Stopping the Steal (2024) Movie Script

crowd (chanting): Stop
the steal! Stop the steal!
Stop the steal! Stop the steal!
Stop the steal!
(chanting continues)
Donald J. Trump:
This election was rigged,
and we can't let it happen.
Can't let it happen.
Can't let it happen!
Bill Barr: Before the
election, obviously,
I wanted Trump to win.
I supported Trump.

But after the election,
he started spewing out
all these allegations
of voting fraud.
This was a massive fraud.
So, I felt I had to get
on top of the main claims
that were being made.
Stephanie Grisham:
I was close to him.
Very, very close
to Mrs. Trump.
I really liked them.
I kind of felt like
they were family to me.
We were getting ready to
win this election.
Frankly,
we did win this election.
(crowd cheering)
Grisham: I guarantee anybody
who was around him at the time,
despite what they
were thinking inside,
they were saying,
"Oh, it was stolen, sir."

Marc Short: It was weeks
of a pressure campaign
to overturn election results.
The vice president was loyally
standing by his side.
I stand with
President Donald Trump!
But at the same time,
we were on a collision course
between the president
and the vice president.
And I hope Mike is gonna do
the right thing. I hope so.
Because if Mike Pence
does the right thing,
we win the election.

Mark Brnovich: President
Trump did a great job.
I was right there with him.
He called me and said,
"Hey, you'll be the most
popular guy in America!
"You'll, you'll be able to
run for President!
All you gotta do is say there's
fraud or find some fraud."
I could have been
a fucking hero.
Trump (on phone):
Look, ultimately I win.
So, what are we going
to do here, folks?
I need 11,000 votes.
Give me a break.
I was for Trump the whole time.
I walked for him.
I campaigned for him.
It was fun.
Everyone is saying,
"Wow, the evidence
is overwhelming."
And then it started.
The steal.

(plane whirring)
crowd (chanting): Four
more years! Four more years!
Four more years!
Four more years!

Trump: Get out and
vote, and I love you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
(crowd cheering)
Alyssa Farah Griffin: One
of the greatest honors I have
is getting to
travel the country,
meeting with real Americans
with President Trump.
I joined the West Wing
under Trump in April of 2020.
I felt emotionally invested
in him winning.
(crowd cheering)
Some of these rallies you'll be
in a stadium-like seating,
and those can be
overwhelming and feel like,
"Wow, this is so many people."
And I remember thinking,
he's going to pull it off.
Who, who else can bring and
command this kind of a crowd?
(forklift whirring)
But we had no shortage
of chaos and crises
in that six-plus month period.
officer (megaphone):
Leave the area immediately.
- (gunshots)
- (people shouting)
There was sort of a
perfect storm of conditions.

By late summer,
President Trump starts
to kind of grease the wheels
for excuses if he lost.
These elections
will be fraudulent,
they'll be fixed,
they'll be rigged,
and everyone's looking at it.

Griffin: I was sitting in
the Oval Office with him.
No one in the West Wing team
was talking
like losing was a reality.
Barr:
Up until the election,
you could always appeal
to his self-interest.
"Mr. President,
this was a bad idea for you.
This will hurt you."
And that would work,
if you appealed
to his self-interest.
And that is what helped keep
things within the guardrails.
- (plane idling)
- Leading up to the election,
all he had to do was temper
his behavior a little bit,
and I think he would have
easily won re-election.
And people were telling him
this for months,
but he was very self-indulgent.
Let's vote for Sleepy Joe,
he's fallen asleep.
Joe... Joe, oh...
He ignored all the advice
he was getting.
And he ran this election that,
that was self-destructive.
The only way we're gonna lose
this election
is if the election is rigged,
remember that.
It's the only way we're going
to lose this election.

Ronald Hansen:
In 2020, Arizona,
really for the first time
in a long time,
emerged as one of the key
swing states
for the presidential race.
- (marching band playing)
- (singing)
Arizona has had a change
in its population.
You have
an immigrant population.
You also have a fair number
of retirees coming in.
And it all adds up to a churn
in Arizona's population
that helps redefine the state's
political inclinations.
crowd: Get out and
vote! Get out and vote!

Clint Hickman: Welcome
to the Board of Supervisors.
2020 is going to be
a very interesting year.
We have elections to run.
It's an honor to serve as Chairman
of the Board of Supervisors.
In November 2020, I was Chairman
of the Maricopa County
Board of Supervisors.
My role is to run an election.
The integrity and success
of our elections
is my number-one priority.
Maricopa County is the
second largest voting district
in the United States because
there's just so much population
that exists in this one county.
Moving on. Number four
is the pet showcase.
John Reynolds is here from
Animal Care and Control.
Uh, we believe her to be maybe
a Parsons Russell terrier
and poodle mix.
Bill Gates: We are in 50
different lines of business,
but many of them sort of
off the front pages. Right?
You know, animal care
and control, air quality,
transportation.
So, important but sort of
a more low-profile role.
Until all of this happened.
- We are adjourned.
- (bangs gavel)
(plane roaring)
(tires screech)
President Trump was
in this community
three, four, five times with
large rallies. I was at one.
Six days, can you believe this?
- Six days from now...
- (crowd cheering)
...we are going to win Arizona,
and we are going to win
four more years in our
great beautiful White House.
Hickman:
I was a Republican Chairman.
I had something to do with him
being there that day.
I was thanked.
Maricopa County Supervisor
Clint Hickman.
- (crowd cheering)
- Hickman: I felt really happy.
He was our Republican president.
Thank you, Clint.
Good job, Clint.

(applause)
Trump: I think if anything,
we're going to do very well.
Winning is easy.
Losing is never easy.
Not for me, it's not.
reporter: Let's bring in Alyssa
Farah from the White House,
the White House
Communications Director.
The president is in
a great mood. We're energetic.
The vibe in the West Wing is
we're excited.
The early results
were coming in,
and it looked like
Trump might pull it off.
So, people were
a little bit excited
and started making
their way over
to the East Wing for the party.
Grisham: There was music
playing in the background.
There were two bars open.
You know, people were chatting,
taking pictures.
I think... And it was kind of a,
"Let's take pictures
"of us winning again, you know,
and this time,
we're winning
in the White House."
And so, it was really
jolly and jovial
and everyone was really happy.
Honestly, I don't even know that
people were paying
that close of attention
because we were gonna win.
And then very shortly after,
the Arizona call came in.
(fountain splashing)
The Fox News decision desk is
calling Arizona for Joe Biden.
That is a big get
for the Biden campaign.
It's a significant victory for,
for Joe Biden.
As I say,
the first flip of the night.
Hansen: Fox News calling
Arizona for Joe Biden.
This started to set
the dominoes tumbling.
It had outsized repercussions
for the tenor
of the national race.
Grisham:
We were all in the residence,
I think it was like,
two in the morning,
three in the morning
at that point,
as we watched stuff come in,
and then as it was looking like
Biden was going to accept
that he had won.
I'm here to tell you tonight
we believe we're on track
to win this election!
(crowd cheering)
I'm optimistic
about this outcome!
The President was standing
in this middle of this...
this crowd of people.
And it was just chaos.
Everyone's yelling.
Trump's waving a piece of paper
in his hand.
He's very angry.
And when he's pissed,
you don't want to even
get in his line of vision.
And then all of a sudden,
abruptly,
it was like a light switch
went off.
It was like somebody
just turned the light off
'cause everybody just
started heading downstairs,
um, for him to speak.
crowd: We love Trump! We
love Trump! We love Trump!
("Hail to the Chief" playing)
(crowd cheering)
Trump: Well,
thank you very much.
Grisham: And then he
just walked on stage.
The man took the stage
and no one knew
what was going to come
out of his mouth.
I don't know if
he's gonna concede.
I don't know
what he's going to say.
This is, without question,
the latest news conference
I've ever had.
- (laughter) - supporters: We love you!
We love you! Yeah!
Thank you, thank you.
(cheering)
This is a fraud
on the American public.
This is an embarrassment
to our country.
We were getting ready
to win this election.
Frankly,
we did win this election.
(applause, cheering)
Grisham: When he started down
that road of, "Frankly, we won,"
I just was devastated.
I was so disappointed
in my president,
and I thought, "How can you,
like, do this to the country
and leave everybody
hanging like this?"
And, um, yeah,
I started to just cry.
I was pissed.
Trump:
Mr. Vice President,
say a few words, please.
Please.
(applause, cheering)
Greg Jacob: Whereas President
Trump talked a lot about fraud
and that he thought
he had won the election,
I think the vice president
was cognizant
that he didn't want
to make allegations
that he didn't know
were supported.
It wasn't necessarily that
he knew one way or the other.
You're in the very early days,
you just can't know.
We're waiting to see
what evidence
gets developed over time.
I truly do believe, as you do,
that we are on the road
to victory
and we will make
America great again, again.
Short: For many of us,
we felt it would probably be
a contentious few weeks,
but that ultimately,
if there ended up
not being evidence
to support fraud or theft,
that ultimately there would be
some level of concession.
- (applause)
- Thank you very much.
Grisham: He came off the stage,
I thought, "Holy shit."
You know, I knew him for so long
and he never goes backwards.
If anything, he goes forwards
and he doubles and triples down.
He will never back down now.
There's no walking this back.
(band fades out)
Barr: At two in the
morning, for him to go out
and claim that fraud
was underway was,
was very dangerous.
You know, I started worrying
a lot from then on.
(distant police siren wails)
reporter: President Trump's
supporters are ramping up
their voices in the Valley,
gathering outside
of the Maricopa
County Elections Office.
protesters: Let them in!
Let them in! Let them in!
We started getting some protests
outside of
the tabulation center.
It got, uh, pretty ugly,
pretty quick.
protesters:
Let them in! Let them in!
Shame on Fox! Shame on Fox!
Adrian Fontes: I mean, it's all
theater except for they've got
assault weapons
and they're armed,
and at any moment
they could have come in
and mounted an armed assault
against our warehouse,
where the ballots were held.
protesters: Where are the
votes? Where are the votes?
Fontes: Some elected
officials even showed up,
Congressman Gosar
was one of them.
(Paul Gosar chanting)
Hickman: These are publicly
elected officials
coming to charge up a crowd.
That was a sign of
things to come
about some
Republican colleagues.
All of these people,
with Trump flags,
wearing their AR-15s.
It enraged me.
(camera shutters
snapping rapidly)

