WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol made a wide-ranging case on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump created and relentlessly unfold the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him within the face of mounting proof from an increasing refrain of advisers that he had been legitimately defeated.
The committee, in its second listening to this month, traced the origins and development of what it has described as Mr. Trump’s “big lie.” It confirmed via reside witness testimony and recorded depositions how the previous president, defying lots of his advisers, insisted on declaring victory on election evening earlier than the votes had been absolutely counted, then sought to problem his defeat with more and more outlandish and baseless claims that he was repeatedly knowledgeable had been mistaken.
“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” William P. Barr, the previous lawyer basic, mentioned of Mr. Trump throughout a videotaped interview the panel performed on Monday, wherein he at one level couldn’t management his laughter on the absurdity of the claims that the previous president was making.
“There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were,” Mr. Barr mentioned.
The panel additionally used the testimony of Bill Stepien, Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign chief, who advised its investigators that Mr. Trump had ignored his election-night warning to chorus from declaring a victory that he had no foundation for claiming. Instead, the president took the recommendation of Rudolph W. Giuliani — his private lawyer who was, based on Jason Miller, a prime marketing campaign aide, “definitely intoxicated” — and mentioned he had gained even because the votes had been nonetheless being tabulated.
It was all a part of the committee’s bid to point out how Mr. Trump’s dissembling in regards to the election outcomes led on to the occasions of Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol within the deadliest assault on the constructing in centuries, spurred on by the president’s exhortations to “stop the steal.”
Investigators went additional on Monday, detailing how the Trump marketing campaign and its Republican allies used claims of a rigged election that they knew had been false to mislead small donors and increase as a lot as $250 million for an entity they known as the Official Election Defense Fund, which prime marketing campaign aides testified by no means existed.
“Not only was there the big lie,” mentioned Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who performed a key function within the listening to, “there was the big rip-off.”
Money ostensibly raised to “stop the steal” as an alternative went to Mr. Trump and his allies, together with, the investigation discovered, $1 million for a charitable basis run by Mark Meadows, his chief of employees; $1 million to a political group run by a number of of his former employees members, together with Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda; greater than $200,000 to Trump lodges; and $5 million to Event Strategies Inc., which ran the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot.
Aides mentioned Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., was paid $60,000 to talk at that occasion, a speech that lasted lower than three minutes.
“It is clear that he intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what he said,” Ms. Lofgren mentioned of Mr. Trump.
Read More on the Jan. 6 House Committee Hearings
But the majority of the session was devoted to displaying how decided Mr. Trump was to cling to the fiction that he had gained the election, solely digging in additional deeply as aide after aide knowledgeable him that he had not.
The checklist of aides and advisers who sought to steer Mr. Trump away from his false claims was lengthy and different, based on the committee’s presentation. They included low-level marketing campaign attorneys who outlined how they advised the president that the returns coming in from the sphere confirmed that he was going to lose the race. Also amongst them had been prime officers within the Justice Department — together with his onetime lawyer basic — who walked via how that they had investigated claims that the race had been rigged or stolen and discovered them not solely to be unsubstantiated, however to be nonsensical.
“There were suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we’d won it outright,” Mr. Miller mentioned in a video interview performed by the panel.
Mr. Stepien later mentioned he thought-about himself a part of “Team Normal,” whereas a separate group of outdoor advisers together with Mr. Giuliani had been encouraging Mr. Trump’s false claims.
The committee performed a number of parts of a deposition by Mr. Barr, Mr. Trump’s final lawyer basic, who known as the president’s claims of a stolen election “bullshit” and “bogus.”
“I told them that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time,” Mr. Barr testified. “And it was a great, great disservice for the country.”
Mr. Trump was nonetheless at it on Monday, issuing a rambling 12-page assertion a number of hours after the committee listening to ended wherein he doubled down on his claims of fraud, complaining — but once more with none proof — that Democrats had inflated voter rolls, illegally harvested ballots, eliminated Republican ballot watchers from vote-counting services, bribed election officers and stopped the relying on election evening when he was nonetheless within the lead.
“Democrats created the narrative of Jan. 6 to detract from the much larger and more important truth that the 2020 Election was rigged and stolen,” Mr. Trump wrote.
In the listening to room on Monday, the panel confirmed in putting element how Mr. Trump’s advisers tried and did not get him to drop his lies and settle for defeat. In his deposition, Mr. Barr recalled a number of scenes contained in the White House, together with one wherein he mentioned he requested Mr. Meadows and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and prime adviser, how lengthy Mr. Trump supposed “to go on with this stolen election stuff.”
Mr. Barr recalled that Mr. Meadows had assured him that Mr. Trump was “becoming more realistic” and knew “how far he can take this.” As for Mr. Kushner, Mr. Barr recounted that he responded to the query by saying, “We’re working on this.”
After informing Mr. Trump that his claims of fraud had been false, Mr. Barr had a follow-up assembly with the president and his White House counsel, Pat Cipollone. Mr. Barr described in his deposition how Mr. Trump grew to become enraged that his personal lawyer basic had refused to again his fraud allegations.
“This is killing me,” Mr. Barr quoted Mr. Trump as saying. “You must have said this because you hate Trump.”
Altogether, Mr. Trump and his allies filed greater than 60 lawsuits difficult the outcomes of the election. But among the many quite a few claims of fraud, Mr. Barr advised the committee, the worst — and most sensational — involved a purported plot by Chinese software program corporations, Venezuelan officers and the liberal financier George Soros to hack into machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems and flip votes away from Mr. Trump.
These allegations had been most prominently pushed by a former federal prosecutor named Sidney Powell, who collected a number of unvetted affidavits from witnesses who supposedly had details about Dominion. In the weeks after the election, Ms. Powell, working with a bunch of different attorneys, filed 4 federal lawsuits laying out her claims within the Democratic strongholds of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Phoenix despite the fact that the Trump marketing campaign had already decided that a few of her allegations had been false.
All of the fits — generally known as the “Krakens,” a reference to a legendary, havoc-wreaking sea beast — had been ultimately dismissed and deemed to be so frivolous {that a} federal choose sanctioned Ms. Powell and her colleagues. Dominion has sued her and others for defamation.
Mr. Barr, in his deposition, described the claims towards Dominion as “crazy stuff” — a sentiment that was echoed by different Trump aides whose testimony was offered by the committee.
After Mr. Barr left his place as lawyer basic, his successor, Jeffrey A. Rosen, additionally advised Mr. Trump his claims of widespread fraud had been “debunked.”
Another witness who testified on Monday and dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud was Byung J. Pak, the previous U.S. lawyer in Atlanta who abruptly resigned on Jan. 4, 2021. After talking with Mr. Barr, Mr. Pak appeared into allegations of election fraud in Atlanta, together with a declare pushed by Mr. Giuliani {that a} suitcase of ballots had been pulled from below a desk in an area counting station on election evening.
Mr. Trump and his allies additionally claimed that there was rampant fraud in Philadelphia, with the previous president just lately asserting that extra individuals voted within the metropolis than there have been registered voters. In his deposition, Mr. Barr known as this allegation “rubbish.” To bolster this argument, the committee known as Al Schmidt, a Republican who served as one in every of three metropolis commissioners on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections.
Mr. Schmidt rejected the fraud claims raised by Mr. Trump and his allies, saying there was no proof that extra individuals voted in Philadelphia than had been registered there or that hundreds of useless individuals voted within the metropolis.
Mr. Schmidt additionally testified that after Mr. Trump posted a tweet accusing of him by title of committing election fraud, he obtained threats on-line from individuals who publicized the names of his members of the family, his handle and pictures of his house.
Zach Montague and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
