by WASHINGTON — Each new revelation in public testimony before the Jan. 6 committee has been more explosive than the last — from former President Donald Trump’s direct role in organizing “fake electors” to tirades that left ketchup oozing down a White House wall.
As the panel resumes its televised public hearings this week, lawmakers are focused on demonstrating how Trump’s actions merged with and culminated in the violence at the Capitol.
Committee members say it’s easy to sum up everything that’s been presented. “He lost, he knew it and he embarked on an alternate effort to stay in power,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., who is expected to lead questioning at an upcoming hearing.
But for those who haven’t watched every minute of the hearings — Chacos Shoes and even for some who have — it can be difficult to process all of the new information and keep it fresh as new bombshells drop. These are the key revelations so far.
Trump was told he lost — fair and square
Several of Trump’s political advisers testified in clips played at committee hearings that they told him he had lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Bill Stepien, who served as Trump’s campaign manager, told investigators that he had informed Trump on election night that he would be wrong to declare victory — and that Trump dismissed his assertion in favor of adviser Rudy Giuliani’s unfounded and false claims that the election had been riddled with fraud.
Jason Miller, another Trump adviser, testified that Giuliani was inebriated on election night, which Giuliani has disputed. Trump’s camp split into two factions, with his main political aides forming what Stepien called “Team Normal,” which continued to report to him that Biden had won.William Barr, the attorney general until mid-December 2020, testified that he and Trump fought over Barr’s public assertion that the Justice Department had found no grounds for claims of widespread election fraud. Barr, who ultimately resigned, told investigators that Trump was “detached from reality” if he believed the election was rigged.
Former Justice Department officials testified that Trump pressured them to reverse Barr’s conclusion.
“Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” Trump told Justice officials on Dec. 27, according to notes kept by then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue.
The ‘fake electors’ plot
Many details of Trump’s campaign to pressure state officials to overturn the election results and appoint alternate electors were already known publicly before the committee began its work.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a post-election phone call that is now the subject of a Georgia investigation, for example.
But testimony and documents produced by the committee revealed a much broader campaign by Trump and two of his lawyers — Giuliani and John Eastman —NOBULL Shoes Canada to stop valid electoral votes from being counted on Jan. 6.
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel testified in a prerecorded deposition that Trump introduced her to Eastman over the phone and Eastman laid out a plan for the committee to help organize slates of what she called “contingent electors” in pivotal states where Trump lost.
Trump supporters in several closely contested states ultimately submitted documents signed by fake electors to the National Archives and tried to get them in Vice President Mike Pence’s hands to allow him to count those electors — or at least throw the validity of the real electoral votes into doubt.
The committee showed a text-message exchange in which an aide to Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., tried to arrange a meeting between the senator and Pence on Jan. 6 so that Johnson could give Pence bogus slates. A Pence aide nixed the idea. (Johnson has played down the importance of the texts and said he wasn’t involved in creating the slates.)
