Part X: The Case of the Magic Suitcase

The Case of the Magic Suitcase.

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“It would violate the oath, the basic principles of republican government, and the rule of law, if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported theories of fraud.” 

Rusty Bowers, Arizona Speaker of the House.

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IF YOU STILL wanted to believe in the myth of the “Stolen Election,” the fourth day of testimony before the congressional committee investigating January 6 raised daunting challenges. 

Four main witnesses appeared – all, of course, under oath. None felt the urge to plead the Fifth. Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, was sworn in, along with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. A second Georgia official, Gabriel Sterling, and a Fulton County voting supervisor, Shaye Freeman Moss, also agreed to appear. 

If you were watching (and if nothing else, look up a few short clips of the testimony), Ms. Moss gulped hard when first asked a question. 

  

“Unconstitutional.” Remember that word. 

Rep. Liz Cheney, speaking as the ranking Republican on the committee (there were only two willing to serve) made it clear from the start. Investigators had learned that then-President Trump had a “direct and personal role” in trying to reverse the results of the 2020 election. He was told and told again, by his own attorney general, multiple advisors, his campaign and White House lawyers, that he had lost the ballot battle against Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump was warned of potential legal trouble if he pursued his schemes. He didn’t hesitate. As Attorney General Barr had already noted, there was never any sign that he cared “what the actual facts were.” Ignoring harsh realities, Team Trump made multiple attempts at the state and even local level, “each serious,” Cheney said, and potentially criminal, to pressure elected officials to change voting results. 

Former Attorney General Barr showed up once more (on video). A key story line was set early on, during Day 4. Had the voting in Fulton County, Georgia been rigged, as Trump insisted then, and insists to this day? 

Those allegations, Barr said, “had no merit [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].” The Department of Justice investigated hundreds of allegations – found no evidence of significant voter fraud. The president became fixated on a “suitcase” full of 18,000 ballots and claimed those ballots had been brought out secretly from under a table, counted three times, all fake, filled out for Joe Biden. Barr explained: “the ballots under the table were legitimate ballots, they weren’t in a suitcase, they had been pre-opened, for eventual feeding into the machine…we didn’t see any evidence of fraud in the Fulton County episode,” he concluded. 

 

Both Raffensperger and Sterling would testify to the same effect, as had two U.S. District Attorneys, both Trump appointees, who had had jurisdiction that included Fulton County. Both Bjay Pak and Bobby Christine investigated the same lame story. They too came up empty when it came to finding fraud. 

Sterling talked in some detail about the president’s wild claims – and how those claims led to death threats for multiple election officials. Joe diGenova, a Trump toady, suggested that Chris Krebs, a Trump appointee in charge of cyber security who said there had been no significant voter fraud, should be shot in the head. A young poll worker, “caught” on video, transferring votes in routine fashion was subject to death threats and calls that he be hanged. Secretary  Raffensperger’s home address was made public. Angry Trump supporters started showing up on his front lawn. 

“You are a tyrant,” one protester howled. “You are a felon and you must turn yourself into authorities immediately.” 

(Trump should have spoken out about such threats. He did not – and has not.) 

 

If you had any doubt why Dr. John Eastman, one of the leaders in the plan to steal the election and hand victory to Trump, had decided (as revealed on Day 3) that he might need to be added to the list of people seeking pardons before Trump left office, Day 4 made it clear. At one point, Eastman insisted that Georgia lawmakers had a “duty” to decertify the Georgia electoral votes.

Governor Brian Kemp was forced to issue a declaration. “Any attempt by the legislature to retroactively change the process for the November 3rd election would be unconstitutional,” he said. 

Speaker Bowers was perhaps the strongest witness to appear before the Committee, to that point. Pressed repeatedly by Rudy Giuliani, by Jenna Ellis, another pro-Trump lawyer, and the president himself, Bowers refused to agree to overturn Arizona voting results. He made emphatically clear that he had no legal course which would have allowed him to do so. By the time of the 2020 election, he had spent 27 years in the state legislature. He said he had voted for Trump. 

When pressed to hold a legislative hearing, and overturn results, he would not. “It would violate the oath, the basic principles of republican government, and the rule of law,” he said, “if we attempted to nullify the people’s vote based on unsupported theories of fraud.” 

