from

california, mr. schiff will present much of the select committee's finding on this matter. first, i am pleased to recognize our vice chair, miss cheney of wyoming for any opening statements she would care to offer. >> thank you very much, mister chairman. today we will begin examining president trump's effort to overturn the election by pressure of state officials and legislatures. president trump had intellect and personal role in this effort as did rudy giuliani. other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure vice president mike pence to reject electoral vote illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level. each of these efforts to overturn the election is independently serious, each

deserves attention both by congress and by our department of justice. as the federal court has already indicated, these efforts were already part of a better plan. preparation from january 6th. i would note 2.4 particular focus today, first, today you will hear about calls made by president trump to officials of georgia and other states. as you listen to these tapes, keep in mind what donald trump already knew at the time he was making those calls. he had been told over and over again that his stolen elections allegations were nonsense. for example, this is what former attorney general bill barr said to donald trump about allegations in georgia. >> we took a hard look at this ourselves and based on our review, including the interviews of the key witnesses,

the fulton county allegations had no merit. there would be ballots under the table, there were legitimate ballots, they had been pre-opened for eventually feeding into the machine. all of the stuff about the water lake another with some subterfuge involved. we found there was some confusion but there was no evidence of subterfuge to create an opportunity. we do not see any evidence of this in a fulton county episode. >> acting deputy attorney general richard donahue told donald trump this. >> i said something to the effect of, sir, we have been nothing but investigations. the major allegations was not supported. >> mr. trump was told by his

own advisers that he had no basis for his own election claims. he continued to pressure state officials for results. second, you will hear about a number of threats and efforts to state officials to reverse the election outcome. one of our witnesses today, gabriel sterling, explicitly warned president trump about potential violence on december 1st 2020. more than a month before january 26. you will see reform efforts from that video repeatedly today. >> it hasn't even too far. all of it. joe today asked for chris krebs, this patriot to be shot. a 20 something with death threats and a noose put out saying he should be home for treason because he was

reporting on batches from an ems to a county computer. it has to stop it. mister president, you have not condemned these actions or this language. senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. this has to stop, we need you to step up and if you are going to take this leadership then so some. my boss, secretary raffensperger, his address is out there. they have people doing caravans by their house, people have come on to their property. it has to stop. this is elections, this is the backbone of democracy and all of you who have not said a word are complicit in this. >> the point is this, donald

trump did not care about the threats of violence. he did not condemn them, he made no effort to stop them. he went forward with his fake allegations anyway. one more point, i would urge all of those watching today to focus on the evidence the committee will present. do not be distracted by politics, this is serious. we cannot let america become a nation of conspiracy theories and the violence. finally, i want to thank our witnesses today for all of your service to our country. today, all of america will hear about the selfless actions of these men and women who acted honorably to uphold the law, protect our freedom, and preserve our constitution. today, mister chairman, we will all see an example of what truly makes america great. thank you, mister chairman. i yield back. >> without objection, the chair recognizes the gentleman from

california, mr. schiff, for an opening statement. >> thank you, mister chairman, and madam vice chair. on november 3rd 2020, donald trump ran for reelection to the office of the presidency and he lost. his opponent, joe biden, finished ahead in the key battleground states of arizona, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, georgia, and elsewhere. nevertheless, and for the first time in history the losing presidential candidate fought to hold on to power. as we have seen in previous hearings, he did so through a variety of means, on election day he sought to stop the counting of the vote knowing that they millions of absentee ballots, elections officials would be counting on election day and thereafter would run strongly against him and deliver a victory to joe biden. next, and when he could not stop the counting he tried to stop state legislatures and governors from certifying the results of the election.

he went to court and filed dozens of frivolous lawsuits, making unsubstantiated claims of fraud when that also failed he mounted a pressure campaign directed at individual state legislators to try and get them to go back into session and declare them the winner, decertify joe biden as the winner, or send two slates of electors to congress. one for biden and one for him. and pressure vice president pence to chose him as the winner. but, the state legislatures would not go along with this came, another with the vice president. none of the legislatures agreed to go back into special session and declare him the winner. no legitimate state authority in these states donald trump lost would agree to a point fake trump electors and send them to congress. this did not stop the trump campaign either.

and got them to call themselves electors. created phony certificates associated with these fake electors. then they translated these certificates to washington and the congress to be counted during the joint session of congress on january 6th. none of this worked. according to federal district judge carter, former president trump and others likely violated laws by engaging in a scheme, including conspiracy to defraud the united states. you'll hear evidence of the former president and his top advisers direct involvement in key elements of the plot, for web judge carter called, a coup in search of a legal theory. as the judge explained, but president trump's campaign to stop -- did not end with vice president pence, it targeted every tier of federal and state officials.

convincing state legislatures, he said, to stop the count and ensure president trump's reelection. as we have seen in our prior hearings, running through this scheme was a lie that the election was plagued with massive fraud, and some hostile. you'll remember what the presidents attorney general billy barr said he told the president about these claims of massive fraud affecting the outcome of the election. >> and i told him the stuff his people were shoveling to the public were -- >> the presidents lie was and is a dangerous cancer on the body politic. if you could convince americans they cannot trust their own elections, anytime they lose is somehow illegitimate, then what is left but violence to

determine who should govern? this brings us to the focus of today's hearing. when state election officials refused to stop the count, donald trump and his campaign tried to put pressure on them. the state executive officials refused to certify them as winner of states he lost, he applied more pressure. when state legislators refused to go and get to session and appoint trump -- anyone who got in the way of trump's attempt to hold on to power after he lost the election was subject to a dangerous and escalating campaign of pressure. this pressure campaign brought angry phone calls and texts, armed protests, intimidation and all too often threats of violence and. state legislators were singled out, so two were statewide election officials. even local i'm action workers doing their jobs were accused

of being criminals and had their lives turned upside down. as we will show the president supporters heard the false allegations and claims of fraud and allegations against officials as call to action. >> [inaudible] you're a threat to democracy! you are a threat to free and honest elections! [inaudible] >> and about 45 minutes later we started to hear noises outside my home. and my stomach sunk and i thought -- and then we don't know, the

uncertainty of that, that was the fear. where are they coming, are they going to attack my house? i'm trying to put my kid tibet. that was the scariest moment, not knowing what was going to happen. >> this pressure campaign against state and local officials expanded through numerous contested states. as you'll see in this video produced by the select committee. >> my name is, i'm in a counsel to investigate the january 6th attack on the united states capitol. the president and his lawyers appeared before state legislators urging them to give the electoral votes to trump, even though he lost the popular vote. >> i represent president trump, along with jenna ellis. this is our fourth or fifth here. >> this election has to be turned around because we won pennsylvania by a lot and a lot

of the swing states by a lot. >> this was a strategy that was practical and legal elements. this was just two days after the election in which a trump campaign lawyer named mitchell asked another trump lawyer named eastman to write a memo justify the idea. >> when you remember this coming up as an option in the postelection period for the first time? >> right after the election. it might have been before the election. >> eastman prepared a memo attempting to justify the strategy, which was circulated to the trump white house, giuliani's legal team, and state legislators around the country. he appeared before the georgia state legislature to advocate -- you could >> adopt a slate of electors yourself. when you add in the mix of the significant statistical anomalies and sworn affidavits and video evidence of outright election fraud, i don't think it's just your authority to do

that but i think you have a duty to do that, to protect the integrity of the election in georgia. >> republican officials in several states released public statements recognizing president trump's proposal was an awful. for instance, georgia governor kemp called the proposal, unconstitutional. arizona house leader said the idea would undermine undermine the rule of law. the campaign against -- president trump invited that delegations from michigan and pennsylvania to the white house. >> if you make a point to the president you are not going to do anything that violated michigan law. >> i believe it. whether or not those exact words were used. i think the words i'd likely use if we are going to follow the law. >> nevertheless pressure continued. the next day president trump tweeted,, quote hopefully the

courts and or legislature will have the courage to do what has to be done. he posted multiple messages on facebook listing the contact information for state officials, urging his supporters to contact them to, quote, we demand a vote on the certification. in one of those polls, president trump disclose your personal phone number to his millions of followers. >> all i remember is receiving over just shy of 4000 text messages in a short period of time. calling to take action. there was a loud noise, a consistent cadence. we hear the trump folks are calling and asking for changes in the electors and you can bet guys can do this.

well, they were believing things that were untrue. >> these efforts involved targeting outreach state legislators. >> my names -- i'm calling from trump campaign headquarters in washington, d.c.. you have the power to reclaim authority and electors that will support president trump and vice president pence. from president trump's lawyers and himself. >> i became friendly with legislators that i didn't know four weeks ago. >> another legislator, pennsylvania house leader color, received voice mailers from trump lawyers in the last week of november. >> mister speaker this is -- we're calling you to discuss obviously the election. >> hello mister speaker, this is jenna ellis, i'm here with mayor giuliani. >> hey brian, it's rudy, really have something important to call to your attention.

>> color felt the outreach was inappropriate and asked his lawyers to tell rudy giuliani to stop calling. giuliani continued to reach out. >> i understand you don't want to talk to me now. >> on december 30th, trump ally steve bannon announced a protest at colors of. >> we're getting on the road and going to color and will start going to offices, if we have to go to homes and let him know what we think. >> multiple protests, i don't remember the exact number, there was at least three i think. outside either my district office or my home, and you're correct, my then 15-year-old son was home by himself for the first one. all of my personal information was online. it was my personal email, my personal cell phone, my home from number. in fact we had to disconnect our home for about three days because it would ring all hours

of the night. it would fill up with messages. >> brian color, we are outside. >> full watchers denied access. >> these were another element. the trump campaign spent millions of dollars for ads online and television. public pressure on state officials were dangerous in the lead up to january 6th. [inaudible] the punishment for treason's death.