Thank you very much.
Thank you.
This is a case where they're
trying to steal an election.
They're trying
to rig an election.
Hickman:
President Trump was making sure
that there was talk
about rigging of elections
or bashing people
across the United States.
Trump: The officials
overseeing the counting
are all part of
a corrupt Democrat machine.
Today, we're on track
to win Arizona.
crowd: Four more
years! Four more years!
If you count the legal votes,
I easily win.
protester (on megaphone):
Count the legal votes!
protester (on megaphone):
We are watching you!
reporter 1: Mr. President, are
you going to accept the outcome
of the election, sir,
if you lose?
- Mr. President!
- reporter 2: Are you being a sore loser?
protester: Trump said, "Hey,
if you count all the legal votes,
I won this election."
reporter: When you
say count the legal votes,
which illegal votes are...
is the group referring to?
Uh...
Just emp...
Like, empty ba-ballots
that liberals
working the elections
have filled in on their own.
Wolf Blitzer: After four long,
tense days, we've reached
a historic moment
in this election.
We can now project the winner
of the presidential race.
(news jingle playing)
Barr: One of the reasons I
have a high degree of confidence
that the election
was not stolen by fraud
was because when you actually
look at the votes,
there's no mystery
as to why he lost in 2020.
He lost where people
were telling him
for months and months
he was gonna lose.
The problem all along was that
his way of going about
energizing his base
drove away a lot
of suburban professionals.
That's where the fatal gap
was for him.
It was in the suburbs.
So, it's no mystery
as to why he lost.
- (cars honking)
- (crowd shouting)
Griffin: The race was
ultimately called for Joe Biden.
And in the neighborhood
I lived in in DC,
like, there were
cheers in the streets.
People were very excited.
supporters (singing):
We are the champions
No time for losers
Griffin: And I kind of
accepted it and, you know,
knew I was going to go back
into work to do my job
because win or lose,
we still had, like,
two and a half months in office.

It's a very odd time in history
when a sitting president
loses a re-election.
And then add to it, a president
who has chosen not to concede.
And my office is just
right around the corner
from the Oval Office.
And I remember
popping my head in,
and he's watching Fox News,
um, and Joe Biden's on
and he says,
"Can you believe I lost
to this effing guy?"

Grisham: He knows he
lost, but he's a narcissist,
and his ego
will not accept defeat.
And when you have people
who will so willingly
come around you and tell you
you didn't lose and the things
that you want to hear,
which he's a master at.
He's a master at finding these
people who will say whatever.
And so that enables him to
double down and triple down.

Barr:
He had lost the election.
He had sort of nothing to lose.
And that's when he started
shutting down communication
with the people who were
actually in advisory positions,
in the government
and started listening almost
exclusively to this cabal
on the outside.
Joining us this evening
is Rudy Giuliani,
the president's attorney,
former mayor of New York City...
Barr: The President then
rolled out his legal team.
Wow, what a beautiful day.
Thank you.
Barr: Obviously, Rudy
played a big role, you know,
in this very excited
conspiracy theory type of way.
Joe Frazier
is still voting here.
Kinda hard since he died
five years ago.
Also, Will Smith's father has
voted here twice since he died.
I'm joined right now
by Jenna Ellis
who is the president's
legal advisor...
Griffin: In came, one day,
Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell,
who was an attorney herself,
but was known as,
frankly, kooky,
in the West Wing.
We're fixing to overturn
the results of the election
in multiple states.
And President Trump won
by not just hundreds
of thousands of votes,
but by millions of votes.
And suddenly, you would see them
sitting in sort of the,
the West Wing lobby.
It was almost like this
bar-room scene from "Star Wars,"
you know, of people
hanging around the Oval Office,
these people from the outside.
I've been a prosecutor for,
on and off, 50 years of my life.
Prosecuted a lot more dangerous
criminals than these morons,
and, uh, and the evidence
is overwhelming.
President Trump won, fairly,
and genuinely by a landslide,
and we intend to prove that.
Sidney Powell:
Well, I can hardly wait
to put forth all the evidence
we have collected,
and I'm going to release
the Kraken.
Griffin: And that was
sort of the beginning
of a even darker period of
the campaign fraud nonsense
that was pushed.
That's when shit
really hit the fan.
(shutters snapping rapidly)
Good afternoon.
Griffin:
They all show up on stage,
at the Republican National
Committee headquarters.
- (reporters yelling)
- Nope, nope, nope! (stammers)
You've got Rudy Giuliani
who's sweating off his hair dye
down his face,
and the whole thing was chaotic.
We let this happen,
we're going to become Venezuela.
We cannot let this happen to us.
We cannot allow these crooks,
'cause that's what they are,
to steal an election
from the American people.
They elected Donald Trump.
Jacob:
I made my entire legal staff
watch the Rudy Giuliani
press conference
'cause that was supposed
to be the big reveal.
Now, you know, we've been
hearing these allegations,
now we're supposed to hear
all of the evidence.
And so, we all sat and watched
it together and were...
uh, underwhelmed.
You can't say...
I mean,
you're just lying
to the American people
when you say
there's no evidence.
Jacob: It was really
shocking to me how
untethered to evidence and facts
a lot of what he seemed to be
saying and putting forward were.
I know crimes, I can smell 'em.
You don't have to
smell this one.
I can prove it to you
18 different ways.
Barr: Their public statements
kept on citing fraud,
but there was just
not evidence of that.
Especially on a scale
that would have affected
the outcome of the election.
So, excuse me, we're not
at the questions at this point.
My name is Jenna Ellis,
and I'm the senior
legal advisor.
You have Jenna Ellis, you know,
giving her best sort of,
"We've got to stand and fight
for the American people."
This is an elite
strike force team
that is working on behalf of
the president and the campaign
to make sure that
our Constitution is protected.
We are a nation of rules.
You have Sidney Powell
espousing bizarre theories.
What we are really
dealing with here
and uncovering more by the day
is the massive influence
of communist money
through Venezuela,
Cuba, and likely China
in the interference
with our elections here
in the United States.
What I don't think enough of us
were thinking that day is,
this is incredibly dangerous.
We'd later find out that
it was incredibly dangerous.
We are going to take
this country back.
We are not going to
be intimidated.
- (cheering) - Jacob Chansley:
We are taking the nation back.
We will not allow communism
in the United States.
Here in Arizona, I went down to
the Election Center every day,
seven days a week.
Then, we moved from
the Election Center
over to the Capitol building.
We will not accept corruption in
Arizona or in the United States!
We're bringing down
the New World Order!
Nobody voted for Biden, dude.
Not here in Arizona.
There's something wrong
with our elections.
It's plain and simple.

