Capitol riot hearings: election officials recount threats, pressure campaign to keep Trump in power
- Lawmakers investigating the January 6 attack sought to tie the ex-US president directly to a pressure campaign on electors after his defeat by Joe Biden
- The committee played audio and video recordings in which close aides – and Trump himself – urged state officials to reject the election results
US state election officials on Tuesday recounted how supporters of Donald Trump threatened, insulted and harassed them, sometimes turning up at their homes, after they refused to help the former president overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters heard how a flood of calls and emails paralysed operations of the Arizona House of Representatives speaker’s office.
“We received … in excess of 20,000 emails and tens of thousands of voice mails and texts, which saturated our offices and we were unable to work, at least communicate,” Speaker Rusty Bowers told the US House of Representatives Select Committee.
The committee shifted its focus on Tuesday to the Republican’s pressuring of state officials as he sought to remain in the White House despite losing the November 2020 presidential election.
It was the fourth of at least six public hearings the committee is holding this month on its nearly year-long investigation of the attack, which took place as Vice-President Mike Pence met members of Congress to formally certify Trump’s defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.
The committee’s seven Democrats and two Republicans have used the hearings to build their case that Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat amounted to illegal conduct, far beyond normal politics.