that does it for me, thank you for watching. i will see you back tomorrow at 5 pm eastern. another live hour of politics nation. american voices with alicia menendez will return next week. coming up next, msnbc brings you a special brierre of this week's january six hearing from monday in its entirety, followed by a special recap a pm eastern. the select committee to investigate the january 6th attack on the night estates capital will be in order. without an objection, declares authorized -- for soon to how deposition

authority ten, the chair now says that the committee approval to release the deposition -- good morning, last week, the select committee laid out a preview of our initial findings about the conspiracy overseeing and directed by donald trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, it blocked the transfer of power, a scheme unprecedented in american history. my colleagues and i don't want to spend time talking about ourselves during these these hearings, but as someone who has run for office a few times, i can tell you that the end of a campaign, it all comes down to numbers. the numbers tell you the winner and loser. for the most part, the numbers don't lie, but if something does not add up with the

numbers, you will go to court to get resolution. that is the end of the line. we accept those results. that's what it means to respect the rule of law. that's what it means to seek elected office in our democracy because those numbers are not just numbers, they are votes. they are your votes. they are the will and voice of the people. at the very least, we should expect from any person seeking a position of public trust is the acceptance of the will of the people, win or lose. donald trump did not. he did not have the numbers. he went to court. he still did not have the numbers, he lost. but he betrayed the trust of the american people. he ignored the will of the voters. he lied to his supporters and the country. and he tried to remain in office after the people had voted him out.

in the courts of hell, the will of the people. this morning we'll tell the story of how we told the story of donald trump losing the election. as a result of his lost, he decided to wage an attack on our democracy, an attack on the american people by trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy. and doing so, he lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of january six, when a mob of his supporters stormed the capitol sent by donald trump to stop the transfer of power. today, my colleague from california, miss lofgren and our witnesses, will detail the select committee findings on these matters. but first, i will recognize our distinguished vice chair, miss cheney, for any opening statement that she cares to offer. >> thank you very much, mister chairman.

last week, as the chairman noted, our committee begin outlining a seven-part plan overseen by president trump to overturn the 2020 election. today, we will begin looking at the initial part of that plan. president trump's effort to convince millions of americans that the election was stolen from him by overwhelming fraud. the federal court has already reviewed elements of the committees evidence on this point and said this, quote, in the months following the election, numerous credible sources from the presidents inner circle to agency leadership and statisticians informed president trump and dr. eastman that there was no evidence of election fraud, close quote. sufficient to overturn the 2020 presidential election. the courts opinion methodically documented each of the principal reasons for that conclusion. i would urge all those watching to read it. today, we will begin to show

the american people some of our evidence. today, you will hear much more from a former attorney general bill barr's recorded testimony. you will hear in greater detail while others and the department told president trump, that his claims of election fraud were nonsense. you will also hear much more from president trump's own campaign experts, who had also concluded that his fraud claims could not be supported. let me focus briefly on just three points now. first, you will hear firsthand testimony that the president's campaign advisers urged him to await the counting of votes and not to declare victory on election night. the president understood even before the election that many more biden voters have voted by mail, because president trump ignored the advice of his campaign experts and told his supporters only to vote in person. donald trump knew before the

election that the counting of those mail-in ballots in several states would not begin until late in the day, and would not be complete for multiple days. this was expected, reported and widely known. you will also hear testimony that president trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead, followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated rudy giuliani to just claim that he won and insist that the vote counting stop, to falsely claim everything was fraudulent. he falsely told the american people that the election was not legitimate. in his words, quote, a major fraud. millions of americans believed him. second, pay attention to what donald trump and his legal team said repeatedly about dominion voting machines, far flung conspiracies with a deceased

venezuelan communists allegedly pulling the strings. this was, quote, complete nonsense as bill barr said. president trump's own campaign advisers, his department of justice, and his cybersecurity experts all told him the same thing. here, for example,'s white house lawyer, eric herschmann, his view was shared by many by the trump team who we interviewed. >> i thought that the dominion stuff, i never saw any evidence ever to sustain the allegations. >> third, as mike pence's staff started to get a sense for what donald trump had planned for january six, they called the campaign experts to give them a briefing on election fraud and all the other election claims. on january 2nd, the general counsel of the trump campaign, matthew morgan, this is the campaign's chief lawyer, summarized what the campaign

had concluded weeks earlier, that none of the arguments about fraud or anything else could actually change the outcome of the election. >> generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud, abuse or irregularities, and targeted and red most favorably to the campaign will be all come determinant. i think everyone's assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff, myself, greg jacobs, marc short, was not sufficient to be a con determinant. >> as is obvious, this was before the attack on the capitol. the trump campaign legal team knew that there was no legitimate argument of fraud, irregularities or anything to overturn the election. yet, president trump went ahead with his plans for january six,

anyway. mister chairman, hundreds of our countrymen have faced criminal charges. many are serving criminal sentences because they believed what donald trump said about the election, and they acted on it. they came to washington d.c. at his request. they marched on the capitol i's request. hundreds of them besieged and invaded the building at the heart of our constitutional republic. as one conservative editorial board put it recently, quote, mr. trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on january six, and he is still doing it. another conservative editorial board that has long supported president trump said last week, donald trump, quote, won't stop insisting that the 2020 was stolen even though he has offered no proof that that is true. and this, donald trump now,

quote, claims to more fantastical theory's, such as the nest discusses the bump -- even as recounts in arizona, georgia and wisconsin confirmed trump lost, those are the correct conclusions to draw from the evidence gathered by the committee. we have much more evidence to show the american people on this point than we can reasonably show in one hearing. but today, we will begin. thank you, mister chairman, i yield back. >> without objection, the chair recognizes miss lofgren from california for an opening statement. >> thank you, mister chairman. in our opening hearing, we gave an overview into our investigation into the january 6th attack. the plot to overthrow the election was complex and had many parts, which we will explore in remaining hearings. today, we examine the false

narrative that the 2020 election was, quote, stolen. for president trump's plan to overturn the election relied on a sustained effort to deceive millions of americans would knowingly false claims of election fraud, all elements of the plot relied on convincing supporters about these false claims. today, we will demonstrate the 2020 election was not stolen. the american people elected president joe biden. we will present evidence that mr. trump's claims of election fraud were false, that he and his closest advisers knew those claims are false, but they continue to pedal them anyway, right up until the moments before a mob of trump supporters attacked the capitol. we will also show that the trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told that their donations

