stroia cos kelly
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">philly inq</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-republicans-jan-6-help-trump-20221222-ccq7ly5w2rfergjbcnwdatya3a-story.html">https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-republicans-jan-6-help-trump-20221222-ccq7ly5w2rfergjbcnwdatya3a-story.html</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">h</font><span style="color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px;">undreds of pages of deposition transcripts released Wednesday by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack offered new insights into the roles Pennsylvania Republicans played in aiding President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">The committee is expected to issue the full report on its investigation on Thursday. But the newly released transcripts were filled with new details including that Mike Roman, a Philadelphia native and one of Trump’s top election advisers, helped spearhead the effort to send pro-Trump electors to Washington as Congress met to certify the election results that day.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They also revealed a previously undisclosed attempt by state Sen. Doug Mastriano to access certain voting machines days before Jan. 6 as well as references to a plan floated by the White House to sue Pennsylvania directly in the U.S. Supreme Court over its administration of the 2020 vote. The documents also shed new light on the role a congressional staffer for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly played behind the scenes.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Here are some of the highlights from the committee’s interviews:</p><div id="nativo_903627" class="trb_ar_nt" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; z-index: 6; position: relative;" /><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mike Roman:</span> A key Trump campaign operative’s role in the false electors scheme</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Roman, a longtime Philadelphia Republican political operative, appeared to play a key role in organizing false electors in swing states such as Pennsylvania as part of a plot to overturn the election.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A former Philadelphia ward leader and senior adviser to the Trump campaign,</span> Roman was designated by Trump lawyer<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Rudy Giuliani </span>as “the lead for executing the voting” by the fake electors Dec. 14, 2020</b>, according to an email the committee cited in an interview transcript released Wednesday.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>The interview transcript suggests the pro-Trump electors in Pennsylvania were concerned about possible legal exposure if they signed official certificates purporting to be the legitimate electors.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In the interview, investigators referenced a Dec. 12, 2020, email sent to Roman from Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Mike, here is my suggested language for dealing with the concern raised in the PA conference call about electors possibly facing legal exposure, parenthesis, at the hands of a partisan AG, close parenthesis, if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors,” the transcript says</span>.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Investigators also asked Roman whether he knew if <b>Mastriano, the state senator who ran as the GOP’s candidate for Pennsylvania governor this year, had expressed concerns about the elector plan. Roman pleaded the Fifth.</b></span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">The transcript suggests Roman also played a role in organizing the delivery of <b>Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector certificate to Congress on Jan. 6</b>. A person investigators identified as <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Michael Brown texted associates that he “should probably buy Roman a tie for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876</span> ... ”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">That’s an apparent reference to the disputed presidential election that year.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roman refused to say whether he’d instructed Brown to deliver the document, the transcript says.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The interview transcript also references a briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers in November 2020 about purported election fraud. On Nov. 8, 2020, Roman shared with an associate a screenshot of a message he’d obtained that said: “Maybe the Trump campaign should get some actual evidence of fraud and file in court. They’ve been horrible in their court filings. We just got a report from their legal team. They told us on caucus they have zero evidence.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roman declined to tell investigators who sent him the message or to discuss the briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers, apparently delivered by Kentucky’s secretary of state.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly: Staffer’s behind-the-scenes involvement in false electors effort</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Committee investigators repeatedly asked Roman during his deposition what he knew about behind-the-scenes efforts to undermine the election by a longtime top aide to U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Butler County Republican and a top Trump ally in the House.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 4, 2020, Roman exchanged 25 messages with Kelly’s then-chief-of-staff, Matt Stroia,</span> according to questioning in the deposition transcripts. Those included exchanges that suggested Stroia may have played a more active and earlier role in the efforts by Trump and his allies than was previously known.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>His name had previously surfaced in the committee’s work in connection with efforts to deliver the slates of pro-Trump electors to Pence on Jan. 6.