Barr debunks Trump’s election fraud claims

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol comprehensive Monday how people close to then-President Donald Trump advised him he shed the 2020 election — but he refused to pay attention, turning as an alternative to his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to embrace untrue claims that the election was stolen.

The listening to Monday was one witness quick from what was prepared, but the panel listened to testimony from a previous Fox Information electronic politics editor, a conservative lawyer, a former US attorney and a previous Republican election formal — who all mentioned it was apparent President Joe Biden won the election and Trump’s promises of fraud were nonsense.

The next hearing is set to consider area Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, said the presentation will focus on Trump’s “broader arranging for Jan. 6, together with his approach to corrupt the Section of Justice.” The witnesses have not however been announced.

Here are the critical takeaways from the panel’s second listening to this thirty day period about Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the violence in the Capitol on Jan: 6.

Stepien shock sets off a scramble — but committee quickly adapts: The committee surprised a lot of observers Sunday when it introduced that Trump marketing campaign manager Bill Stepien would be testifying in-person at Monday’s hearing. But Stepien experienced a shock of his own on Monday early morning, when he found out that his wife went into labor, so he pulled out of the listening to.

This whirlwind of situations pressured the committee to scramble — and they taken care of it deftly, albeit after a 45-minute delay.

Lawmakers and committee workers were of course prepared with video clips from Stepien’s personal deposition. And they performed a ton of footage from his testimony Monday, which exposed new facts about his discussions with Trump and how he recommended the President not to prematurely declare victory on election evening.

In some techniques, the final result gave the Democratic-run committee far more electrical power to manage what the public read from Stepien. He wasn’t in the area to say his piece, which could have integrated some defenses of Trump and some pushback against the committee. Rather, the panel could decide on and decide on which deposition clips it performed, and they targeted like a laser on the most harming material for Trump.

Prolonged depositions take location of witness testimony: Stepien’s testimony was not the committee’s only use of depositions on Monday. The panel played prolonged parts of former Attorney Standard William Barr’s deposition with the committee, exactly where he described in detail why Trump’s fraud statements had been “bogus” and why he has viewed practically nothing considering that to influence him there was fraud.

“There was hardly ever an sign of desire in what the genuine facts were,” Barr mentioned in online video of his deposition played Monday. “I was to some degree demoralized, because I imagined, ‘Boy, if he seriously thinks this stuff, he has missing contact with — he is become detached from fact if he genuinely thinks this stuff.’ “

The committee did not invite Barr to testify publicly for Monday’s hearing, but the minutes of his deposition that performed built it truly feel at situations as nevertheless he was there.

The online video depositions have also presented the committee the likelihood to demonstrate testimony from other individuals in Trump’s inner circle — together with Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner — with out acquiring to bring them in to testify. And by just displaying video depositions, the committee controls which soundbites are aired.

Barr gets to be debunker-in-chief: Democrats reviled Barr when he was in office environment — accusing him of wielding the powers of the Justice Section to do Trump’s bidding, undermining the Russia investigation, and pushing proper-wing conspiracy theories. But around the previous two weeks, Barr has develop into a new hero of types for liberals, for aggressively debunking and condemning Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

The Democratic-run committee has highlighted clips from Barr’s deposition extra than any other witness so considerably, and they interviewed far more than 1,000 individuals as component of their yearlong investigation. These clips have established Barr as the maximum-ranking Trump administration formal to affirm the legitimacy of the election benefits and disavow Trump’s relentless energy to assert that the election was tainted by fraud.

All through Monday’s hearing, Barr dismantled distinct Trump-backed promises about illegal “vote dumps” in Detroit, nationwide vote-rigging by Dominion with its election equipment, and other conspiracy theories.

Read through much more takeaways listed here.