WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s closest campaign advisers, top government officials and even his family were dismantling his false claims of 2020 election fraud ahead of Jan. 6, but th…
By LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK
WASHINGTON Donald Trump’s closest campaign advisers, top government officials and even his family were dismantling his false claims of 2020 election fraud ahead of Jan. 6, but the defeated president seemed “detached from reality” and clinging to outlandish theories to stay in power, the committee investigating the Capitol attack was told Monday. With gripping testimony, the panel is laying out in step by step fashion how Trump ignored his own campaign team’s data as one state after another flipped to Joe Biden, and instead latched on to conspiracy theories, court cases and his own declarations of victory rather than having to admit defeat. Trump’s “big lie” of election fraud escalated and transformed into marching orders that summoned supporters to Washington and then sent them to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to block Biden’s victory.
“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” testified former Attorney General William Barr in his interview with the committee. He called the voting fraud claims “bull—,” “bogus” and “idiotic,” and resigned in the aftermath. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”
The House 1/6 committee spent the morning hearing delving into Trump’s false claims of election fraud and the countless ways those around him tried to convince the defeated Republican president they were not true, and that he had simply lost the election. The witnesses Monday, mostly all Republicans and many testifying in pre-recorded videos, described in blunt terms and sometimes exasperated details how Trump refused to take the advice of those closest to him, including his family members. As the people around him splintered into a “team normal” headed by former campaign manager Bill Stepien and others led by Trump confident Rudy Giuliani, the president chose his sides. On election night, Stepien said, Trump was “growing increasingly unhappy” and refusing to accept the “grim outlook.”
Son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to steer Trump away from attorney Giuliani and his far-flung theories of voter fraud that advisers believed were not true. The president would have none of it. The back-and-forth intensified in the run-up to Jan. 6. Former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue recalled breaking down one claim after another — from a truckload of ballots in Pennsylvania to a missing suitcase of ballots in Georgia —- and telling Trump “much of the info you’re getting is false.
