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BY THE HILL.COM
(Edited for length)
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) on Tuesday said he repeatedly pressed Rudy Giuliani for proof of his claims of election fraud after the 2020 election, but that Giuliani failed to produce any.
“My recollection, he said, ‘We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence,’” Bowers told the Jan. 6 House committee at Tuesday’s hearing.
“And I don’t know if that was a gaffe or maybe he didn’t think through what he said, but both myself and others in my group… both remember that specifically, and afterwards we kind of laughed about it,” Bowers added.
Bowers recalled a meeting with Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, who were representing then-President Trump after the 2020 election as they sought to challenge and overturn the election results in certain states Trump lost.
Bowers said he asked the two for proof of their claims that dead people had voted in large numbers, then asked for names and how the individuals in question voted. But the two did not produce the evidence they had promised, Bowers said.
Mick Mulvaney, who served as Trump’s acting chief of staff for roughly a year, took a swipe at Giuliani over Bowers’ testimony.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, was the head of the President’s legal team,” Mulvaney tweeted.
Bowers refuted former President Trump’s description of a phone call that took place between the two men after the 2020 presidential election, telling the Jan. 6 select committee at Tuesday’s public hearing “that certainly isn’t it.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) began Bowers’ in-person testimony by asking him about a phone call that took place between Bowers and Trump after the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, in a statement Tuesday morning, said Bowers “told me that the election was rigged and that I won Arizona.”
Bowers denied that description under oath on Tuesday.
“I did have a conversation with the president, that certainly isn’t it. But, there were parts of it that are true, but there are parts that are not, sir,” Bowers told Schiff when asked if he had such a conversation with Trump.
Pressed on if he did, indeed, tell Trump that the election was rigged and that he actually won the race, Bowers testified that has never made such a statement.
“Anywhere, anyone, anytime has said that I said that the election was rigged, that would not be true,” Bowers said.
“And when the former president in his statement today claimed that you told him that he won Arizona, is that also false?” Schiff asked.
“That is also false,” Bowers responded.Bowers saysRep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) asked him to sign letter to decertify state’s electors.
A representative for Biggs did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Jan. 6 Select Committee subpoenaed Biggs along with several other GOP members of Congress last month. They have not complied with the subpoenas.
In a May letter requesting information from Biggs, the committee said that Biggs was identified by former White House personnel as being part of “an effort by certain House Republicans after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon for activities taken in connection with President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