were for the legal fight in the courts. but the trump court did not use the money for that, the big lie was also a big rip off. the former president laid the groundwork for these false claims well in advance of the election, as early as april 2020, mr. trump claimed that the only way he could lose an election would be as a result of fraud. >> you know the things with bundling and all the things happening with votes by mail, where thousands of votes are gathered, and i'm not going to say which party does it, but thousands of votes are gathered, they come in and are dumped in a location, and then all of a sudden, you lose an election you think you will win. the only way that we will lose this election is if the election is rigged, remember that. that's the only way. this is going to be a fraud like you never seen. did you see what is going on -- take a look at west virginia mom and selling ballots, they

are being sold, they're being dumped and rivers, this is a horrible thing for our country -- >> there is no evidence of -- that >> this will not end well. >> mr. trump decided even before the election that regardless of the facts and truth, if he lost the election, he would claim that it was rigged. mr. trump was right about one thing, it did not end well. on election night, mr. trump claimed even before the votes were counted that his loss was a result of fraud. on thursday, we had testimony from attorney general barr of the department of justice investigation of mr. trump's fraud claims. barr told trump directly that his claims were bs. yet, after hearing the truth that morning from the ag, mr. trump continued to pedal the false claims of fraud. you will hear detailed testimony from attorney general barr describing the various

election fraud claims the department of justice investigated. he will tell you how he told mr. trump repeatedly that there was no merit to those claims. mr. barr will tell us that mr. trump's election night claims of fraud were made without regard to the truth. before it was even possible to look for evidence of fraud. attorney general barr was not alone. you will see and hear today other department of justice officials and senior advisers to mr. trump that they told him that claims he was making were not supported by evidence. the election fraud claims were false. mr. trump's closest advisers knew it, mr. trump knew it. that did not stop him from pushing the false claims and urging his supporters to, quote, fight like hell, to, quote, take back their country. after he lost the election, various legal challenges were

made. you will hear testimony today from a renowned republican election litigation lawyer who will explain the normal process by which candidates challenging election. rather than accept the results of the election and the decisions of the courts, mr. trump pursued a different strategy. he tried to convince the american people the election had been stolen. many of his supporters believed him. many still believe him today. the attack on january 6th was a direct and predictable result of mr. trump's decision to use false claims of election fraud to overturn the election and to cling to power. mister chairman, i yield back. >> thank you very much. and now we will welcome our first witness. we are joined today by former fox news politics editor, chris -- . stepped in the former campaign

manager was subpoenaed to be here but was in washington this morning prepared to testify. kevin merino, mr. stepien's attorney, is here with us today. thank you, mister marino, for coming. he was advised, he has advised us that mr. stepien's wife went into labor this morning. mr. stepien unexpectedly had to travel to be with his wife, and we wish him the best. due to the depth and rigor of our investigation, we have several hours of mr. stepien's testimony from when we interviewed him in february and we will be presenting that testimony today. i will now swear in our witness. the witness will still's will now stand and raise his right hand. do you swear, affirm, 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. you may be seated. let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. i now recognize myself for questions. i want to start by showing a video that tells the story of what was going on in the trump white house on election night in november of 2020. >> do you remember where you were on the night of the election, november 3rd? >> i was at the white house. >> do you know where, specifically, over the course of the night, you spend your time at the white house? >> there was an event that was organized in the residence, so i moved between the residents, a room sort of off the residents, where some family members were.

>> i take it the president was upstairs on the residents? >> he was upstairs. we were kind of on the first floor, so not upstairs. mostly with ivanka and her brother's. some people were coming in and out. >> can you describe the atmosphere? what were people expecting that night at the white house. >> there was for people who show up there on election night, a more positive environment. i think people were a bit nervous not knowing what was going to happen with the mirage as the debate was being carried out. >> fox news calling arizona for joe biden. that is a big get for the biden campaign. >> arizona's call, do you remember that? >> what do you remember happening where you were when arizona was called?

>> there was surprise at the call. >> who was surprised? >> most everyone in the room. >> were you one of them? >> yes. >>? did that shift the atmosphere or the attitude in the white house? >> completely. >> how so? can you describe that? >> because fox news was the first one to go out and say that. >> was it angered directed towards fox news for making a call more so than a disappointment that the campaign lost arizona? >> all the above. >> so both. a grand disappointment. >> disappointment with fox and concern that maybe our data or our numbers weren't accurate. >> were you in the white house residence during the past midnight into the early morning hours of november 4th?

>> yes. it went over, beyond midnight. >> do you remember rudy giuliani being at the white house on election night and into the early map hours of the next morning? >> i do. what do you remember about when he came? >> he was, i had heard that he was upstairs in that affirmation shunned reception area. he was looking to talk to the president and here it was suggested that instead he come talk to several of us. >> you said you had heard that mr. giuliani wanted to talk to the president and he was directed your way? do you remember talking to mr. july of giuliani? >> i did. >> what was that conversation? >> a long conversation

redirected my way. a few of us. myself, jason miller, justin clark, mark meadows, gathered in a room off the map room, to listen to what ever rudy presumably wanted to say to the president. >> was there anyone in that conversation who, in your observation, had had too much to drink? >> mayor giuliani. >> tell me more about that. what was your observation about his potential intoxication during that discussion, about what the president should say when he addressed the nation on election night? >> the mayor was definitely intoxicated, but i cannot know he is level of intoxication when he spoke with the president, for example. >> were you part of any

discussions with the people i mentioned, mr. meadow or anyone else, about whether the president should make any sort of speech on election night? >> i spoke to the president. i spoke to the president several times that night. >> there are suggestions by mayor giuliani to go declare victory, and say we wanted, outright. >> it was far too early to be making any calls like that. ballots were still being counted. >> ballots were still going to be counted for days. it was fire too early to be making any predictions. >> i remember saying that to the best of my memory i was saying that we should not go and declare victory until there was something in the numbers.

>> can you be more specific about that conversation, particularly about what mayor giuliani said, your response, and anyone else's response? >> i think mayor giuliani was saying, we won it, they are stealing from us, where are the votes coming from, and there anyone who gave opposition was weak. >> what was your view at the time, as to what he should or should not have said? >> i don't know that i had a firm view as to what he should say in that circumstance. the results were still being counted. it was becoming clear that the race would not be called on election night. >> my belief, my recommendation was, to say that votes were

still being counted, it was too early to tell, too early to call the race. but we are proud of the race we ran, and we, you know, think we are in a good position. we will have more to say about this the next day, whenever we have something to say. >> and did anyone who was part of that conversation disagree with your message? >> yes. >> who was that? >> the president disagreed with that. i don't recall the particular words. he thought i was wrong. he told me so. he said he was going to go in a different direction. >> this is a fraud on the american public. this is an embarrassment to our

country. we were getting ready to win this election. frankly, we did win this election. [applause] >> did president trump have any basis to declare a victory on november 4th, 2020? thank you. thank you. (fisher investments) it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same, but at fisher investments we're clearly different. (other money manager) different how? you sell high commission investment products, right? (fisher investments) nope. fisher avoids them. (other money manager) well, you must earn commissions on trades. (fisher investments) never at fisher. (other money manager) ok, then you probably sneak in some hidden and layered fees. (fisher investments) no. we structure our fees so we do better when clients do better. that might be why most of our clients come from other money managers. at fisher investments, we're clearly different.

