At Jan. 6 hearing, GOP state election officials detail pushback to Trump's pressure

Shaye Moss, a former election worker in Fulton County, Georgia, told the committee about the moment she learned Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was falsely accusing her and her mother of smuggling ballots in suitcases.

"When I saw the video, of course the first thing that I said was, 'Why? Why are they doing this? What's going on?'" Moss recalled.

Moss then described the onslaught of threats and hateful messages she received online -- a situation she had never been in during her 10 years as an elections worker.

"It was just a lot of horrible things," she said.

"A lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that, you know I'll be in jail with my mother," Moss added.

Moss opened her remarks by telling the committee what she had loved about her job, stating she took pride in helping elderly voters and college students cast their ballots.

The committee played audio clips of the now-infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump told Raffensperger he needed to "find" 11,780 votes in Georgia -- just one vote over the margin by which he trailed President-elect Joe Biden -- so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts in the state confirmed he lost.

The call lasted 67 minutes and appeared to follow a cycle of Trump offering false election conspiracies and Raffensperger calmly explaining to him that each one was not accurate. At one point, Trump suggested to Raffensperger that his inaction could mean he was criminally liable.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., leading Tuesday's hearing, also said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reached out to Raffensperger 18 times to set up the call with Trump.

The committee aired audio from a call in which Trump tried to convince Frances Watson, the Georgia secretary of state's lead elections investigator, to reverse his loss.

"You know, you have the most important job in the country right now," Trump told her as he continued to falsely claim victory in the Peach State -- which he lost to Joe Biden by some 11,000 votes.

"When the right answer comes out, you'll be praised," Trump said to Watson.

Gabe Sterling, the chief oversight officer of Georgia's election, said trying to combat misinformation spread by Trump and his team was "kind of like a shovel trying to empty out the ocean," adding that he even argued with his own family members over the 'big lie.'

With Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asking the Georgia election officials about threats made against them, Sterling said the "straw that broke the camel's back" for him was a message to a Dominion contractor which said, "You committed treason -- May God have mercy on your soul," accompanied with a "slowly twisting GIF of a noose," he said.

"I lost my temper, but it seemed necessary at the time because it was just getting worse," Sterling said.

The committee went on to play a video of him from December 2020 in which he pleaded with Trump to "stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence."