Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:52 pm
The January 6th Committee has shown that then President Trump knew his false claim about the 2020 election was a lie.
Even Trump’s White House lawyer who represented him in the first impeachment said he never saw any evidence whatsoever to sustain Trump’s allegations of Dominion voting fraud.
“I thought the Dominion stuff, I never saw any evidence whatsoever, to sustain these allegations,” Eric Herschmann told the January 6th Committee.
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“Trump’s own campaign advisors, his Department of Justice, and his cybersecurity experts all told him the same thing,” Republican Representative Liz Cheney said, “the Dominion voting conspiracy was ‘”complete nonsense.'”
Trump’s own campaign advisors, his Department of Justice, and his cybersecurity experts all told him the same thing… the Dominion voting conspiracy was “complete nonsense.”
Here, for example, is White House lawyer Eric Herschmann: pic.twitter.com/CD1o4d7NG5
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 13, 2022
Herschmann is no Democrat or liberal. He joined the Trump White House in 2020 and defended Trump during the first impeachment, during which Trump was accused (correctly) of pressuring Ukraine to investigate Trump rival Joe Biden if they wanted Trump to release aide Congress had already authorized for them.
The committee played testimony from Trump’s campaign lawyer Matthew Morgan, in which he said the campaign had concluded weeks earlier that even if all of the alleged fraud, abuse or irregularities were “aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign,” it wouldn’t change the outcome of the election. The conclusion among the staff was it was “not sufficient to be outcome determinant.”
On January 2nd, Trump campaign lawyer Matthew Morgan 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: pic.twitter.com/EezwqwhbcS
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 13, 2022
Former US Attorney Bjay Pak confirmed, “We interviewed the FBI and individuals depicted in the videos and they were double and triple counting the ballots and determined that nothing irregular happened in the counting and the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were false.”
So, Trump knew the Dominion claims were absurd and even if all of drunken Rudy Giuliani’s claims had borne out, it wouldn’t have changed the election. Trump knew that even if these false claims were proven somehow to be true, he still lost the election.
The 2020 election was the most secure election in modern history. None of these claims are based in fact, they were not based in fact then and they are not based in fact or even suspicion now.
Trump and his dangerous clown posse of Giuliani et al were able to sell these lies to Trump’s supporters because of what is called the “red mirage,” which some outlets had warned about before the election but which many treated as a nail biter, even though Democrats vote with mail-in ballots more than Republicans do (and especially during the Covid pandemic). There are also some counties that historically are late to announcing their vote totals. This is all normal and happens in every election, but Trump et al seized upon it in order to sow doubt about an election he lost.
Steve Vladeck wrote on November 8th, 2020 in the New York Times about the need to change the way vote tabulations are reported, saying, “President Trump seized on these gyrations, warning that something ‘strange’ was going on and that a conspiracy was afoot to ‘steal’ the election. Of course, it was all a mirage, the unintended outcome of 50 states and the District of Columbia reporting their results in their own ways.”
Legally, establishing that Trump knew his claims about the election being fraudulent were untrue is important. The Committee has established this point with multiple witnesses, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, who up until the Big Lie had proven himself to be a complicit and most willing Trump soldier against democracy.
Furthermore, Dominion Voting Systems has established this by suing multiple conservative media outlets who falsely made this claim. They also sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation.
Trump knew he was conning his supporters with a lie. They acted on this lie, believing it. Many of his supporters who acted upon his lie are now facing criminal charges for their part in the January 6th domestic terrorism attack on our country.
Even though so much of the incitement happened publicly, the committee will need to connect the dots between Trump knowing he was lying about the election to his alleged incitement of the attack.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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