‘The Lie Hasn’t Gone Away’: Jan. 6 Committee Calls Out New Mexico Officials Refusing to Certify 2022 Election Because of Trump Lies

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) opened the Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing on Tuesday by warning the American public that former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election fraud “lie has not gone away — it’s corrupting our democratic institutions.”

Thompson laid out the focus of the day’s hearing, noting that at the last hearing the committee focused on the pressure campaign urging then Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6. He went on to explain that Tuesday’s hearing would focus on similar pressure campaigns that Trump and his allies waged against local officials.

Thompson argued that the aftereffects of those campaigns are still reverberating through American democracy today and cited a recent case in New Mexico where a local election official refused to certify a county primary vote based on “gut feelings.”

“At our last hearing we told the story of a scheme driven by Donald Trump to pressure former Vice president Mike Pence to illegally overturn the election results,” Thompson began, adding:

We showed that when the pressure campaign failed and Mike Pence fulfilled his constitutional obligation, Donald Trump turned a violent mob loose on him. We showed that the mob came within roughly 40 feet of the vice president.

Today we’ll show that what happened to Mike Pence wasn’t an isolated part of Donald Trump’s scheme to overturn the election. In fact, pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook. And a handful of election officials in several key states stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American democracy.

“So, when Donald Trump tried to overturn the election results he focused on just a few states. He wanted officials at the local and state level to say the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and throw out the results, even though as we showed last week there wasn’t any voter fraud that could have overturned the election results,” Thompson continued.

“And like Mike Pence, these public servants wouldn’t go along with Donald Trump’s scheme,” he noted, adding:

And when they would not embrace the ‘big lie’ and substitute the will of the voters with Donald Trump’s will to remain in power, Donald Trump worked to ensure they face the consequences.

Threats to people’s livelihood and lives, threats of violence that Donald Trump knew about and amplified, and in our other hearings we can’t just look back at what happened in late 2020 and early 2021 because the danger hadn’t gone away.

Our democracy endured a mighty test on January 6th and in the days before. We say our institutions held. But what does that really mean?

Democratic institutions aren’t abstractions or ideas. They are local officials who oversee elections. Secretaries of state, people in whom we placed our trust that they will carry out their duties.

“What if they don’t?” Thompson then asked. “Two weeks ago New Mexico held its primary elections. One county commission refused to certify the results citing vague unsupported claims dealing with Dominion voting machines. The court stepped in saying New Mexico law required the commission to certify the results.”

Thompson then explained the relevance of the recent events in New Mexico to the committee’s proceedings:

Two of the three members of the commission finally relented. One still refused saying his vote, ‘Isn’t based on any evidence, it’s not based on any facts, it’s only based on my gut feeling and my own intuition and that’s all I need.’

By the way, a few months ago this county commissioner was found guilty of illegally entering the capitol grounds on January 6th. This story reminds us of a few things. First, as we have shown in our previous hearings, claims that widespread voter fraud tainted the 2020 presidential election have always been a lie. Donald Trump knew they were a lie and he kept amplifying them anyway.

Everything we describe today, the relentless destructive pressure campaign on state and local officials was all based on a lie. Donald Trump knew it, he did it anyway.

“Second, the lie has not gone away. It’s corrupting our democratic institutions,” Thompson then warned.

“People who believe that lie are now seeking positions of public trust and as seen in New Mexico, their oath to the people they serve will take a back seat to their commitment to the big lie,” he argued, adding:

If that happens, who will make sure our institutions don’t break under the pressure? We won’t have close calls, we’ll have a catastrophe. My distinguished colleague from California, Mr. Schiff, will present much of the findings on this matter.

Thompson then moved on to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for her opening remarks:

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We will examine President Trump’s effort to overturn the election. Donald Trump had a direct and personal role in this effort, as did Rudy Giuliani, as did John Eastman. In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level.

“Each of these efforts to overturn the election, each deserves attention both by Congress and by our Department of Justice,” Cheney added, raising the specter of criminal investigations following the hearings.

“But, as a federal court has already indicated, these efforts were also part of a broader plan and all of this was done in preparation for January 6th. I would note two points for particular focus today. First, today you will hear about calls made by President Trump to officials of Georgia and other states,” she continued.

“As you listen to these tapes, keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew at the time he was making those calls. He had been told over and over again that his stolen election allegations were nonsense,” concluded Cheney before running through a series of clips detailing Trump’s efforts to pressure local election officials.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News