(WHTM) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol heard from elections workers and local officials who warded off former President Donald Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Tuesday.
It was revealed through Josh Roselman, investigative council, during this hearing that Bryan Cutler, the Republican Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, received daily voicemails from Trump’s lawyers in the last week of November 2020 in relation to how Pennsylvania’s votes turned out in the general election.
“Mr. Speaker, this is Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. We’re calling you together because we’d like to discuss, obviously the election,” Giuliani said in a Nov. 26, 2020 voicemail.
“Hello Mr. Speaker, this is Jenna Ellis, and I’m here with Mayor Giuliani,” Ellis said in a Nov. 27, 2020 voicemail.
“Hey Bryan, it’s Rudy, I really have something important to call to your attention, that I think really changes things,” Giuliani said in a Nov. 28, 2020 voicemail.
According to Roselman, Rep. Cutler found the outreach by both lawyers to be inappropriate and asked his lawyers to request that Giuliani stop calling him. However, Giuliani continued to call.
Then, in December, Steve Bannon, a former Trump strategist, announced a protest to take place outside of Cutler’s home and district office to “let him know what we think about him.”
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Rep. Cutler released a statement on Tuesday afternoon regarding the Jan. 6 committee interview.
“As I’ve confirmed previously, I was in contact with representatives of the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the events leading up to Jan. 6. I was interviewed on two separate occasions in recent months. I was not contacted ahead of today’s proceedings or made aware of what portions of my interview would be included in the public proceedings. As the committee’s investigation is still ongoing, it would be inappropriate for me to provide any additional comments about my testimony at this time.”
The public hearing, the fourth by the panel this month, stemmed from its yearlong investigation into Trump’s unprecedented attempt to remain in power, a sprawling scheme that the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee has likened to an “attempted coup.”
Tuesday’s focus reviewed how Trump was repeatedly told his pressure campaign could potentially cause violence against the local officials and their families but pursued it anyway, according to a committee aide. And it underscored that fallout from Trump’s lies continues, with election officers facing ongoing public harassment and political challengers trying to take over their jobs.
The select committee also aimed to untangle the elaborate “fake electors” scheme that sought to have representatives in as many as seven battlegrounds — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico — sign certificates falsely stating that Trump, not Biden, had won their states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report