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that president trump had no basis for declaring victory at that point in time. >> my belief and recommendation was to say that votes are still being counted, it is too early to tell, too early to call the race. but part of the race that we ran, think we are in good

pending position, but more to say about this the next day or next day, when we had something to say. >> thank you. mr. swalwell, after the votes were counted, who won the presidential election of 2020. >> joseph biden junior of the great state of delaware. >> thank you, that is the bottom line, we had an election, mr. trump lost, but he refused to accept the results of the democratic process, pursuant to section five c eight of house resolution 5603, i recognize a young woman from california, miss lofgren, for questions. >> thank you, mister chairman. mr. swalwell, i would like you to explain a term that was thrown around a lot, and that is the so-called red mirage,

what does that mean? >> in the 40 or 50 years, let's say, that americans have increasingly to vote by mail early or absentee, democrats have preferred that more than republicans do. >> basically, in that election, republicans won election day, and democrats win the early vote. then you wait and start counting. usually, it is election day votes tech accounted for us. then you see republicans shoot ahead, and the process of bailing, finding a non binding the mail-in votes, in stump states like pennsylvania, refused to count those votes for us, you wait for that to come in. and every election, certainly a national one, you expect to see the republican with a lead, but it is not really a lead. when you put together a jigsaw puzzle, it does not matter which piece you put in for us, it ends up at the same image. for us, who cares?

but, that's because no candidate had ever to try to avail themselves of this cork in the election counting system. we had gone to paints, and i am proud of the pains we want to, to make sure that we were informing viewers that this was going to happen, because the trump campaign and the president had made it clear that they were going to try to exploit this. we knew that it would be bigger, because the percentage of early votes was higher, right? we went from about 45% of the votes being early absentee because of the pandemic, then increased by about 50%. we knew it would be longer and more. we wanted to keep telling viewers, hey, look, the number that you see here is sonia of irrelevant, because it is a small percentage of the votes. >> so this red mirage, that is what's expected to happen on election night? >> it happens overnight. >> thank you mister swalwell. i would like to play a clip of attorney general bill barr who also explains what was expected to happen on election night.

>> right out of the box on election night, the president claimed that there was major fraud underway. this happened, as far as i can tell, before actually any potential evidence. it seemed to be based on the dynamic that at the end of the evening, a lot of democratic votes came in, which changed people count in certain states. that seemed to be the basis of this broad claim that there was major fraud. i did not think much of that because people had been talking for weeks, and everyone understood for weeks that that was going to be what happened on election night. >> mr. stepien obviously could not be with us today. it is proper for him to be with his wife as they welcome his child, but he also had discussions with the president about the red mirage, that is

that it would be a long night and early votes would favor him, but lots more votes will be counted over the course of the night and days after. let's play a clip one from our interview with mr. stepien. >> i recounted back to that conversation with him, in which i said, just like i said 2016 would be a long night, i told him in 2020 that it was going to be a process, again, as the early returns will be positive. and we will be watching returns of ballots as they rolled in there after. >> is it fair to say that you're trying to present what you thought would be a realistic picture of what may have been over the course of the big election night? >> that night and the days that followed, yeah, i always told

the president the truth. i think he expected that for me. i told him that it would be a process. we would have to wait and see how this turned out, so just like i did in 2016, i did the same thing in 2020. >> so let's watch a short clip of president trump speaking after she received that information from his campaign advisers. >> we want all voting to stop. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list. >> when former president trump said that, it contradicted what his advisers had warned would happen. we all know that mail-in ballots played a important role

in the 2020 election. however, president trump continuously discouraged mail-in voting. mr. stepien was so concerned about the presidents position on mail-in voting that in the summer of 2020, he met with president trump, along with house minority leader, kevin mccarthy. let's play clip for. >> a meeting that was had, in particular, but i invited kevin mccarthy to join the meeting, he being a like mind on the issue with me. in which we made our case for why we believed mail in voting not to be a bad thing for his campaign, but, you know, the

president's mind was made up, and he will understand how many times to go to the well on a particular topic. >> yeah, i understand. tell me more about the argument you and mr. mccarthy made to the president in that meeting, as to why it was not a bad thing that mail-in voting was available? >> largely two pillars to the argument, both of which i previously mentioned, one, leaving a good deal to chance, urging your voters to go all in on election day leaves a lot to chance, that's a. b, also previously mentioned, the fact that the trump campaign, the national committee and republican party had an advantage of grassroots workers and volunteers on the

ground that would allow and advantage to enhance returns on ballots that were mailed. those are the two pillars of the argument. >> i see. what do you recall representative mccarthy saying during that meeting? >> we were echoing the same argument. his words echoed mine and vice versa, on those two topics. >> mr. starr will, you were at the decision desk on fox news on election night, and you called arizona early for president biden, which is controversial. how did you make that call, and where did you think the race could in the early hours of the next day? >> it was really controversial to our competitors we beat so badly by making the correct call first. our decision was the best in the business, and i was proud to be part of it. because we had partnered with

the associated press and the national opinion research center at the university of chicago, thanks to my colleague, had built a wonderful device for forecasting the outcome of elections. we had a different set of data our competitors did. we had more research and a better system and a great team. what you are waiting to see is, do the actual votes matchup with the expectations in the poll. the real votes looked questioning the quality of your poll in the precincts and other places. our poll in arizona was beautiful and doing just where we wanted it to do and it was cooking up just right. at some point, and i forget exactly who, at some point it became clear that arizona was getting ready to make a call. my boss, bill, said we're not making any call until everybody says yes. you nominated the.

you have to understand, in this room, you have the best, people from academia, democrats, republicans, a broad cross section of people that have worked together for a decade and were serious about this stuff. we knew that it would be a consequential call because it was one of five states that really mattered, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, georgia, arizona, the ones we are watching. we knew it be significant to call any one of those fives. we already knew that trump's chances were getting smaller and smaller base than what we are seeing. we were able to make the call early, we were able to beat the competition. we looked around the room, everyone says yay and around we go. by the time we found out how much everybody was freaking out and losing their mind over the call. we are already trying to call the next day. we are in georgia, we were in north carolina, we are looking at these other states, we thought it was pleasing but not surprising. >> i see.

