>> does select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capital will be in order . without objection the chair is authorized to put the committee in resource at any point. the chair announces the committee's approval to release deposition material to today's hearing. good afternoon. in our last hearing we told the story of a schema driven by donaldtrump . pressure on our vice president to illegally overturn the election results . we showed that in the pressure campaign mike pence fulfilled his constitutional obligation donald trump turned a violent mob loose on him. we showed the mob came within roughly 40 feet of the vice president. today, we will show that what happened to mike pence wasn't an isolated part of donald trump's scheme to overturn the election. in fact pressuring public servants into betraying their oath dwas a fundamental part of the playbook and a handful of election officials in several key states stood between donald trump and upending of american democracy. as we begin again today it's important to remember when we count the votes for president we count the votes state-by-state. for the most part, the candidates who win the popular vote in a state when all the states electoral college votes and whoever wins a majority of electoral college votes wins the presidency. so when donald trump tried to overturn the election results he focused on just a few states. he wanted officials at the local and state levels to see the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and throw out the results. even though as we showed last week there wasn't any voter fraud that could have overturned the election results and like mike pence, these public servants wouldn't go along with donald trump's scheme and when they wouldn't embrace the big lie and substitute the will of the voters for donald trump's will to eremain in power donald trump enworked to ensure they face the consequences. threats to people's livelihood and lives. threats of violence donald trump new about and amplified and in our other hearings we can't just look backwards at what happened in late 2020 and early 2021 because the danger i'm gone away. our democracy endured a mighty test january 6 and in the days before. we say our institutions held but what does that really mean? democratic institutions are abstractions or ideas. they are local officials who oversee elections. secretaries of state. people in whom we placed our trust that they would carry out their duties. but what if they don't? two weeks ago new mexico held its primary elections. one county commission refused to certify the results citing the 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 boat quote, isn't based on any evidence. it's not based on any facts. it's only based on my.feeling and my own intuition and that's all i need. by the way, a few months ago this county commissioner was found guilty of illegally entering the capitol grounds on january 6. this story reminds us of a few things. first, as we've shown in our previous hearings claims that widespread voter fraud tainted that 20/20 presidential election have always been a lie. donald trump new they were alive and he kept amplifying them anyway. everything we described today , the relentless destructive pressure campaign on state and local officials was all based on a lie. donald trump new it. he did it anyway. second, the lie hasn't gone away. it's corrupting our democratic institutions. people who believe that lie are now seeking positions of public trust. and as seen in new mexico, there oath to the people they serve will take it back to their commitment to the big lie. if that happens who will make sure ourinstitutions don't break under the pressure ? we won't have to close calls. we will have a catastrophe. our distinguished colleague from california mister schiff will present much of the select committee's findings on this matter. i'm pleased to recognize our vice chair miss cheney for any opening statements she would care to offer. >> thank you mister chairman. today we will begin examining president trumps efforts to overturn the election by exerting pressureon state officials and state legislatures . donald trump had a direct and personalrole in this effort as did rudy giuliani , as did john eastman. in other words the same people who are attempting to pressure vice president mike pence to reject electric electoral votes 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 was independently serious. each desert attention both by congress and by ourdepartment of justice . but as a federal court has already indicated, these efforts were also part of a broader plan and all this was done in preparation for january 6. i would note 2 points for 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 election allegations were nonsense. for example, this is what former attorney general bill barr said to president trump about allegations in georgia. >> we took a hard look at this ourselves and taste on our review of it including the interviews of the key witnesses, the fulton county delegations had no merit. the balance under the table were legitimate balance. they were not in a suitcase. they had been pre-opened for feeding into the machine. all the stuff about the water leak and that there was some subterfuge involved, we felt there was confusion there was no evidence of a subterfuge to create an opportunity to feed things into account. and so we didn't see any evidence of fraud in the fulton county episode. >> as acting deputy attorney general richard donahue told donaldtrump this . >> and i said something to the effect of serve, we've dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. the major allegations are not supported by the evidence. >> mister trump was told by his own advisors he had no basis for his stolen election claims yet he continued to pressure state officials to change the election results. second you will hear about a number of threats and efforts to pressure state officials to reverse the election outcomes. one of our witnesses today gabriel stirling explicitly warned president trump about potential violence on december 1, 2020. more than a