- Pray for our President. Pray...
- (crowd murmuring)
Big business, big tech,
and big media
all colluded together
to keep Donald Trump
from being re-elected.
It's that simple.
They're trying to take away
your dream of four more years!
- Are you gonna let them do that?
- crowd: No!
Brnovich: As the attorney
general, there was nothing more
that I would have wanted to do
than to prosecute a bunch of,
you know, left-wing Democrats
for, you know,
injecting thousands of votes
illegally into
the Arizona system.
I mean, I didn't
want Joe Biden to win.
Donald Trump loves America!
(crowd cheering)
Brnovich: Here in Arizona,
a majority of Republicans
thought the election was stolen.
Part of the reason
why they believed it
is because they kept hearing it.
President Trump at that time
was talking about,
you know, that if he didn't win,
the election was rigged.
And you get it out there,
and then people believe it,
and then, you know,
there's a certain
confirmation bias, right?
Once somebody
believes something,
they see everything
through that prism.
Sharpiegate here in Arizona.
Remember I talked to you
about this Sharpie...
They were handing
out Sharpies...
So, they were using Sharpies...
Sharpiegate...
There was a huge issue
related to Sharpies
and whether Sharpies had
affected the way people voted.
Folks were claiming that
the Sharpie pens
were causing a bleed-through
on the piece of paper.
So, if someone voted,
you know, on one side,
'cause we have
the two-sided ballots,
that the bleed-through of
the pen marks to the other side
would lead
to inaccurate results.
Yeah, everybody's
a little pissed.
Marko Trickovic:
All across Arizona,
the chaos really kinda came,
like, on Election Day, right?
So, what they're doing is
they're telling people to use
- the Sharpies, that way...
- Yes.
- Trickovic: ...those votes aren't counted.
- Yes.
- Trickovic: That's exactly what's happening?
- Yes.
Trickovic:
You know, I shot that video
that ultimately ended up
turning into Sharpiegate.
They're saying my vote
didn't count.
So, people are coming here
to vote for Donald Trump,
and those votes
are all getting invalidated.
Welcome to the
new America, people.
That's what's going on.
Do I believe that
the election was stolen?
Absolutely, 100% I do.
And yes, the other side,
the officials that were involved
in that process,
they're gonna tell you
everything was on the up and up
because they have to.
It's organized crime
at that point.
People were talking
about the Sharpies.
Why did we use Sharpies?
Well, I know we made videos,
you know, six months before,
saying don't worry about it.
Please use Sharpies.
(energetic music playing)
narrator: Did you know you can
use a black or blue pen or Sharpie
to fill out your ballot
in Maricopa County?
So, bleed-throughs
are not a problem.
So, as people were saying,
"Hey, there's something here.
It's not counting my vote."
It's like, no, I'm good.
Certainly, we were
noticing irregularities.
Things that didn't quite add up.
Because the Sharpies will indeed
bleed through the paper.
You know,
there... we're...
there's enough there
to question,
to be a skeptic.
(indistinct chatter)
Brnovich: My immediate reaction
was that we would look into
the use of Sharpies
and whether that affected
the vote in 2020.
We just want to make sure
that no one can ever say
that this election
wasn't done properly.
My goodness, I had every motive
and reason to find
some sort of massive fraud.
And we...
it just wasn't there.
supporter (on megaphone):
Trump is gonna stay our president...
Brnovich:
We were able to systematically
and methodically lay to rest
so many conspiracy theories
and people that still maintained
that the election was stolen,
they moved on to other things.
All the fraud didn't happen
with Sharpies, right?
That was just a small piece
to a massive problem.
There were votes for people
that were dead.
Here in Arizona!
(people cheering)
1.8 million people,
dead people voting...
You've got people out there,
this group saying that thousands
of dead people voted.
You've got former president
saying that
it affected the election.
But we were systematically
able to go through
and disprove that.
- (crowd chatter)
- (horn blowing)
We spent hundreds,
if not thousands of hours
as an office with lawyers,
investigators
but some sort of
massive conspiracy
that would have changed
the outcome of the election?
I haven't seen it.
The reality is, right now,
it does appear
that Joe Biden will win Arizona.
I admire your nerves of steel,
and a backbone to match.
I just wish you well on this
'cause a lot of people
are not gonna digest
this very nicely.
I'm the fucking Republican
statewide-elected
attorney general,
and people are
jumping up and going,
"Get some balls! Why don't you
prosecute anybody about 20..."
And, like, people are
beatin' the shit out of me.
protesters:
We want Trump! We want Trump!
We want Trump!
We want Trump!
We want Trump...
They cheated!
They're cheaters!
- (drumming)
- (bell rings)
That was just a harbinger
of what was to come.
Sharpies kind of died away
to a next theory
and a next theory.
Basically, from our research,
we were able to discover
that the actual theft of
the United States election
occurred in Italy...
Italian satellites,
uh, German servers...
The server holding all
of our votes in Germany
has been obtained.
It was like playing Whac-A-Mole.
One day,
there was a claim de jure
that everyone was talking about,
and once that was slapped down,
the next day,
another one would pop up.
The company Dominion
is a far-left, radical company.
Dominion, Dominion,
nobody even knows who owns it.
These machines
are controlling our country.
Barr: One of the ones
that I thought was damaging
to the public's confidence
in the outcome
was allegations about
the Dominion voting machines.
Dominion is a joke.
Sidney Powell is
leading the charge.
You're saying
that the CIA is behind
the Dominion
voting software as well?
The machines can be hacked.
There's no question about that.
Their machines can be hacked.
Hickman: The big theory
was that Dominion equipment
was hooked up to the internet
that they could swing voters.
We have evidence of how
they flipped the votes,
how it was designed
to flip the votes.
They're not capable
of doing that,
so there's no internet.

Gates: So, this is very
important that people understand,
that these tabulation machines
are not connected
to the internet in any way.
Because people said,
"Well, what about Wi-Fi?"
Well, there's no routers
in these tabulation machines.
So, outside actors are not able
to control
the machines remotely.
Then, in addition to that,
if they wanted
to physically access these,
they would have to break in,
to some of the additional
security features
that we've put in there.
So, it is because of these
various layers of security
that I'm confident that
these machines
have not been manipulated
by outside actors.
And that's been confirmed time
and time again by experts,
as well as in a court of law,
in many courts of law in fact.
This is supposed to be
a secure system. It was not.
So, to make the claim
that there was no off-site
computer communications,
totally a lie.
Totally a falsehood.
Somebody's trying to
cover something up.
It's hard when
people are saying,
"Don't believe the county.
Whatever you do,
don't believe the county."
And it becomes almost like
a battle at that point.
"I know what I know.
You might know what you know,
but I'm now not trusting
what you're saying."
It's like, I don't know.
At this point,
I don't know how to get
around that.
And we have a machine,
the Dominion machine,
that's as filled with holes
as Swiss cheese
and, uh, was developed
to steal elections.
They spent a lot of energy
and time on those allegations.
So, I set up
two extensive meetings
with the experts over at
Department of Homeland Security,
as well as the FBI experts,
and I concluded that these
allegations were bogus.
(quiet crowd chatter)

