January 6 hearing told inebriated Rudi Guiliani told Donald Trump to claim win’

Donald Trump was encouraged by an ‘inebriated’ Rudi Giuliani to spread false claims of voter fraud, congressional hearing told.

Video of Donald Trump is played during a hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. Pict

The House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol showed testimony from former Attorney-General William Barr and campaign advisers challenging Donald Trump’s claims regarding the 2020 presidential election.

In its second public hearing this month, the select committee is providing evidence it said shows that the former president knew he had lost the election, and yet continued to spread false claims of voter fraud. Those claims, they argue, led directly to the Capitol riot.

“Mr. Trump decided even before the election that regardless of the facts and the truth, if he lost the election, he would claim it was rigged,” said committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.).

Mr. Trump has said he did nothing wrong and continues to claim that the election was stolen from him.

Mr. Barr described to the committee a series of meetings with the former president after the election in which Mr. Barr argued against claims of widespread voter fraud, according to videotaped depositions aired Monday.

“I thought boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has become detached from reality,” Mr. Barr told the committee. Yet, when confronted, Mr. Trump seemed to have little interest in the actual facts, the former attorney general said. “My opinion then, and my opinion now, is that the election was not stolen by fraud,” Mr. Barr said.

Mr. Barr said he personally investigated a variety of fraud allegations, including claims of a “vote dump” in Detroit. He said he told Mr. Trump that the claims of fraud in Detroit “were bullshit,” according to the testimony. “I told him that it was crazy stuff.” Mr. Barr resigned on Dec. 14, 2020. Last week, Mr. Trump called Mr. Barr a weak attorney general.

The committee played recorded video of Mr. Barr’s replacement, former Acting Attorney-General Jeffrey Rosen, testifying that he also told Mr. Trump his claims of election fraud were unjustified.

“You’re getting bad information,” Mr. Rosen said he told Mr. Trump. Mr. Rosen is expected to testify at the committee’s next hearing on Wednesday, which will focus on Mr. Trump’s campaign to pressure Justice Department officials to interfere in the election results.

The hearing also focused on how Mr. Trump declared victory even though voting results indicated the election was going against him and as some of his advisers expressed caution.

At about 2:30am. ET on Nov. 4, the day after the election, Mr. Trump said in televised remarks at the White House that “we were getting ready to win this election,” adding, “frankly, we did win this election,” calling the election results showing Joe Biden in a strong position a fraud and demanding that vote counting stop.

Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, in taped testimony, said his recommendation that evening had been “to say that votes were still being counted, it’s too early to tell, too early to call the race.” Mr. Stepien had been scheduled to appear in person but was absent due to his wife being in labour. After the hearing, Ms. Lofgren said that Mr. Stepien wouldn’t appear before the committee in person; his video deposition was sufficient.

“I don’t know that I had a firm view as to what he should say in that circumstance,” said Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, in taped testimony. “It was becoming clear that the race would not be called on election night.” Former Trump adviser Jason Miller, in taped testimony, said he said the campaign should wait until it had a better sense of the results before declaring victory.

He said another top Trump official, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was pushing for an aggressive posture. He “was saying, ‘we won it, they’re stealing it from us,’ and anyone who didn’t agree with this position was being weak,” Mr. Miller said. He also said Mr. Giuliani appeared to be intoxicated.

Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Committee Vice Chairman Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) said the testimony showed that Mr. Trump rejected the advice of his advisers and “instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani to just claim he won.” Witnesses also included Byung J. Pak, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta whom Mr. Trump forced to resign because he was upset that the prosecutor wasn’t doing enough to investigate election-fraud allegations.

In his testimony, Mr. Pak said there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to affect the outcome of the election in Georgia.

Also appearing Monday was former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, who helped call the Arizona presidential vote for President Biden. He was later laid off in a restructuring by the network. A Fox News spokeswoman said Mr. Stirewalt didn’t run the network’s decision desk.

“We knew it would be a consequential call because it was one of five states that mattered,” he said of Arizona. By later that week, he said, Mr. Trump’s odds of winning the election were essentially nil.

“It’s always possible that you could have a truckload of ballots be found somewhere, I suppose,” he said.

The Wall St Journal