Two other state officials, also pressed to overturn results, testified briefly on video. Mike Shirkey, Majority Leader of the Michigan Senate, was pressured to overturn the Michigan vote. As for Trump’s closest advisors, the worst of the remaining worst, Shirkey said “they were believing things that were untrue.” 

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Brian Cutler admitted that in the wake of the election he was getting daily calls from Rudy, from the president, and others. Finally, he told his lawyers to tell Rudy those calls were “inappropriate,” and should stop. 

They did not. 

(These are Republican officials warning that Trump had an unconstitutional plan.) 

 

“Besides kill the…” 

A clip of Nick Fuentes was played next. Fuentes, a big Hitler fan, and leading voice in white nationalist circles, posited this question: “What can we do to a state legislator?” In other words, what pressure could the average Trump-loving, white nationalist bring to bear, to force lawmakers to cave? Then he supplied the answer. “What can you and I do to a state legislator, besides kill the … although we should not do that … I’m not advising that, but, I mean, what else can you do, right?” 

With that he gave a disingenuous shrug and a smile – not unlike President Trump, who was stirring up hatred himself. 

One Committee member asked Speaker Bowers, “You wanted Trump to win?” 

“Yes,” he responded. Bowers was no Democratic hack, no “Never Trumper,” no RINO. He was, until pressed to ignore his oath, a Trump man. 

Bowers was asked if he had had time to consider a statement, issued by the former president earlier that day. Bowers said he had. Trump claimed that Bowers told him during one conversation, shortly after the election, that he had won the state of Arizona, and the election had been rigged. 

Bowers responded sharply, “Anywhere, anyone, anytime…says I said the election was rigged, that would not be true.” 

For clarification, he was asked: Did he ever tell Trump he won Arizona? “That is also false,” Bowers said.

Mr. Bowers testified under oath.

  

“We just don’t have the evidence.” 

Bowers explained how he took one memorable call from Giuliani. Rudy offered up a lengthy list of allegations. Five thousand dead people voted in Arizona. More than 200,000 undocumented individuals cast ballots. Bowers asked him to provide evidence. Rudy said he would. Up until that very moment – as Bowers testified – he had not. Bowers said he had had no desire to be used as “a pawn.” Team Trump wanted him to replace the sworn slate of presidential electors, on the flimsiest possible grounds. 

He explained to the Committee why he would not: 

You are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath, when I swore to the [U.S.] Constitution to uphold it, and I also swore to the constitution and laws of the State of Arizona, and this is totally foreign as an idea, or a theory to me, and I would never do anything of such magnitude.

 

He said it was a “fundamental right of the people” to have their votes tallied and to have electors vote for the president of their choice, in their name. Bowers turned red in the face and nearly teared up. “It is a tenant of my faith,” he added, “that the Constitution was divinely inspired.” 

It also caught this blogger’s attention that twice, Bowers said he, his counsel, and three others were listening to Giuliani’s call. 

He and several Republican senators from the state met with Rudy later. In other words, there were plenty of witnesses who could testify to the truth of what he said. Bowers said he and they pressed the president’s lawyer “aggressively” at that time. If Team Trump had evidence of voter fraud, Bowers needed to see it. Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who accompanied Giuliani, assured Bowers that they did. They didn’t bring it to the meeting (which seems odd). 

She said they would provide it soon. 

 

FUN FACT: If you’ve missed the news, in front of an ethics board, during a hearing in Colorado, in March 2023, Ellis admitted to telling multiple lies (ten whoppers, to be exact) regarding the “Stolen Election.” 

Then Ellis got indicted for helping plot to overturn voting results in Georgia and other states, and in October 2023, pled guilty to a felony. 

And agreed to testify against Giuliani. 

Plus, Trump. 

 

Anyway, back to Speaker Bowers. He told congressional investigators that Rudy actually admitted, “We have got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.” Bowers said that might have been a slip of the tongue, but he and his colleagues did have a laugh. Not to be denied, Trump called Bowers in late December 2020, and personally asked for help. Bowers said he made it clear he would do nothing “illegal.” He was at pains to note that he had his counsel and others listening to that call. 

(More witnesses!) 

 

Eastman contacted him next. He urged Bowers to decertify Arizona’s electoral slate. “Just do it and let the courts sort it out,” Eastman pleaded. 

So, the plot to overturn the results of the election in seven key states ground ahead. Slates of alternative electors (read: “fake”) were drawn up in all those states. The people who agreed to be enlisted as alternate electors were told their votes would only be used if the president’s legal challenges prevailed in the courts. 