(distant siren wailing)
Hickman: Okay.
Welcome, everybody.
Gates:
So, you have Election Day.
It takes many days
to get the final results.
Once that is completed,
then the elections department
puts together a canvass.
And then that canvass
is presented
to the Board of Supervisors,
the five of us,
and we have
the final say by voting
to certify that canvass.
Welcome to the Board
of Supervisors,
November 20th special meeting...
Hickman: President
Trump ran out of votes.
By the time the final vote
was counted,
he didn't quite catch up.
The board is required by law
to canvass
the November 3rd election.
caller (on voicemail):
Hello, Mr. Hickman.
When we come to lynch
your stupid, lying, commie ass,
you piece of shit,
you're going to die,
you piece of shit.
We're going to hang you!
Hickman:
During the certification,
the death threats
were already happening.
There were threats
to rape our daughters.
Just some of the most vile
things you can imagine.
Hickman:
We were in our auditorium,
but people were just outside
of the auditorium.
- protester (on megaphone): Trump 2020!
- crowd: Trump 2020!
protester (on megaphone):
Trump 2020!
crowd:
Trump 2020!
Hickman:
People were banging drums
and banging on the doors.
- protester: Stop the steal!
- crowd: Stop the steal!
This is where we meet to do
the people's business.
Gates: That's when I
was contacted by people
within President Trump's orbit.
Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of
the Arizona Republican Party.
I was sent numerous
text messages
pleading with me not vote
to certify the election.
(text chimes)
She was putting some stress
on apparently all of us
through texts
or maybe phone calls.
Kelli Ward (on voicemail):
We have to continue to pressure
that board of supervisors
- to do the right thing.
- crowd: We do!
We have got to continue!
Gates: The pressure by the
president and his many surrogates
was all part of an effort
to overturn the election.
Now, looking back on it,
it really is chilling
that that's what we were
in the middle of.
We're here, taking a hard look
at the Maricopa County
election of 2020.
People didn't want us
to certify the vote,
and I didn't know how my
colleagues were gonna vote.
Supervisor Gallardo?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was fearful that my board,
that I serve on, would decide
not to canvass the election.
What happens in those cases?
The pressure was so great,
that I felt
my colleagues would buckle.
I listened to and considered
all theories
about what might have happened.
But, let me be clear.
There is no evidence of fraud
or misconduct or malfunction
in Maricopa County,
and that is with a big zero.
It's time to dial back
the rhetoric, conspiracies,
and false claims.
In a free democracy,
elections result in some
people's candidate losing.
I'm not going to violate the law
or deviate
from my own moral compass,
as some have pushed me to do,
and some have probably
pushed others to do here.
I'm like...
I'm like this.
It was... It...
It was probably
the most pressure-packed...
night of my life.
I will now entertain a
motion to canvass
the November 3rd election...
I mean, I had no idea exactly
if we would have three votes.
We needed three votes.
The results are accurate
and complete,
and it's time to move forward.
Thank you,
Vice Chairman Sellers.
- Do I have a second?
- Second.
Second. Thank you,
Supervisor Gates.
- All in favor, say "aye."
- officials: "Aye."
Any opposed? Hearing none,
motion carries unanimously.
I knew they were all under
a severe amount of pressure
and to be a unified vote,
I was gratified.
We all have run, um,
our elections,
and they're,
and they're over with.
And I will tell, uh,
the group loud and clear
that voted for me
and voted for my colleagues,
you voted for people that serve
with integrity and honor.
I'm very proud
to serve with you.
- We are adjourned.
- (bangs gavel)
- Don't get me emotional again!
- (producer chuckles)
Because it was,
it was an emotional time,
and I, when I reflect on it,
I still get emotional.
(scoffs)
Gates:
After the vote,
we soon learned
that this groundswell
was not going to abate.
In some ways,
this was just beginning.
(indistinct chanting)
We'd had been doxxed
by this point.
So, they would
come to our houses
and sort of try
and do a citizen's arrest.
officer: This is... Guys,
this is a personal residence.
Please! Pl-Please, listen...
protester:
If we can move through this,
- we'll be gone really quick.
- officer: Please.
This is my house, man.
And my family.
(indistinct chatter)
I don't know
who these people are.
And if someone tries
to come in this house,
you better hit the deck.
- I'm firing.
- (camera beeping)
officer: Please, please
get him to stop. Please?
- I'm being as cool as I can.
- (police radio chatter)
You know? Like, I appreciate
what you guys are trying...
Gates:
I was doing my job.
My colleagues
were doing their jobs,
and yet we had become
the focus of, of hatred.
But you know, as...
in elected office,
we're just supposed
to not be human, right?
We're just supposed
to do our jobs
and just let all this stuff
bounce off of you,
but I realized it was too much.
That was... I really
struggled with that.
- (cars honking)
- (crowd chatter)
(indistinct speech)
Hansen: In Arizona, we knew
that there was a willingness
to entertain
conspiracy thinking.
What we didn't understand
at that point
was just how connected it
was to the Trump campaign.
It was being engineered
from the very highest levels
and seeking foot soldiers
in Arizona
to carry something out.
We later found out
that Trump himself
was reaching out to people
in Arizona to try
and engineer an outcome
more to his liking.
It's been my pleasure
to have served
in and around the legislature
since first being
elected in 1992.
Hansen: The most memorable
of those encounters is with,
then,
House Speaker Rusty Bowers.
Arizona House Speaker,
Rusty Bowers.
I was for Trump the whole time.
I walked for him.
I campaigned for him.
Stand up on the stage,
and he would glad-hand us all
and tell everybody
what great people we are
and blah blah blah.
It was fun.
(crowd cheering)
But I do not like bullies.
22nd November,
pulled in the driveway
in my magnificent little Prius,
and the phone, "White House."
"The president
will be right on."
And then,
the president comes on.
"Mr. Speaker, you're doing
a great job out there,"
and he glad-hand,
you know, pat the back.
"We've heard so many
great things about you,
but we got some problems
we'd like to talk to you about."
I said, sure, whatever.
He was saying, "We got fraud
all the way across the country."
I'm saying, okay,
gear it up, Rusty.
Here we go.
And then Rudy comes on and says
"14,000 dead people voted
and a couple hundred thousand
illegal aliens voted."
You got names? "Yeah."
You've got names of
the 14,000 dead people? "Yes."
You got names of the 200,000
illegal aliens who voted?
"Yes."
You can bring those
and put those on my desk?
"Yes."
Rudy, I got to have proof.
You got the proof?
"Yes."
And the president says,
"Give him the proof, Rudy."
I said, Rudy,
what's the ask out of all this?
And he said, "Well,
we would like to have
"a committee hearing
to review this evidence
"before a committee
in the legislature.
"There's an arcane Arizona law
that allows you to evaluate
"whether or not you can remove
Biden's electors
and replace them
with Trump's electors."
And he says, "Well,
this is some Arizona law."
I said, "I've never heard
of that law, Rudy."
(applause)
Hansen:
It was fairly startling.
The Trump team
tried to impress on Rusty
that the legislature had,
within its powers,
the ability to just change who
the state electoral votes go to.
What they are proposing
is something that sounds
fantastical in some ways,
illegal in others.
I'm going to throw out
Biden's electors
and put in Trump's electors?
"Yeah. That's what we're gonna...
That's our ask."

The dude is just
straight-up asking you
to throw the election.
I mean, that's clearly
what he had wanted me to do.
So, I said, "Look,
"I need proof.
When you bring me the proof,
we talk.
But no proof, no talk."
The Founding Fathers figured out
where to point the finger
of responsibility,
and the buck stops with
the state legislatures.
It's gonna have to go
to the state legislatures
to be decided, Jeanine.
Trump: Hopefully our
legislatures will step forward
- and save our country.
- (cheering)
It's going all over the country.
And it's kind of a national
effort to throw the election.

This is essentially a coup.
They are setting aside
the election results
based on allegations
with no substance behind them.
It was about trying
to get to an outcome
that would have kept
Donald Trump in office.
The president came
and put the thumb on me.
If it's alright for me
to throw an election
because somebody asked me,
and I was afraid to say no...
You just step down
towards anarchy.
speaker:
We are at war.
(indistinct shouting)
(quiet chatter)
- (scattered cheering)
- supporter: Thank you!
(indistinct chatter)
Patricia Murphy: The
atmosphere in Georgia remained
not just charged,
but supercharged.
Sort of a crescendo of that
was this rally
at the Georgia State Capitol.
protesters:
Stop the steal! Stop the steal!
Stop the steal!

- (cars honking)
- (cheering)
Murphy: There were
three recounts in Georgia,
which is really
quite unprecedented.
There was no question over the
result of the Georgia election
after all of these recounts,
in most people's minds.
Except for
Donald Trump's supporters,
as he continued to say,
"The election was stolen."
Trump: You know we won
Georgia, just so you understand.
(crowd cheering)
You gotta make sure
your secretary of state knows
- what the hell he's doing.
- (cheering)
As secretary of state,
I believe that the numbers
that we have presented today
are correct.
The secretary of state
is in charge of monitoring
and overseeing the elections.
I'm a passionate conservative,
and, as I've said before,
I'm a proud Trump supporter.
Murphy: It's a typically
low-profile office
and that changed in a big way
for Brad Raffensperger in 2020.
He was being
absolutely annihilated
by Donald Trump on social media.
Brad Raffensperger: From
there, it just accelerated.
It was like a rocket ship
flying higher and faster
with more and more
vitriol and anger.
Georgia became the focal point.
Now, when all these allegations
were made,
did I ask my team,
"Have we checked this out?
Have we checked that?"
I'm an engineer.
Absolutely, we checked it out.
I went back,
closed all the loops
to make sure
that we verified it.
There was one candidate
who came up short.
One candidate who did not want
to concede that he had lost.
So, you think Donald Trump,
no matter how many counts
we go through,
still lost the state of Georgia?
I don't see how we could come
to any other conclusion.
We told, uh, the campaign
if they find instances
of voter fraud,
we will check it out.
We have not seen widespread
systemic voter fraud
that would overturn
the results of the people.

Trump: We are looking at
things that are so bad in Georgia.
But I understand this
secretary of state,
who is really...
he's an enemy of the people,
this secretary of state.
And whether he's
a Republican or not...
Gabriel Sterling: He called
Brad, "This enemy of the people,
this Raffensperger."
I'm like...
Wow. I mean,
it was just sort of...
That was probably one of
the more weird things to see
a president,
of his own party,
calling any elected official
an enemy of the people.
But this was so specific
and so directed.
The numbers are corrupt.
It was a rigged election,
100%, and people know it.
That's why you have people
marching all over
the United States right now.
They know it was
a rigged election.
In Georgia, I was the Voting
System Implementation Manager.
No one should know
who the hell I am.
The only reason you do
is because something
went terribly wrong somewhere.
And look at what's happening
in Georgia.
A lot of things are
being found in Georgia.
With all these claims,
it was Whac-A-Mole.
We'd knock one down and it would
come up three days later,
knock it down again.
But it was out there,
and the president was saying it.
And it didn't matter. It just...
"The president said it,
it's fact."
You have Dominion,
which is very, very suspect
to start off with.
You can press "Trump,"
and the vote goes to Biden.
All you have to do is
play with the chip.
"The Dominion machines
flipped these votes
and we caught 'em,
and they flipped it back."
"It's an algorithm."
The world "algorithm"
became like this catch-all.
"The algorithm did it."
"What'd it do?"
"It stole the election."
"Well, how did it
steal the election?"
"Well, it-it
changed out votes."
Like, that can't happen.
- They're trying to... Look, between you people...
- (reporter yells)
Don't answer...
Don't talk to me that way.
You're just a...
You're just a lightweight.
Don't talk to me that...
Don't talk to...
I'm the president
of the United States.
Don't ever talk
to the president that way.
Sterling: I was a Republican before
Donald Trump was a Republican.
I'll be a Republican
after he's gone.
There's tens of millions
of Americans
who saw him do good things.
Here's the thing.
I saw him do good things.
I love the judges.
I love the tax cuts.
I love the deregulation.
But the problem is you can do
all those great things
and your actions,
your personality,
can undercut all of it.
And this thing at the end,
these claims
of the stolen election,
it's not based on anything real.
We want to take you straight
to the Georgia State Capitol...
Sterling: That's when I started
doing the press conferences.
I mean, it was really just
the blocking and tackling.
This is where we are...
Because we were trying to be as
transparent as we could.
We know the system
counted properly.
We know the ballots
that were there
were counted properly
and correctly. We know that.
I never had a doubt about
having the election stolen.
Because to do this would require
a high degree of competence,
a high degree of coordination,
a high degree of, of loyalty,
internally, to a conspiracy
to actually happen.