>> the state pressure campaign and the danger it posed to state officials in the state capitals around the nation was a dangerous precursor to the violence we saw on january 6th at the u.s. capitol. today will hear from rusty bowers, republican speaker of the arizona house of representatives. , it how's oath of office would not permit. you will now hear from the republicans secretary of state for georgia, brad raffensperger, who trump directed to, quote, find 11,780 vote that did not exist. just the exact number of votes to overtake joe biden. you'll also hear from gabriel sterling, about the spurious claims of fraud in the elections in georgia and who responded to a cascading set of threats to his election team,

wanted the president to start, someone was going to get killed. you'll hear from wandrea arshaye moss, a former election worker in fulton county, georgia, about the lies of the election impacting the lives of real people who administer our elections and still do you hear what they experienced when the most powerful man in the world, the president of the united states, sought to cling to power after being voted out of office by the american people. the system held but barely. the system held because people of courage, republicans and democrats, like the witnesses you'll hear today put their oath to the country and constitution above any other consideration. they did their jobs as we must do ours. thank you mister chairman and i yield back. . >> welcome our first panel of

witnesses. we're joined today by a distinguished legislator from arizona, rusty bowers, our republican speaker of the arizona house of representatives. mr. bowers was elected to the state legislature in 1993. he served as speaker since 2019. welcome, speaker bowers. brad raffensperger is the 29th secretary of state of georgia serving in the role since 2019. as an elected official and a republican, secretary brad raffensperger is responsible for supervising elections in georgia and maintaining the states public records. welcome mister secretary. gabriel sterling is a chief operating officer in the georgia office. mr. sterling was the statewide implementation manager for the

2020 election in georgia, responsible for leading the secretary of state's response to the covid pandemic and rolling out modernized voting equipment. i will swear in our witnesses. witnesses will please stand and raise the right hand do you swear upon the penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? thank you, please be seated. let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. speaker bowers, thank you for being with us today. you ought to speak -- your speaker of the arizona house and a self described conservative republican. you campaigned for president trump with him during the 2020 election. is it fair to say that you want to donald trump to win a second term in office?

please. >> yes, sir. thank you. >> and is it your understanding that president biden was the winner of the popular vote in arizona in 2020? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. pursuant to section five c eight of house resolution 503, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. adam schiff, for questions. >> speaker bowers, thank you for being with us today. before we begin with the questions i have prepared for you, i want to ask you about a statement that former president trump issued, which i received just prior to the hearing. have you had a chance to review that statement? >> my council called from arizona and ready to meet. yes, sir. >> and that statement, i won't read it in its entirety, former president trump begins by calling you a rhino, republican in name only.

he then references a conversation in november 2020 in which he claims that you told him that the election was rigged, that he had won arizona. to quote the former president, during the conversation he told me the election was rigged and i won arizona, unquote. did you have such a conversation with the president? >> i did have a conversation with the president. that certainly isn't it. but there were parts of it that were true, but there are parts that are not, sir. >> and the part that i read you, is that pulse? >> anywhere, anyone, anytime, who said that i said the election was rigged, that would not be true. >> and when the former president in a statement today claimed, that you told him that he won arizona, is that also false? >> that is also false.

>> mr. bowers, i understand after the election, i don't know whether this is the conversation the former president is referring to, but after the election you received a phone call from president trump and rudy giuliani in which they discussed the result of the presidential election in arizona. if you would, tell us about that call and whether the former president or mr. giuliani raised allegations of election fraud. >> thank you. my wife and i had returned from attending our church meetings, it was on a sunday. we were still in the driveway and i had received a call from a colleague telling me that the white house was trying to get in touch with her and i. and she said, please, if you get a call, let's try and take this together. immediately, i saw the white house on my bluetooth was calling and i took the call and was asked by, i would presume,

the operator at the where -- white house, if i would hold for the president, which i did. mr. giuliani came on first but, then the niceties, then president trump came on. we initiated a conversation. >> during that conversation, did you ask mr. giuliani for proof of these allegations of fraud he was making? >> on multiple occasions, yes. >> and when you asked him for evidence what did he say? >> he said they did have proof. i asked him do you have names? for example, we have 200,000 illegal immigrants, some large number. five or 6000 dead people, et cetera. i said, do you have their names? yes. will you give them to me? yes. the president interrupted and said, give the man what he

needs, rudy. he said, i will. that happened on at least two occasions, that interchange and the conversation. >> so mr. giuliani was claiming in the call that there was hundreds of thousands of undocumented people and thousands of dead people who had reportedly voted in the election? >> yes. >> and you asked him for evidence of that? >> i did. >> did you ever receive from him that evidence either during the call, after the call, or to this day? >> never. >> what was the ask during this call? he was making allegations of fraud, but he had something, or a couple of things, that they wanted you to do. what were those? >> the ones i remember were first that we would hold, that i would allow an official committee at the capital so they could hear this evidence, and that we could take action thereafter. and i refused.

i said, up to that time, the circus, i called it the circus, had been brewing with lots of demonstrations, both at the counting center, the capital, and other places, and i did not want to have that in the house. i did not feel that the evidence, granted, in its absence, merited a hearing. and i did not want to be used as a pawn. if there was some other need that the committee caring would fulfill. so that was the first ask. that we hold in official committee hearing. >> what was his second ask? >> i said, to wet end? to what end the hearing? he said, well, we have heard by an official high up in the republican legislature that there is a legal theory, or legal ability, in arizona that

you can remove the electors of president biden and replace them. and we would like to have the legitimate opportunity, through the committee, to come to that end and remove that. and i said, that's totally new to me. i've never heard of any such thing. and he pressed the point and i said, look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath when i swore to the constitution, to uphold it, and i also swore to the constitution and the laws in the state of arizona, and this is totally foreign as an idea or a theory to me, and i would never do anything of such magnitude without deep consultation with qualified attorneys. i said i've got some good attorneys, and i'm going to give you their names.

but you're asking me to do something against my oath and i will not break my oath. and i think it was up to that point. >> during that conversation, and i think you heard when we played a snippet of giuliani calling other state legislators and saying he was calling essentially as a fellow republican. did he make a similar appeal to you, or the fact you shared a similar party? >> whether it was in that call or in a later meeting, he did bring it up more than once. >> how did he bring that up? >> he would say, aren't we all republicans here? i would think we would get a better reception. i would think you would listen a little more open to my suggestion. we are all republicans. >> and this evidence that you asked him for that would justify this extraordinary step, i think you said they never produced it. why do you feel what they were

asking you to do would violate your oath to the constitution? >> first of all, when the people, and in arizona i believe some 40 plus years earlier, the legislature had established the manner of electing our officials, the electors for the presidential race. once it was given to the people, as in bush v. gore illustrated by the supreme court, it becomes a fundamental right of the people. so as far as i was concerned, for someone to ask me, there was no evidence being presented of any strength. evidence can be hearsay evidence, it's still evidence but it's still hearsay. but strong, traditional, quality evidence? anything that would say to me, you have a doubt, deny your

oath. i will not do that. and on more than one occasion through all this, that has been brought up, and it is a tenant of my faith. that the constitution is divinely inspired. of my most basic foundational beliefs. so for me to do that because someone just asked me to? it's foreign to my very being. i will not do it. >> during that conversation, speaker bowers, did you ask him if what he was proposing had ever been done before? >> i did. >> and what did he say? >> he said, well i'm not familiar with arizona law or

any other loss, but i don't think so. and that was also brought up another conversations, both with him and with john eastman and others. >> speaker bowers, i understand a week after that call mr. giuliani appeared with others associated to mr. trump's effort to overturn the results of the election in a hotel ballroom in phoenix. was this in official hearing of the state legislature? >> it was not. >> why was it not a real official hearing of the legislature? >> a legislator can hold a group meeting, he can call it a hearing, but when they ask me to have an official hearing, we established protocols, public notice, et cetera. it's typically held at the capitol, but it doesn't need to be. we can authorize a hearing off campus.

i have been asked on several occasions to allow a hearing and denied it, but said you are free to hold any meeting you want to the person who asked, which he ultimately did. he was a little frustrated, but he ultimately did. >> this meeting was the same day, i believe, that the governor of arizona certified biden as the winner of the presidential election in arizona. did you meet with mr. giuliani and his associates while they were in phoenix sometime after that reported legislative hearing at the hotel? >> yes, i did, sir. >> and at that meeting, did mr. giuliani raise any specific allegations of election fraud again? >> his initial comments were, again, the litany of groups of illegal individuals or people deceased, et cetera. and he had brought that up, and i wasn't alone in that meeting, there were others and other

members of the senate aggressively questioning him. and then, i proceeded to question him on the proof that he was going to bring me, et cetera, but he did bring that up, yes. >> these other legislators were also republican members of the senate? >> they were, yes, sir. >> did they also press him for proof of these allegations? >> they pressed him very strongly. two of them especially, very strongly. >> and at some point, did mr. giuliani ask one of the other attorneys on his team to help him out with the evidence? >> he did. he asked jen ellis, who was sitting to his right. one thing was, it was more to the point of, was there sufficient evidence or action that we could justify the recalling of the electors? but at that point of the conversation, i know he referred to someone else. but he did ask, do we have the proof to miss ellis?

and she said yes. and i said, i want the names. do you have the names. yes. do you have how they voted? we have all the information. i said, can you get to me that information? did you bring it with you? she said, no. both mr. giuliani asked her and i asked generally if they brought up with them. she said no, it's not with me, but we can get it to you. and i said then you did not bring media evidence, which was repeated in different iterations for some period of time. >> at some point did one of them make a comment that they did not have evidence but they had a lot of theories? >> that was mr. giuliani. >> what exactly did he say and how it came up? >> my recollection, he said we've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence, and i don't know if that was a gaffe or maybe he did not think through what he said, but both

myself and others in my group, three in my group and my counsel, both remember that specifically. and afterwards, we kind of laughing about it. >> getting back to the phone call that preceded this meeting. he wanted you to have the legislature dismiss the biden electors and replace them with trump electors on the basis of these theories of fraud? >> he did not say it in those exact words, but he did say that arizona law, according to what he understood, that would be allowed and needed to come into session to take care of that. which initiated the discussion about, again, what i can legally not legally do, i cannot go into session in arizona unilaterally or on my soul prerogative. >> were any of the meetings, did any of one provide you evidence to affect the outcome of the election in arizona?