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has said his office passed along the lists to Pence but that it was Kelly’s office that provided it to him. And while Kelly initially denied Johnson’s claims as “patently false,” the congressman’s office later acknowledged an “internal investigation” found Stroia had been in contact with Johnson’s staff.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">But Roman’s deposition before the Jan. 6 Committee suggests </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Stroia may also have played a role in organizing a raucous Nov. 25 state Senate hearing in Gettysburg,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> during which </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Mastriano </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">and Trump lawyer </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Rudy Giuliani and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Jenna Ellis</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">pushed unfounded claims of fraud in the Pennsylvania election. Trump called in from Washington to voice his support.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>“I hope it turns out like we envisioned,” Stroia wrote to Roman three days before the hearing in a message quoted in the deposition transcripts.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During his interview with the Jan. 6 Committee, Roman pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions about it or discuss whether he or Stroia had any involvement in organizing the Gettysburg hearing.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But other messages cited in Roman’s deposition show </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stroia was in direct contact with </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Giuliani</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, who spearheaded Trump’s election challenges in the state. In one exchange with Roman, Stroia said he’d directed the president’s lawyer to talk to Roman instead.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Do you know why Mr. Giuliani would have been calling Mike Kelly’s chief of staff ... about presidential election issues rather than you, who was acting as director of election day operations for the campaign?” committee staffers asked. He added: “I told him that you will know everything I do.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked to explain, Roman again pleaded the Fifth.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Doug Mastriano and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> Jenna Ellis:</span> The state senator and Trump lawyer sought access to Pennsylvania voting machines</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The committee’s interview with Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis also shed light on Mastriano’s postelection activities.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We made good headway convincing [hopefully] two counties with Dominion machines in Pennsylvania,” <b>Mastriano wrote in a Dec. 28 email to Ellis,</b> according to the transcript.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In another email, Mastriano makes reference to efforts to gain access to “ballot images.”<b> Ellis declined to tell investigators why Mastriano was interested in that.</b></span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a Dec. 29 email, Mastriano told Ellis that he’d emailed Trump himself with a letter related to “securing voluntary access for Dominion forensics.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>Fulton County later gave a third-party firm access to its Dominion voting machines, facilitated by Mastriano and state Sen. Judy Ward, R-Blair, for a supposed “audit” of the votes.</b> That prompted the state to decertify those voting machines and force the county to obtain new ones. It wasn’t immediately clear which other counties Mastriano and other Trump allies sought to hand over access to voting machines.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Ellis </b>was also questioned about her contacts with <b>Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler </b>and Jake Corman and Kim Ward, the GOP leaders of the State Senate</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">. She declined to answer questions</span>, however, on any efforts she and Giuliani had made to pressure them to set aside the state’s election results.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Cutler previously told the committee that Giuliani and Ellis called him daily during the run-up to Congress’ certification of the election, looking to push a baseless theory that state legislatures could set aside election results based on unsupported suspicions of fraud and appoint a new slate of Electoral College delegates instead.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Cutler said he largely avoided those calls, thinking they were inappropriate and had his attorneys respond, asking Giuliani and Ellis to stop contacting him.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Jeffrey Clark: A White House plan to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">In December 2020, Trump had White House lawyers draft a complaint to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court over the administration of its election, according to committee questioning in the deposition of former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clark, a Philadelphia native, h</span>as emerged as a central focus for the committee due to his role in a drama in which Trump briefly considered appointing him attorney general in the waning days of his administration.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Clark had been introduced to the president by U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican and key ally of the president in Congress. And according to earlier testimony before the committee, Clark expressed a willingness to use the Justice Department to pressure state legislatures in battleground states to overturn their election results despite no evidence of significant fraud.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">On Monday, the Jan. 6 Committee referred him to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During two contentious deposition interviews with the committee in November 2021 and February 2022, Clark refused to answer almost any questions about his relationship to Perry, his conversations with Trump, or the ideas he floated on how the Justice Department could help contest the election. He repeatedly invoked executive privilege — the doctrine that allows presidents and their staff to resist some legislative oversight — as well as his <b>Fifth Amendment </b>right against self-incrimination.