Barr: I hadn't been
over to see the president.
It was getting late in November
that I finally went over
to talk to him.
I told him that I was
disappointed in the outcome,
and he said, "No,
I won the election by a lot."
And-And I explained to him
that I thought that, uh,
he was listening
to people around him,
like Giuliani and others,
his, sort of these sycophants,
and that this was a disservice
to him and the country.
He wouldn't, uh,
pause to address
whatever counterpoint you made.
He just ignored it.
reporter:
Hi, Alyssa.
(reporters chattering)
I was pretty done with my role
in the West Wing,
um, mentally and emotionally.
But, there had been a
letter circulated,
essentially threatening
to fire any staffer
who was seen passing
along their resume
or searching for the next
opportunity and therefore
acknowledging that Trump lost.
Grisham: It's a matter
of survival at that point.
Think about it.
There's these people now
in this limbo
in the White House,
leaving the Trump White House,
especially after he's lost.
You're not gonna find
any jobs anywhere.
You're not gonna be well-liked.
And I do know for a fact that
people were looking for jobs,
but nobody talked about it
because that was a sign of
you don't think he won.
You are disloyal.
And you pretended like
you were gonna work there
for the next four years.
protesters:
Stop the steal! Stop the steal!

Hansen: In Arizona, when
you get to the end of November,
you really see an escalation
on the claims of fraud.
The only cards left to play
were the legislature.
They needed the State House
and the State Senate
to sort of change the trajectory
of the election.

protesters:
Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!
(indistinct chatter)
Trickovic: Eventually
towards the end of November,
it led to, you know,
the Giuliani hearing
with some of our legislators
so that there was some hope of
maybe they can do something.
Distinguished senators
and representatives,
thank you very much for giving
us this opportunity to be heard.
It's been difficult getting
an opportunity to be heard.
There was a hearing
that was done
about elections integrity,
uh, sponsored by Mark Finchem.
We are caught between the desire
to trust the process
and the suspicion that it has
failed the people of Arizona.
The purpose of the hearing
was to seek truth,
take testimony, take evidence.
We knew that there was
something to this.
It wasn't a nothing burger.
It was, "Okay,
so let's continue
to go down this path."
The goal of this hearing
is to provide an objective forum
for constituents to hear
testimony and see evidence.
Hickman:
It angered me.
These are
my Republican colleagues,
and they've decided to go
and air out theories.
They were all
pushing the, the steal.
I mean, to me,
that's just a, a farce.
But, Giuliani's there,
Jenna Ellis,
and they put on their show.
This election was a conspiracy
that was hatched
by the crooked leaders
of the Democratic Party.
Hansen:
In this day-long event,
you see clownishly
bad assertions by them.
At one point, Giuliani claimed
that there was, like,
five million illegal immigrant
voters in Arizona,
a state that only had seven
million people in it to begin with.
Let's say there were
five million
illegal aliens in Arizona.
It is, um...
it's beyond credulity
that a few hundred
thousand didn't vote.
Let me spend just one minute
on Dominion.
The whole situation
with the Dominion machine,
it's really
a national security problem.
The Dominion slur
just continues,
but it didn't match up
with any of the facts
as we understood them
in Arizona at that time,
or even on subsequent review.
Trump (on phone):
Well, thank you very much.
I've been watching the hearings
and they're fascinating,
- incredible...
- (crowd cheering)
Rusty Bowers:
We went from that
to the meeting with Rudy
at the Senate building.
"Rudy, you remember
when you told me
you were gonna bring me
some proof? Have you got it?"
"No, I don't. Jenna,
do you have the proof?"
She goes, "Yeah, yeah,
we've got the proof."
She had a satchel.
"I don't have it with me.
It's probably back
at the hotel."
"Okay, thanks for
letting me come. I'm gone."
I knew what he wanted,
I knew what he was asking,
and I told 'em they had
to bring me the proof.
They didn't bring it. So...
I wasn't gonna do anything.
And then suddenly, I get flooded
with thousands of emails.
"Not only will you not have
a future in Arizona,
"I will personally see to it
that no member of your family
sees a peaceful day
ever again."
Just the most vile.
And I thought many times,
this is my side.
It's not the Democrats.
They're just laughing.
My side is coming after me.

Barr: One of the things
that sticks in my craw,
throughout the country
at the state level,
people responsible
ultimately did
what they thought to be right
and what the facts showed,
and these were Republicans.
And they have been, you know,
raked over the coals by Trump
and should be drummed
out of the party
which is an attempt
to convert the party
into a cult of personality.
It was really a despicable
posture for the president.
protester: Rusty Bowers,
everybody.
Bowers: I didn't cheat for
Trump, and I didn't break the law.
And suddenly there's a bunch
of people at our house,
at the end of the driveway.
protester:
Resign, brother! Resign, Rusty!
Bowers: Don't come
over. Don't come over.
protester:
Time to resign, buddy.
Bowers:
Don't come over.
I'm giving you fair warning,
don't come over.
They'd shout that
I was a pedophile.
- protester 1: Pedophile! Total pedophile!
- protester 2: He's a pedophile!
- neighbor: Go home!
- protester 3: Rusty Bowers is a pedophile!
neighbor:
You go home!
protester:
Rusty Bowers is a pedophile!
Bowers: I mean, the
whole thing was sad to me.
The damage we did to ourselves.
It was...
it was bad.

Trump (on phone): You would think
if you're in the Department of Justice,
this is the biggest thing
you could be looking at.
Where are they?
I've not seen anything.
Barr: He had been taking shots
at the Department of Justice
as we went along,
suggesting that the department
hadn't been looking
at the evidence of fraud.
I said to the president
that we had, in fact,
been looking into
credible allegations of fraud
when they came in.
And they're bullshit.
They're bullshit.
You know, he, he, uh...
didn't like that.
Maria Bartiromo: Where is the DOJ
and the FBI in all of this, Mr. President?
Shouldn't this be something
that the FBI
is investigating?
Are they?
- Trump: Missing in action.
- Is the DOJ investigating?
Trump: Missing in action,
can't tell you where they are.
He said the department
was missing in action.
I felt it was time to,
to say something after that.
reporter: Barr told the
Associated Press today, quote,
"We have not seen fraud
on a scale that could have
effected a different outcome
in the election."
Directly contradicting
the president's claims
that the election was stolen.
Barr: I went down
to the Oval Office.
The president was as mad
as I've ever seen him.
He was, uh, flushed
and, uh, breathing heavily.
And he said, "Did you say this?"
And I said, "Yes."
And he said, "Why?" And I
said, "Because it's the truth."
And he said,
"Yeah, but you, you know,
"pulled the rug out from me. This
is killing me. You must hate me.
You must hate Trump,
you must hate Trump."
I said, "No, I don't hate you,
Mr. President."
I said, "Look, you only have
five or six weeks to challenge
"the outcome
of a presidential election,
"and you wheeled out
this clown car of lawyers,
"and it's been a joke.
"And you've wasted
five of your six weeks,
"most of your time
on this nonsense
"about the Dominion machines,
on this bullshit theory."
There is Chinese technology
in the Dominion software.
"Your people are just
shoveling this shit
out to the American people."
And, um...
he was very resentful of this.
(laughs)
reporter: President
Trump made it very clear
that he's disappointed
in his attorney general.
He hasn't done anything, so...
He hasn't looked.
When he looks, he'll see
the kind of evidence
that, right now,
you're seeing in Georgia.
protesters: Stop the steal!
Stop the steal! Stop the steal!

