[ad_1]
LAS VEGAS, Dec. 23 (AP) New transcripts of closed-door House committee testimony Jan. 6 show that Donald Trump and his allies were directly involved in the Nevada Republican party sending false election credentials to Congress in 2020. The plan makes the former president a last-ditch effort to stay in power.
The documents released Wednesday night included interviews with state party leader Michael McDonald and Republican National Committee member Jim DeGravenreid in February.
Read also | COVID-19 in China: To Restore the Economy or Control the COVID Outbreak.
The two acted as fake voters in Carson City on December 14, 2020.
That day, six members of the Nevada Republican Party signed a certificate falsely certifying that Trump won Nevada in 2020 and sent it to Congress and the National Archives, but it was ultimately ignored.
A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is delving into the role of these fake voters in key battleground states in Trump’s attempt to stay in power after his 2020 defeat.
MacDonald and DeGraffinreid, who invoked the protections of the Fifth Amendment hundreds of times in separate Jan. 6 interviews with the committee, declined to answer questions about their involvement and the extent to which senior Trump allies helped orchestrate problem of this conspiracy.
Still, the transcripts offer an unprecedented look at Trump’s team’s coordinated efforts to overturn the election results in Nevada — efforts that included direct communications between McDonnell and the president himself.
For example, on Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, Macdonald sat down with Trump, his then chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney Rudy Giuliani, and son Eric Trump held a conference call.
“They wanted full-on attack mode,” MacDonald later wrote in a text message describing the call.
“We’re going to have a war room meeting in about an hour.”
Both McDonald and DeGraffenreid turned over their Jan. 6 communications related to the sham election scheme to the committee.
The FBI also seized McDonald’s cellphones in June as part of an investigation into the scheme.
The documents are detailed in transcripts, including text messages, emails, and internal memos circulated by Republican divisions across the country; handwritten charts, press release templates, and the fake certificate itself; and talking points “explaining the case to voters.”
The planning was wide-ranging and began as early as four days before the election, when state officials began discussing whether Nevada’s Republican secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, would sign on to the waitlist, the transcripts show.
DeGraffenreid said in a text message conversation with party officials that Cegavske “could do a lot of things but field a bunch of Republican electors who clearly aren’t the popular vote winners, and this isn’t one of them.”
Cegavske ultimately vindicated President Joe Biden’s victory in Nevada, defending the result as reliable and accurate despite attacks from Trump and others in her party that led the Nevada Republican Party to condemn her.
She later conducted an investigation that found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud across the state.
Meanwhile, a day before the fake voter rolls meeting, records show Macdonald growing frustrated with the RNC’s instructions on how to proceed with certificate signing.
It appears he’s been going back and forth with the RNC about the logistics of the ceremony: the location, how they’ll publicize it, and what they’ll say in the speech.
“The RNC basically put us in a box and let us know what we can say, but it sounds ok,” Sean Meehan, one of the fake voters, said in a text message to DeGraffinreid.
Meehan also told DeGraffenreid that McDonald’s wanted a smaller team to plan the final details at breakfast, and that he was “emphasizing optics.”
Several fake voters could see this — on the same day, another texted DeGrafenreid that McDonald’s was upset about the “mixed message and direction of tomorrow’s pitch.”
“He’s very concerned about the RNC cutting power when things are bad and stealing credit when we’re good,” Meehan tweeted.
“I know,” DeGraffenreid replied.
“He was worried that we would look like stupid crybabys.”
Finally, the Nevada Republican Party is going to come forward, and after more than two months of planning, fake voters including McDonald’s, DeGraffinreid and others gathered for a ceremony outside the Capitol in Carson City.
“History was made today in Carson City, Nevada,” the state party wrote on social media after the ceremony, “as @McDonaldNV led our voters to put 6 of Nevada’s electoral votes to Nevada’s victory Authors, @realDonaldTrump and @Mike_Pence!”
McDonald’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night.
A lawyer for DeGraffenreid declined to comment.
The nine-member committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol is set to dissolve when Republicans take over the House next month.
The committee on Thursday released the full report of its more than 800-page 18-month investigation, which they hope will lead to criminal charges against Trump and his key allies. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
[ad_2]
Source link