"The House Jan. 6 committee carefully laid out today the stunning extent of former President Trump and his allies' campaign to pressure election officials to act on their false claims of voter fraud, Axios' Alayna Treene writes.
The big picture: Yet again, it was conservative Republican witnesses Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, top Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling and a host of Trump associates testifying behind closed doors that provided the most damning testimony.
Four key takeaways
1. Trump's direct involvement.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel revealed in a taped deposition that Trump personally connected her on a phone call with conservative lawyer John Eastman the architect of the "alternate elector" scheme to ask the RNC to help coordinate false sets of electors.
Bowers testified he received a call from Trump and Rudy Giuliani urging him to replace Biden's electors in Arizona. "I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to," Bowers wrote in a personal journal at the time.
2. Key figures knew plan was illegal.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Meadows, Giuliani and several of Giuliani's associates were in a meeting in which the White House counsel's office informed them the alternate elector scheme was "not legally sound."
3. GOP lawmakers implicated.
Sen. Ron Johnson's (R-Wis.) chief of staff texted an aide for then-Vice President Mike Pence telling him that the senator needed to hand Pence an "alternate slate of electors" from Michigan and Wisconsin during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. The Pence aide replied, "Do not give that to him." Johnson told reporters today he was "basically unaware" of the exchange.
Bowers testified that he received a call from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) urging him to support decertifying Arizona's electors.
4. Outlandish gambits.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said the committee obtained text messages indicating Meadows wanted to send Georgia election investigators "a sh**load of POTUS stuff, including coins, actual autographed MAGA hats, etc."
Michigan GOP chair Laura Cox testified that a Trump campaign representative told her fake Republican electors were planning to hide in the Michigan Capitol overnight to satisfy the requirement they meet in the state Senate chamber. "I told him in no uncertain terms that was insane and inappropriate," she said."
-Axios
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