>> no one provided me such evidence, ever. >> the select committee has uncovered evidence in the course of our investigation -- the protests at state capitals across the country, individuals with ties to groups and parties involved in the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol. one of those incursions took place in the arizona house of representatives building as you can see in this footage. this is previously undisclosed video of protesters entering and refusing to leave the building. one of the individuals prominently shown in this video is jacob chansley. perhaps better known as the qanon shaman, this rider entered the capitol on january 6th, was photograph leaving a threatening note in the senate chamber, and was sentenced to 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction

of official proceeding. other protests to who occupied the arizona house of representatives building, included proud boys, men armed with rifles outside the entrance. i understand these protesters were calling for you know by name, speaker bowers, is that correct? >> did the president call you again in that later december? >> he did sir. >> did you tell the president in that second call you support him, that you voted for him, and that you are not going to do anything illegal for him? >> i did, sir. >> nevertheless, his lawyer, john eastman called you on june 4th, 2021, and he had a specific ask that would've required you to do just what you told the president you wouldn't do, something that would violate your oath, is that correct? >> that's correct, it wasn't just me. i had my counsel and others on the call. >> and what did doctor eastman

want you to do? >> that we would in fact vote, take a vote to overthrow, i shouldn't say overthrow, that we would be certify the electors. because we had plenary authority to do so. he cited article two, i think it's clause two, in his opinion that gave us the authority. i don't recall him saying, sufficient evidence, but there was some call or some strong reason to do so that we had justification to do so that we can do that. and that he was -- his gestion was that we would do it. i said, again, i took an oath for me to take that, to do what

you do, would be counter to my or. i don't recall if it was in that conversation that he talked more about the oath. but i said, what would you have me too? he said, just do it and let the court sorted. i said, you're asking me to do something that's never been done in history, the history of the united states. and i'm going to put my state through that? without sufficient proof? and that's going to be good enough with me, that i would put us through that, my state, that i swore to uphold in constitution and the law? no sir. he said, well, my suggestion would be just do it and let the courts figure it all out.

he didn't use that exact phrase but that was what is meaningless. i declined, and i believe that was close to the end of our phone call. >> again, this took place after you recently spoke with president trump and told him that you wouldn't do anything illegal for him, right? >> it wasn't days after, obviously was days after, a few days gone by. >> you had told president trump you would not do anything illegal for him? >> i did, both. >> and you told doctor eastman you did not believe there was legal support to justify when he was asking. but he still wanted you to do it, effectively let the courts work it out? >> i've been warned, don't say things you think maybe set. but i do remember him saying that the authority of the legislature was plenary, and that you could do it. i said, you should know i can't even call the legislature in

the session without a two thirds majority of. we're only 30 plus one, there's no way that could happen. >> in your view what he was asking you to do would have violated your oath to the constitution both the united states constitution and of the state of arizona? >> yes, sir. >> did you receive a call from u.s. representative andy biggs of arizona on the morning of january 6th? >> i did. >> what did mr. biggs ask you to do? >> i believe that was the day the vote was occurring. to each state to have certification. or declare certification of the electors. he asked if i would sign on both to a letter that had been sent from my state and that i would support a the certification of the electors, and i said, i would not.

>> mister speaker, on december 4th, 2020, shortly after your meeting with rudy giuliani and other trump allies, years least statement addressing, quote, calls for legislature to overturn the 2020 certified election results. the state ministry foreign explaining the, quote, breathtaking requests,, unquote made by representatives of president trump. the legislature overturned the -- and liver the states electoral college votes to president trump, unquote. why did you believe as you wrote in the statement that the rule of law forbids you from doing what president trump and his allies wanted to do? >> representative, i'm sorry, i should be saying mister chairman, representative schiff. there's two sides to the answer. one is, what am i allowed to do? and what am i forbidden to do?

we have no legal pathway, both in state law, nor to my knowledge and federal law, for us to execute such a request. and i am not allowed to walk or act beyond my authority. if i'm not specifically authorized as a legislator, as a legislature, than i cannot act. to the point of calling us into session. some say that just a few legislatures have plenary authority, and that's part of all of this discussion i will call it. so, to not have authority and before biden to act beyond my authority on both counts i'm not authorized to take such action and that would deny my oath. >> in your statement you included excerpts from

president ronald reagan's inaugural address in 1981. the newly inaugurated present told the country, quote, the orderly transfer authority is called for in the constitution. routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries, few of us stop to think how unique we really are. in the eyes of many in the world this every four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle. tell us, if you would mister speaker, why did you include president reagan's words in your statement? >> mister chairman, representative schiff, because i have a lot of bad admiration for ronald reagan. i had the opportunity of going to his home with one other person and walking through. i have a lot of admiration for him.

when he pointed out which -- i have lived another country for a period of time and i visited a few countries and during election times, the fact that we allow an election, support an election, and stand by an election, even in the past when there have been serious questions about the election and then move on without disturbance and with acceptance that we choose, we choose to follow the outcome of the will of the people. that will it means a lot to me, and i know it means a lot to him, so i included. >> thank you speaker bowers.

now i want to look even more deeply at the fake elector scheme. every four years, citizens from all over the u.s. goes to polls to elect a president. under our constitution when we cast our votes for president were actually voting to send electors pledge to our preferred candidate to the electoral college. in december, the electors in states meet and cast votes and send them to washington. there's only one legitimate slate of electors from each state. on the 6th of january, congress meets in a joint session to count the votes, the winner of the electoral college vote becomes president. in this next segment you'll hear how president trump and his campaign were directly involved in advancing and coordinating the plot to replace legitimate biden electors with fake electors not chosen by the voters. you hear how this campaign

convinced these fake electors to cast and submit the votes through fake certificates telling them that their votes would only be used in the event president trump won the legal challenges. yet when the president lost those legal challenges, when courts rejected them as frivolous and without merit, the fake elector scheme continued. at this point president trump's own lawyers, so-called team normal, walked away rather than participate in the plan. his own white house counsel office said the plan was not legally sound. let's play the following video produced by the select committee. >> my name is casey looser, a vest of a gated council investigating the january 6th attack. on november 18, a lawyer working for the trump campaign wrote on the note arguing the trump campaign should organize his own electors in a swing state president trump had lost. the select committee routine

sleeve testimony that those close to trump began organizing fake electors for trump in states that biden won in the weeks after the election. >> would you remember being involved in those early discussions around the thanksgiving time? but -- having alternate electors me? >> mr. giuliani, mr. giuliani's associates, mr. meadows, members of congress, it's difficult to distinguish the members i'm thinking were involved at thanksgiving -- >> at the presidents request, >> what did the president say when he called? >> he turned the call over to mr. eastman who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the rnc helping the campaign gather contingent electors in

case legal challenges that were ongoing change the result. of any of the dates. [inaudible] my understanding is the campaign did take the lead and we just were helping them. . >> as trump in his supporters continue to lose, some campaign lawyers became convinced that the states trump laws were no longer appropriate [inaudible] . >> i called somebody saying, there must be a litigation pending in the states i don't think this is appropriate and it's not the right thing to do. i don't remember how i phrased it but, i got into a back and forth and i think it was with can cheese borough where i said, all right, get after it i'm out.