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He also balked at answering questions about the draft complaint that a White House assistant sent to top officials at the Justice Department on Dec. 29, 2020, for a suit against Pennsylvania. Correspondence referenced in the deposition of Ellis, the Trump lawyer, also referenced a Trump campaign plan to ask the Supreme Court to order new elections in as many as eight states to “ensure electoral integrity.” Those suits were never filed.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>Instead, the Trump campaign filed a brief in support of a long-shot lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton</b>, seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s election. The justices declined to hear the case.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For his part, Clark during his deposition — in one of his only substantive exchanges with committee members — lamented the current partisan state of politics in Washington, recalling his own upbringing in a primarily white, working-class neighborhood near the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“My dad was a truck driver who never graduated from high school,” he said. “He was a lifelong Democrat and a Catholic. My mom was a lifelong Republican and a Protestant. I wound up as a blend of the two, a Catholic conservative Republican.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>His lawyer Harry MacDougald was more acerbic. He called the Jan. 6 committee’s questioning “railroading” and accused members of indulging in a “paranoid fantasy.</b>”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It is not enough in Washington to merely disagree with someone about policy questions,” he said. “Instead, they must be destroyed. Those who disagree with Mr. Clark seek his destruction by any means available.</span>”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">The QAnon Hummer Duo: Coordination among right-wing extremist groups</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Deposition transcripts were also released Wednesday for two Virginia men who made headlines in Philadelphia when they showed up outside the 2020 vote count at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in a <b>Hummer filled with guns and emblazoned with QAnon stickers.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">But the transcripts show neither Joshua Macias, president of the organization Veterans for Trump, nor his bodyguard, Antonio LaMotta, were forthcoming in their interviews with committee investigators. <b>Both men asserted their Fifth Amendment </b>rights again and again, citing their ongoing prosecution in Philadelphia for weapons violations and attempted election interference.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">(They were both later convicted on the weapons counts in October, but acquitted on the election related charges. LaMotta has since been federally charged with illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.)</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">The committee’s investigators attempted to quiz both men on their contacts with other right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters — the leaders of which Macias and LaMotta were shown in videos to have interacted with Jan. 5.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">One video played during an earlier committee hearing showed Macias meeting with Enrique Tarrio, then-president of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, in a Washington parking garage the day before the Capitol attack. Committee members have previously cited the video to suggest some coordination among extremist groups in the run-up to Jan. 6.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But when asked in his deposition how he came to be in the garage, Macias remained tight lipped.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I walked,” he responded.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Investigators asked him why. “I was asked to,” he said.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By whom? “Someone said, ‘Hey come here,” Macias replied.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">He refused to say what they discussed in that meeting.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">As for whether he considered himself a QAnon adherent, Macias responded: “I do not ascribe to people’s beliefs. I have my own belief system.”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers Jonathan Lai and Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" /></p><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/jan-6-trump-operative-false-electors-00046175">https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/jan-6-trump-operative-false-electors-00046175</a></font></div><div><section class="page-contentrow page-contentrow--story" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; position: relative; z-index: 2; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 84.375rem; border: 0px; padding: 1.875rem 1.875rem 0px;"><div class="container container--story story-layout--fluid-fixed" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; border: 0px; flex-direction: row;"><div class="containercolumn containercolumn--story summary-middle" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; width: 960px; border: 0px; min-width: 0px; flex: 1 1 0%;"><div class="containerrow containerrow--story story-layout--fixed-fluid" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: row;"><div class="containercolumn containercolumn--story" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; width: 630px; border: 0px; min-width: 0px; margin-top: 0px; flex: 1 1 0%; margin-left: 1.875rem;"><section class="media-item media-item--story media-item--story-lead" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="media-itemsummary size--medium" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 class="headline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0.5rem; margin-bottom: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.05rem; line-height: 1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump campaign operative who delivered Jan. 6 false elector lists is identified</font></h2><p class="dek" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5rem 0px 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Roman passed the names to a House GOP aide in a bid to get them to then-Vice President Mike Pence, people familiar with the episode told POLITICO.