(Eastman took the Fifth in response to 146 questions, clip above.)

 

“I don’t think this is appropriate or the right thing to do.” 

In sixty-two cases Team Trump failed. Trump, Eastman, Giuliani, Ellis, and others pressed ahead with the case that was really no case. Justin Clark, another Trump campaign lawyer, said he told others that “unless we have litigation pending supporting” such challenges to the vote, “I don’t think this is appropriate or the right thing to do.” 

Matt Morgan, general counsel for the Trump 2020 campaign, had had his fill. He said he refused to have anything to do with the scheme. 

He messaged Kenneth Chesebro, who was pushing to create a slate of alternate electors for Wisconsin: “This is your task.” 

(Chesebro, as we know now, was also indicted in the Georgia election fraud case. As a lawyer, he pondered his options, saw the handwriting on the courtroom wall, and pled guilty to a felony, himself.)

 

“God’s will,” to take a stand. 

Any fool can build a case against the other party, quoting Democrats against Republicans, or the reverse. These were Republicans testifying. And if you were Donald J. Trump, you had to squirm in your seat. 

(Also you had to quadruple down and really start spreading wild threats and lies.) 

(See, for example, his recent Hitlerian decision to refer to political foes as “vermin.”) 

 

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was clear. She was present during a meeting, when the White House legal office was warning that Eastman’s scheme, if carried out, would likely break the law. 

 

Laura Cox, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, told the January 6 Committee, via video, that at one point the fake electors in her state planned to hide overnight in the Senate building. That way, they could fulfill a legal requirement and cast alternative votes. Cox called that plan “insane and inappropriate.” 

In fact, the legality of the plan was so tenuous that fake electors were assured, “indemnification by the [Trump] campaign” would be made “available if someone gets sued or worse.” 

Meaning charged with a crime. 

(In July 2023, Michigan’s “false electors” get indicted on multiple felony accounts.) 

 

Bowers was a powerful witness, explaining at one point, that the Trump legal team reminded him of the story of the “Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” He had wanted Trump to prevail in the election. Now, he said, “I did not want to be a winner by cheating.” He said he would not “play with laws I swore allegiance to.” It was “God’s will,” that led him, he said, to take a stand. His “conscience” would not allow him to break Arizona law. He would not “show himself to be a coward,” in service to Donald J. Trump. He had paid a price, of course, for his principled stand. 

Even then, on Saturdays, he testified, the MAGA folk still showed up outside his house. They called him a pedophile, and threatened his wife. And yet, Rudy had never delivered evidence of significant fraud in the Arizona election. 

(The blogger would bet any MAGA Head he never will.) 

 

“People’s hearts.” 

Both Bowers in Arizona, and Raffensperger in Georgia, had to confront the same kind of wild allegations. Raffensperger testified that a hand recount of Georgia ballots showed an almost perfect match to numbers recorded by the voting machines. Like Bowers, he had voted for Trump. 

The story of the “suitcase” full of votes for Biden came up. Sterling testified that investigators had watched 48 straight hours of video tape. The story of the magic suitcase, brought out in secret, full of bogus Biden votes, had been debunked. Yet facts didn’t matter, he admitted. Trump’s lies were getting into “people’s hearts.” 

(But not their coconut heads.) 

 

Trump also called Francis Watson, who was investigating stories of voter fraud for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. It was totally inappropriate to do so, of course, but the president told her, “Hopefully, when the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.” The right answer would be that she “found” enough “evidence” to overturn the state’s vote. 

“Whatever you can do,” Trump told her. 

Whatever she could do to help gift him a win.

For each law you break, you get a Trump challenge coin!

 

It was also fun to learn that White House Chief of Staff Meadows considered sending Watson’s office a shitload of Trump challenge coins, and signed MAGA gear. Then sensible heads prevailed. Sending gifts to investigators might not pass the smell test, or the eyeball test, or the sense of touch test, for that matter. 

The plan was shelved. 

The matter of Trump’s phone call, on January 2, 2021, to Secretary Raffensperger, was highlighted next. This blogger had listened to it before, so there was little new to report. 

 

“I had to be faithful to the Constitution.” 

In short, sharp responses, Raffensperger blasted Team Trump’s claims of voter fraud in Georgia to flinders. A lawsuit filed to challenge the Georgia result alleged that 10,315 dead people casts votes. His office investigated that claim. They initially found that two dead people had voted. 

