Trump Blasts GOP Arizona House Speaker Ahead of Jan. 6 Testimony: ‘He Told Me That The Election Was Rigged’
Photo by Chet Strange/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump blasted the January 6 Committee hearings on Tuesday and took aim at one of the committee’s key witnesses set to testify.
Speaker of the Arizona House, Republican Rep. Rusty Bowers, is scheduled to testify Tuesday regarding the pressure placed on him by Trump and other officials close to the president who wanted Bowers to intervene on Trump’s behalf during the 2020 presidential vote count in the state.
Bowers is one of several state election officials Trump pressured to help him overturn the 2020 election results.
Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office, are also set to testify on Tuesday. Trump was caught on tape asking Raffensperger to “find” him the votes he needed to edge out Joe Biden in Georgia and win the state’s electoral votes.
“Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers is the latest RINO to play along with the Unselect Committee,” Trump said on Tuesday in a widely released statement.
“In November 2020, Bowers thanked me for getting him elected. He said he would have lost, and in fact expected to lose, if I hadn’t come along. During the conversation, he told me that the election was rigged and that I won Arizona,’ Trump declared, adding:
He said he got more votes than I did which could never have happened. In fact, he said without me, he would have been out of office, and he expected to be prior to my coming along, and big Arizona rallies. The night before the election he walked outside with his wife and saw the tremendous Trump enthusiasm and told her, “You know what? Maybe I will win after all”—and he did.
“Bowers should hope there’s not a tape of the conversation,” Trump concluded.
UPDATE: Bowers would later refute Trump’s claims in real-time during Tuesday’s hearing.
Bowers received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award this year for preserving U.S. democracy in the face of intense pressure.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election,” the award’s website quotes Bowers. “I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him. But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