after the election as of november 7th, in your judgment, what were the chances of president trump winning the election? >> after that point? none. i guess, it is always possible that you could have a truckload of ballots be found somewhere, i suppose. but once you get into this space, ahead of today, i thought about what are the largest margins that could ever be overturned by a recount, the normal kind of stuff that we heard mike pence, sounding like a normal republican that night. saying we would keep every challenge, nothing like that. in every count, you're talking about hundreds of votes. when we talk about calling a race, one of the things we think about talking about is if it's outside the count of every count. in modern history, you are talking about 1000 votes, 1500 votes, way outside -- normally, you are talking about

hundreds of votes, maybe 300 votes changing. the idea that through any normal process in any state, remember, he had to do it dries. he needed three of the states to change. in order to do that, you're better off to play the power ball then to have that come in. >> on november 7th, the other major news outlets called the race for president biden. mr. stepien told the committee that he thought the odds, and this is a quote, very, very, very bleak, and held a meeting with the president that same day. let's show video clip eight. >> would each day that we are on, the trajectory of the race on election night, trump ahead in many states. as that week were on, as that there became a fourth and a fifth, so on and so forth, when

the mail ballots were tabulated, trump's lead grew more narrow, and in some places, biden surpassed trump and the vote totals. as the week or on, as we paid attention to those numbers multiple times a day, internally, i was feeling less confident, for sure. >> what was your view on the state of the election at that point? >> you know, very, very bleak -- we told him, the group that went over there outlined my belief and chances for success at this point. we pegged it at five, maybe 10%, based on recounts that had either automatically initiated or were --

could be initiated based on realistically legal challenges, not all the legal challenges that we are trying to pursue. >> but it was, you know, five to 10% is not a very good, optimistic outlook. >> now as president trump and others continue to claim that the election was stolen, there were lawyers who were apart of the campaign, campaign lawyers, responsible for investigating the fraud claims. that includes alex cannon, who could not validate the claims that were being made, including those being made by the president. let's roll video 15. 13. >> this is an email. it's two emails, actually. the first is from alex cannon to you and faith mcpherson.

you forwarded that email to mark meadows, justin clark, jason billows, the subject being federal i.d. voters. if you look at that original email there, there is a email asking for the az investigation you asked. for because of the substantial uncertainty around the databases, this is a highly unreliable way to identify ineligible voters. can you explain the task that you gave to miss cannon for this arizona analysis? >> sure. previously i described some of my frustration with some of the claims that people would throw at president trump regarding, have a look at this, this happened in this state, that happened in that state. those would flow to us to look

into. i talked about that before, i think. this was an example of that. i recall in arizona someone had thrown out, i believe this could be a claim that there were thousands of illegal citizens, people not eligible to vote, casting their votes in arizona. someone had thrown that claim to president trump. and as previously described, that could potentially matter. this wild claim was thrown out which on its face did not seem realistic or possible, i asked alex to look at the claim. i haven't read his full email

but i recall the response to that reality of that was not illegal citizens voting in the election. i think it was like overseas voters winning the election. so obviously people who weren't eligible to vote. >> when these findings were passed up the chain to president trump, he became frustrated and he replaced the campaign's legal team. let's play clip 14. >> it was during the second week where things like he was growing increasingly unhappy with his team, me less so because i was less involved at this point. but still me, growing increasingly unhappy with justin clark.

that paved the way for justin to be moved out and -- to be moved in as the person in charge of the legal side of the campaign, and for all intensive 's and purposes, the campaign. >> when mr. stepien became campaign manager, he was the second campaign manager for the 2020 race and there were only about 100 and days until election day. so let's play the video. >> i inherited a campaign that was, the day i was hired, was president trump's low point in the 2020 daily average polling against president biden. it was a campaign at a low point in the polls. yet was structurally and fiscally deficient.

there was a great deal wrong with the campaign in both of those areas. so most of my day was spent fixing what, i think i took over with 115 days left in the campaign, most of my time was spent fixing things that could be fixed with 115 days left in the campaign. >> now mr. stepien has been in the campaign field for a long time, and he worked for lots of different candidates in campaigns. he testified to this committee about his concerns given the claims that mr. giuliani and miss powell and their team were making publicly. let's play a clip 15. >> it was important for you, mister stepien, to pull back, just for your own professional

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of team -- i would like to play a clip showing that the president found the people that he needed to perpetuate his claims of fraud. >> there is a big truck bringing in 100,000 ballots in garbage cans, in waste paper baskets, in cardboard boxes and in shopping baskets. every single one of them was for biden, because they were being notified by smart -- in frankfurt, that biden was behind, and they had to come up with a lot more ballots. we can prove every single thing i set. >> i could probably turn around each one of the states. if you let me examine each one of the bouts, i found enough that were fraudulent that would

check the hell out of the country. >> they can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to play a certain percentage of votes from president trump and flip them to president biden, which we might never have uncovered had the votes for president trump not been so overwhelming in so many of the states that it broke the algorithm. >> one of the things at some point was you can't show an actual vote, which i found at the time to be a remarkable assertion, because -- because, you don't have to have the gun to see the body lying on the floor leading out with five bullet holes in it was killed by a gun. >> what they were proposing, i

thought was nuts. the theory was also completely nuts. it was a combination of italians, germans, different things have been flowing around. this dude was evolved, hugo's job is from venezuela, he has an affidavit from somebody, something with the philippines -- just all over the radar. >> did you ever share, mr. kushner, your view of mr. giuliani, about the president? >> yes -- >> police said. >> it was basically not the approach that i would take to advise you. >> how did president trump react when you share that view with him? >> i have confidence in rudy. >> i think i had conversations with probably all our council who are signed up to assist on election day, as they disengage

with the campaign. the general consensus was that law firms were not comfortable making the arguments that rudy giuliani was making publicly. it's a miracle that i had a similar conversation with -- >> i made it clear that i did not agree with the idea that saying the election was stolen and putting out the stuff, which i told the president was bullshit. i did not want to be a part of it. that is one of the reasons that made me decide to leave when i did. >> even sydney powell, defending herself in a defamation lawsuit brought by dominion voting systems, argued that, quote, no reasonable person would conclude that her statements were truly statements of fact. mister chairman, i yield back.

