The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a hearing on election security and administration issues Wednesday. Johnson said on Tuesday that the purpose of the hearing was to "examine the irregularities in the 2020 election" because "a large number of Americans simply don't think this was a legitimate election."
Johnson declared that the hearing "should not be controversial," maintaining that it is important to the American people to see the results of elections as trustworthy. He also described how difficult it has been for him and Senator Grassley (R-IA) to make public their legitimate evidence of the "conflicts of interest in foreign financial entanglements involving the Biden family" due to significant suppression and censoring by the legacy media. He recounted how frustrating it has been to witness "the corrupt investigation and media coverage of the Russian collusion hoax." He explained that it is behavior like this that has led to a climate of hyper-partisanship and distrust.
Johnson also mentioned three congressional oversight letters indicating that the Dominion voting machines and electronic voting have been under scrutiny for years for their vulnerabilities to fraud and foreign interference. One of the letters was written by Senators Shaheen (D-NH) and Klobachar (D-MN) in March of 2018; another was submitted in March of 2019 by Senators Klobachar, Warner (D-VA), Reed (D-RI) and ranking member Gary Peters (D-MI) and the third was written by Senators Warren, Klobachar, Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Pocan (D-WI). Johnson remarked that he didn't "recall any of the media or anyone else accusing these eight congressional democrats of indulging in 'quackery and conspiracy theories' or of their letters being "a ridiculous charade as Senator Schumer" had said.
At one point in the hearing, Johnson traded verbal blows with Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) saying it was "galling" to hear Peters talk about Russian disinformation when Peters and others had falsely accused him and U.S. Grassley of "accepting and disseminating Russian disinformation" in an investigation into Biden's son Hunter that concluded "millions of dollars in questionable financial transactions." Johnson reminded Peters that Hunter Biden is, indeed, under investigation, despite the deafening silence from the press, proving that they were right about the Bidens and he was no longer going to "sit by here and listen to this." He added that Peters "lied repeatedly" to the press, saying "I told you to stop lying and you continued to do it."
Senator Gary Peters did not change his tune in this hearing. He called the hearing "dangerous," asserting that Biden has won with 306 electoral votes and an unprecedented number of popular votes. He said that "the President and many of his supporters are, unfortunately, continuing their efforts to undermine the will of the people, disenfranchise voters and sow the seeds of mistrust and discontent to further their partisan desire for power." He contended that the hearing merely gives a "platform for conspiracy theories and lies."
Former Cybersecurity and Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs, who was fired last month, continues to maintain that this was a secure election. He said that the notion that this election was fraudulent is “ultimately corrosive to the institutions that support elections.” His statement on the security of the election seemed to be based more on opinion than evidence. Krebs was the only Democrat witness on the panel. Trump impeachment attorney Ken Starr, Trump campaign lawyers Jesse Binnall and James Troupis, and Election Assistance Commission member Donald Palmer, a Trump appointee, were also present.
President Trump weighed-in with a tweet saying that Krebs was "excoriated and proven wrong."
Judge Ken Starr was the first witness. He served as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals from 1983 to 1989. Starr has argued 36 cases before the Supreme Court, including 25 cases during his service as Solicitor General of the United States from 1989 to 1993. From 1994 to 1999 he was appointed to serve as independent counsel for five investigations. Starr testified that "the presidential election of 2020 with its unprecedented feature of the use of mail-in ballots has given rise to a number of questions that deserve to be answered." He also said that Pennsylvania "flagrantly violated laws" ahead of the Presidential election.
Binnall, an attorney who helped argue the General Flynn case with lawyer Sidney Powell, argued that transparency is lacking when it comes to the conclusions made by people who agree with Krebs. There was discussion by several Senators regarding the fact that judges all over the country have rejected cases of election fraud. Binnall, however, explained that at almost every turn, courts have refused to look at the mountain of forensic evidence available. In addition, in Nevada, Binnall said that his team was not allowed to perform any forensic audit of the Dominion Voting Systems machines even though they brought numerous, credible experts there to do so. "Transparency is not political, that's what we are talking about here and that's what we were denied."
Binnall's opening statement cited numerous instances of demonstrated fraud, including incorrect addresses, out of state votes and non-citizen voters.
James Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, testified that the Wisconsin election recount laws are "specific and tested both in the court and in the legislative process." Those tested laws afford the people of Wisconsin the ability to scrutinize absentee ballots with greater accuracy than in many other states. Ballots cast in contravention of those laws and procedures "may not be included in the certified result of any election." He described multiple instances of fraud found in the recount with respect to the absentee ballots, including the absence of witness signatures and election official initials on the envelopes and people claiming indefinite confinement when, in fact, they weren't. On Dec. 2, UncoverDC reported on the results of the Wisconsin recount and the election laws violated there.