>> at that point, i had josh finley email mr. chess borough politely to say this is your task. this is -- you are responsible for electoral college issues moving forward. that was my way of taking my responsibility to zero. >> the plan was also potentially illegal. >> to be clear, did you hear the white house counsel's office say that this plan to have alternate electors meet and cast votes for donald trump in states he lost was not legally sound? >> yes, sir. >> and who was present for that meeting that you remember? >> it was in our office, mr. meadows, mr. giuliani and a few of mr. giuliani's associates. >> the select committee interviewed several of the fake electors as well as trump staff that helped organize the effort. >> we were kind of useful

idiots at that point. a strong part of me really feels it's kind of as the road continued butlers failure, failure, failure. that got formulated, as and what do we have on the table? let's just do it. >> after what we've told you today about the select committee's investigation about the conclusion of the professional -- lawyers on the campaign staff, about their unwillingness to participate in the convening of these electors, how does that contribute to your understanding of these issues? >> i'm angry, because i think in a sense no one really cared if people were potentially putting themselves in jeopardy. >> would you have not wanted to participate in this any further

as well? >> i absolutely would not have, if i knew the three main lawyers for the campaign that i had spoken to in the past and leading up we're not on board. yeah. >> i was told that these would only count if a court ruled in our favor. so that would have been using our electors, it would have been using our electors and ways that we weren't told about. and we would not have supported it. >> documents obtained by the select committee -- that they needed to cast their ballots in complete secrecy. because this scheme involved fake electors, those participating in certain states had no way to comply with state election laws, like where the electors were supposed to meet. one group of fake electors even considered hiding overnight to ensure they could access the state capital as required in michigan. >> did mr. norton say who was

working with that all? >> he said he was working with the president's campaign. he told me that the michigan republican electors were planning to meet in the capital and hide overnight so that they could fulfill the role of casting their vote per law in the michigan chambers. and i told him in no uncertain terms that was insane and inappropriate. >> in one state, the fake electors even asked for a promise that the campaign would pay their legal fees if they got sued or charged with a crime. ultimately, fake electors didn't meet on december 14th 2020 in arizona, georgia, michigan, pennsylvania, new mexico, nevada, and wisconsin. at the request of the trump

campaign, the electors from these battleground states signed documents falsely asserting they were the, quote, duly elected electors from their state and submitted them to the archives and vice president pence. here is what some of the fake elector certificates look like compared to the real ones. but these ballots had no legal effect. in an email produced to the select committee, doctor eastman told a trump campaign representative that it did not matter that the electors had not been approved by state authority. quote, the fact that we have multiple slates of electors demonstrates the uncertainty of either. that should be enough. he urged that pence act boldly and be challenged. documents produced to the select committee showed that the trump campaign took steps to ensure that physical copies of the fake electors electoral votes from two states were delivered to washington for january 6th. text messages exchanged between republican party officials in wisconsin show that on january 4th, the trump campaign asked

for someone to fly their fake electors documents to washington. a staffer for wisconsin senator ron johnson texted a staffer from vice president pence just minutes before the beginning of the joint session. this staffer stated that senator johnson wished to hand deliver to the vice president fake electors votes from michigan and wisconsin. the vice presidents aide unambiguously instructed them not to deliver the fake votes to the vice president. even though the fake elector slates were transmitted to congress and the executive branch, the vice president held firm in his position that his role was to count electoral votes. >> joseph r. biden junior of the state of delaware has received 306 votes. donald j trump with the state of florida has received 232 votes. >> which is what he did, when the joint session resumes on january 6th after the attack on the capital. >> we just heard in that video,

an aide to the white house chief staff telling this committee that the white house counsel's office felt that this fake electors plan was not legally sound. nevertheless, the trump campaign went forward with the scheme anyway. speaker bowers, were you aware fake electors had been in phoenix on december 14th and to cast electoral votes for president trump? >> i was not. >> when you learned these electors had met and sent their electoral votes to washington, what did you think? >> well, i thought of the book, the gang that could not shoot straight. i just thought this is, this is a tragic parity. >> mr. bowers, i understand as you flew from phoenix to washington yesterday, you reflected upon some passages from a personal journal that you were keeping in december

2020 while all of this is taking place. with your permission, and wondering if you would be willing to share one passage in particular with us. >> thank you very much. it is painful to have friends who have been such a help to me turn on me with such rancor. i may, in the eyes of men, not hold correct opinions or act according to their vision or convictions. but i do not take this current situation in a-like manner, a fearful manner, or a vengeful manner. i do not want to be a winner by cheating. i will not play with laws i swear allegiance to. with any contrived desire towards deflection. of my deep, foundational desire

to follow gods will as i believe he led my conscience to embrace. how else will i ever approached him in the wilderness of life knowing that i ask this guy dennis only to show myself a coward? in defending the course he let me take. he led me to take. thank you. >> mister speaker, those are powerful words. i understand that taking the courageous positions that you did following the 2020 election and defense of the rule of law and protecting the voters of arizona resulted in you and your family being subjected to protests and terrible threats. can you tell us how this impacted you and your family? >> well, as others in the videos have mentioned, we

received an excess of 20,000 emails and tens of thousands of voicemails and texts, which saturated our offices and we were unable to work, or at least communicate. but at home, up until even recently, it is the new pattern, or a pattern in our lives, to worry what will happen on saturdays, because we have various groups come by and they have had video, panel trucks with video proclaiming me of being a pedophile, a corrupt politician. and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood, and leaving

literature both on my property arguing and threatening with neighbors and with myself. i don't know if i should name groups, but there was one gentleman that had three bars on his chest, and he had a pistol, and was threatening my neighbor, not with the pistol, but just vocally. when i saw the gun, i knew i had to get close. and, at the same time, on some of these we had a daughter who was gravely ill, who was upset by what was happening outside. and my wife, who's a valiant person, very strong, quiet,

very strong woman. so it was disturbing. just disturbing. >> mister speaker, i want to thank you for your service to the state of arizona and the country. mister chairman, at this point i think it would be appropriate to take a short recess. i reserved balance of my time. >> the chair requests that those in the hearing room remain seated until the capitol police have escorted members and witnesses from the room. we will have five minutes? five minute recess. [noise]

the general six committee in the first break. this force portion has run an hour. we just heard from the republican speaker of the house, rusty powers. to give testimony, officials from georgie, including secretary of state brad raffensperger. if you miss the hearing will be showing it again at 9 pm eastern time on c-span. members have been focusing on how former president trump pressured officials to influence the outcome of the vote in those states. again, the hearing is expected to resume shortly.

the gender six committee is in a drop short break. members have focused on how former president trump presidents to influence the outcome of the vote in those states. tonight's commissioner is adam schiff, he's representing california for 11 terms. he also sits on the house judiciary committee. he participated in the impeachment -- today's january six committee hearings and all of c-span's

programming is brought to you as a public service by the cable industry, and these television companies, including -- if you're watching on tv but you have to step away, you can watch the hearing on the go on c-span now, our free mobile video app.

the committee will be an order. president trump's pressure campaign against eight officials existed in all the key battleground states he lost. the former president had a particular obsession with georgia. here is the president on the afternoon of january 6th, after his own attorney general warned him that the claims you are about to hear our patently false. >> he should find those votes. they should absolutely find

them. just over 11,000 votes, that's all we need. they defrauded us out of a win in georgia. and we're not going to forget it. >> so the state of georgia is where we will turn our attention to next. i want to emphasize that our investigation into these issues is still ongoing. as i stated in our last hearing, if you have relevant information or documentary evidence to share with the select committee, we welcome your cooperation. but we will share some of our findings with you today. secretary raffensperger, thank you for being here today. you've been a public servant in georgia since 2015, serving first as member of the georgia house of representatives, and then since january 2019 as george's secretary of state. as a self described

conservative republican, is it fair to say you wanted president trump to win the 2020 election? >> yes it is. >> mister secretary, many witnesses have told the select committee that election date november 3rd, 2020, was largely uneventful day in their home states. in spite of the challenges of conducting an election during a pandemic he wrote in the washington post that the election was, quote, successful. tell us, what was your impression of how the election proceeded in >> on georgia. >> election day in november, our election went remarkably smooth. in fact, we met at the georgia energy emergency management association headquarters. we were following wait times online. the average way time with three minutes in the afternoon.

it actually got down to two minutes. at the end of the day, we felt we had a successful election from the standpoint of the administration and the operation of the election. >> thank you, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. schiff. >> thank you, mister chairman. secretary raffensperger, did joe biden win the 2020 presidential election in georgia and by what margin? >> president biden carried the state of georgia by approximately 12,000 votes. >> mister secretary, as i understand it your office took several steps to ensure the accuracy of the vote count in georgia. reviewing the vote count in at least three different ways. it included a machine recount, and a full hand recount of every one of the 5 million ballots cast. >> the first tabulation would

be scanned. then we did our 100% hand audit of all 5 million ballots in the state of georgia, all cast in place, they were all hand-recounted and came remarkably close to the first count. then upon the election being certified, president trump, because he was within a half percent, could ask for a recount. then we recounted them again through the scanners and got similar counts. all three counts remarkably close, which showed president trump came up short. >> nevertheless, as you will see, the president and his allies began making numerous false allegations of voter fraud. false allegations that you and mr. sterling, among others had to address. mr. sterling, thank you also for being here today. following the 2020 election, in addition to your normal duties, understand you became the spokesperson to try and convey and disinformation about the election. as well as the danger it was creating for election officials among others.

in a december 1st press conference, you addressed some of your marks directly to president trump. let's hear what you said that day. >> mister president, it looks like you lost the state of georgia. we are investigating, there's always a possibility. i get it, and you have the right to do recourse. which you don't have the ability to do, and have to step up and say this, is stop inspiring people to do potential active violence. someone will get hurt, someone will get shot, someone will get killed, and it's not right. it's not right. >> mr. sterling, what prompted you to make these remarks? >> we had a previously scheduled a press conference that day, as we were in the habit of doing, trying to be as transparent as possible with the election and the counts going on. a little after lunch that day, lunchtime, i received a call from the project manager from

dominion voting systems who was oddly, audibly shaken. she's not the sort of person i would assume to be that way. she's been through the naval academy, has a masters from a mit, pretty unflappable. they had been receiving threats, a video had been posted by some qanon supporters. at that point, we have been sort of steeping in this kind of stuff, so it was around us all the time. i did not take note of it, just adding to the pile of other stuff we were dealing with. i did pull up twitter and scrawled through it and i saw the young man's name. it was a particular tweet that, for a lack of a better word, was the straw that broke the camel's back. it had the young man's name. it was a very unique name, i believe he's a first generation american. so it had his name, you committed treason, may god have mercy on your soul.