>> i thank the witnesses for joining us today. the first panel is now dismissed. without objection, the chair recognizes the woman from california, miss lofgren. >> thank you, mister chairman. last week, we presented the testimony of former attorney general bill barr, who testified before this committee. today, we present additional evidence, including his testimony that former president trump started making claims of election fraud immediately after the election, and that barr concluded the claims were untrue. due to the length of attorney

general barr's testimony, we are only going to include relevant portions at the hearing today. let's play the video. >> the department, in fact, when we received specific and credible allegations of fraud, made an effort to look into these to satisfy ourselves, that they were without merit. i was in the posture of trying to figure out, there was an avalanche of all these allegations of fraud that built up over a number of days. it was like playing whack-a-mole. so they would come, then the next day it would be another issue. also, i was influenced by all the early claims, as i understood, were completely bogus, silly and use louis based on misinformation. i did not consider the quality of claims coming out of the box

to give me any feeling that there was really substance here. >> for the first time since the election, the attorney general spoke personally with the president on november 23rd. this is at the white house. let's play the video please. >> on november 23rd, i had not spoken to the president since the election. in fact, as i said, since the middle of october, roughly. it was getting awkward because, obviously, he had lost the election, and i had not said anything to him. so, they said i think it's time you come over here. i came over to meet with the president in the oval office. meadows was there. this is leading up to this conversation with kushner -- the president had said that there was major fraud and that

as soon as the facts were out, the results of the election would be reversed. he went on this for a while, as he is prone to do. then he got to something that i was expecting, which is to say, apparently, the department of justice does not think that it has a role of looking into these foreign claims. i said, that has to be the campaign that raises that with the state. a department does not take sides in elections. the department is not an extension of your legal team. our role is to investigate fraud. if you can look at something, if it's specific, credible and affected the outcome of the election, and we are doing the -- it is not meritorious, they are not pending out. as i walked out of the oval office, jarred was there with dan scavino, who ran the presidents social media, and

who i thought was a reasonable guy. i said, how long is he going to carry on with this stolen election stuff? where is this going to go? by that time, meadows had caught up with me and leaving the office, he caught up with me, and said, that -- he said, look, i think that he is becoming more realistic and knows the limit of how far he can take this. jared said, we are working on this, we are working on it. >> even after his attorney general told him his claims of election fraud were false, president trump continued to promote these claims. >> i felt that things continue to deteriorate between the 23rd

and the weekend of the 29th. then, on november 29th, he appeared on maria brought aroma's show, sunday futures, i believe it was. he said that the department was missing in action. >> we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to biden's account. these are glitches, they are not glitches, their theft, absolute fraud. this election was over, then they did dumps. they call them dumps, big massive dumps, in michigan, pennsylvania and all over. how the fbi and department of justice, maybe they are involved, but how people are allowed to get away with this stuff is unbelievable. >> no, spurred by what he saw, barr told the associated press on december for us that there was no evidence of election fraud, immediately after, attorney general barr statement

when public. mr. trump operated and nearly fired barr, but barr persisted in telling the president that there was no evidence to support the fraud claims. >> this got under my skin, but i felt that it was time for me to say something. i set up a lunch with the ap reporter, mike besanko, and i told him at lunch, i made the statement that today, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could've affected a different outcome in the election. i had a later meeting scheduled with the white house at 3:00 with meadows. this was previously scheduled. i knew that this would come up. i went over there and tell my secretary that i would probably be fired and told to go home, not to go back into my office, he might have to pack before

me. so,, when i got over there, i met with the chief of staff. he said that the president was angry. he did not get into the issue of fraud, and then i went up to pets the pillow knees office. we were talking with each other, and we came down, he wanted us both to go to the oval office. the president was as mad as i ever could seen, he was trying to control himself. the president said that this is killing me. you did not have to say this. you must have said this because you hate trump, you hate trump, and then he raised the big vote dump, as he called it in detroit, and he said, people saw boxes coming into the counting station at all hours of the morning, and so forth. i explained to him that i knew the exact numbers precincts in detroit, 630 or something. mister president, there are 630

precincts in detroit, unlike any other state, they centralize the counting process, so they're not counted in each precinct. they move the counting stations. the normal process of boxes coming in at all different hours -- i said, did anyone point out to you, did all the people complaining, point out to you that you did better in detroit than you did last time. there is no indication of fraud in detroit. and, i told him that the stuff that is people was showing up to the public was bullshit. the claims of fraud was bullshit. he was indicted about the. i reiterated that they wasted a whole month on these claims that the the minion voting machines, these idiotic claims, and i specifically raise the domestic voting machines, which i found to be among the most

disturbing allegations. disturbing in the sense that i saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they remain in such a sensational way that they were obviously influencing a lot of people, members of the public, that there was this systemic corruption in the system, and that their votes did not count, and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. it was being laid out there. i told him that it was crazy stuff and that there was dinnertime on it. it was a great disservice to the country. >> okay, so the very next day, the president released a video rehashing some of the very same claims that his chief law enforcement officer had told him were, quote, nonsense. >> here is an example, at 6:31

in the morning, they vote dump 149,772 votes came in, unexpectedly. we were winning by a lot. that batch was received in -- we have a company that is very suspect. its name is dominion, with the turn of a dial, or the change of a chip, you can press a button for trump, and the vote goes to biden. we'll kind of system is this? >> barr, again, told the president that there was nothing to these claims on december 14th. >> when i walked in, sat down, he went off on a monologue

saying that there was no definitive evidence involving fraud through the dominion machines. a report has been prepared by a reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as -- he held up the report, and he had a copy of it made for me. as the copy was being made, he said, this is absolute proof that the dominion machines were rigged. the report means that i'm going to have a second term. then he gave me a copy of the report. as he talked more and more about it, i sat there slipping through the report and looking through it. to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me. it did not have the credentials of the people involved. i did not see any real

qualifications. the statements were made very conclusionary like. these machines were designed to engage in fraud or something to that effect. but i did not see anything supporting information for. i was somewhat demoralized because i thought, if he really believes this stuff, he has lost contact with, he has become detached from reality, if he really believes this stuff. on the other hand, when i went into this and would tell him how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never an indication of interests in the actual facts are, in my opinion then, and in my opinion now. it is that the election was not stolen by fraud. i have not seen anything since the election that changed my mind on that, including the

2000 -- [laughs] >> maybe you can assess that, the 2000 nielsen, people are talking about. that >> in a nutshell, i think the gbi was unimpressed with it. i was certainly unimpressed with the because i was holding my fire on that to see what the photographic evidence was. if they have a lot of photographs at the same person dumping a lot of ballots in different boxes, that is hard to explain. i wanted to see what the photographic evidence was, but the cell phone data is singularly unimpressive. if you take too many cell phones and figure out where they are physically in a big city like atlanta, or whatever, just by definition, you will find many hundreds of them have

passed by and spent time in a vicinity of these boxes, and the premise that if you go by five boxes or whatever was, it's indefensible, by definition, you will have hundreds of this. one contractor said, we figured out that our truck alone would account for six cell phone signals. this was some kind of contractor. you know, they would take us by these things on a regular basis. that know when the movie came out, i think the photographic evidence, and there was a little bit of it, it didn't establish widespread partisan. the other thing that people do not understand is that it is

not clear that even if you show harvesting, that changes the course of the election. you are not throw up votes and then figure out what votes were harvested. for that, there is still a burden on the challenging party to show that illegal votes were cast. votes that were the result of undue influence or bribes, or the person was not in -- absent that, i just did not see courts throwing up votes anyway. i felt that before the election, it was possible to talk sense to the president. while you sometimes had to engage in a wrestling match with him, that it was possible to keep things on a track. i felt that after the election, he did not seem to be listening.

