US

Trump pressed election fraud claims despite top advisers’ doubts, committee hears

January 6th committee says former president ‘galvanised’ supporters and far-right groups ahead of Capitol attack

A video of Pat Cipollone, former White House counsel, on left, is played during a hearing on Tuesday of the House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US Capitol in Washington. Photograph: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Kiran Stacey in Washington
Tue Jul 12 2022 - 20:49

Donald Trump was told by almost all of his close advisers that he had lost the 2020 US election and yet continued to insist it had been stolen, a congressional committee has heard.

The panel investigating the January 6th, 2021 attack on the US Capitol showed testimony from several witnesses at its latest hearing on Tuesday, including Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, who met committee investigators last week.

According to Mr Cipollone and other witnesses, nearly all of those closest to the former president believed there was no hope of challenging the election result after December 14th, 2020, the day on which electoral college voters met to certify the election results.

“Did I believe he should concede the election at the time? Yes, I did believe that,” Mr Cipollone said in one excerpt from his testimony shown during the hearing.

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He added: “There wasn’t sufficient evidence of electoral fraud to change the outcome of the election. When other people kept suggesting that there was, the answer is, ‘What is it?’ At some point you have to put up or shut up – that was my view.”

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone has testified that he believed Donald Trump should have conceded the November 2020 US presidential election.

Liz Cheney, the Republican deputy chair of the committee, said there could be no excuse for the fact that Mr Trump continued to push his false claims.

[ Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon willing to testify over Capitol attack ]

“Donald Trump had access to more detailed and specific information showing that the election was not actually stolen than almost any other American,” she said. “No rational or sane man in his position could disregard that information and reach the opposite conclusion.”

Yet there were some advisers to Mr Trump who wanted him to press his challenge, leading to what was described as a screaming match during a White House meeting in December 2020.

On one side was Mr Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com, and Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser. They wanted the former president to appoint Ms Powell as a special counsel to investigate conspiracy theories that foreign governments had helped change the results that were logged in automatic voting machines.

The other side included Mr Cipollone, Eric Herschmann, another White House lawyer, and White House aide Derek Lyons, who urged the president to reject such conspiracy theories.

Mr Herschmann told the committee: “It got to the point where the screaming was completely, completely out there. When you got people walk in. It was late at night and been a long day and what they were proposing I thought was nuts.”

The meeting finished after midnight, witnesses said. Less than two hours later, Mr Trump sent a tweet: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

That tweet “electrified and galvanised his supporters – especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government,” said Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the committee.

Former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove (right); and Stephen Ayres, who has pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol illegally on January 6th, are sworn in before giving evidence to the January 6th committee on Tuesday. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

The committee presented multiple pieces of evidence that Mr Trump’s call for his supporters to march to the Capitol was well-planned, even if it was presented at the time as spontaneous.

One was a draft tweet, which was shown to Mr Trump but never sent, saying: “I will be making a big speech at 10am on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after.”

The committee has spent the past year investigating last year’s attack when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol seeking to stop the official certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

[ Former White House aide was threatened before giving testimony ]

Members have held six public hearings in which they have described how Mr Trump insisted that the election had been rigged, even as his closest aides told him this was not the case. State and federal officials have testified about coming under pressure from Mr Trump to stop the transition of power and investigate his claims of election fraud, even though he was repeatedly told they were false.

In one of the most explosive hearings, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, described how Mr Trump had lashed out at Secret Service agents on January 6th as they tried to stop him from going to meet his supporters at the Capitol.

The committee is planning another hearing for next week, as members consider new evidence and potential witnesses.

Over the weekend, Mr Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon said he would testify, having previously resisted doing so. He is due to go on trial next week for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the committee for documents and testimony. The Department of Justice has called Mr Bannon’s offer a “last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability”.

Committee officials said on Monday that they still wanted him to testify and provide the documents they had requested. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022

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