Sterling: We were having
multiple protests.
Actually, I was standing
at this window
and looked out
and saw a guy with an AR-15.
- (cars honking)
- (protesters chattering)
(cheering)
We had been under assault
for about three weeks.
Some of our local elections officials
were being, you know, harassed,
if not flat-out threatened.
The venom was
kind of increasing.
(indistinct chatter)
And at that heightened state
of fear and anxiety,
I got a call from Dominion.
And she says, "Yeah,
one of our young contractors
has been sort of targeted now."
And I remember I was scrolling
through, and I found one.
It says,
"You've committed treason.
May God have mercy
on your soul."
And there was a GIF of a noose
slowly twisting with a little
bit of sunlight behind it.
But at that point, I snapped.
- (putting down mask)
- (sighs)
It has all gone too far.
I lost my temper.
A 20-something tech
at Gwinnett County today
has death threats
and a noose put out,
saying he should be
hung for treason.
Mr. President,
you have not condemned
these actions or this language.
This is elections. This is
the backbone of democracy.
And all of you who have not said
a damn word
are complicit in this!
Mr. President,
it looks like you likely
lost the state of Georgia.
We're investigating, there's
always a possibility, I get it.
And you have the rights
to go through the courts.
What you don't have
the ability to do,
and you need to step up
and say this,
is stop inspiring people
to commit potential
acts of violence.
Someone's going to get hurt.
Someone's going to get shot.
Someone's going to get killed.
Be the bigger man here.
Step in. Tell your supporters,
"Don't be violent.
Don't intimidate."
It has to stop!
It seemed to have this momentary
blip of like, (gasps)
everything sort of stopped
for a second.
But, it didn't slow down
the other side.
Thank you.
This may be
the most important speech
I've ever made.
Trump released his, like, long
video of all the claims again.
We have a company
that's very suspect.
Its name is Dominion.
You can press a button
for Trump,
and the vote goes to Biden.
What kind of a system is this?
It was just weird because
literally everything he had said
had been stuff I had debunked,
or people in Arizona
had debunked,
but he's saying it all again
'cause I guess you keep on
saying the same thing
over and over again,
if nobody's pushing back,
eventually people
will believe you.
I go from winning by a lot,
to losing a tight race.
It's corrupt.
All over the country,
people are together
in holding up signs.
"Stop the steal."
This election was rigged.
Everybody knows it.
Many people in the media,
and even judges,
so far have refused
to accept it.
Barr: After that, the president
continued to challenge
the process and try to set up
these, you know,
meetings with state legislators
and all that kind of stuff.
reporter: Today in Georgia,
Rudy Giuliani questioned
the security
of Dominion voting machines
before a state Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee.

Senator Ligon: Thank you,
Senator Harper, Senator Anderson...
Murphy:
A State Senate subcommittee
announced that they would
be holding a hearing.
So, we had state senators
saying, we're happy to take
some kind of public action
to let Donald Trump know
that they were trying to fight
for him here in this state,
to stop the process of Joe Biden
going on to become president.
We really appreciate
the opportunity
to get these facts out.
We've had some difficulty
- getting a hearing.
- Sterling: In Georgia,
we had a Republican governor,
a Republican Senate.
"Here's a place where we can
exert some real influence
and get our Republicans
to do things for us."
Ignoring the law.
Rudy Giuliani:
It's your responsibility
if a false and fraudulent count
is submitted to
the United States government.
And it's clear that the count
you have right now is false.
Sterling: People have
asked me, "What do you think
they were trying to do?"
They were hoping for a miracle.
Just keep everything alive.
Does it have to make sense?
No!
Just keep enough questions
and doubts out there.
What we are presenting to you
today are facts. Facts.
2,506 felons voted
illegally in Georgia.
They said that there was
thousands and thousands
of felons.
We found less than 74, so there
weren't over 2,000 felons.
Less than 74.
It's things like that.
They said there's 2,423
non-registered voters.
At least 2,423 individuals
to vote who were not listed
as registered.
There was zero.
Everyone was registered to vote.
10,315 or more individuals
to vote
who were deceased
by the time of the election.
They said that there was 10,000
dead people that voted.
At the time, when we began our
investigations, we found two.
Subsequent to that,
two years later,
we found two more.
That's a total of four.
One, two, three, four.
Not 4,000. Just four.
In Georgia, look at this
new surveillance footage
we'll be showing you.
Mysterious suitcases,
potentially filled,
we believe, with ballots,
well, rolled out
from under a table
after partisan
election observers
were asked to leave the room.
Sterling:
They had these videotapes
and they took out
this one little section
where somebody, quote-unquote,
took out "suitcases of ballots"
after everybody had
been told to leave.
So, I'm Jacki Pick,
and I'm here as a volunteer,
and going to explain to you
the evidence
that we have in terms
of fraud or misrepresentation.
You're looking at
one big room here.
What you're going to see
happen at about 11 o'clock.
Once everyone is gone,
coast is clear.
So now, they're gonna start
pulling these ballots out
from under this table.
What are these ballots
doing there,
separate from all
the other ballots?
And why are they only
counting them
whenever the place is cleared
out with no witnesses?
But, we can tell you that it
appears to be an aberration
from how the other ballots
were handled.
Murphy:
In reality, what happened
that evening on election night,
state officials
called over and said,
"It's getting late. Why don't
we shut it down for the evening
"and let everybody go home?
We'll start again
in the morning."
That decision was reversed
very quickly,
and so you see election workers
taking those ballots out of
state-approved ballot containers
and then beginning to
count those ballots.
By Rudy Giuliani's telling,
that was two election workers
telling all of the monitors
to go home
and then secretly counting the
ballots once everybody was gone.
"They're doing
something surreptitious.
"They're stealing the election.
Throwing the election
illegally to Joe Biden."
That was completely false.
(inaudible)
Sterling: And then there's
another part of it, too,
where there's
one of the workers there.
"Well, she ran these things
through over and over again."
And I'm like, yes,
that's a standard practice.
There was a mis-scan.
The standard operating procedure
is you take
that stack of ballots,
delete the batch you just did,
and send it back through.
That's what you do.
There's nothing
weird about this.
If you see, you have
multiple machines there,
and they're there for two hours.
So, you do the math.
How many ballots went
through those machines
in those two hours
when there was no one there
to supervise?
Sterling:
When you watch this video,
and you see these people
doing their jobs,
this is not the
"Ocean's 11" crew
engaged in the biggest heist
in history.
This is just people
who are tired
and trying to do their work.
That's all it is.

Giuliani: And when you look
at what you saw on the video,
which, to me, was a smoking gun,
powerful smoking gun...
Sterling: All these things
came up around this
because it was sort of sexy.
"We got video.
We caught 'em in the act.
This right here
is a smoking gun."
Anybody who was honest
could look at that
and see what was happening,
but no one was interested
in being honest at that point.
(quiet murmuring)
I believe that they knew
they were lying,
they did it intentionally,
trying to mislead
the State Senate
and the people of Georgia
and the American people,
that there was some kind of giant
conspiracy happening in Georgia.
It was not true
when they claimed it,
and it's not true today.
How about those suitcases that
were pulled out from the table?
host: It's pretty hard to dispute
that there's something going on
that needs some explanation.
Murphy: So, this was being
shown on live cable news,
all across the country,
and that absolutely unwound
Republican voters
all across the country.
So, suddenly, it wasn't
just a Georgia situation.
This was a national situation.
The footage appears to show
poll workers
pulling ballots
out of suitcases.
I mean, what the hell?!
Well, Mayor Giuliani
rightly described it
as the smoking gun in this case.
Today revealed the smoking gun
we've been looking for.
- crowd (chants): Rudy! Rudy!
- (cheering)
Barr: The allegations
about the video.
You know, I asked the
US attorney down there,
BJay Pak,
to take a look at that.
BJay Pak: It was a
bombshell of an allegation.
So our independent investigation
into the facts of the case
showed that there was
no irregularity.

We debunked all the allegations.
There's nothing here.
The ballot boxes
were proper boxes,
there was no double counting,
and that this was
a "smoking gun,"
was completely false.
There's overwhelming evidence
of fraud,
including now a smoking gun
"bank robbery" videotape.
Pak: I don't know
what's in his mind,
but if anyone did
any kind of due diligence
about just watching
the whole video,
I think it would be very hard
to characterize that snippet
as something irregular going on.
I think that the public
was misled.
With me now is Georgia Secretary
of State Brad Raffensperger.
Now, you have been
on the receiving end
of a lot of gruff
from the president.
Raffensperger:
I went on Fox News.
"We followed the law,
we followed the Constitution,
and the president
came up short."
We did an audit of the race,
President Trump still lost,
then we did a full recount.
President Trump still lost.
I think that fired up
the president.
He wanted to have
a conversation with me.

