Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/249

 On January 2, 2021, President Trump had a lengthy phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The President repeatedly brought up Dominion's voting machines, alleging that they were at the heart of a conspiracy against him. Raffensperger was incredulous. "I don't believe that you're really questioning the Dominion machines," Raffensperger said. "Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result." In other words, the story in Georgia was the same as the story in Antrim County, Michigan: Officials performed a hand recount to put to rest any allegations that Dominion's machines had manipulated the vote. But once again, President Trump consciously disregarded these basic facts and persisted with his lies.

During a January 4, 2021, speech in Dalton, Georgia, President Trump chose to ignore Secretary Raffensperger's straightforward observations. The President rhetorically attacked Dominion once again, claiming that a "crime" had been "committed in this state" and it was "immeasurable." The President called for an "immediate forensic audit of an appropriate sampling of Dominion's voting machines and related equipment." His allegations were both false and nonsensical. Georgia had already performed a statewide hand recount of all ballots.

President Trump and his allies have never provided any evidence showing that Dominion's voting software altered votes in the 2020 presidential election. In fact, some of the most vocal proponents of the Dominion claims harbored their own misgivings about the claims they were making in public. For example, Rudy Giuliani repeatedly claimed in public that Dominion voting machines stole the election, and that foreign countries had interfered in the election, but the evidence uncovered by the Select Committee reveals that he did not believe either of those things to be true. Giuliani testified that he did not believe that voting machines stole the election. He also acknowledged that he had seen no evidence that foreign countries had interfered in the election or manipulated votes.

This testimony is consistent with his lead investigator Bernie Kerik's acknowledgment that he had not come across proof that voting machines were used to switch, delete, or inject votes improperly. Christina Bobb, an attorney who worked with Giuliani, similarly could not point to any evidence of wrongdoing by Dominion. Even Sidney Powell, perhaps the most committed proponent of the Dominion falsehoods, was unable to provide the Select Committee with any evidence or expert report that demonstrated that the 2020 election outcome in any State had been altered through manipulation of voting machines. And Powell defended herself