a slowly twisting gif of a noose, and for lack of a better word, i just lost it. i got irate. my boss was with me at the time, deputy secretary jordan fuchsia, and she could tell i was angry. i tend to turn red from here up when that happens and it happened at that time. she called mr. raffensperger and we told him we had to say something about it. secretary said yes, and that prompted me to do what i did. i lost my temper, but it seemed necessary at the time because it was just getting worse and i could not tell you why that particular one was the one that put me over the edge, but it did. >> after you made this plea to the president, donald trump urged his supporters to avoid use of violence? >> not to my knowledge. >> as we know, the president was aware of your speech because he tweeted about it later that they. let's take a look at what the president said. in the tweet, donald trump

claims there was, quote, massive voter fraud in georgia. mr. sterling, that was just plain false wasn't it? >> yes, sir. >> nevertheless, the very next day on december 2nd, president trump released a lengthy video again making false claims of election fraud in georgia. let's take a look at what he said this time. >> they found thousands and thousands of votes that were out of whack. all against me. >> in fact, the day after donald trump released that video, so now we are talking just two days after the emotional warning you gave that someone was going to get killed, representatives of president trump appeared in georgia including rudy giuliani, and they launched a new conspiracy theory that would take on a life of its own and threatened the lives of several innocent election workers. this story falsely alleges that sometime during election night, election workers at the state farm arena in atlanta, georgia

kicked out poll observers. after the observers left, as the story goes, these workers pulled so-called suitcases of ballots from under a table and ran those ballots through counting machines multiple times. completely without evidence, president trump and his allies claimed that these suitcases contained as many as 18,000 ballots call for joe biden. none of this was true, and rudy giuliani appeared before the georgia state senate and played a surveillance video from state farm arena falsely claiming that it showed this conspiracy taking place. here's a sample of which mr. giuliani had to say during that hearing. >> and when you look at what you saw on the video, which to me was the smoking gun, powerful smoking gun, you don't have to be a genius to figure out what happened. i don't have to be a genius to figure out those votes are not legitimate votes.

you don't put legitimate votes under a table. >> no. >> waiting to throw the opposition out, and in the middle of the night count them. we would be foolish to think that. >> president trump's campaign amplify giuliani's false testament in a tweet, pushing out the video footage. likewise, giuliani pushed out his testimony on social media. as you can see in this tweet, mr. giuliani wrote that it was, quote, now beyond doubt, unquote, that fulton county democrats had stolen the election. later we will hear directly from one of the election workers in this video about the effect these lies had on her and on her family. mr. sterling, did the investigators in your office reviewed the entire surveillance tape from the state for marina on election night? >> they actually reviewed approximately 48 hours going over the time period where action was taken place at the counting center at stake for merino. >> what did the tape actually show? >> depending on which time you

want to start, because as was mentioned, this conspiracy theory took on a life of its own. they conflated a water main break, that wasn't a water main break, and throwing observers out, and a series of other things. what it actually showed was fulton county election workers engaging in normal ballot processing. one of the specific things, one of the things that was very frustrating was the so-called suitcases of ballots from under the table. if you watch the entirety of the video, you saw that these were election workers who were under the impression they were going to get to go home around ten or 10:30. people are putting on their coats. they're putting ballots that are prepared to be scan into ballot carriers that are then sealed with tamper proof seals so they aren't messed with. it's an issue trusting -- it's an interesting thing because there's four screens with the video, and as you watched you can see the election monitors with the press as they are taking these

ballot carriers and putting them under the table. the other hidden ones if you watched the tape was on the outside of the table just from the camera angle, you could not see it originally. this goes under, no good deed goes unpunished. we were told that it looked like they were shutting down the fulton county counting. secretary expressed displeasure because everyone wanted to keep counting to know what was happening. our elections director called their elections director who was at another location because this was election day. there's two different places where ballot things were being done by the fulton county office. so he called ralph jones who was at the state farm arena and said, what's the heck are you doing? go ahead and stay. as you watch the video itself, you see him take the phone call, ask people to put things away getting ready to leave, and you can tell for about 15 or 20 seconds he does not want to tell these people they have to

stay. he walks over, thinks about it for a moment, see him come back and slumped his shoulders and say, okay yeah we have to keep counting. you see them take their coats off, take the ballots out, and then a secondary thing you will see on there is you will have people who are counting ballots where batch will go through, they will take them off, and run it through again. what happens there is a standard operating project -- procedure. if there is a myth scam, misalignment, does not read right, these are high speed and high capacity scanners. after a miss can you have to delete that batch and put it through again. by going through the hand tally, as secretary pointed out, we showed that there had been multiple ballots scanned without a corresponding physical ballot. your counts would be a lot higher than the ballots themselves. by doing the hand tally, we saw two specific numbers that were met. the hand tally got us to a point 105 3% of total ballots cast. and 0.009% on the margin, which

is essentially dead on accurate. most academics will say in a hand ballot we will have between one and 2%. >> i understand that when you review these tapes and did the analysis, you disapproved this conspiracy theory. but you still had to take a lot of steps to try and make sure the public knew the truth about these allegations. you did frequent briefings for the press. let's take a look at one of those press briefings that you held on december 7th to make the point you just did today, mr. sterling. >> we will move on to what i'm going to call disinformation monday. out of the gate, many of you all saw the video tape of state farm arena. i spent hours with our certifying investigators. we went over this video to explain to people that what you

saw, the secret suitcases with magic ballots, were actually ballots that had been packed into those absentee ballot carriers by the workers in plain view of the monitors and the press. what is really frustrating is the president's attorneys had the same videotape. they saw the exact same thing the rest of us could see and chose to mislead state senators as well as the public about what was on the video. i'm sure they will not try to characterize the video if they try to enter it into and -- evidence because that can lead to sections. they knew it wasn't true. >> mr. sterling, despite the efforts by your office to combat this misinformation by speaking out publicly at your local media, you were unable to reach -- match the reach of president trump's platform spreading these false conspiracy theories. what was it like to compete

with the president, who had the biggest bully pulpit in the world, to push out these false claims? >> for lack of a better word, it was frustrating. but oftentimes, i felt our information was getting out, that there was a reticence. people who needed to believe it, to believe it, because the president of the united states, who many looked up to and respected, was telling them it wasn't true. despite the facts. i've characterized at one point was kind of like a shovel trying to empty ocean. and yes, it was frustrating. i even have family members who i had to argue with about some of these things. i would show them things. the problem you have is you are getting to peoples hearts. i remember this one specific attorney that we know that we showed him walking through this wasn't true. okay i get that. this was untrue. i get that. five or six things. he said in the end, i just know

in my heart they cheated. so once you get past the heart, the facts don't matter as much. and our job from our point of view is to get the facts out, do our job, tell the truth, follow the constitution, follow the law, and defend the institutions. the east -- and the institutions held. >> let's take a look at what you are competing with. this is the former president speaking in georgia on december 5th. >> the fraud is overwhelming. and again, i will ask you to look up at that very, very powerful and very expensive screen. >> hidden cases of possible ballots are rolled out from under a table. for people under a cloud of suspicion. >> so if you just take the crime of what those democrats workers were doing. and by the way, there was no water main break. you know, there was no water main break. that's ten times more than i need to win this state. ten times more.

maybe more than that, but it's ten times more because we lost by very close number. >> this committee's hearing last monday, we heard from senior federal law enforcement officials, from the senior most federal law enforcement official in atlanta at the time, he was attorney for the northern district, as well as former attorney general bill barr. they both testified the allegations were thoroughly investigated and found to have no merit. here's u.s. attorney pack. >> i told him that we looked into it, we did several things including interviewing the witnesses. i listened to the tapes and reviewed them myself. there's nothing there. giuliani was wrong representing that this was a suitcase full of ballots. >> and here is what attorney general bill barr had to say about the same allegations. >> we took a look, a hard look,

at this ourselves, and based on our review of it, including the interviews of the key witnesses, the fulton county allegations had no merit. >> we also have testimony from senior department of justice officials establishing the specifically told president trump these allegations had been thoroughly investigated and were completely without merit. here is acting attorney -- deputy attorney general richard donahue describing a phone conversation in which he specifically told president trump that these allegations were false. >> the president kept fixating on these suitcases. and i said, no sir, there is no suitcase. you can watch that video over and over. there is no suitcase. there is a wield bin where they carry the ballots. >> where they carry the

ballots. >> no matter how many times officials, including his own attorney general, told the president that these allegations were not true, president trump kept promoting these lies and putting pressure on state officials to accept them. on january 2nd, president had a lengthy telephone conversation with secretary raffensperger. prior to the call, i want to share a bit of important context. first, the white house, including the former presidents chief of staff, mark meadows, repeatedly called or texted the secretary's office some 18 times in order to set up this call. they were quite persistent. second, chief of staff mark meadows took the extraordinary step of showing up at a signature audit site in georgia where he met with secretary raffensperger's chief investigator who was supervising that audit process. behind me is a photograph from that visit.