</font></p></div></section></div></div><div class="containerrow containerrow--story story-layout--fixed-fluid" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: row; border: 0px; flex: 1 1 0%; margin-top: 0.625rem;"><div class="containercolumn containercolumn--story center-horizontally" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex-direction: column; width: 630px; border: 0px; min-width: 0px; margin-top: 0px; flex: 1 1 0%; margin-left: 1.875rem;"><div class="story-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 39.375rem; margin: 0px auto;"><div class="story-meta" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1.875rem; display: flex; flex-direction: column; line-height: 1.2;"><div class="story-metaauthors-timestamp has-social-tools " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0.46875rem; letter-spacing: 0.1rem; display: flex; align-items: center; flex-direction: row; justify-content: space-between;"><div class="story-metadetails" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5;"><p class="story-metaauthors" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By <span class="vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/staff/kyle-cheney" target="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; font-weight: 700;">KYLE CHENEY</a></span> and <span class="vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/staff/nicholas-wu" target="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; font-weight: 700;">NICHOLAS WU</a></span></font></p><p class="story-metatimestamp" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><time datetime="2022-07-15 19:52:40" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">07/15/2022 </font></time></p><p class="story-metatimestamp" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A little-known Donald Trump campaign operative delivered lists of false electors to Capitol Hill in a bid to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two people familiar with the episode.</font></p></div></div></div><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mike Roman, then Trump’s 2020 director of Election Day operations, delivered those false elector certificates — signed by pro-Trump activists in Michigan and Wisconsin — to Rep. Mike Kelly’s (R-Pa.) chief of staff at the time, both people told POLITICO. Kelly was a Trump ally in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, and his then-top aide received the documents from Roman before deputizing a colleague to disseminate copies on Capitol Hill, according to both people.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roman’s role in the effort to deliver those slates of electors directly to Pence has not previously been reported. The onetime Trump White House researche...
The origin of the false elector lists, which never got to Pence before he presided over certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, has become an enduring subplot in the select panel’s investigation of the Capitol attack designed to disrupt that day. After the committee revealed the role of a top aide to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in the episode <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/21/jan-6-panel-trump-overturn-2020-election-00040816" class=" js-tealium-tracking " target="blank" data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" aria-label="during a hearing last month (opens in a new window)" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">during a hearing last month</a>, Johnson said the false elector lists came from Kelly — who has repeatedly denied any involvement by his office in their distribution.[vid?]</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"They have changed their story, from denying their involvement outright to now not denying their former chief of staff’s involvement,” said Alexa Henning, a Johnson spokesperson. “Congressman Kelly should be issuing Senator Johnson an apology for participating in the perpetration of false stories regarding Senator Johnson’s minimal involvement in this matter.”</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kelly has <a href="https://www.politicspa.com/kelly-concludes-internal-investigation-into-johnson-claims/109821/" class=" js-tealium-tracking " target="blank" data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" aria-label="recently touted (opens in a new window)" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">recently touted</a> the results of an “internal investigation” that identified Matt Stroia, his chief of staff at the time, as the intermediary for the lists. That inquiry found that the lists were never passed from Stroia, now a Pfizer lobbyist, to Johnson’s office. Kelly’s office, in response to a request for comment, said Stroia had a previous relationship with members of the Trump team and got contacted by someone linked to that team on Jan. 6.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Matthew got the information,” Kelly’s current chief of staff, Tim Butler, said in an interview. “There was another staffer here in the office who was asked to physically walk it over. And it’s just those two individuals that were involved.”</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither of those two individuals worked in Kelly’s office any longer, Butler said. Kelly’s office declined to identify the other staffer involved.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither Roman nor Stroia returned requests for comment for this story.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both people who confirmed Roman’s involvement in the transmission of the elector lists spoke on condition of anonymity amid the select panel’s ongoing investigation into the runup to the attack and Trump’s role in it.</font></p><aside class="story-enhancement standard has-borders " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1.875rem; border-top: 1px solid rgba(180, 180, 180, 0.35); border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(180, 180, 180, 0.35); padding: 1.25rem 0px;"><section class="media-item
