Top Arizona Republican recounts resisting Trump's pressure to overturn election

WASHINGTON — Arizona's top Republican legislator recounted Tuesday how he resisted intensive pressure by former President Donald Trump and his lieutenants to move unilaterally to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state, as the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol delved further into the relentless bid to invalidate Trump's defeat.

"I didn't want to be used as a pawn," Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona's House of Representatives, testified. He told the panel that he had refused two entreaties from Trump and several more from his legal advisers, who said repeatedly that they had evidence of fraud sufficient to reverse the election outcome but never produced any.

"You are asking me to do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath," Bowers said he had responded. He said he had received direct pressure to overturn his state's election from Trump; Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer; Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; and even Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.

At its fourth hearing this month, the panel called state officials who could drive home what has been a repeated point of emphasis in its findings: that Trump knew — or should have known — that his lies about a stolen election and the plans he pursued to stay in office were wrong and unlawful, but he pushed ahead with them anyway.

Among the committee's findings revealed Tuesday:

— The committee emphasized that Trump and his top lawyers knew they did not have evidence of widespread election fraud. Bowers testified that Giuliani also admitted he had not uncovered evidence of widespread fraud, he said.

"We've got lots of theories. We just don't have the evidence," Bowers recalled Giuliani saying.

Bowers testified that a man affiliated with the Three Percenters militia group, carrying a gun, threatened his neighbor.

"Donald Trump didn't care about the threats of violence. He did not condemn them. He made no effort to stop them. He went forward with his fake allegations anyway," Cheney said.

— Trump's lawyers were deeply involved in his scheme to stay in power. The panel played a montage of Trump's lawyers, including Giuliani, John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell, as they worked to overturn the election. Giuliani held hearings and made calls to Republican lawmakers around the country. The scheme to use fake electors is the subject of a Justice Department investigation.

— The Republican National Committee helped the Trump campaign arrange the slates of fake electors, the House committee showed. Trump lawyer Justin Clark said in a deposition video that he told Kenneth Chesebro, a fellow Trump lawyer, "I don't think this is the right thing to do."

— Bowers said Giuliani tried to use party loyalty as an argument for overturning the election in Arizona. "Aren't we all Republicans here?" Bowers said Giuliani told him.