On June 13, 2022, the January 6th Select Committee began the second of its Congressional hearings presenting the findings from their investigation.
Also, see our summary of Day 1.
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Day 2 of the hearings was about Trump's propaganda campaign to convince the public he won (the Big Lie). Behind the scenes, Trump was fully aware that there was no electoral fraud and that legal avenues for challenging the outcome consistently showed that he lost. Not only did Trump use the Big Lie as a pretext for the coup attempt, but he used it to extract over $250,000,000 in fundraising from his supporters.
Video of the hearing can be found here. Time stamps are reported in Eastern Time.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?520804-1/hearing-investigation-capitol-attack
10:50 AM - Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney begins discussing about today's topic. It was made clear to Trump by both the courts and his advisors that there was no electoral fraud and that he lost.
10:53 AM - Testimony from Eric Herschmann (former White House lawyer) who says he never saw any evidence for the Dominion voting machine conspiracy pushed by Trump.
10:53 AM - Testimony from Matt Morgan (Trump campaign team top lawyer) who says there was not sufficient evidence of electoral fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election.
10:54 AM - Cheney makes clear that hundreds of Insurrectionists have already been charged and sentenced, because they came to the Capitol at the direction of Trump.
10:56 AM - Cheney says the Committee has more evidence than they can reasonably present at a single hearing regarding the Big Lie.
10:56 AM - Committee member Zoe Lofgren begins explaining the Big Lie plot. Trump and his advisors knew the claims of election fraud were false, but they promoted them anyway. Trump also used the Big Lie to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from his supporters.
10:58 AM - Trump began preparing the Big Lie as early as April 8, 2020 (months prior to the election), claiming that the only way he would lose the election is if it was rigged and involved fraud. Videos of Trump from April 8, 2020; August 17, 2020; and September 29, 2020.
10:59 AM - Lofgren explains how Barr and other senior advisors to Trump told him claims of election fraud were baseless. Nevertheless, Trump pursued challenges to the election outcome in court. Despite losing these challenges, he refused to accept them and instead pursued the Big Lie narrative to convince his followers the election was stolen.
11:03 AM - Testimony from Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Jason Miller (Trump campaign senior advisor), Bill Stepien (Trump campaign manager), and Rudy Giuliani about the atmosphere on election night (November 3-4, 2020). Fox News was the first network to call that Arizona had been won by Biden, causing the campaign to be very disappointed in Fox.
Miller says Giuliani suggested that Trump should make a speech to declare victory outright, despite the all the votes not yet being counted and the election not yet being called. On the day of November 4, 2020, Trump made a speech declaring victory and declaring the impending Biden victory a fraud.
11:11 AM - Live testimony from from Chris Stirewalt (former Fox News political editor), saying Trump had no basis to declare victory on election night.
11:12 AM - Stirewalt explains the "Red Mirage" effect, where reported Republican votes would be higher on election night, while mail-in votes favoring Democrats would be counted in the following days. He claims Fox News election coverage had been warning viewers of the mirage effect and that the reported counts on election night were not the final outcome.
11:14 AM - Testimony from Attorney General Bill Barr about how Trump's team had been aware of the "Red Mirage" effect for weeks.
11:16 AM - Testimony of Stepien, where he explains how Trump was informed that votes would continue to be counted in the coming days.
11:17 AM - Video of Trump saying he wanted mail-in votes to stop being counted.
11:18 AM - Lofgren says Stepien was highly concerned about Trump's anti-mail-in voting stance, and that he met with Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump to defend mail-in voting. Testimony of Stepien explaining this.
11:20 AM - Stirewalt explains why Fox called the outcome of Arizona earlier than other networks.
11:24 AM - Audio of Stepien testifying about how in the days following election night, it became clearer that Biden was gaining a stronger lead. Trump was informed that his chances of winning were minimal.
11:26 AM - Audio of Stepien testifying about the allegations of fraud in Arizona which had been flowing to Trump. After the campaign team reviewed some of these claims, it became clear they were baseless.
11:29 AM - Stepien testifies that Giuliani became the head of the campaign's legal matters after Trump became dissatisfied with Stepien's team not pursuing the baseless claims.
11:33 AM - Rudy Giuliani interview on Fox News pushing insane election fraud conspiracies about shopping carts full of Biden ballots.
11:34 AM - Giuliani testimony to the January 6th Committee where he claims he still believes there was a massive amount of fraudulent ballots.
11:34 AM - Video clip of Sidney Powell on November 19, 2020, pushing insane election fraud conspiracies about voting machine algorithms "flipping" votes from Trump to Biden.
11:34 AM - Testimony from Powell saying she was informed by Mark Meadows that there was no evidence that any vote had been "flipped", but she was apparently unwilling to accept the truth.
11:34 AM - Testimony from Eric Herschmann (former White House attorney) about how he believed all the election fraud claims about foreign interference, etc., were crazy.
11:35 AM - Testimony from Jared Kushner. Kushner told Trump he shouldn't follow Giuliani's strategy.
11:35 AM - Matt Morgan says law firms were not comfortable pushing Giuliani's arguments about election fraud.
11:36 AM - Testimony from Attorney General Barr saying he told Trump the election fraud claims were "bullshit". Barr resigned in large part because he did not want to be part of an administration which was pushing fake claims about election fraud.
11:36 AM - Lofgren reminds us that Powell attempted to defend herself in a defamation lawsuit by arguing that no reasonable person would believe her statements.
