House Jan. 6 committee focuses on "fake electors" and threats to public servants amid Trump pressure campaign - CBS News

Capitol in Tuesday's hearing detailed the threats made to state lawmakers and election officials and workers in Arizona and Georgia, as President Donald Trump and his allies tried to get them to overturn the election results in their states. .

The committee sought on Tuesday to bring to light the severity of the threat to democracy in the days and weeks after the election, given the enormous and persistent pressure by the president and by Rudy Giuliani on officials and ordinary Americans to promote the "big lie" that Trump had won the election.

In emotional testimony, Bowers said that until "very recently," his family had begun to dread Saturdays, when Trump supporters would drive around his neighborhood and falsely announce that he was a "pedophile" and a corrupt politician.

Fulton County election worker Wandrea Arshaye ("Shaye") Moss, who was falsely accused, along with her mother, of carrying out a fake ballot scheme and called them professional vote scammers, allegations that led to death threats and intimidation, and forced them into hiding, committee aides said.

Thompson said Trump's pressuring of these election officials was based on the "big lie."  "The lie hasn't gone away.

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told CBS News' Robert Costa in a text that "the answer is NO" when asked if he ever contacted former Vice President Pence personally about electors.

Ackerman predicts former President Donald Trump will be indicted in Georgia over the so-called "Big Lie."?

To date, Cheney said more than 30 witnesses have not come before the committee and have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, specifically calling out Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. .

Giuliani also falsely told the state senate in a hearing that Freeman, Moss and another man were "passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine.".

Moss said she learned of the allegations raised against her while at work for Fulton County, where she was shown a video clip of her from the State Farm Arena that claimed she was engaged in wrongful conduct.

Moss's supervisors told her that Trump and his supporters were dissatisfied with the results of the election, which led to threats against not only them, but also Moss and her mother.

Freeman, Moss's mother who was a Fulton County election worker, also spoke with the committee behind closed doors, during which she said she refuses to introduce herself by her name in public for fear of who's listening. .

Moss told the committee the unfounded allegations promoted by Trump turned her life "upside.".

Of the election workers and supervisors shown in video from the State Farm Arena, Moss said none of them continued in their jobs.

Even as top officials within the Justice Department told that Trump allegations about voter fraud in Fulton County were investigated and found to be without merit, the former president pressed on with his claims and efforts to pressure elections officials in the state.

They're not gonna win right now, you know," he said, according to a recording of the call obtained and played by the committee.

And yet the Republican congressmen ended up getting 33,000 more votes than President Trump, and that's why President Trump came up short," Raffensperger said, refuting Trump's claim he handedly won the state.

Trump also spoke with Raffensperger about allegations that votes were "dropped" late at night, which the secretary of state said likely referred to the uploading by counties of election results.

The committee continued to play a phone call Trump had with Raffensperger after the election in which Trump baselessly claimed thousands of dead people voted in Georgia. .

Schiff asked Sterling what it was like to compete with a president who had the "biggest bully pulpit in the world to push out these false claims" of widespread election fraud. .

As the committee shifted its focus to the election results in Georgia, Raffensperger reiterated that Mr.

The 5 million votes cast in Georgia were counted three times: through a machine recount, forensic audit and hand recount, each of which confirmed that "President Trump did some up short," Raffenspeger said.

Sterling said investigators reviewed 48 hours of footage from the vote-counting center in the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which showed "Fulton County election workers engaging in normal ballot processing.".

The entirety of the video, he said, shows election workers gathering their belongings to leave for the night and putting ballots ready to be scanned into sealed, tamper-proof ballot carriers, which were then placed under the table.

Asked what he thought when he learned fake electors for Trump met in Phoenix and sent their votes to Washington, Bowers said, "This is a tragic parody.".

His office received "in excess" of 20,000 emails and "tens of thousands" of voicemails and text messages, Bowers said.

"We were unable to work, at least communicate," he told the committee.

Bowers said protesters also descended upon his home, creating a "new pattern in our lives to worry about what will happen on Saturdays," as groups appeared outside his house and played video claiming he is a pedophille and corrupt politician.

Then, Schiff played a montage of depositions that he said showed "how President Trump and his campaign were directly involved in advancing and coordinating the plot to replace legitimate Biden electors with fake electors not chosen by the voters." .

In the video, Casey Lucier, investigative counsel for the committee, said Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, wrote a memo on Nov.

"The select committee received testimony that those close to President Trump began planning to organize fake electors for Trump in states that Biden won in the weeks after the election," Lucier said. .

Instructions were given to the electors in several states that they need to cast ballots in secrecy, committee investigators said, and fake electors met on Dec.

 After the election, Bowers also recalled how Trump attorney John Eastman and Republican Rep.

"And I said I would not," Bowers testified. .

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, testified to the committee that "yes," he wanted Trump to win a second term, but "yes," President Biden won in Arizona. .

Bowers said it is "false" that he ever told the former president he won Arizona, even though Trump claimed that was the case. .

Bowers said Guiliani told the then-president and Bowers that he would follow through with that evidence.

Bowers said he was first asked to allow an official committee at the Arizona Capitol so they could hear evidence of alleged election fraud and then take action. .

"And I refused," Bowers said, noting a "circus" of demonstrations had been brewing, and he didn't want that in the Arizona House. .

Bowers said he was told there was a legal theory in Arizona that Biden electors could be replaced with Trump electors. .

