Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/405

 charts, falsely claiming that fraudulent "vote dumps" had swung the election against him. Among the examples he cited was the supposed "vote dump" in Detroit, Michigan. In fact, Barr had already debunked this and other claims.

On December 3, 2020, Rudolph Giuliani appeared before the Georgia Senate Government Oversight Committee to allege that massive cheating had occurred during the election. Giuliani offered a video recorded on election night at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, as a key piece of evidence. Giuliani alleged that the video showed a secret suitcase of ballots being double- and triple-counted after Republican poll watchers had been inappropriately dismissed. The video was selectively edited and showed nothing of the sort. The Georgia Secretary of State's Office investigated and immediately debunked the claim, finding that the secret suitcase was just a secure box and nothing nefarious had occurred. President Trump, Giuliani and others continued to push the lie anyway.

On December 4th, Attorney General Barr asked Byung J. ("BJay") Pak, who was then the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, to independently investigate the State Farm claim. Barr told Pak that this was a "priority," because "he was going to go to the White House for a meeting" and the "issue might come up." Barr asked Pak to "try to substantiate the allegation made by Mr. Giuliani."

Pak watched the video from State Farm Arena and asked the FBI to investigate the matter further. Pak told the Select Committee that FBI agents "interviewed the individuals" shown in the video who were supposedly "double, triple counting" the ballots, and "determined that nothing irregular happened in the counting and the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were false." And, as noted above, the supposed "suitcase" was a secure storage container used to store ballots. With this evidence in hand, Pak told Attorney General Barr that there was no substance to the allegations.

Finally, Attorney General Barr had had enough. He submitted his resignation on December 14, 2020. During an interview with the Select Committee, former Attorney General Barr reflected on his face-to-face encounters with President Trump in November and December 2020: And, in that context, I made clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff which I told the President was bullshit. And, you know, I didn't want to be part of it. And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did.