i do not think that i was inclined to stay around if he was not listening to advice of me or cabinet secretaries. >> so, on december 14th, barr quit. the attorney general was not the only person who told the president that his claims were false. other officials and close advisers told him the same thing. >> rather than try to guess a hypothetical, would you say that there were instances where the president would say, you are telling me this, or i heard this, or i saw on television this impropriety in olanta or pennsylvania. we were in a position to say that people look at that, and you know that we are getting that information, that is not correct. we've demonstrated that was

correct, from our point of view, it was debunked. >> a month and a half or so after the election day, at that meeting, various allegations of fraud were discussed and erik and pat told the group, the president included, that none of those allegations have been substantiated to the point where they could be the basis for any litigation challenge to the election. >> president trump's own vice president and his top advisers also knew that there was no evidence to support the claims that the president was making. >> anyone else other than mr. meadows, outside of your legal group, mr. morgan, a relative

to what you are finding at the sussman of it -- >> yes, sir. >> who's that? >> peter navarro. >> when did you talk to mr. navarro? >> mid november. >> around the same time as mr. meadows? >> yes, sir. >> tell me about that conversation. >> i recall him asking me questions about dominion and maybe some other categories of allegations, voter fraud. i remember telling him that, i did not believe that the dominion allegations, because i thought the hand recount in georgia would resolve any issues with the technology problem and with dominion, or

dominion flipping votes. i mentioned at that time the chris crabs had recently released a report that the election was secure. i believe mr. navarro accused me of being an agent of the deep state, working with chris krebs against the president. i never took another phone call for mr. navarro. >> anyone else besides mr. meadows, mr. navarro, mr. herschmann, that you had discussions with inquiring about what you are finding in your review of the allegations that were pouring in? >> i believe that i had about a 15 second conversation about the vice president, as well. >> when was the? >> during one of the visits to the white house. i don't know which one. i think it was the first one in

november. i had met him briefly at the campaign. he remembered me and saw me. he asked, what i was doing on the campaign, and i told him that we were looking into some of the issues related to voter fraud. he asked me, i don't remember his exact words, but he asked me if we were finding anything. i said, i did not believe that i was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election. he thanked me. that was our interaction. >> at a later hearing, you will hear live testimony from the former acting deputy attorney general of the department of justice, rich donahue. now, i would like to play a portion of his testimony. >> i tried to, again, put this

in perspective and to try to put it in very clear terms to the president. and i said something to the effect of, sir, we've done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews, the major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. we're looking in georgia, pennsylvania, michigan, nevada, we're doing our job. much of the info you're getting is false. and then i went into, for instance, this thing for michigan, this report about 68% error rate. the reality is, it was only 0.006 3% error rate. less than one in 15,000. so the president accepted that. he said, okay, fine, but what about the others? and again, this gets back to the point that there were so many of these allegations that when you gave him a very direct answer on one of them, he wouldn't bias on it, but he moved to another allegation. so then i talked a little bit about the pennsylvanian truck

driver, this is another allegation that had come up. and this claim was by a truck driver, who believed perhaps honestly, that he had transported an entire tractor trailer truck full of ballots from new york to pennsylvania. and this was, again, out there in the public and discussed. and essentially said, look, we looked at the allegation, we looked at both ends, but the people who blow the truck in the people who on the truck, the allegation is not supported by the evidence. again, he said, okay. and then he said, note, i didn't mention that one, what about the others? and i said, okay well, with regard to georgia, we looked at the tape, we interviewed witnesses, there is not a case. the president kept fixating on

the suitcase that supposedly had fraudulent ballots and at these two cases rolled out from under the table. and i said, no, sir, there is not the case. you can watch that video over and over, there is no case. there is a wield bin where they carry the bouts. and that is how they move ballots around that facility. there is nothing suspicious about that at all. i told them that there was no multiple scanning at the bouts. one part of that allegation is that there are taking one bow and getting it through three or four or five times to rack up votes, presumably for press vice president biden. i told him that the video did not support the. then he went off on double voting at the top of the next page. he said, that people are voting, indians are getting paid to vote, he meant people on native american reservations. he said that there is lots of fraud going on here. putin flat out said that much

of the information is false and or not supported by the evidence. we look at the allegations that don't pan out. >> mr. barr and his advisers were not the only ones who determined that the presidents allegations regarding dominion voting machines were false, so mister chairman, i ask unanimous consent to include in the record of the searing reports issued by the department of homeland security, cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, otherwise known as cisa. that addressed and rejected the claims of manipulation of voting machines in the 2020 election. >> without objection. >> without objection welcome to your world. your why. what drives you? what do you want to leave behind? that's your why. it's your purpose, and we will work with you every step of the way to achieve it.

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welcome to your world. your why. what drives you? what do you want to leave behind? that's your why. it's your purpose, and we will work with you every step of the way to achieve it. i know welcome our second panel of witnesses. we are joined today by b.j. pak, i'll smith and ginsburg. mr. pak is a former united states attorney for the northern district of georgia. mr. smith is a former sitting commissioner for the city of philadelphia, where he served for more than ten years. mr. ginsburg as one of the leading election law attorneys in the country and has represented republican presidential candidates in

election litigation dating back to 22, 000, where he represented george w. bush and the bush legal deposition. i will now swear in our witnesses. please stand and raise your right hand. do you swear i aftermath on the penalty of perjury that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me got? >> thank you, please be seated. let the rord reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. pursuant to section five see a of house resolution 503, i now recognize the woman from california, miss lofgren, for questions. >> thank you, mister chairman. before the break, i think you

all heard mr. barr and mr. donahue talk about the false claims that mr. trump and his supporters made about suitcases of fake ballots in georgia. we have a witness here today who thoroughly investigated that issue. mr. pak, i want to thank you for appearing before us today. you were appointed by president trump to serve as the u.s. attorney for the northern district of georgia, and you served from 2017 to january, 2021. you were the lead federal prosecutor there and work for the department of justice under that attorney general bill barr. were you ever asked by attorney general barr to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. if so, what were those claims? >> thank you, congresswoman lofgren, thank you for the questions. at approximately january 4th of