third, the day after he set up a meeting between francis watson and president trump. during that meeting, the former president continued to push the false claim that he had won the state of georgia. let's listen to that part of the conversation. >> you know, it's just you have the most important job in the country right now, because if we win georgia, first of all, if we win, you're going to have to winds. they're not going to win right now, you know. they are down because the people of georgia are so angry at what happened to me. they know i won. one by hundreds of thousands of votes. it wasn't close. and in this next clip he told a state law enforcement official that she would be praised if she found the right answer. >> hopefully, you know, when the right answer comes out, you will be praised. i mean, i don't know why, you

know, they've made it so hard. they will be praised. people will say great! because that's what it's about, that ability to check and to make it right. because everyone knows it's wrong, there's just no way. >> mr. raffensperger, i know you weren't on this call but that you've listened to it. president trump did not win by hundreds of thousands of votes in georgia, did he? >> no, he did not. i've been traveling through the state of georgia for a year now, and simply put in a nutshell, what's happened in the fall of 2020 is that 28,000 georgians skipped the presidential race, and yet they voted down ballot in other races. and the republican congressman ended up getting 33,000 more votes than president trump. that's why president trump came up short. >> thank, you mister secretary. the president on this call does not stop here. let's listen to another part of the conversation between

president trump and miss watson. >> but whatever you can do, frances, it would be a great thing. it's an important thing for the country. so important. you have no idea, so important. i would very much appreciated. >> whatever you can do, frances. this is the president of the united states calling an investigator, looking into the election where he is a candidate, and then asking them to do whatever they can do. mister secretary, you placed this call to your chief investigator september 3rd, 2020. the select committee received text messages indicating mark meadows wanted to send some investigators into her office. and the words of one white house aide, a stupid load of stuff. white house staff intervene to make sure that did not happen. it was clear at the time of this call that the former president had his sights set on january 6th. listen to this portion when he

told frances watson about a very important date. >> do you think they'll be working after christmas, to keep it going fast? because, you know, we have that date of the sixth, which is a very important date. >> that important date, of course, was the joint session of congress where georgia's electoral votes would be counted for joe biden. a little over a week after this call to frances watson, the president was finally able to speak with you, secretary raffensperger. bear in mind, as we discussed this call today, that by this point in time early january, the election in georgia had already been certified. but perhaps more important, the president of the united states had already been told repeatedly by his own top justice department officials that the claims he was about to make to you about massive fraud in georgia were completely -- false. mister secretary, the call between you and the president lasted 67 minutes, over an hour. we obviously cannot listen to the entire recording here today,

although it's available on the select committee's website, but we will listen to selected excerpts of it now so we can get your insights. let's begin with the president raising the thoroughly debunked allegations of suitcases of ballots. >> they weren't in an official voter box, they were in what's looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases, but they weren't in voter boxes. the minimum number it could be, because we watched it, and they watched it certified in slow motion, instant replay, if you can believe it. but it had slow motion, and it was magnified many times over. and the minimum it was, was 18,000 ballots, all four by -- biden. >> these are the allegations the department of justice, the attorney general, the georgia bureau of investigation, and your office all said were false. is that right? >> correct. and even more importantly, when

b.j. pak resigned as u.s. attorney of the north district, president trump appointed his replacement in bobby christine. bob christine looked at that and quoted he found nothing and dismissed the case early on. >> thank you, mister secretary. the president references suitcases or trunks. mr. sterling, where the objects seen in these videos or trunks, or ordinary containers used by election workers? >> they are standard ballot carriers that allow for seems to be put on them so they are tamper proof. >> the president finally claimed there was a minimum of 18,000 ballots somehow smuggled in all four biden. i take it, gentlemen, that was also categorically false? >> first there is no physical way he could know who the ballots were for. secondarily, we had fulton county for years being an issue in our state when it comes to elections. they had a difficulty during the primary in large part

because of covid. so we had a monitor on site. carter jones took a notation, he had gone from state farm to the english street warehouse to look at election day activities, but before he left, he noted how many ballots have been counted on each of the machines. and when he came back after we found out they were working again, he took note again when they closed. and i believe the final number was something around 8900 total ballots scanned between the time he left and 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning. very much below 18,000. >> let's play the next clip. >> when i heard it was close, i said there's no way. but they dropped a lot of votes in their late at night, you know that bread. >> mister secretary, did someone drop a lot of votes there late at night? >> no. i believe the president was referring to some of the counties when they would upload, but the ballots had been

expected and had to be accepted by state law by 7 pm. so no additional ballots were accepted after 7 pm. >> let's play the next segment where the president makes a claim about so called dead voters. >> the other thing, dead people. so dead people voted. and i think the number is close to 5000 people. they went to obituaries, they went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number. and minimum is close to about 5000 voters. >> mister secretary, did your office investigate whether the allegations were accurate, that 5000 dead people voted? >> no, it's not accurate. in their lawsuits, they allege 10,315 dead people. we found two dead people when i wrote my letter to congress, and subsequent to that we found two more. that's one, two, three, four people. not 4000, a total of four, not

10, 000, not 5000. >> let's play the next clip. >> and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you have recalculated, because the 2236 absentee ballots, i mean they are all exact numbers that were done by the accounting firms, et cetera. and even if you cut them in half, cut them in half, and cut them in half again, it's more votes than we need. >> mister secretary, is there any way you could have lawfully changed the result in the state of georgia, and explained it away as a recalculation somehow? >> no, the numbers are the numbers and the numbers don't lie. we had many allegations and we investigated every single one of them. i challenged my team, did we miss anything? they said there was over 60 60,000 under age voters they found, we found there was zero. you can register at 17 and a

half to vote, you have to be 18 on election day. they said there's 204,000 -- 2004 and 23 non-registered voters, there was zero. they said there was 2056 felons. we identified less than 74, every single allegation we checked. we ran down the trail to make sure our numbers were accurate. >> so there's no way you could have recalculated except by skewing the numbers? >> the numbers were the numbers and we could not recalculate because we make sure we had checked every single allegation. we have nearly 300 investigations from the 2020 election. >> mister secretary, did you try to push back when the president made and some more -- unsubstantiated claims whether it was about suitcases of ballots, or votes being counted three times? let's play the next clip. >> mister president, they did not put that, we didn't audit of that and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

mister president, we will send you the link from w. espy. >> i don't care about the length. i don't need it. brad, i have a much better link. >> you told the president you would send him a link from the u.s. be which i understand is a local television station that had a unedited video from the state farm arena. but the president was not interested in that. he said he had a much better link. mister secretary, at the time that you were on the call with the president, we have shown both the fbi and georgia bureau of investigation have proven these claims to be nonsense. you told him about these investigations on the phone. let's listen to what president trump had to say about the state and federal law enforcement officers who conducted and investigated these false claims. >> there's no way, then they are incompetent. >> what did they find? >> there's only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence. there's just no way. look. there's no way. >> the president did not stop

at insinuating that law enforcement officers were either dishonest or incompetent. he went on to suggest that you could be subject to criminal liability for your role in the matter. before i play that portion of the conversation, i want to show you something the president re-tweeted a couple of weeks before your call with him. here's the president retweeting a post from one of his allies. a lawyer who was later sanctioned by a judge in michigan for making false claims of election fraud. let's take a look at that tweet. the tweet read, quote, president trump, at real donald trump, is a genuinely good man. he does not really like to fire people. i bet he dislikes putting people in jail, especially, quote unquote, republicans. he gave prime camp and the secretary state every chance to get it right. they refused. they will soon be going to jail. so on your call, this wasn't the first time the president

was suggesting you might be criminally liable. with that, let's listen to this portion of the call. >> i think you are going to find they are treading ballots, because they have to get rid of the ballots, because the ballots are unsigned. the ballots are corrupt. and they are brand-new and they don't have seals. there's a whole thing with the ballots, but the ballots are correct. you will find, which is totally illegal, it's more illegal for you than it is for them, because you know what they did and you aren't reporting it. you know, that's a criminal offense. and you can't let that happen, that's a big risk to you and to ryan. your lawyers, that's a big risk. >> secretary raffensperger, after making the false claim about shredding ballots, the president suggested you may be committing a crime by not going along with his claims of election fraud. and after suggesting that you might have criminal exposure,

president trump makes his most explicit ask of the call. let's play a part of that conversation. >> so, look, all i want to do is this, i just want to find 11,780 votes. that is one more than we have, because we won the state. >> mister secretary, was the president asking you for exactly what he wanted? one more vote than his opponent? >> what i knew is that we did not have any votes to find. we had to continually look, we investigated, like i just shared those numbers with you, there were no votes to find. that was an accurate count. it had been certified. and, as our general counsel said, there was no shredding of ballots. >> mister secretary, after making this request, the president and goes back to the danger of having you deny these allegations of fraud, let's listen to that part of the clip. >> and i watched you this

morning and you said, well, there was no criminality, but i mean, all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff. when you talk about no criminality, i think it's very dangerous for you to say that. >> secretary raffensperger, you wrote about this in your book. you said, quote, i felt then, and still believe today, that this was a threat. others obviously thought so as well. because some of trump's more radical followers have responded as if it was their duty to carry out this threat. please tell us what you, your wife, even your daughter in law, experienced regarding threats from trump's more radical followers. >> after the election, my cell phone and email was doxxed. eventually, my wife started getting texts. hers typically came in as

sexualize texts which were disgusting. you have to understand, trish and i've met in high school and have been married over 40 years now. they started going after her, i think just to probably put pressure on me. so that happened. and then some people broke into my daughter-in-law's home. my son has passed, and she's a widow, and she has two kids, so we are very concerned about her safety also. >> mister secretary, why didn't you just walk away? >> because i knew we follow the law, we follow the constitution, and i think sometimes moments require you to stand up and just take the shots. you are doing your job. that's all we did. we just follow the law and follow the constitution. at the end of the day president trump came up short, but i had to be faithful to the constitution. that is what i swore an oath to do. >> during the remainder of the call, the former president continued to press you to find

the remaining votes that would ensure his victory in georgia. let's listen to a little more. >> why wouldn't you want to find the right answer, bread? instead you keep saying the numbers are right. look, can you get together tomorrow, and brad, we just want the truth. it's simple. and everyone's going to look very good if the truth comes out. it's okay. we'll take a little while, but let the truth come out. the real truth is i won by 400,000 votes at least. so what are we going to do here, folks? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes. give me a break. >> four days after the presidents call to secretary raffensperger, the president whipped up the crowd once again promoting the allegation that secretary raffensperger, the presidents own attorney general, had told him was false. here he is on the ellipse.

