For nearly an hour, Rusty Bowers, a Republican who is a spokesman for the Arizona House of Representatives, testified on Tuesday with detailed and emotional details about the pressure campaign he faced for several weeks after the Nov. 3 election. of 2020, when President Donald J. Trump lost the state.
Mr. Bowers, speaking slowly, also told the select committee of the House about the harassment he suffered outside his home by Trump supporters during the weeks leading up to January 6, 2021, in which he was called. “pedophile” and other epithets.
Mr. Bowers, who spoke of the Constitution in reverential and spiritual terms, had tears in his eyes as he described his seriously ill daughter enduring some of the harassment outside her home. (He died in late January.)
“It was unsettling,” he said. “It was disturbing.”
The effort to persuade him to take steps to reverse the outcome in Arizona in the column of Mr. Trump — the state was won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. — began with pressure from Mr. Trump and one of his lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani. , who claimed he had evidence of fraud. “Aren’t we all Republicans here? I think we would have a better reception, “Mr Bowers recalled, saying Mr Giuliani at one point.
Shortly after Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey certified the state for Mr. Biden, Mr. Giuliani and an associate, Jenna Ellis, met with Arizona lawmakers, including Mr. Bowers, Mr. recalled. Bowers. Mr. Bowers described Ms Ellis as saying they had evidence of widespread electoral fraud, only to fail to provide any.
“I said, ‘I want the names. Do you have the names of the allegedly dead or fraudulent voters? ‘”Said Mr. Bowers. “She said yes.”
Nothing happened. Finally, he recalled, Mr. Giuliani said: “We have a lot of theories. We just don’t have evidence.”
Mr. Bowers also recalled talking to Mr. Trump, making it clear to the president that he “would not do anything illegal for him,” as one interlocutor, Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, put it. However, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump, John Eastman, called Mr. Bowers in early January urged him to schedule a legislative vote to “decertify voters, because we had plenary authority to do so.”
Mr. Eastman, Mr. Bowers said he should “do it and let the courts decide everything.”
Mr. Bowers again rejected the push, saying, “I took an oath; to take it, to do what you do would be contrary to my oath.”
Finally, he stated, there was a call from another Trump supporter, Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican, on the morning of January 6, 2021, when the Electoral College vote was to be confirmed by a joint session of Congress. Mr Biggs said he was again pushed to undo his constituents’ state certification for Mr Biden.
“We have no legal way” to “execute this petition,” Mr. Bowers. He also recalled his reaction when he learned that Trump’s advisers had come up with a plan to present a list of “alternate” voters. “I thought about the book,‘ The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Directly, ’” Mr. Bowers.
Mr.’s personal diary. Bowers contained an entry that said, “I don’t want to be a winner by cheating. I won’t play by the laws I swore allegiance to.” He was invited to read the testimony.
He was also asked for his reaction to a statement from Mr. Trump who had previously criticized Mr. Bowers, in which he asserted that Mr. Bowers had told him the election was “rigged” and that he had won the state.
“I had a conversation with the president,” Mr. Bowers. “That’s certainly not it.”
A moment later, more forcefully, he said, “Anywhere, anyone, anytime he said I said the election was rigged, that wouldn’t be true.”