Later they found two more. 

Team Trump would claim, including during the president’s phone call, that 66,000 underage Georgians cast ballots. The real number was zero. Seventeen-year-olds could register to vote if they were turning 18 by the time of the next election. 

And they had. 

Trump lawyers claimed that 2,423 non-registered voters had showed up at the polls. Raffensperger’s office investigated and found that the real number (again) was zero. 

Yet, on January 2, 2021, the President of the United States called and claimed he won Georgia by “hundreds of thousands of votes.” 

All Trump needed, he said (and you can hear him on tape) was for Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, one more than required to take Georgia’s electoral votes out of Biden’s column and put them in his. 

“We didn’t have any votes to find,” Raffensperger told committee members and anyone watching the televised hearings. “I had to be faithful to the Constitution,” he said. He would not agree to “find” votes where none would exist. 

As a result, he was subjected to a barrage of death threats. His wife started getting “sexualized threats.” His son had passed away; but his daughter-in-law’s house was broken into – he suspected by Trump fans. 

(Listen to Trump’s call to Raffensperger here.) 

 

The congressional panel showed a clip of Trump’s speech on January 6, in the hours just before the riot in Washington D.C. exploded. Once again, he told the gathered multitude that a “suitcase” full of bogus votes for Biden had been rolled out. He had been cheated out of the Georgia win. Yet, by that time, Attorney General Barr, investigators for the F.B.I., the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Secretary Raffensperger, and two U.S. District Attorneys had looked into the allegation and declared it false. The president didn’t care. Suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder, as this blogger believes he does, evidence shows that Donald Trump could not accept defeat. 

Long after the rioters were tamed on January 6, the president continued to claim he had been swindled out of a win. In his most reckless tweet in this regard, Trump again fell back on the suitcase story. Only this time he named names. He told millions of supporters that a poll worker named “Shaye” Freeman Moss, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, had played a critical role in perpetrating election fraud. 

 

“To have the President of the United States target you.” 

It was now Ms. Moss’s turn to tell her story to the Committee. She took a deep breath before beginning to speak – like every other witness – under oath. She had been a poll worker for ten years. Her grandmother had told her how important the vote was, and reminded her that African Americans in Georgia had not always had the chance to cast ballots. Ms. Moss said she had always taken pride in her work. She testified that she once drove to a hospital to drop off an absentee vote. 

The Committee rolled tape of Rudy Giuliani claiming that Moss and Freeman had stolen the election from President Trump. Moss had trouble speaking. 

When lynching was in style.

She had received threats, she continued, “wishing death upon me.” One caller told her to “be glad it’s 2020, and not 1920,” when white mobs could lynch a black person with impunity. At one point, conspiracy theorists “unearthed” video, showing her mother passing what they said was a USB drive, full of bogus votes for Biden. 

Moss said it was actually a “ginger mint.” 

Mom spoke, via video. Ruby Freeman said she had to go into hiding for two months. People showed up at Shaye’s grandmother’s house, rang the doorbell, and when she answered, barged past. They were there, they shouted, to make a citizen’s arrest. 

Ms. Moss said she rarely went out anymore. She was afraid and had gained sixty pounds. “Do you know how it feels to have the President of the United States target you?” her mother asked, during her testimony. “The President of the United State is supposed to represent every American,” she added, “not to target one.” 

With that, and a little more summary, the hearing concluded for the day. 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: Any decent politician, or human being, really, would condemn these kinds of threats immediately. Trump never did, and never has in all the time since. And he never will. In fact, he’s still fueling threats today. 

 

Meanwhile, in Delaware, a judge had ruled that Dominion Voting Machines could go forward with a defamation lawsuit, alleging that the heads of Fox News knew claims that the company had helped rig the vote were false. Yet, Fox had repeatedly allowed on-air hosts to claim that the system was fixed. 

In other Fox-related news, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andy McCarthy, a regular analysist for the channel, admitted that the  testimony during the fourth hearing had proved Trump’s “unfitness” for office, and that the former president might be “guilty of a crime.” 

(From the vantage point of today, McCarthy’s comments seem prophetic.) 

 

As we will explain later, Freeman and Moss have already won defamation cases against two right-wing news agencies. 

They have also prevailed in a defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, and have a case pending against multiple additional defendants, including the former Liar-in-Chief, Donald John Trump.