GA GOP Chair Testifies To Jan. 6 Committee In Blow To Trump

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David Shafer, the current chairperson of the Georgia Republican Party and someone who was closely involved in the effort to essentially fake electoral votes for Trump from his home state despite Joe Biden’s Georgia win, has testified to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, representing another win for investigators in their efforts to map out the truth. Shafer “told the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot that the Trump campaign had directed the party in 2020 to put forward an alternate slate of electors after then-President Donald Trump lost the state’s vote, according to a person familiar with the testimony,” a CNN report explains — directly implicating the former president’s campaign in potentially criminal acts.

The general method of the fake electoral vote scheme involved Republicans signing off on claims — most of which were presented, on paper at least, without any meaningful equivocation — that they were the legitimate electoral college members from their states, despite Biden’s wins there. Documentation of these claims was sent to federal authorities; Trump lawyer John Eastman put forward an outline for overturning the election outcome that involved then-VP Mike Pence rejecting Biden’s wins from certain states while presiding over certification proceedings on the basis of supposedly competing slates of electoral votes, although the Trump votes in these cases didn’t have any meaningful legal foundation. In Georgia, Shafer was one of the Republicans who signed on as an elector for Trump, and he’s been identified as the chairperson of the overall group from his particular state.

Justifications that have been put forward for the fake electoral vote scheme include the notion that the falsified electoral votes would have helped preserve the viability of legal challenges to the presidential election outcome. Still, by the time that legitimate members of the electoral college cast their votes, it was clear that there wasn’t any sign of real-world evidence of the kind of systematic fraud that could have changed the election outcome — so the idea that it could have been changed in good faith doesn’t reflect reality. Still, attorney Bob Driscoll, who is representing Shafer, raised the argument, saying: “Acting on the advice of counsel in the election contest, Chairman Shafer convened the Republican nominees for Presidential Elector to cast their votes for President and Vice President for the sole purpose of preserving a remedy in the event the lawsuit succeeded… [Shafer] and the other Republican Electors were acting provisionally to protect a remedy in the event President Trump ultimately succeeded in the pending contest.” Read more at this link.