WASHINGTON ― Republican senators who objected to the 2020 election end result on Jan. 6, 2021, are standing by their votes at the same time as a number of individuals from Donald Trump’s interior circle admitted in depositions that claims of widespread election fraud have been a sham.
Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr was notably blunt about his boss’s claims concerning the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential ends in testimony earlier than the Jan. 6 choose House committee, calling them “completely bullshit,” “bogus and silly,” and “crazy stuff.”
“If he really believes this stuff, I thought he’d lost contact, or become detached from reality,” Barr mentioned in a video the Jan. 6 committee aired final week.
Bill Stepien, Trump’s former marketing campaign supervisor, additionally testified that Trump ignored his recommendation to inform supporters on election evening that it was too early to name the race. Instead, Stepien mentioned, the previous president declared outright victory that evening ― even earlier than any claims of fraud have been investigated or litigated in courtroom.
But that didn’t appear to matter to prime Republicans who voted to throw out thousands and thousands of votes, even after a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and ransacked the place.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who was the primary senator to announce that he would object to the election outcomes on Jan. 6, laughed at Barr’s assertion.
“I thought it was probably good for his book,” Hawley mentioned. “His book sales probably went up.”
Hawley mentioned he stood by his objection to the Electoral College end result from Pennsylvania, which he has claimed was corrupted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s determination permitting absentee ballots to be counted in the event that they have been acquired as much as three days after the election.
Hawley based mostly his objection on Pennsylvania regulation somewhat than outlandish claims of fraud ― which have by no means had any credibility ― however on Wednesday he left open the chance that fraud may have swung the election.
“If you want to ask me if there’s enough fraud to change the outcome of the election, we’ll never know the answer,” he mentioned.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who lodged the primary objection to Arizona’s electoral outcomes, mentioned that “voter fraud has been a persistent problem in this country” when requested to answer Barr flatly slapping down 2020 election fraud claims.
Asked whether or not he regretted voting to object to the electoral outcomes, Cruz mocked the query.
“Do [I] have any regrets over fighting to enhance voter integrity and protect our democracy? No, I do not have regrets over fighting to defend our democracy,” he informed HuffPost.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), the previous Alabama faculty soccer coach, solid his first-ever vote in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, to problem the 2020 election outcomes. He, too, mentioned he disagreed with Barr and stood behind his vote.
“You can’t say it was zero fraud. You can’t do that,” Tuberville mentioned. “I don’t care whether you’re a former attorney general or just a citizen of the United States. In every election, you got problems. You just don’t know how far it went.”
There was no proof of widespread electoral fraud within the 2020 election. While a recount may have probably shifted some votes, Joe Biden’s victory was so massive it might not have been sufficient to swing the election to Trump’s favor, in accordance with former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, who made election requires the community.
“He needed three of these states to change,” Stirewalt mentioned in testimony earlier than the Jan. 6 committee earlier this week. “And in order to do that, I mean, you’re better off to play the Powerball than to have that come in.”
The “big lie” is continuous to loom over the 2022 and 2024 elections, with scores of Republican candidates operating for state and federal workplace who say the 2020 election was rigged. In Nevada for instance, the GOP candidates for U.S. Senate and Nevada’s secretary of state are each election denialists.