month before january 6. you will see excerpts from the video repeatedly today. >> it had all gone too far. all of it. joe asked for a patriot who ran cirencester to be shot. a twentysomething text has death threats saying she should be home for treason because she was transferring a report on batches from an ems to a countycomputer so he could read it . this has to stop. mister president, you have not condemned theseactions for 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're going to take a position of leadership shows some . my boss, secretary raffensberger his address is out there. they had people come onto their property. this has to stop . this is elections. this is the backbone of democracy and allof you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this . >> the point is this. donald trump did not care about the surge in violence. he did not condemned them. he made no effort to stop them. hewent forward with his feet allegations anyway. one more point . i would urge all of those watching today to focus on the evidence the committee will present. don't be distracted by politics. this is serious. we cannot let america become a nation of conspiracy theories and thoughtviolence. 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 institution. today mister chairman we will all see an example ofwhat truly makes america great . you mister chairman. i healed back. >> without objection the chair recognizes the gentleman from california mister schiff for an opening statement. >> thank you mister chairman and non-vice chair. on november 3, 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 i elsewhere .d nevertheless and for the first time in history the losing presidential candidate fought to hold onto power. as we've 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 the millions of absentee ballots elections officials would be counting on election day andthereafter would work 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 back to failed email today pressure campaign directed at individuals state legislators to try to get them to go back into session and either declare him the winner, decertified joe biden as the winter winter or send 2 slates of electors to congress. one for biden and one for him and pressure vice depresident pants to choose him as the winner. but the state legislatures wouldn't go along with this scheme and neither with the vice president. none of the legislatures agreed to go back into special session and declare him the winner. no legitimate state authority and the states donald trump lost would agree to appoint fake trump electors and send them to congress. but this didn't stop the trump p campaign either. they assembled groups of individuals in key battleground states and got them to call themselves electors . rated phony certificates associated with these fake scollectors and then transmitted these certificates to washington and to the congress to be counted during the joint session of congress for january 6. none of this work but according to federal district judge david carter former president trump and others likely violated multiple federal laws by engaging in this scheme including conspiracy to defraud the united states . we will hear evidence of the former president and his top advisers direct involvement in key elements of this plot for which judge carter called a coup in search of a legal theory . for as the judge explained president trump's pressure campaign to stop the electoral count did not end with vice president pence. it targeted every tear of federal and state elected officials convincing state legislatures he said to certify competing electors was essential to stop the count and ensure president trump's reelection. as we have seen in our prior hearings, running through this scheme was a big lie that the election was plagued with massive fraud and somehow stolen. you willremember what the president's own attorney general bill barr told the president about the outcome of the election .>> and i told them that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public was bullshit. that the claims of fraud for bullshit. >> the presidents life was and is a dangerous cancer on the body politic. if you can convince americans they cannot trust their own elections at any time they lose it's somehow illegitimate than what is left but violence to determine who should govern? this brings us to the focus of today's hearing. when state elections officials refused to stop the count donald trump and his campaign tried to put pressure on them. the state executive officials refused to certify him the winner of states he lost he apply more pressure and state legislators refused to go back into session and appoint trump electors he amped up the pressure yet again. anyone who got in the way of donald trump's continued hold on power afterhe lost the election was the subject of 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 death. state legislators were singled out. so too were statewide elections officials. even local elections workers diligently doing their jobs were accused of being criminals and had their lives turned upside down. as we will show, the president's supporters heard the former president's claims of fraud and false allegations he made against state and local officials as a call to action . >>. [chanting] stop the steal. you're a threat to democracy. you're a threatto free and honest elections . >>. [inaudible] your are a felon and you must turn yourself in . >> than about 45 minutes later we started to hear the voices outside my home and my stomach sunk and i thought it's me. then we don't know what's, the uncertainty of that was the fear. are they going to attack my house? i'm in here with my kids . i'm trying to putthem to bed . so it was, that was the scariesty moment just not knowing what was going to happen . >> this pressure campaign against state and local officials spanned numerous contested states. as you'll see in this video produced by theselect committee . >> my alname is josh robin to the house select committee to investigate a january 6 attack on the united states capital. beginning late november