A congressional panel heard that Trump supporters threatened election officials and their families after they refused to overturn his 2020 loss.
Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona state legislature, informed the committee investigating last year’s Capitol disturbance that the harassment continues to this day.
A Georgia voter registrar stated that she was terrified to leave her home after ex-President Donald Trump targeted her personally.
The subcommittee of the House of Representatives accuses Mr. Trump of attempting a coup.
The select committee has spent nearly a year investigating how Trump supporters invaded Congress on 6 January 2021 to disturb members as they certified the election win of Democrat Joe Biden.
On Tuesday, the panel held its fourth public hearing to date and heard from election officials from Arizona and Georgia. Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump in both states that had previously supported the Republican presidential candidate.
Mr. Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, told the select committee, “We received more than 20,000 emails and tens of thousands of voicemails and texts, which flooded our offices and rendered us unable to function or even interact.
The witness, who campaigned for Mr. Trump in 2020, stated that threats and insults have continued, with demonstrators attempting to tarnish him as a pedophile outside his home.
“It was upsetting, it was disturbing,” Mr. Bowers added.
He recalls Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani telling him at one point, “We have lots of theories, but no evidence.”
As election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, became the targets of conspiracy claims. Both women testified before the panel.
Trump and his followers circulated baseless charges of widespread voting fraud, even though Biden won the state by roughly 12,000 votes.
In taped texts, Mr. Trump referred to Ms. Moss as a “professional vote-scammer and hustler,” suggesting that the mother-daughter combination had cheated to assist Democrats.
In a video given by the committee on Tuesday, Ms. Freeman said, “I’ve lost my identity, I’ve lost my reputation, and I’ve lost my sense of security.”
“Do you know what it’s like to be singled out by the president of the United States?”
Ms. Moss stated that she had received “several death threats” and that the harassment, which included racial insults, had “turned my life upside down.”
No longer do I distribute business cards. I do not wish for anyone to know my name.”
Ms. Moss stated that she is unwilling to go anywhere, including the grocery, and has acquired approximately 60 pounds (27 kilograms) of weight.
She told the committee that Trump supporters had gone to her grandmother’s house in an attempt to “citizen-arrest” her.
Members of Congress also heard from Republican poll organizers in Georgia about their difficulty in eradicating the Trump-stoked conspiracy.
Gabriel Sterling, a top Georgia election officer, told the committee that combating election fraud allegations was “like using a shovel to empty the ocean.”
His supervisor, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Mr. Trump frequently pressured to “find” the votes he needed to win the state, ran through a laundry list of changes made by the Trump campaign in legal action against the state.
“In their complaints, they claimed that 10,315 deceased persons voted,” Mr. Raffensperger stated, “but a careful investigation revealed only four cases.”
The secretary stated that further inquiry had refuted other allegations of illicit voting by minors, non-registered voters, and convicted felons.
We investigated every single accusation that was brought to our attention.
The hearings have attempted to establish a connection between the former president and the moves to invalidate the election.
At the hearing on Tuesday, Democratic committee chairman Bennie Thompson stated, “A handful of election officials in many crucial states stood between Donald Trump and the destruction of American democracy.”
His Republican committee assistant, Liz Cheney, stated, “We cannot allow America to become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence.”