11:38 AM - Testimony from Attorney General Barr about his opinion about the baselessness of election fraud claims. Barr says he spoke to Trump. Trump rambled on about the alleged fraud and said the Justice Department should do more to investigate the "fraud". Barr says Mark Meadows and Jared Kusher said Trump was getting "more realistic", and they were trying to wind him down from his Big Lie narrative.
11:43 AM - Video of Trump on Fox News ranting about how the FBI and Department of Justice might be involved in stealing the election since they weren't helping him.
11:43 AM - On December 1, 2020, Barr told the Associated Press there was no evidence of election fraud. Testimony from Barr about his statement to the press and the meeting with Trump after his statement was published. Barr says Trump was angrier than he had ever seen him, but he told Trump once again that the election fraud claims about Detroit and Dominion voting machines were "bullshit". Barr was aware that the Big Lie about voting machines had been having a big impact on the public.
11:46 AM - The day after the meeting, on December 2, 2020, Trump gave an angry presentation where he repeated the fraud claims Barr just told him were baseless. (Video of Trump's presentation).
11:48 AM - On December 14, 2020, Barr once again told Trump the claims of fraud were baseless. Testimony from Barr. Trump said he received a report with "absolute proof" about Dominion voting machine fraud, which was substantial enough that he would be guaranteed a second term. Barr says he believed Trump had become "detached from reality" if he truly believed this narrative. Barr gives his analysis of why the "2000 Mules" propaganda film by Dinesh D'Souza was nonsensical.
11:53 AM - Audio testimony from Jeffrey Rosen ("Acting" Attorney General after Barr resigned), explaining how Trump was again informed the allegations were baseless.
11:53 AM - Derek Lyons (Counselor to the President), explaining how Trump was informed the allegations were baseless.
11:54 AM - Testimony from Alex Cannon (Trump campaign lawyer), explaining how Peter Navarro was informed the allegations were baseless in November. Cannon also had a brief conversation with Vice President Pence in November, where Pence was told there wasn't fraud substantial enough to change the outcome of the election.
11:58 AM - Audio of Richard Donoghue (former "Acting" Deputy Attorney General) explaining how he told Trump the allegations were baseless. Trump kept inquiring about specific examples of alleged fraud, and whether they had been investigated. No matter how many allegations Donoghue had debunked, Trump kept moving his attention to other allegations.
12:01 PM - Lofgren asks to include in the record reports from the Department of Homeland Security Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, Michigan Senate Oversight Committee, a statement by 59 US election security scientists, and 5 other reports, all of which confirmed there was no widespread fraud into the record.
12:16 PM - Committee returns from recess and introduces witnesses BJay Pak, Al Schmidt, and Benjamin Ginsberg.
12:18 PM - Lofgren introduces BJay Pak. He was appointed by Trump to serve as the US Attorney of the Northern District of Georgia. Attorney General Barr told Pak he had seen no widespread evidence of election fraud, but asked Pak to investigate the "suitcase full of ballots" allegation made by Rudy Rudy Giuliani.
12:20 PM - Pak testifies the "suitcase" allegedly full of fake ballots was just an official ballot box, and explains the result of his investigation.
12:22 PM - Audio testimony of "Acting" Deputy Attorney General Donoghue saying he told Trump several times that the "suitcase full of ballots" allegation was false.
11:24 PM - Testimony of Attorney General Barr addressing the false election fraud claims in Philadelphia.
11:27 PM - Al Schmidt (Republican member of the City of Philadelphia's commission which oversaw the election) is introduced. He investigated claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, and testifies there was no evidence to support them.
11:28 PM - Video of Rudy Giuliani claiming dead people sent mail-in ballots. Testimony of Eric Herschmann saying Giuliani likely knew these claims were false.
12:30 PM - Schmidt describes the threats he and his family received due to Trump tweeting out against him.
12:32 PM - Benjamin Ginsberg is introduced. He has served as a prominent member of Republican campaign legal matters, including the Bush v. Gore lawsuit. He explains the typical process of election analysis and observation.
12:36 PM - Ginsberg explains how the Trump lawsuits over the election were lacking in evidence to begin with.
12:37-39 PM - Lofgren summarizes the 62 court cases the Trump team launched over the election.
12:41 PM - Lofgren outlines the steps Trump took to push the Big Lie even after his campaign lost in the courts. The motivation for this included the desire for Trump to continue receiving fundraising money from his duped supporters.
12:42 PM - Video summarizing Trump's use of the Big Lie to fundraise. The Trump team even made up a fake organization called the "Official Election Defense Fund". Trump quickly raised $250,000,000 in fundraising. Most of the money raised went to the "Save America PAC", which funneled the money into various organizations, including Event Strategies Inc., which ran Trump's January 6th rally. The Trump team continued to send fundraising emails up to 30 minutes before the Capitol was breached.
12:46 PM - Cheney makes closing statements.
12:47 PM - Testimony of White House lawyer Eric Herschmann about his conversation with John Eastman on January 7th. (A preview of a video which will be shown at an upcoming hearing.)
12:49 PM - Video of Insurrectionists, where they indicate they came to the Capitol because they believed the Big Lie.
12:50 PM - Committee adjourned.
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As always, we must warn that the danger is not over until every last organizer of the coup attempt and every single coup participant in Congress is put in prison.
In the year and a half since the Insurrection, the Republican Party and far-right terrorists have constantly warned us that they are in the process of organizing another coup--one which will be far more bloody than the last.
All non-treasonous Americans need to (legally) arm ourselves so we can prepare to defend our communities in the scenario that the Republican Party follows through on the bloodshed it has continuously been promising. Until every last one of them is put in prison, we are not safe.
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