>> in fulton county, republican poll watchers were ejected, in some cases physically, from the room under the false pretense of a pipe burst. a water main burst! everybody, leave! we now know that is a total lie. then election officials, democrats, pulled boxes of ballots from under a table. totally fraudulent. and they illegally scanned them for nearly two hours, totally unsupervised. tens of thousands of votes. this act coincided with a mysterious vote dump of up to 100,000 votes for joe biden. almost none for trump. oh, that sounds fair. that was at 1:34 am. >> mr. secretary, mr. sterling, i want to thank you for your service to the state of georgia and to the country. speaker bowers, likewise, i

want to thank you for your service to the state of arizona and the country. you have served not only your home states, but our nation and our democracy. mister chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, mister schiff. i thank the witnesses for joining us today. you are now dismissed.

>> i now welcome our final witness this afternoon. shaye moss.

miss moss worked in a department of elections and registrations in fulton county georgia, from 2017 until 2022. and that job, miss moss handled voter applications and absentee ballot requests, and also help to process the vote count for several elections. in december 2020, miss moss and her mother, miss ruby freeman, became the target of nasty lies spread by president trump and his allies as they sought to overturn the election results in georgia. miss moss and her mother, miss freeman, are two of the unsung heroes in this country, doing the hard work of keeping our democracy functioning for every american. miss moss, welcome. thank you for your service and i thank you for being here today. i will now swear you in, please

stand. do you swear, on the penalty of perjury, that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? thank you, please be seated. let the record reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative. miss moss, thank you very much for being here today. i understand that you are here, along with your mother, today. would you like to introduce your mama? hi, mom. [laughs] miss moss, today we will be asking you about some of the threats that you received following the 2020 election. since you've been an election

worker for over ten years, i want to ask you, in your decade of service, have you ever experienced threats like these before? >> [inaudible] >> don't be nervous. i understand. and i want to make sure that the record reflects that you've done it for quite awhile and never received a threat and your answer was no. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. pursuant to section c eight of the house resolution 503, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. schiff, for questions. >> good afternoon, miss moss. thank you for being here. i understand that you were employed by the fulton county registration elections department for more than ten

years, and i understand that you loved that job. please, tell us what made you so fond of the work that you did? >> well, i've always been told by my grandmother how important it is to vote, and how people before me, a lot of people, older people in my family, did not have that right. so what i loved the most about my job where the older voters. younger people could usually to everything from their phone or go online, but the older voters like to call. they like to talk to you. they like to get my card. they like to know that every election i'm here. and even college students, a lot of parents, trust in me to

make sure their child does not have to drive home. they will get an absentee ballot. they can vote. and i really found pleasure in that. i like being the one that, you know, if someone can't navigate, my voter page, or they want a new precinct card and don't have a copying machine or a computer or all of that, that i can put it in the mail for them. i was excited always about sending out all the absentee ballots for the elderly, disabled people, i even remember driving to a hospital to give someone her absentee application. that's what i love the most. >> so you really enjoy helping people vote and participate, and that was something that you're grandmother touchy was precious?

>> yes. >> well, i know that the events we are here to talk about today are incredibly difficult to relive. you are proud service as an election worker took a dramatic turn on the day that rudy giuliani publicized a video of you and your mother counting ballots on election night. president trump, rudy giuliani, and others claimed, on the basis of this video, that you and your mother were somehow involved in a plot to kick out observers, bring suitcases of false ballots for biden into the arena, and then run through the machines multiple times. none of that was true, was it? >> none of it. >> i would like to show you some of the statements that rudy giuliani made in a second hearing before the georgia state legislators, a week after that video clip from state farm arena was for circulated by mr. giuliani and president trump. i want to advise viewers that these statements are completely false, and also deeply disturbing.

>> tape earlier in the day of ruby freeman and shea freeman moss, and one other gentlemen, quite obviously, surreptitiously, passing around usb ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine. i mean it's obvious to anyone who's a criminal investigator or prosecutor that they are engaged in surreptitious illegal activity. that's a week ago and they are still walking around georgia lying. they should have been questioned already. their places of work, their homes, should be searched for evidence of ballots, for evidence of usb ports, for evidence of voter fraud. >> that video was from rudy giuliani's appearance at the georgia state senate hearing on december 10th. how did you become aware, first become aware, that rudy

giuliani, the presidents lawyer, was accusing you and your mother of a crime? >> i was it work like always. and the former chief, mr. jones, asked me to come to his office, and when i went to his office, the former director, mr. baron, was in there and they showed me a video on their computer. it was just like a very short clip of us working at state farm, and it had someone on the video talking over the video, just saying that we were doing things that we weren't supposed to do. just lying throughout the video,

and that is when i first found out about it. and where there are social media posts that they showed you, responding to those false claims? >> well, when i saw the video, of course, the first thing i said was like, why? why are they doing this? what is going on? and they just told me that trump and his allies were not satisfied with the outcome of the election and they were getting a lot of threats and being harassed online and asked me, have i've been receiving anything? and i need to check on my mom. and i told them, where? where have they -- where have you've been getting these threats? i don't believe i have any.

mr. jones told me they are attacking his facebook. and i don't really use facebook. i have one, so i went to the facebook up and i am just kind of panicking at this point. because this has never happened to me and my mom is involved. i am her only child. so, i am just asking like, where are the messages? all i see are the feeds. how do you get to the messages? he says, it's another icon on your phone called messenger. and i went to that icon and it was just a lot of horrible things there. >> those horrible things, did they include threats? >> yes, a lot of threats. wishing death upon me. telling me that i will be in jail with my mother and saying things like, be glad it's 2020 and not 1920.

>> we're a lot of these threats and vile comments racist in nature? >> a lot of them were racist. a lot of them were just hateful. yes, sir. >> and one of the videos we just watched, mr. giuliani accused you and your mother of passing some sort of usb drive to each other. what was your mom actually handing you on that video? >> a ginger meant. >> it wasn't just rudy giuliani. we heard president trump make these false allegations repeatedly during his call with secretary raffensperger. let's listen to a portion of what he had to say about you and your mother. >> we had at least 18,000 that is on tape. we had them counted. 18,000 voters having to do with

the -- she is a vote scammer. a professional vote scammer and hustler. >> donald trump attacked you and your mother using her name, 18 times on that call. 18 times. miss moss, can you describe what you experience listening to president trump attacking you and your mother with a call with the secretary of state of georgia? >> i felt horrible. i felt like it was all my fault. like, if i would have neither decided to be an elections worker i they could've done anything else, but that is what i decided to do, and now people are lying and spreading rumors and lies and attacking my mom. i'm her only child. they're going to my grandmother's house. i am her only grandchild. and mike is --

my kid is just -- i just felt bad for my mom and i felt horrible for picking this job and being the one who always wants to help and is always there, never missing out on one election. i just felt like it was my fault, putting my family in the situation. >> it wasn't your fault. your mother was kind enough to come speak with us earlier. let's listen to her story and her words. >> my name is ruby freeman. i have always believed that when god says he will make you remain -- name great, but this is not the way it was supposed to be. i could have never imagined the events that followed the presidential election of 2020. for my entire professional life, i was lady ruby. my community in georgia, where

i was born and lived my whole life, knew me as a lady ruby. i built my own business around that name, the rubies unique treasures. a pop-up shop catering to ladies with unique passions. i wore a shirt that proudly proclaimed that i was and i am lady ruby. actually, i had that shirt on -- i have that shirt in every color. i wore that shirt on election day 2020. i have not worn it since. and i will never wear it again. now, i won't even introduce myself by my name anymore. i get nervous when i bump into someone. i know in the grocery store who says my name -- i am worried about who is listening. i get nervous when i have to

give my name for food orders. i am always concerned of who is around me. i have lost my name and i have lost my reputation. i have lost my sense of security. all because a group of people starting with number 45 and his ally, rudy giuliani, decided to scapegoat me -- to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen. >> miss moss, how has this experience of being targeted by the former president and his allies affected your life? >> it has turned my life upside down. i no longer give out my business card. i don't transfer calls. i don't want anyone knowing my

name. i don't want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name out at the grocery aisle or something. i don't go to the grocery store at all. i haven't been anywhere at all. i gained about 60 pounds. i just don't do anything anymore. i don't want to go anywhere. i think i guess everything that i do. it has affected my life in a major way. in every way. all because of lies. for me doing my job. it's the same thing that i've been doing forever. >> your mother also told the subcommittee about how she had to leave her own home for her safety and go into hiding after the fbi told her that it would

