Trump’s Speech. In a rally near the White House, one year ago, Trump served his supporters a laundry list of bogus claims about election fraud in swing states. Then-President-elect Joe Biden had won the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, but Trump, as he had for weeks, made false statements about illegal votes being counted. We wrote about a dozen claims, including Trump’s falsehood that “66,000 votes in Georgia were cast by individuals under the legal voting age.” The Republican official who oversees Georgia’s voting system said, “The actual number is zero.”
Trump also claimed that somehow then-Vice President Mike Pence could initiate a process to overturn the election results and declare Trump the winner. While Trump was speaking, Pence released a letter to Congress saying he doesn’t have the right to do that.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence, who served as president of the Senate that day, said.
Many hours after Trump’s speech, at about 3:40 a.m. on Jan. 7, the electoral vote count ended, with Pence announcing that Biden would become the 46th president.
For more, see “Trump’s Falsehood-Filled ‘Save America’ Rally.”
The Lead-up to Jan. 6. Five days after the riot, House Democrats introduced legislation to impeach Trump, charging him with “inciting violence against the Government of...
Why it Matters Federal research agencies face mounting pressure to prevent fraud in grant-making, and Congress is moving to hold them accountable. A House subcommittee grant fraud hearing schedule...
