Trump rips Arizona GOP’s Rusty Bowers ahead of public testimony to Jan. 6 panel
Former
President Trump on Tuesday ripped Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R), who is set to testify in front of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot later in the day alongside election officials from Georgia.
“Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers is the latest [Republican in name only] to play along with the Unselect Committee,”
Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC.
Trump also claimed that Bowers told him following the 2020 election that he would have lost his reelection bid to his Arizona House seat if not for the help of the former president.
Bowers is set to testify along with Georgia Secretary of State
Brad Raffensperger (R) and his deputy Gabe Sterling in the House select committee’s panel as lawmakers
seek to show the extent of Trump’s pressure campaign on state officials to overturn the 2020 election results.
The Arizona state House Speaker refused efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, joining a slew of battleground states that Trump lost, despite calls from the former president and Rudy Giuliani to delay or change results. Bowers later survived a recall attempt in his state.
In February, the Arizona Republican effectively
doomed a bill that would have allowed primary or general election results to be rejected by the state’s legislature.
“For somebody to say we have plenary authority to overthrow a vote of the people for something we think may have happened, where is [the evidence]?’’ Bowers told Capitol Media Services at the time.
He would later be named one of five recipients of the 2022 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for “their courage to protect and defend democracy”; other awardees included select committee vice chairwoman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and former Georgia election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who is also testifying with the committee later Tuesday.
Former President Trump on Tuesday ripped Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R), who is set to testify in front of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot late…
thehill.com
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers refutes Trump’s description of phone call: ‘That certainly isn’t it’
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) refuted former President Trump’s description of a phone call between the two men after the 2020 presidential election, telling the members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that he never told
Trump the election was rigged.
Rep.
Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 panel who took a leading role in Tuesday’s hearing, began Bowers’s in-person testimony by asking the Arizona official about a phone call that took place between Bowers and Trump after the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, in a statement Tuesday morning,
said that Bowers “told me that the election was rigged and that I won Arizona.”
Bowers, however, denied that description under oath later 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,” Bowers told Schiff when asked if he had such a conversation with Trump.
Pressed on if he told Trump that the election was rigged and that the former president 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 received a call from Trump and attorney Rudy Giuliani amid the pressure campaign to overturn the results of the election.
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) refuted former President Trump’s description of a phone call between the two men after the 2020 presidential election, telling the members of the House select…
thehill.com