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

The committee said he was directly involved in the 'fake electors" scheme.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol held another hearing Tuesday on the pressure campaign it says former President Donald Trump and allies put on state election officials as part of a larger "seven-part scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election.


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Schiff calls Trump's action 'unpatriotic' but punts to DOJ on whether criminal

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the hearing Tuesday focused on Trump's pressure campaign on state election officials, appeared to speak to Attorney General Merrick Garland and other prosecutors at the Department of Justice watching the committee unfold its findings, reminding the public that lawmakers will not be the ones to bring charges to Trump and allies.

"Whether his actions were criminal will ultimately be for others to decide. But what he did was without a doubt unconstitutional. It was unpatriotic, and it was fundamentally un-American," Schiff said.

The committee has appeared to make the case that Trump directly engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the government.


Mother-daughter election duo describe impact of 'hateful' attacks

Ruby Freeman, the mother of Shaye Moss, both former election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, sat behind her daughter in the hearing room Tuesday as Moss detailed "racist" and "hateful" threats to their lives after Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani falsely accused them of "smuggling" ballots in suitcases.

Both women told the committee they are now scared to use their names, and Freeman was told by the FBI she had to leave her home for two months because of threats. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that in Trump's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, he mentioned Freeman's name 18 times.

"I've lost my name and I've lost my reputation," Freeman, a 62-year-old grandmother, said in taped testimony. "I've lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with No. 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen."

"I can't believe this person has caused this much damage to me and my family," she added. "It was horrible."

Asked how the false attack espoused by the president and his allies affected her, Moss said it has "in every way."

"I haven't been anywhere at all. I've gained about 60 pounds. I just don't do nothing anymore. I don't want to go anywhere," she said. "All because of lies -- for me doing my job, same thing I've been doing forever."


Former elections worker describes moment she learned about threats against her

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.


Committee plays audio of Trump's call to Raffensperger to 'find' votes

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.