2020, general barr had a conversation on an unrelated case of this issue. at the end of the conversation, mr. barr had asked me if i had seen a certain videotape that was being reported in the news, where mr. giuliani in a senate subcommittee hearing held the day before on may 3rd, showed a videotape of a purportedly security tape at the state fund, which is in fulton county, the city of atlanta. at the time, mr. barr asked me that he had made a public statement that he had not seen any widespread election fraud that would question the outcome of the election. because of the videotape in the serious allegation that mr. giuliani is making with respect to the suitcase full about's

reported in the video. he asked me to find out what i could about it, because he had envisioned that in some ways after our call, that he will have to go to the white house for meeting, and that issue might come up. he asked me to make it a priority to get to the bottom and try to substantiate the allegation made by mr. giuliani. >> thank you, i understand that georgia secretary of state's office investigated those state farm arena allegations and did not find any evidence of fraud. what did you find when your office conducted its own investigation. >> we found that the suitcase full about's, the alleged black suitcase that was being seen pulled from under the table was actually an official lock box where ballots were kept safe. we found out that there was a mistake in terms of a

misunderstanding that they were done counting ballots or for the night. the partisan watchers that were assigned by each respective party were an announced and sent home. once they realized the mistake, someone from the secretary states office had indicated that, no, we are not done with the night, you need to go ahead and start counting. once they packed up the lock box full of ballots, they brought back the official ballot box again and continued to tally about from the from the lock box. unfortunately, during the senate hearing, mr. giuliani only played a clip that showed them pulling out the official about box from under the table. referring to that as a smoking gun a fraud in fulton county, when in actuality of review of the entire video, showed that that was an official bob ox that was kept underneath the tables. we saw them pack up because the announcement that they're done for the night and then once the

announcement was made, you should continue counting, they brought about box back out and continued to count. we interviewed the fbi -- the fbi interviewed the individuals depicted in the videos who are double and triple counting the ballots and determined that nothing irregular happened in the counting and the allegations made by mr. giuliani were false. >> thank you very much. i would like to play again a testimony from mr. donahue who appeared before the committee before today. >> mr. donahue, we talked at length about whether or not the white house and president were informed from the beginning of that report on the results of the investigation and interviews that had gone on in fulton county. how would those results have

been communicated to the white house and president? >> i don't know how they were initially communicated. i do know that they came up in subsequent conversations with the president. we essentially told him that we looked into that, and that it was not true. okay, he was informed. i told the president myself that several times in several conversations that these allegations about ballots being mailed in in a suitcase and run through the machine several times, it was not true. we look at the video, we interviewed witnesses, it was not true. >> mr. pak, after you left the u.s. attorney's office on january 4th, 2021, did the next u.s. attorney there, mr. trump 's personal pick, bobby christine, did he investigate any remaining claims of fraud. if so, did he find any evidence that supported the presidents claim of voter fraud? >> it is my understanding that

mr. chris the continued investigations, but he was unable to find any evidence of fraud that affected the outcome of the election. >> after investigating the president and mr. giuliani's claims of voter fraud in georgia, it is your view today that there was no evidence of widespread fraud sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the election in georgia? >> that is correct. >> thank you, mr. pak. i want to thank you also for the service that you given to our country. we appreciate that. next, i would like to turn to president trump's false allegations about election integrity in philadelphia. the attorney general discussed these allegations at some length. >> the idea that the president has repeatedly suggested that there was some kind of tell importing and unexpected votes

in inner city areas like philadelphia, as recently as general teamed, when he walked off the npr set. he was asked by the interviewer, what's your evidence of fraud? >> he said more people voted in philadelphia than there were voters. that was absolutely rubbish. the turnout in philadelphia was in line with the states turn now. in fact, it was not as impressive as many suburban counties. there was nothing strange about the philadelphia turn. it was not like there was all these unexpected votes that came out in philadelphia. once you actually look at the vote, there is an obvious explanation. for example, in pennsylvania, trump ran weaker than the republican ticker, generally. to the state candidates ran weaker delegations running for

federal congress. we ran weaker than -- i have not looked at this recently, but generally, he was a weak element on the republican ticket. that does not suggest that the election was stolen by fraud. >> how about pennsylvania? we are talking about philadelphia had an alleged discrepancy between a number of absentee ballots -- >> that was one of the big ones for a period of time. i think that was raised and gettysburg by giuliani or something like that, but it kept on being repeated. i found it annoying because i did not think that it was right. i called mick swain, and he got back to me. he said, no, the problem is that they throughout this number. he mixed apples and oranges.

he took the number of apple cases for the republican primary and compared to the number of absentee votes cast in the general election. once you go and look and compare apples to apples, there is no discrepancy. i think at some point, i covered that with the president. >> we have another witness here today who has detailed knowledge about the election process in philadelphia. mr. schmidt, at the time of the presidential election in 2020, we were serving as the only republican member of philadelphia's to remember city commission, which is responsible for overseeing elections throughout the city. is that correct? >> that is correct, congress person. so, president trump made numerous claims regarding fraudulent voting practices in philadelphia, including the claim that dead people voting. in fact, mr. giuliani told

pennsylvania state legislators that 8000 dead people voted in pennsylvania. you investigated those claims of voter fraud. can you tell us what you found? >> not only was there not evidence of 8000 dead voters voting in pennsylvania, there was not evidence of eight. we took seriously every case that was referred to us. no matter how fantastical, no matter how absurd, we took every single one seriously, including these. >> as it turns out, even mr. trump's campaign lawyers knew that the dead lawyer claims are not valid. >> i guess the crooks and put off here are disappointed and this. they only submitted 8021 ballots from that people, mail in ballots from that people. it is probably easier for that people to submit mail-in ballots then it is the vote in person. >> rudy was at this stage of his life the same ability to

manage things at this level or not. obviously, i think they publicly said it, they never proved the allegations that they're making. >> mr. smith, on a november 11th, 2020, president trump tweeted about you, saying, and here is a quote, a guy named our schmidt, a philadelphia commissioner and so-called republican or rhino, is being used big-time by the fake news media to explain how honest things were with respect to the election in philadelphia. he refuses to look at a mountain of corruption and dishonesty. we win. as a result of that tweet and the cnn interview that you gave for you stated the that voter claims in pennsylvania were false, you and your staff were subjected to disturbing threats. can you tell us about the? >> the threats prior to that we,

and on some level, if this delay to talk about that we, but we can really see the impact that they have, because prior to that, the threats were general in nature. corrupt election officials and thought of here are going to get what's coming to them. or what the second amendment is for. we are walking into the lines then, also it's of things like that. after the president tweeted at me by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific, much more graphic. they included, not just me by name, but included members of my family by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home. just every bit of detail that you can imagine, that is what changed with that tweet. >> behind me are redacted threats that you received that you provided to the committee

that we redacted portions of the text to protect your family. mr. schmidt, i think i speak for all of my colleagues when i say, we are deeply sorry for what you and your loved ones have been through. i also want to thank you for your service to your country and for standing up for the rule of law. i want to thank both mr. pack and mr. schmidt for their service, their testimony and for standing up for the rule of law. le o law. don't like surprises? [ watch vibrates ] proactive notifications from fidelity keep you tuned in all day long. so when something happens that could affect your portfolio, you can act quickly. that's decision tech, only from fidelity. right now, we're all feelin' a little strapped. but weekends are still all about grilling. and walmart always keeps prices low on our fresh ingredients. so you can save money and live better.