I've never heard of any such thing," Bowers said, adding that such a thing would be "counter" to his "oath," and to his faith. 

Bowers said a "tenet of my faith is that the Constitution is divinely inspired," and that what he was being asked to do was "foreign to my very being." 

Bowers said "no one" ever provided him evidence of voter fraud in Arizona sufficient to overturn the election. 

Bowers said the president called him another time, in December, and told him that while he had wanted him to win, he did not win the election and Bowers would not do anything in an attempt to change that. 

Not only did the president attempt to enlist state election officials and lawmakers in his quest to stop the transfer of power, but he also encouraged his supporters to ramp up the pressure for state legislatures to appoint an alternate slate of electors, according to the select committee

"The president's supporters heard the former president's claims of fraud and the false allegations he made against state and local officials as a call to action," Schiff said

The committee played video of protesters outside the home of Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, who said the uncertainty of what the demonstrators would do drove her fear

The president and his lawyers mounted pressure on election officials spanning several states, according to a video crafted by the panel that featured Josh Roselman, investigative counsel for the select committee

Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, another lawyer working with the Trump campaign, appeared before state lawmakers pushing their claims of fraud, and the former president's re-election campaign distributed a script to supporters, in which they told state lawmakers they had "the power to reclaim your authority to send a slate of electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence," according to a recording obtained by the panel

Trump himself also invited delegations from Michigan and Pennsylvania to the White House, and at least one Republican, Michigan state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, told the panel he reiterated to the president they would follow the law

"They were believing things that were untrue," Shirkey told the committee of the Trump supporters claiming the state legislature could appoint a dueling slate of electors. 

Protesters also descended upon Cutler's home and district office, and his then-15-year son was home alone for one demonstration, he told the committee in an interview

Adam Schiff, who is leading Tuesday's hearing, said the committee plans to lay out evidence that President Trump and his allies had "direct involvement" in the scheme to overthrow the election. 

Schiff said nothing stopped the Trump campaign from trying to declare victory, not even his attorney general, William Barr, telling him the claims of election fraud were "bullshit." 

The committee said it has obtained an email from two days after the election in which a campaign lawyer Cleta Mitchell wrote to another campaign lawyer John Eastman asking him to write a memo to justify the idea of state legislators designating electors. 

Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, reiterated that the committee will spend its fourth hearing examining the former president's effort to overturn the results of the election by exerting pressure on state election officials and state lawmakers

"In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level."

During the proceedings, the committee plans to play recordings of calls Trump made to officials in Georgia and elsewhere, and Cheney encouraged viewers to "keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew" when he spoke with them, having been told repeatedly his allegations of voter fraud were baseless

"We took a hard look at this ourselves and based on our review of it … the Fulton County allegations had no merit," former Attorney General Bill Barr told the committee, according to a clip of his testimony played by Cheney

She concluded by thanking the election officials for their service and said: "We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence."

Chairman Bennie Thompson, opening the hearing, said the committee on Tuesday will show that "what happened to Mike Pence wasn't an isolated part of Donald Trump's scheme to overturn the election

Trump also pressured state and local officials, Thompson said. 

"A handful of election officials in several key states stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American democracy," Thompson said. 

And when those officials wouldn't try to corrupt the election, Trump "worked to ensure they'd face the consequences," even though Trump knew claims of mass fraud were false, Thompson said. 

It's corrupting our democratic institutions," Thompson said, warning that if election officials cave to political pressure in the future, it will be a "catastrophe." 

CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane and CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa join CBS News' Tanya Rivero and Lana Zak to preview the fourth public hearing of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S

According to Moss, a stranger told her, ""be glad [it's] 2020 and not 1920," while others said she should hang alongside her mother for committing treason

Moss said her son also received threats, while people appeared at her grandmother's house "trying to bust the door down and conduct a citizen's arrest of my mom and me."

Moss said the threats have shaped how she interacts with people in public, as she has stopped giving out business cards to voters, worries when she is in the grocery store and her mother calls her name, and when she answers the phone and hears an unrecognizable voice

Especially not our election workers who do the heavy lifting our democracy depends on," she told Congress in written testimony

Moss said she and her mother, Ruby Freeman, spoke with investigators who were examining the voter fraud claims and determined the allegations made against her were false

"Former President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and their allies didn't like the outcome of the election, so they made up lies about us even though we were simply doing our jobs," she wrote

Alex Holder, a British documentary filmmaker who was with former President Donald Trump and his inner circle before and after Jan

The panel will focus on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to pressure local and state officials to overturn the 2020 presidential election results

With in-person testimony from two close aides to the former vice president, the committee turned its attention to Trump's efforts to pressure Pence to unilaterally reject state electors votes and declare Trump the winner

But Michael Luttig, a widely respected conservative and retired federal judge who advised Pence, told the committee that Eastman, his former law clerk, was wrong

6, before the joint session of Congress convened to tally state electoral votes, and saw new photos of the vice president hunkered down in a secure location in the Capitol complex, which he refused to leave despite the Secret Service directing him to

In its second public hearing, the select committee focused on President Trump's decision to declare victory late in the night after polls closed on Election Day, even though his closest aides warned him it was too early to deem himself the winner. 

Trump then used his premature declaration of victory to push his baseless claims that the election was stolen — claims even his top administration officials knew were not supported by evidence, the committee showed

In all, the committee said $250 million was raised for an "Election Defense Fund," which a Trump campaign staffer said she didn't believe existed