recognizes the gentlewoman from
Virginia.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mid-december was a turning
point.
President trump made his
decision, a choice to ignore the
court and his advisors and to
push forward to overturn the
election.
His efforts to overturn the
election were not random or
disconnected.
They were part of a coordinated
multi-part plan to ensure that
he stayed in power.
Donald Trump was the driver
behind each part of this plan.
He was personally and directly
involved.
Of course, a key element of the
plan was continuing to convince
tens of millions of Americans
that he did not in fact lose.
Again, he did this even though
his own campaign advisors and
his justice department officials
told him his claims of fraud
were wrong.
In this video, you will see that
even when top law enforcement
officials told the president's
election fraud claims were
false, he still repeated the
claim in the days and weeks that
followed.
Sometimes, even the very next
day.
>> I raised the dominion voting
machines which I found to be the
most disturbing allegations,
disturbing in the sense that I
saw absolutely zero basis for
the allegations.
I told them that it was -- it
was crazy stuff, and they were
wasting their time on that.
And it was doing a grave
disservice to the country.
Mr. Trump: We have a company
that is very suspect.
It's 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.
What kind of a system is this?
>> We definitely talked about it
again.
I was sort of down at that point
because the hand recount had
been done and all that but we
went back to that to say this is
an example of what people are
telling you and what is being
filed in some of these court
filings that are just not
supported by the evidence.
And this is the problem, a
problem that people keep telling
you these things and they turn
out not to be true.
Mr. Trump: In addition, there is
the highly troubling matter of
dominion voting systems.
In one Michigan county alone,
6000 votes were switched from
trump to Biden and the same
systems are used in the majority
of states in our country.
>> I went into this and would,
you know, tell him how crazy
some of these allegations were,
how ridiculous some of them
were.
I'm talking about some of the
ones like, you know, more
absentee votes were cast in
Pennsylvania than there were
absentee ballots.
Stuff like that was easy to blow
up.
There was never an indication of
interest in what the actual
facts were.
Mr. Trump: There were more votes
than there were voters.
Think of that.
You had more votes than you had
voters.
That is an easy one to figure.
And spy the thousands.
>> He raised the big vote dump,
as he called it, in Detroit, and
he said people saw boxes coming
into the accounting station at
all hours of the morning, and I
said, Mr. President, there are
630 precincts in Detroit, and
unlike elsewhere in the state,
they centralize the counting
process so they are not counted
in each precinct.
They are moved to counting
stations.
So a normal process would
involve boxes coming in at all
different hours.
Mr. Trump: This is Michigan.
At 6:31 in the morning, a vote
dump of 149,772 votes came in
unexpectedly.
>> With regard to Georgia, we
looked at the tape, interviewed
the witnesses.
There is no suitcase.
The president cap fixating on
this suitcase that supposedly
had fraudulent ballots.
The suitcase was rolled out from
under the table.
I said, no, sir, there is no
suitcase.
You can watch that video over
and over.
There is no suitcase.
There is a wheeled bin where
they carry the ballots and that
is just how they carry ballots
around the facility.
There is nothing suspicious
about that at all.
Mr. Trump: Election officials
hold boxes and suitcases of
ballots out from under tables.
You saw it on television.
Totally fraudulent.
>> This happened over and over
again.
And our committee's report will
document it.
Purposeful lies made in public
rightly at odds with what Donald
Trump knew from unassailable
sources.
The justice department's own
investigation and his own
campaign.
Donald Trump maliciously
repeated this nonsense to a wide
audience over and over again.
His intent was to deceive.
President trump's plan also
involved trying to force
government officials to change
the election outcome in the
states he lost.
He personally reached out to
numerous state officials and
pressured them to take unlawful
steps to alter the election
results in those states.
His actions, taken directly by
the president himself, made it
clear what his intentions were,
to prevent the orderly transfer
of power.
We all recall, for example,
president trump's tape-recorded
call with Brad raffensperger.
At the time this call occurred,
president trump had already been
told repeatedly by the U.S.
Justice department, by his
campaign, and his advisors at
his allegations of fraud in
Georgia were false.
Pres. Biden: So look, -- Mr.
Trump: So look, all I want to do
is this.
I just want to find 11780
votes, which is one more than we
have, because we want to say,
look, we need only 11,000 votes.
We have far more than that as it
stands now.
We will have more and more.
So what are we going to do here,
folks?
I only need 11,000 votes.
Give me a break.
>> I just want to find 11,780
votes.
That is an extra ordinary demand
by the president, especially
since he already knew from the
justice department there was no
genuine basis for this request.
No one could think it would be
legal for the secretary of state
to simply "Find the votes" the
president needed in order to
win.
Secretary raffensperger told the
president the truth, that he
lost the election in Georgia,
but president trump not accept
that answer.
Instead, he suggested that
secretary raffensperger himself
might be prosecuted.
Mr. Trump: That is, you know, a
criminal offense.
You cannot let that happen.
That is a big risk to you and to
Ryan.
Your lawyer.
That is a big risk.
>> We know president trump's
white house advisors reacted
negatively.
Immediately after the call,
Cassidy Hutchinson had a
conversation with the chief of
staff, mark meadows.
>> But you cannot possibly --
that call was crazy.
He said, no, he knows it is
over.
He knows he lost.
But we are going to keep trying.
There are good options out
there.
We are going to keep trying.
>> This call and other related
activities is now the focus of
an ongoing criminal
investigation in Fulton county,
Georgia.
Georgia is not the only state
where president trump tried to
pressure state officials to
change the results.
He also attempted to pressure
state officials in Arizona,
Pennsylvania, and Michigan to
change the results in those
states as well.
While president trump was
pressuring state officials, he
was also trying to use the
department of justice to change
the election results.
His top officials told him that
there was no evidence to support
his claims of fraud.
Election was corrupt and leave
the rest to me and the
Republican congressman.
When these officials would not
do what he said, president trump
embarked in an effort to install
Jeff Clark as acting attorney
general.
Solely because he would do what
others in the department would
not do.
We know that trump was doing so
for a specific purpose so Clark
could employ the justice
department's authority to help
persuade the states to slip
electoral votes.
For example, when Richard
Donoghue and Jeff Rosen, both
appointed by president trump,
learned of Mr. Clarke's
proposal, here is what they said
-- why they said they forcefully
rejected it.
>> I recall toward the end
saying what you're proposing is
nothing less than the justice
department meddling in the
outcome of a presidential
election.
More importantly, this was not
based on fact.
This was contrary to the facts
as developed by investigations
over the last several weeks and
months.
I responded to that and for the
department to insert itself into
the political process this way,
I think would have had grave
consequences for the country.
It may very well have spiraled
us into a constitutional crisis.
>> We know from our
investigation that president
trump offered Jeff Clark the
position of acting attorney
general and that Jeff Clark had
decided to accept it.
The only reason this ultimately
did not happen is that the white
house counsel and a number of
justice department officials
confronted the president in the
oval office and threatened mass
resignation.
>> And then I said something to
the effect of you are going to
have a huge personnel blow out
within hours because you are
going to have all kinds of
problems with resignations and
other issues.
That is not going to be in
anyone's interest.
>> The president ultimately
relented.
Only because the entire
leadership of the department of