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another subject. the courts in our country provide a legitimate venue for campaigns to challenge what they view as irregular election practices. courts have the final say on how the law applies to those challenges. we have a renowned legal expert here to address the trump campaign activities in court. mr. ginsburg, you spent your entire career representing republicans in election litigation. you served as the national council on republican presidential campaigns in 2000,

2004 and 2012. you played a key role in the 2000 florida recount that led to the supreme court decision in bush v. gore. you served as the co-chair of the presidential commission on election administration. i think it is fair to say that you are the most prominent republican lawyer who has litigated in the election field. now, you have analyzed the trump campaign's litigation pretty carefully, what's the normal process for post election litigation? how is the trump campaign different from the kind of post election litigation that you have been involved in and know about. >> in a normal course of doing, any campaign on the night of the election and days after will do a couple of different things. one, is it that they will analyze precinct results and look for abnormalities in the results, and they will send people to those precincts to ask more questions.

secondly, all campaigns will have poll watchers and poll workers and observers in the polling place. so, campaigns will talk to those people if they saw any irregularities that could cause problems in the election. the trump campaign talked preelection about having 50,000 poll workers. presumably, they did have eyes on the ground in all these places. so, in the normal course of things, the campaign will analyze the reports that come in. the trump campaign had a couple of basic problems, however. number one, the 2020 election was not close. in 2000, that was 537 close, in this election, the most narrow margin was 10,000 something in arizona. you just make up those sorts of numbers in recounts.

when the claims of fraud and irregularities were made, you heard very compelling testimony from mr. stepien, matt morgan, alex cannon about those claims and how they did not believe them. that put the trump campaign on sort of a process of bringing cases without the actual evidence that you have to have, in which the process is designed to bring out. >> are you aware of any instance in which a court found the trump campaign's claims of fraud credible? >> no, there was never that instance. in all the cases that were brought, and i have looked at them more than 60, which include more than 180 accounts. no, the simple fact is that the trump campaign did not make its case. >> the select committee has

identified 62 post election lawsuits filed by the trump campaign and his allies between november 4th, 2020 and january six, 2021. those cases resulted in 61 losses and only a single victory, which actually didn't affect the outcome for either candidate. despite those 61 losses, president trump and his allies claimed that the courts refused to hear them out. as a result, they never had their day in court. mr. ginsburg, would you say about the claims that mr. trump was not given an opportunity to provide the evidence that they had a voter fraud. in fact, did they have their day in court? >> they did have their day in court. about half of those cases that you mentioned were dismissed during the procedural stage for a lack of standing of proper people bringing in the case, or there was not sufficient evidence, and it got dismissed on a motion to dismiss.

but in the other, there was discussion of the merits that was contained in a complaint. in no instance did a court find that the charges of fraud were real. it is also worth noting that even if the trump campaign complained that it did not have its day in court, there have been post-election reviews in each of the six battleground states that could have made a difference. those ranged from the somewhat farcical cyber ninjas case in arizona to the michigan senate report that was mentioned earlier, the hand recount in georgia, the mr. pak address. in each one of those instances, there was no credible evidence of fraud produced by the trump campaign or his supporters. >> thank you. as mr. ginsburg has explained, there are no cases where the trump campaign was able to convince the court that there was widespread fraud or

irregularities in the 2020 election. over and over, judges appointed by democrats and republicans alike directly reputed this false narrative. they called out the trump campaign's lack of evidence for its claims. the judges did that, even in cases where they could have simply thrown out the lawsuit without writing a word. >> you can see behind me, a few excerpts from the decisions of the 62 cases. the trump campaign's lack of evidence was criticized by judges across the political spectrum. in pennsylvania, a trump appointed judge concluded, quote, charges require specific allegations and proof. we have neither here. another trump appointed judge warned that if cases like these succeeded, quote, any disappointed loser in a presidential election able to

hire a team of clever lawyers, could flag claims deviations from election results and cast doubt on election results. the list goes on and on. allegations are called, quote, an amalgamation of theories, conjecture and speculation. in another strange legal argument without merit, unsupported by evidence, derived from wholly unreliable sources, a fundamental and obvious misreading of the constitution. the rejection of president trump's litigation efforts was overwhelming. 22 federal judges appointed by republican presidents, including ten appointed by president trump himself, and at least 24 elected or appointed republican state judges, dismissed the presidents claims. at least 11 lawyers had been referred for disciplinary neri

proceedings due to bad faith and baseless efforts to undermine the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. rudy giuliani had his license to practice law suspended in new york. just this week, a newly filed complaint will potentially make a suspension from practicing law in dc permanent. as we have just heard from perhaps the most prominent republican election lawyer in recent history, the trump campaign's unprecedented effort to overturn its election laws in court was a deeply damaging abuse of the judicial process, as stated by u.s. district court judge, david carter, this was, quote, a coup in search of a legal theory. thank you, mister chairman, i yield back. >> i want to thank our witnesses for joining us today. the members of the select committee may have additional

questions for today's witnesses. 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. the second panel of witnesses is now dismissed. without objection, the chair recognizes the woman from california, miss lofgren, for a closing statement. >> thank you, mister chairman.

now that we understand the litigation efforts by president trump and his allies, i would like to present additional actions taken by the trump campaign during this time. president trump continued to push this stolen election narrative even though he and his allies knew that their litigation efforts, making the same claim, had failed. that is worth pointing out that litigation generally does not continue past the safe harbor day of december 14th, but the fact that this litigation went on, that decision makes more sense when you consider the trump campaign fund raising tactics. because if the litigation had stopped on december 14th, there would have been no fight to defend the election, and no clear path to continue to raise millions of dollars. mister chairman, at this time, i would ask for unanimous consent to include in the record a video presentation