not be safe for her there before january 6th and until the inauguration. let's listen to a clip of her story in her own words. >> around the week of january 6th, the fbi informed me that i needed to leave my home for safety. and i left my home for safety around that time. >> understood. how long did you remain outside of your home for your own safety? >> i stayed away from my home for approximately two months. it was horrible. i felt homeless. i can't believe this person has caused this much damage to me and my family to have to leave my home but i have lived out for 21 years. i am having to have my

neighbors watch out for me. and i have to go and stay with somebody. it was hard. it was horrible. >> your conversation with the fbi about needing to leave your home for your own safety -- do you remember, was there a specific threat that prompted that or was it the accumulation of threats you have received? >> what prompted it was getting ready to -- january 6th was about to come. and they did not want me to be at home because of all the threats and everything that i had gotten. they didn't want me to be there in fear of the people coming into my home. i had a lot of that. they didn't want me to be there, just in case something happened. i ask, how long do i need to be

away from home? they said at least until the inauguration. >> i understand that people once showed up at your grandmother's house. tell us about that experience. >> i received a call from my grandmother. this woman is my everything. i have never even seen her cry ever in my life. she called me, screaming at the top of her lungs. just freaking me out. saying that there were people at her home and they knocked on the door and of course she opened it to see who was there. and they just started pushing their way through, exclaiming that they were coming in to

make a citizens arrest. they needed to find me and my mom. they knew we were there. she was just screaming and didn't know what to do. i wasn't there, so i just felt so helpless and so horrible for her. she was just screaming. i told, her close the door. don't open the door for anyone. she is a 70 something year old woman and she doesn't like having restrictions. she wants to answer the door. she likes to get her stepson, walking around the neighborhood. i had to tell her, you can't do that. you have to be safe. she would tell me that at night people would just continuously send pizzas over and over to

her home and they were expecting her to pay for these large amounts of pizza. she went through a lot that she didn't have to. once again, it made me just feel so horrible. >> in addition to the personal impact this experience has had on you and your family, one of the things that i find most disturbing is how these lies discourage longtime election workers from continuing to do this important work. tell us, if you would, of the other election workers shown in that video and their supervisors. how many are still election workers? >> there is no permanent election worker or supervisor in that video that is still there. >> and you end up leaving your position as well? >> yes, i laughed. --

left. >> i want to thank you for coming to speak with us. thank you for our -- your service to our democracy. -- it's just a sample of the things that were said about you and your mother -- i want to say i am very sorry for what you have gone through. and tragically, you are not alone. other election workers around the country have also been the subject of lies and threats. no election worker should be subject to such heinous treatment for just doing their job. with your permission, i would like to give your mother the last word. we are just going to play the tape. >> there is no where i feel safe. nowhere. do you know how it feels to have the president of the united states targeting you? the president of the united states is supposed to represent every american, not to target

one. but he targeted me, lady ruby, the small business owner, a mother, a proud american citizen, who stood up to help fulton county run an election in the middle of the pandemic. >> thank you, miss moss. thank you, miss freeman, or as america now knows you, lady ruby. -- mister chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, mr. adam schiff. miss moss, thank you for sharing with us the very troubling story of what you and your mother experienced. the harassment of election workers like you, who are simply doing their duty as a

public service, poses a threat to our democratic process. your testimony as an important contribution to the work of our committee and serves as a reminder to all of us about the safety of local election officials is vital to ensuring that our elections are always free and fair. i want to thank our witness for joining us today. the members of the select committee may have additional questions for today's witness and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. without objection, members will be permitted ten business days to submit statements for the record. including opening remarks and additional questions for the witnesses. without objection, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, adam schiff for a

closing statement. >> for more than 200 years, our democracy has been -- when an american raises the right hand and take the presidential oath of office, there are transformed from an ordinary citizen it's the most powerful person in the world. the president. this is an awesome power to acquire. it is even more awesome when it is handed on peacefully. when george washington relinquished the office of the presidency, it served as a beacon for other nations struggling against tyranny. when ronald reagan described it as a kind of miracle in the eyes of the world, he was exactly right. other countries used violence to seize and hold power. but not in the united states. not in america. when donald trump used the power of the presidency to try to stay in office, after losing the election to joe biden, he

broke that sacred and centuries old covenant. whether his actions were criminal will ultimately be for others to decide. but what he did was without a doubt unconstitutional. it was unpatriotic. and it was fundamentally on american. and when he used the power of his presidency to put enormous pressure on local officials and his own vice president, it became downright dangerous. on january 6th, that pressure became deadly. ruby freeman said the president is supposed to protect every american, not target them, and she is right. if the most powerful person in the world can put the full weight of the presidency down on an ordinary citizen, who is merely doing her job, with a lie as big and heavy as a mountain, who among us is safe? none of us is. none of us.

and city councils and town councils, on school boards and election boards, from the congress to the courts, dedicated public servants are leaving their posts because of death threats to them and to their families. this is not who we are. it must not become who we are. our democracy held because courageous people like those you heard from today put their oath to the constitution above their loyalty to one man or 21 party. the system held, but barely. and the question remains, will it hold again? if we are able to communicate anything during these hearings, i hope it is this. we have been blessed beyond measure to live in the world's greatest democracy. that is a legacy to be proud of and to cherish. but it is not one to be taken for granted.

that we have lived in a democracy for more than 200 years does not mean we shall do so tomorrow. we must reject violence. we must embrace our constitution with the reference it deserves. take your oath of office and duties as citizens seriously. informed by the knowledge of right and wrong and armed with no more than the power of our ideas and the truth, carry on this venerable experiment in self governance. thank, you mister chairman, and i yield back. >> without objection, the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from wyoming, miss cheney for a closing statement. >> thank you very much, mister chairman. lady ruby, and shaye moss, thank you for your courage and for being here today. it means so much to hear your stories. thank you. we have had tremendous testimony today. we have been reminded that we

are a nation of laws and we have been reminded by you and by speaker bowers and secretary of state raffensperger and mr. sterling, that our institutions do not defend themselves, individuals do that. we are reminded that it takes public servants, it takes people who have made a commitment to our system to defend our system. we also have been reminded of what it means to take an oath under god to the constitution. what it means to defend the constitution. and we were reminded by speaker rusty bowers that our constitution is a divinely inspired document. it has been an honor to serve with you today. today, more than 30 witnesses called before this committee have not done what you have done, but have invoked their fifth amendment rights against self incrimination. roger stone took the fifth. general michael flynn took the fifth. john eastman took the fifth.

others like steve bannon and peter navarro simply refused to comply with lawful subpoenas and they have been indicted. mark meadows has hidden behind president trump's claims of executive privilege and immunity from subpoenas. we are engaged now in litigation with mr. meadows. the american people in our hearings have heard from bill barr, jeff rosen, richard donahue, and many others who stood up and did what is right. and they will hear more of that testimony soon. but the american people have not yet heard from mr. trump's former white house counsel. our committee is certain that donald trump does not want him to testify here. indeed, our evidence shows that he and his office tried to do what was right. they tried to stop a number of president trump's plans for january 6th. today and in our coming hearings, you will hear

testimony from other trump white house staff, explaining what he said and did, including on january 6th. we think the american people deserve to hear from him personally. he should appear in front of this committee and we are working to secure his testimony. thank you mister chairman, i yield back. >> people answer the call to public service in such different ways. some run for office. some volunteer to make sure their neighbors can get to their voting locations. some work at polling sites to help election day go smoothly. some look into problems to guarantee our elections are secure and accurate, just to name a few. as i mentioned at the start of this hearing, when we talk about our democratic institutions, we are talking about these individuals and

many others who do these jobs across the country. they represent the backbone of our democracy at its most important moments, when the citizens cast their votes and when those votes are counted. we have heard the stories of their courage. they have earned the thanks of a grateful nation. but for donald trump, these witnesses and others like them were another roadblock to his attempt to cling to power. on thursday, we hear about a now they're part of that scheme. his attempt to corrupt the country's top law enforcement body, the justice department, to support his attempt to overturn the election. just as we heard today, that donald trump was deeply involved in a scheme to pressure state officials to overturn the election results, we well here on thursday that

donald trump was also the driving force behind the effort to corrupt the justice department. listen to this clip from the former acting attorney general, richard donahue. >> the president says, suppose i do this, suppose i replace jeff rosen with jeff clark. what do you think? i said, sir, i would resign immediately. there is no way i am serving under this guy, jeff clark. >> you will hear from mr. donahue in person on thursday as my colleague, mr. kinzinger, presents details about this plan. the chair requests those in the hearing room remain seated until the capitol police have excluded members from the rum. without objection, the

committee stands adjourned.

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[inaudible] wrapping up c-span coverage of this session of the january six committee hearing, the next hearing is thursday, scheduled to begin at 3 pm eastern time. we will have live coverage here on c-span three. if you missed any of the hearing today, we will show it again in its entirety tonight at 9 pm eastern on c-span. you can also find today's hearing in our coverage of the attack on the u.s. capitol at c-span dot org slash january 6th. it is our web page dedicated to the hearings, background programs, and washington journal segments related to

january 6th. again, that is c-span dot org slash january 6th. you can also follow the hearing on the go with c-span now. that is our free video app. congressional hearings sessions, speeches, campaign events and more. available to watch on the go with c-span now. find it wherever you get your apps. today's january six committee hearing and all c-span programming is brought to you as a public service by the cable industry and these television companies, including comcast, charter communications, and media calm.

>> up next, testimony from the vice chair of the federal reserve. on the benefits and risks of digital currency and u.s. banking system, including the impact on cybersecurity, and financial inclusion. the house financial hearing is just over two and a half hours. >>