A third week of testimonies continued before the “House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol” as government witnesses alleged an orchestrated attempt by former President Donald Trump and certain White House insiders and supporters to unlawfully overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Days four and five of the January 6 hearings opened with descriptions of pressure, propaganda and outright lies as the former Trump Administration sought to bully its senior level officials within the Department of Justice (DOJ), battleground state lawmakers, and even county level poll workers to dismiss more than two centuries of precedent on America’s national elections and the federal government’s transfer of power.
“In our previous hearings, the select committee showed that then President Trump applied pressure at every level of government, from local election workers up to his own vice-president, hoping public servants would give in to that pressure and help him steal an election he actually lost,” said Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, (D-Miss.), in his opening remarks on day five of the hearings which took place June 23.
“Today, we’ll tell the story of how the pressure campaign also targeted the federal agency charged with enforcement of our laws, the Department of Justice. But Donald Trump didn’t just want the Justice Department to investigate, he wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies,” added Mr. Thompson.
Introducing the first of the DOJ witnesses, Committee Vice-Chair, Representative Liz Cheney, (R-Wyo.), stated that Mr. Trump and his allies’ persuaded tens of millions of Americans to believe he had in fact won the presidential race, and through fraudulent tactics, tried to pressure then Vice-President Mike Pence into not counting electoral votes, leading to the obstruction of congressional proceedings on January 6 from the violent mob attack on the Capitol.
“We’ve seen how the president oversaw and personally participated in an effort, in multiple states, to vilify, threaten, and pressure election officials and to use false allegations to pressure state legislators to change the outcome of the election,” Rep. Cheney said. “We’ve seen how President Trump worked with and directed the Republican National Committee and others to organize an effort to create fake electoral slates, and later, to transmit those materially false documents to federal officials. We’ve seen how President Trump persuaded tens of thousands of his supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., for January 6th,” she added.
Affirming that federal investigators had no evidence of wide-spread election fraud, witness testimonials by former senior DOJ officials in the Trump Administration such as Acting Atty. General Jeffrey Rosen; Acting U.S. Deputy Atty. General Richard Donoghue and Steven Engel, former Assistant Atty. Gen. from the Office of Legal Counsel, agreed the Trump White House circulated a letter, penned by an obscure DOJ environmental policy attorney, Mr. Jeffrey Clark, to question the legitimacy of the election on the president’s behalf.
His letter read in part that, “ … at this time we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the elections in multiple states, including the State of Georgia.”
Testimony also stated that Mr. Clark was being considered as Mr. Trump’s replacement pick as the new U.S. Attorney General.
Statements made to and by the January 6th Committee said that lies emanating from the White House led to social media attacks, harassment, and death threats, even against individual poll workers. According to testimonies, a cascade of pressure tactics and false accusations of corruption and fraud were leveled against state and county officials who refused to alter or discuss the alteration of vote tallies, particularly in battleground states.
While questioned by committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) about the intensity of the disinformation campaign leveled against her by President Trump and his former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, Shaye Moss, a 10-year employee of the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department in Georgia, testified that harassment and stress forced her to leave a job she loved. It also caused her to withdraw from the public and remain in seclusion to this day.
“Well, I’ve always been told by my grandmother how important it is to vote and how people before me, a lot of people, older people in my family, did not have that right,” Ms. Moss, a Black woman, said to the committee on day four of the hearings. “So, what I loved most about my job were the older voters. I even remember driving to (a) hospital to give someone her absentee application. That’s—that’s what I loved the most,” she said.
Asking Ms. Moss to explain the difficulty of reliving the aftermath of the 2020 elections, Rep. Schiff said the service Ms. Moss provided to her community took a dramatic turn for the worse when Mr. Giuliani promoted a video falsely accusing her of kicking out election observers and bringing in suitcases of phony ballots to change the election’s results.
“I want to advise viewers that these statements are completely false and also deeply disturbing,” Rep. Schiff said to the audience before playing a video of Mr. Giuliani defaming Ms. Moss, and her mother, with a racist trope.
Rep. Schiff also entered into the record a video of President Trump speaking ill of Ms. Moss’s mother and mentioning her name at least 18 times.
Ms. Moss said the personal attacks, and those upon her mother, and even her grandmother, led to a barrage of racist harassment, anonymous threats of arrest, and even threats against their own lives. “Yes, a lot of threats wishing death upon me, telling me that, you know, I’m—I’ll be in jail with my mother, and saying things like be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920, yes,” she replied to Rep. Schiff in her testimony.
What these hearings continue revealing is the downward spiraling of a once mighty nation as prophesized by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam. “The fall of America is now going on! She is falling! The cause of her fall is universally known, as it was with ancient Babylon. The fall of ancient Babylon was known,” Mr. Muhammad wrote in part in His groundbreaking book, “The Fall of America,” written in 1973.
His National Representative, Minister Louis Farrakhan, continues to warn, like his father that America is unraveling.
Nation of Islam Southwest Regional Student Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, based out of Houston’s Muhammad Mosque No. 45, said it is important to see today’s events in the context of not only politics, but most importantly in scriptures also. He referenced the Old Testament book of Nahum in the Bible.
“In a recent book authored by Student National Secretary of the Nation of Islam, Sa’ad Alim Muhammad, on ‘Nahum, A Sign of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan,’ in that short book (of the Bible), it speaks of Nineveh being exposed to the whole world,” stated Student Minister Abdul Haleem Muhammad.
He quoted Nahum 3:5-7 which states: “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile and make you a spectacle. It shall come to pass that all who look upon you will flee from you and say ‘Nineveh is laid waste’—Who will bemoan her? Where can I find anyone to comfort you?”
In Min. Farrakhan’s highly acclaimed 1993 book, “A Torchlight for America,” Student Minister Muhammad said there were words of wisdom that clearly laid out what the American government, and society in general, could have done then to save America from violence and destruction, but its guidance was ignored by the arrogance of social and political leaders.
“With congressional elections coming up later this year, because of gerrymandering done in the state legislatures, virtually guaranteeing a Republican hegemony, the party out of power now will most likely win the mid-term elections,” Student Minister Muhammad said.
“So, history being a predictor means that the Republicans are going to come in power, particularly in the House of Representatives, and what you’re going to see in the 30th year anniversary of ‘
“Torchlight for America,” is the further and perhaps complete unraveling of America. And should Trump be indicted, and tried, you will see revolution and revolt in the streets of America,” he said.