Mark Meadows (on phone): Mr. President,
everybody is on the line, and just so...
This is Mark Meadows,
the chief of staff.
On the line
is secretary of state...
Murphy: He had the
White House chief of staff
on the line with him,
Mark Meadows.
The amount of pressure
that is implicit in a call
from the president
of the United States
to state officials,
under any circumstances,
is immense,
but when you throw in the fact
that he is calling
about the election
and telling them
that they got it wrong,
and that they know
they got it wrong,
that is something that has
never happened before.
Meadows: So, Mr. President,
now I'll turn it over to you.
Trump (on phone): Okay,
thank you very much. Hello, Brad.
If we could just go over
some of the numbers,
I think it's pretty clear
that we won very
substantially, uh, Georgia.
Although, I saw you
on television today,
and you said, uh,
that you found nothing wrong.
I mean, you know.
Raffensperger (on phone): Well,
Mr. President, the challenge that you have
is the data you have is wrong.
Some people didn't have
the political guts
just to tell President Trump
that he came up short.
Trump: They're going
around playing you
and laughing at you
behind your back, Brad,
whether you know it or not,
they're laughing at you.
There's no way I lost Georgia.
There's no way.
We won by hundreds
of thousands of votes.
You should want to have
an accurate election,
and you're a Republican.
Raffensperger: We believe that
we do have an accurate election.
Trump: No, you don't.
No, no you don't.
I think he was trying
to tell him,
"Put your thumb on the scale.
"Do something
to help us out here.
We're all Republicans here,
man. Come on."
But because it was so close,
and the margin was,
you know, 11,000-something.
Trump: Look, we need
only 11,000 votes.
Brad, what are we going to do?
We won the election,
and it's not fair to take it
away from us like this.
Raffensperger: We have
to stand by our numbers.
We believe our numbers
are right.
Trump:
Well, why do you say that?
Look, ultimately, I win, okay?
"Find me the votes. I don't care
who won the election,
make sure I won the election,
find me the votes."
Trump: So, what are we
going to do here, folks?
I only need 11,000 votes,
fellas. I need 11,000 votes.
Give me a break.
From my point of view,
he was putting pressure...
and the biggest part of it to me
was when he talked about
the legal jeopardy.
There was an
implicit threat there.
Trump: It's more illegal
for you than it is for them
because you know what they did
and you're not reporting it.
That's a, you know,
that's a criminal...
that's a criminal offense.
That's a big risk.
If they could have done
something in Georgia,
I understand that Arizona was
another focal point of theirs,
but I think that was...
If you get one to start rolling,
then you get dominoes.
The next one, the next one,
the next one.
But, at the end of the day,
we had to make sure
we stood firm on the facts.
We had to follow the law.
Follow the Constitution.
Was there pressure? Yes.
Was it uncomfortable? Yes.
Yes, it's Gabriel.
reporter: As some
have said, do you believe
that what happened
in that phone call
was an attack on democracy?
I'll leave other people to
make the decision on that.
I personally found it to be
something that was not normal,
out of place, and-and...
Nobody I know
who would be president
would do something like that
to a secretary of state.

(muffled cheering)
Bowers: Another thing
that's very important...
money.
For everybody
who's an election denier,
it's just like printing money.
Now, even though Election Day
has come and gone,
the Trump campaign
has continued to fundraise,
and Fox has just learned
that since Election Day,
the campaign, combined with the
Republican National Committee,
have raised $207 million
over the last 30 days,
just a huge number.
Those solicitations
and the poor folks who
they've got a hook
in their mouth
and they tug that hook
and out falls a few more coins
with Caesar's image on it.
I mean, it's...
It's... it's immoral.
It's... it's gross.
Trump: I just left Washington
to go to the Army-Navy game.
So, it was a rigged election.
reporter: When you look at
this fight, though,
you have 77% of Trump supporters
who believe you won
the election.
There's a rally right now
in Washington for that.
Trump: There are thousands
and thousands of people out there.
I had nothing to do with it.
I didn't kn... really know
they were forming.
They're forming.
The spirit, the liveliness,
the whole thing,
even the fundraising,
the money that's
pouring in to fight this.
reporter: Do you worry about
the country being divided?
Trump:
No, I worry about the country
having an illegitimate
president.
That's what I worry about.
They cheated like
nobody's cheated before.
They did things that
nobody has ever seen,
and we caught 'em.
But, you... but your guys have
been unable to prove it
- as of now, if something...
- Excuse me. Excuse me.
We've proven it.
Bill Barr, frankly,
did the wrong thing.
Bill Barr, I believe...
Not believe, I know,
had an obligation to set
the record straight.
I tendered my resignation
on December 14th,
the day the states
certified the election.
Today, Arizona's
11 presidential electors
are meeting to cast
their electoral college votes
for Joseph Biden.
Once the state
certifies the vote,
and the governor agrees with
that certification, that's it.
That really is the last
legal step in the process.
From my standpoint,
the election was over.
There was no way of undoing
the election results.
Happening today, the Electoral
College will cast their votes
to formally elect Joe Biden
to the presidency.
But President Donald Trump
is still insisting
he is not done fighting
to stay in office.
Barr: Then, it seemed
that he doubled down again.
That got me very concerned.
Are we gonna have
a constitutional crisis
where the president's
refusing to leave office?

Short: I'd say there were
a couple big moments
leading up to January 6.
It was weeks
of a pressure campaign
to overturn election results.
For many of the president
and his advisers,
it was sort of like throwing
spaghetti at the wall
and seeing whatever could hold.
The only last stop
on this particular excursion
was going to be January 6th.
Jacob: The vice
president presides over
the vote count on January 6th,
in the United States Congress,
but that vote count
is supposed to be a formality.
Short: Donald Trump,
he's not one who accepts loss.
Knowing that he would need to
find a scapegoat for that loss,
then it probably means looking
to pin it on the vice president.

Griffin:
Mike Pence, the reality was
he was a stabilizing force
throughout the Trump presidency.
If there was a fire
in the Trump administration,
you can be certain
that Mike Pence
was quietly behind the scenes
trying to put it out.
Barr: There couldn't have
been a loyaler vice president.
He was very conscientious
and wanted to do what was right
under the Constitution.
- (crowd cheering)
- crowd: Stop the steal! Stop the steal!
Stop the steal!
Stop the steal!
Stop the steal!
Stop the steal...

Short: January 4th, I receive
a call on Air Force Two
asking us to return
to the White House
and to take a meeting
with John Eastman, Greg Jacob,
the president,
the vice president, and myself.
At the meeting on the 4th
in the Oval Office,
John Eastman
was presented to us,
acting as an attorney
for the president.
I had one mission.
When the president called me
and asked me to represent him,
that was quite an honor.
It was a big deal.
Luckily, it wasn't the first
time I'd been in the Oval Office.
I'd been there in August 2019,
so it wasn't, you know,
looking around,
"Oh wow, look at this."
I was aware of Professor Eastman
as a constitutional law scholar,
uh, as well as one who was known
for taking aggressive positions
that might be
difficult to square
with constitutional
text and history.
That was my role, to give
the best constitutional counsel
that I could to the president
of the United States.
We have lots of
evidence of illegality
in the 2020 election.
That was all true.
We had, therefore,
an unconstitutional election.
The courts are not addressing
the unconstitutionality at all.
So, then we're looking at
are there any other
constitutional actors
who have some role that might
be able to address this?
By then, the only last
constitutional player
in the cycle that
could do something about it
was Vice President Pence.
Short: The purpose of the
meeting was going to be to explore
these novel legal theories
about the vice president's
role on January 6th.
The way it was offered,
it was to affirm
that the vice president
can unilaterally choose
which electors to accept
and which electors to throw out
from the various states.
Vice President Pence
has the authority
to determine the validity
of the electoral votes.
The circumstances then,
in my view,
warranted him exercising
the full scope of his power
to get this thing right.
We knew, at that point,
that the president's team
was presenting a lie
about what the vice president's
authority was.
It was almost like this, "Well,
nobody's ever tried this before.
So, why don't we try it?"
Jacob: The vice president
really played the role
during that meeting
of pushing back against
the invented theories
of Professor Eastman.
Greg Jacob, I think,
was an honest guy.
I think he, maybe,
genuinely believes
that the Founders would not
have assigned this power
to the vice president.
I think he's wrong about that.
(gavel bangs)
- (banging)
- (indistinct chatter)
(banging)
Jacob: When you see that
not a single vice president,
in our entire history,
has ever exercised an authority
to reject an electoral vote.
It would be very strange for us,
200 years into this project
of a republic,
to suddenly discover in 2020
that, oh, all along, it should
have been the vice president
who got to decide these things.
And that, essentially,
was the idea
that was ultimately being
pitched to us.
John Eastman shows up
on January 4th,
and that night, President Trump
takes the stage in Georgia
and says, "Boy, I sure hope
our vice president
comes through for us."
And I hope Mike Pence
comes through for us,
- I have to tell you.
- (cheering)
I hope that our great vice
president comes through for us.
Of course,
if he doesn't come through,
- I won't like him quite as much.
- (laughter)
It appeared that they eventually
came to the conclusion
that there was some avenue
by which
they could force the election
into Congress.
That was a rigged election,
but we're still fighting it,
and you'll see what's going to
happen. We'll talk about it...
Barr: Now, it's one thing
if there's strong evidence
the election was stolen,
but they felt that they didn't
really need the evidence.
You know, they could just
BS their way through it.
So, their endgame was foolish.
crowd: Fight for Trump! Fight
for Trump! Fight for Trump!
Hey, you know, it really is,
it's fight for our country.
It's really fight for our
country, not fight for Trump.
It's fight for our country
'cause that's what
we're fighting for.
Short: The president's and the
vice president's conversations,
while cordial,
became a little more terse.
That raised
a new level of anxiety,
knowing that we were
on a collision course
between the president
and the vice president.
At that point, it's like, okay,
this is where we're
gonna end up.
crowd: Fuck Antifa! Fuck
Antifa! Fuck Antifa! Fuck Antifa!
(indistinct yelling)