the president started appearing beforestate legislators urging them to give their electoral votes to trump even though he lost the popular vote . >> i represent president trump along with jenna ellis and this is our fourth or fifth hearing. >> this election have to be turned around cause we won pennsylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot. >> this was the strategy with both practical and legal elements. the committee subpoenaed email from two days after the election in which a trump campaign lawyer asked another trump lawyer john eastman to write a memo justifying the idea. >> wendy remember this coming up as an option in the postelection period? >> right after the election. it might have beenbefore the election . >> eastman tried to justify the strategy circulated dthrough rudy giuliani's legal team and the state legislators around the country and appeared before the georgia state legislature to advocate for it publicly. >> you could do what the florida legislature was prepared to do which was to adopt a state of electors themselves and when you add in the mix of the significant statistical anomalies and video evidence of outright election fraud i don't think it's just your authority to do that but quite frankly i think you have a duty to do that to protect the integrity of the election here in georgia. >> republican officials in several states releasedpublic statements recognizing president trump's proposal was unlawful . for instance georgia governor brian kemp called the proposal unconstitutional while arizona house speaker rusty ballard wrote the idea would undermine the rule rule of law. the campaign to get it state legislatures to go across with the scheme intensified when president trump invited delegations from michigan and pennsylvania to the whithouse . >> either you or speaker. did you make the anpoint to the president you were not going to do anything which violated michigan law ?>> i believe we did. whether or not those exact words were mirrored, i think the words that i would have likely used is we were going to follow the law. >> nevertheless the pressure continued. the next day president trump tweeted hopefully the courts and world legislatures will have the courage to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our elections and the united states of america itself. the world is rock watching. he posted multiple messages on facebook with contact information for state officials and urging supporters to contact to contact them to demand a vote on decertification. in one of those president disclosed mike sharkey's personal phone number to his followers. >> all i remember is receiving just shy of 4000 text messages in a short time. calling to take action. and then there was a loud noise, loud consistent feedback. and we are hearing the trump folks are calling and asking for changes in electors and you guys can do this . well, there believing things. >> these effortsinvolve targeted outreach to state legislatures . >> my name is angela mccallum calling from the trump campaign headquarters in washington dc and you do have the power to reclaim your authority as legislative electors thatwill support president trump p and vice president pence . >> president trump's lawyers and trump himself . >> and i've become friendly withlegislators that i didn't know for weeks ago . >> another legislature house speaker brian cutler received daily notes from trump's lawyers in the last week of november. >> this mister speaker this is rudy giuliani and jenna ellis calling you because we liketo discuss obviously the election . >> this is jenna ellis and i'm here with mayor giuliani. >> brian, it's rudy. i have something important to call your attention to that i think it changes things. >> cutler felt outreach was inappropriate and asked his lawyers to tell rudy giuliani to stop calling but giuliani continued to reach out. >> i understand you don't want to talk to me now. i just want to bring some facts to your attention and talk to you as a fellow republican. >> on december 30 trump ally steve bannon announced a process that covers all. >> are going to cutler and we're going to start going to offices and if we have to going to go to homes and let them know what we think about them. >> i don't remember the exact number. it was at least three outside either mydistrict office or my home . and you're correct, my son then 15 years old was home by himself for the first one. all my information was documented online. it was my personal email, personal cell phone. my home number. we had to disconnect ourhome phone for about threedays because it would ring all hours of the night. it would fill up with messages .>> . >> poll watchers denied access. >> these were another element . the trump campaign spent millions of dollars running ads online and on television. >> the evidence is overwhelming. call your governor and legislatures . demand them here the evidence. >> public pressure on state sofficials in the lead up to january 6. >>. [chanting] >> let's go sessions. >> what are we going to do? what do you and i do as state legislatures? i'm not advising that. >> the punishment for treason is death. >> the state pressure campaign and the danger it posed to state officials and state capitals around the nation 's was a dangerous precursor to the violence we saw on january 6 at the us capitol. today you'll hear from rusty bowers republican speaker of the arizona house of representatives. he will tell us about his conversations with the president, rudy giuliani and john eastman and what the president's team asked of him and how his oath of office would not permit it . you'll then hear from brad raffensberger, republican secretary of state of georgia who trump directed to find 11,780 votes that did not exist. with just the exact number of votes needed to overtake joe biden. also hear from gabriel stirling chief operating officer about the spurious claims of fraud in the elections in georgia and who responding to a cascading set of threats to his elections team warned thepresident to stop . that someone was going to get killed. and you'll hear from andrea moss of former local el