Jacob: The next
morning, January 5th,
there were a number
of unpleasant surprises.
Around 11:09,
President Trump tweets,
"The Vice President has power
to reject electors."
There was a degree of
increasing frustration
and bewilderment
at the situation
that we found ourselves in.
crowd:
Stop the steal! Stop the steal!
Probably more contentious,
was the evening of the 5th.
The president's team
had put out a statement
professing that
the vice president
sees this exactly
the same way as the president.
It was an outright lie.
It had no bearing in truth,
no bearing in reality
whatsoever.
But, I think it created
an expectation,
for a lot of Americans,
of something was gonna happen
on January 6th
that we knew
never was going to happen.
- (crowd cheering) - speaker (on megaphone):
We are the majority!
And Trump won! Trump won!
Short:
There was, sadly, a belief
that, uh, one is
above the rule of law.
In fact, at one point,
leading up to January 6th,
the night of the 5th,
the president opened the door
to hear the people
cheering outside.
(crowd cheering)
And said,
"Mike, you hear that?"
And said,
"Those people love us."
And the vice president's
response was,
"Those people also love the
Constitution, Mr. President."
I don't know how this
is going to end,
but if they want a fight,
they better believe
they've got one!
(crowd cheering)
We will prevail. Amen.
(cheering)
Jacob: Most people had no
idea prior to that point in time
that there even was
a January 6th vote count.
People stop paying attention
most of the time
after Election Day.
But now, there was going to be
this very public limelight
on things with people
raising questions
about whether that event
was being done properly.
crowd: Fight for Trump! Fight
for Trump! Fight for Trump!
- (overlapping yelling)
- (pepper spraying)

Freedom!
crowd:
Freedom!
Chansley:
Freedom!
(crowd cheering)
Let's have trial by combat.
John Eastman: Rudy and
I are brought up on stage.
Rudy's introduced,
and then he introduces me.
He's one of the pre-eminent
constitutional scholars
in the United States.
I remember the first kinda time
I saw it or paid attention
was when, um, John Eastman
took the stage.
America's Mayor. Wonderful.
(cheering)
I remember thinking, "You guys
sound just fucking crazy."
- Hello, America! (chuckles)
- (crowd cheering)
The crowd's reaction,
they knew I was saying
something important,
so they cheered. You know?
All we are demanding
of Vice President Pence
is this afternoon, at 1 o'clock,
he let the legislatures of
the state look into this...
(applause)
(cheering)
Short:
At the end, under pressure,
Donald Trump's true character
came through.
I hope Mike is gonna do
the right thing.
- I hope so. I hope so.
- (crowd cheering)
Because if Mike Pence
does the right thing,
we win the election.
You're sworn to uphold
our Constitution.
Grisham: He doesn't
care about that stuff.
Certainly,
the Constitution to him
is like this old brown
piece of paper that's boring
and probably written funny.
He doesn't know or understand,
I think, most of it.
Trump: We're gonna walk
down, and I'll be there with you.
We're gonna walk down
to the Capitol.
Right when he said that,
I was like, "You fucker."
Because I know him
and I knew he was not
gonna walk down there.
He is afraid of crowds.
He doesn't necessarily like
to be around his supporters,
despite what he says.
He's terrified of germs.
And, again, he knows
the power of his words
and I know his supporters,
by this chance,
the thought of their president
walking with them,
marching with them
to the Capitol
would be everything.
And so, right when
he said that I just, again,
was just pissed and disgusted.
Whatever was left in me broke,
and I resigned right then, yeah.
We will never give up.
We will never concede.
It doesn't happen.
You don't concede
when there's theft involved.
(crowd cheering)
And we fight.
We fight like hell.
And if you don't
fight like hell,
you're not gonna have
a country anymore.
Barr: I turned on the TV,
and I saw what was going on.
- I was completely outraged.
- (crowd cheering)
I felt he did precipitate
the whole affair,
and I thought
that was outrageous,
and his treatment of the
vice president was despicable.
(gavel bangs)
Madam Speaker,
members of Congress...
Jacob: Up until
the very last minute,
he hoped that he would be able
to persuade the president,
this time,
that he was just wrong.
That he couldn't overturn
the results of the election,
and that this meant that
they were going to have to
relinquish power, leave office,
uh, and think about the future.
(crowd chattering)
People had been sold an idea
that was not true,
and John Eastman,
he had had a causal effect
of helping to
convince those people
that the Capitol building
was a place worth going to
because that's a place
where there's a big decision
to be made this day.
protester:
We're coming for you!
I was, uh...
angry.
(crowd yelling)
crowd:
Hang Mike Pence!
Jacob: I actually
started drafting an email
to John Eastman saying,
"Thanks to your bullshit,
now we're under siege."
He said that, and I said,
"No, we're here
"because your boss wouldn't do
what was necessary
to let this thing
get aired out."
Uh, yeah, so...
- (glass breaking)
- (indistinct yelling)
speaker:
Mr. President, Senator.
Justice is comin', baby!
Freedom!
The vice president, he had been evacuated
off the Senate floor at that point.
The Secret Service
told the vice president
that we have a clear window
to escape right now.
The vice president said,
"You're not understanding.
I'm not leaving the Capitol.
We're gonna stay here."
2:30-ish,
we had seen the president's
tweet when he said,
"The Vice President didn't
have the courage
to do the right thing."
Part of me wonders
if he even cared
as long as he had
someone else to scapegoat
for his election loss.
Yeah!
Hey!
I cannot believe this guy
is standing there with a spear.
protester: This is our
Capitol. Let's be respectful to it.
Hickman:
Unbelievable.
I'm still...
I'm still shocked
with the images,
just to this day.
protesters:
Stop the steal!
protester 1:
Oh, my God.
(overlapping yelling)
protester 2:
There's a gun! There's a gun!
(yelling)
- (gunshot)
- (echoing yelling)
Trump (on video over megaphone):
I know your pain. I know your hurt.
We had an election
that was stolen from us.
It was a landslide election.
Short:
It's important to have leaders
who believe in our rule of law.
Donald Trump has showed
that, uh, he fails that test.
Trump (on video): We love
you. You're very special.
But go home,
and go home in peace.
protester 1:
What's he saying?
protester 2:
He says go home.
Donald Trump has asked
everybody to go home.
Barr:
The President's behavior
was a betrayal
of his supporters,
and what he did was
irresponsible and shameful.
Mike Pence: Today was
a dark day in the history
of the United States Capitol.
- (crowd yelling)
- (flashbang pops)
The violence was quelled,
and the people's work continues.
The elected representatives of
the people of the United States
have assembled again
on the very same day,
to support and defend
the Constitution
of the United States.
At 8 o'clock
the Senate reconvened,
and we were going to do the work
of the people and get back to work.
Let's get back to work.
(applause)
(helicopter whirring)
reporter 1:
Former president Donald Trump
turned himself in
last night in Georgia
to face charges that he tried
to undermine the 2020 election.
Now, his mugshot joins
a gallery of images
taken of his alleged
co-conspirators.
reporter 2: Rudy Giuliani
facing a number of counts.
John Charles Eastman.
Jenna Ellis.
Sidney Katherine Powell.
Trump:
We did nothing wrong at all.
What has taken place here
is a travesty of justice.
We did nothing wrong.
I did nothing wrong.
Grisham:
Everybody's against him.
It's always, "Poor me, poor me,
I'm the victim."
And that is how I believe
he continues to
get through so much,
and he never gets "punished"
for a lot of the things
that happen.

I think that January 6th
is like a trailer to a movie.
That's the one thing with
Donald Trump I-I've learned.
You think he'll,
he'll just go this far
and there's not more.
There's always more.
He just takes it
as far as it will go.
We won in 2016,
and if you really remember,
and if you wanna
play it straight,
we also won in 2020.
(crowd cheering)
We are in a very dangerous place
heading into the next election.
If he loses, I don't think
that you can expect
that he's gonna
take it peacefully.
Of course, he's gonna
claim that it was stolen,
of course, he's gonna
say it was rigged,
and of course, he's going to
try to incite his followers
and his diehard loyalists
to the exact same kind
of actions as last time.
The notion that this time
he would, like,
take it like a champ
and admit he lost
is just ridiculous.
(crowd cheering)
Jacob:
In 2020, the line held.
You had people of character,
all of whom held the line,
and held to
constitutional principle.
crowd: Fuck Joe Biden!
Fuck Joe Biden!
Jacob:
Character matters.
The president
of the United States
is the most powerful office
under our Constitution,
and that is where character
is most important of all.
And you should never
put somebody into that office
that you don't have
trust and confidence
will follow the Constitution
and the law.
Because that could be the end
of the Republic.