orient--horizontal-fixed-fluid parenthetical
" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; margin: 0px auto;"><div class="media-itemsummary " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.875rem; flex: 1 1 0%;"><header class="summary-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center;"><p class="category" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.1rem;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/12/jan-6-panel-trump-direct-hand-00045470" class=" js-tealium-tracking " data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">INSURRECTION FALLOUT</font></a></p></header><h3 class="headline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0.5rem; margin-bottom: 0px; letter-spacing: -0.02rem; line-height: 1.12;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/12/jan-6-panel-trump-direct-hand-00045470" class=" js-tealium-tracking " data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘His own choices’: Select panel says Trump — not his advisers — set Jan. 6 in motion</font></a></h3><div class="meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0.5rem; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.1rem; display: flex; align-items: center;"><div class="metadetails" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="authors" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY <span class="vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KYLE CHENEY AND NICHOLAS WU</span></span></font></p></div></div></div></section></aside><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Jan. 6 committee’s mention of his office’s role put Johnson, facing a tough reelection race this fall, on the back foot. He <a href="https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/06-23-2022/johnsons-latest-16-story/" class=" js-tealium-tracking " target="blank" data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" aria-label="later told a home-state radio host (opens in a new window)" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">later told a home-state radio host</a>: “My office’s entire involvement in this thing lasted 70 minutes. My involvement was probably seconds, maybe a minute or two.”</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roman’s involvement, however, clarifies another piece of the puzzle behind Trump’s effort to seize a second term he didn’t win. Trump, relying on a band of fringe attorneys, spent much of December 2020 leaning on Republican state legislatures in a handful of states to ignore the results and deliver pro-Trump electors to Congress.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under Trump’s plan, Pence — required by the Constitution to preside over the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021 — would cite the “alternate” and illegitimate electors to block Biden’s victory or delay the count altogether. Ultimately, no state legislature agreed to Trump’s plan, but the former president’s campaign still assembled activists to sign false documents claiming to be genuine presidential electors and delivered them to Congress.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plan fell apart when Pence refused to go along, contending that doing so would violate multiple provisions of federal law and insisting he had no power to do anything other than introduce certified electoral votes. Pence, who had huddled with advisers and the Senate parliamentarian to flesh out his position, had decided well before Jan. 6 that he would not attempt to overturn Biden’s victory.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from attempting to place some of the false slates directly into Pence’s hands on Jan. 6.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Justice Department is in talks with the select committee about evidence specifically related to the false electors effort, Jan. 6 panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/13/jan-6-panel-justice-department-false-trump-electors-00045611" class=" js-tealium-tracking " target="blank" data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" aria-label="said this week (opens in a new window)" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">said this week</a>.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DOJ has in recent weeks subpoenaed a slew of Trump allies who acted as false electors, including several state GOP chairs. It has also subpoenaed state-level operatives working on Trump’s campaign.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, FBI agents recently seized the phone of attorney John Eastman, a top strategist for Trump’s effort who worked closely on the plan to appoint false electors. Eastman is fighting in a New Mexico federal court to get his phone back but was dealt a setback Friday evening when a judge <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nmd.476086/gov.uscourts.nmd.476086.8.0.pdf" class=" js-tealium-tracking " target="blank" data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" aria-label="denied his motion (opens in a new window)" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">denied his motion</a> for a restraining order.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When subpoenaing Roman, who is from Pennsylvania, the select committee cited records reflecting his push to convince Republican state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump slates of presidential electors as part of a strategy to boost the losing campaign.</font></p><p class="story-textparagraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.875rem; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“[T]he Select Committee is in possession of communications reflecting your involvement in a coordinated strategy to contact Republican members of state legislatures in certain states that former President Trump had lost and urge them to “reclaim” their authority by sending an alternate slate of electors that would support former President Trump,” Thompson wrote in a letter accompanying the subpoena.</font></p><p class="story-text__paragraph " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Burgess Everett contributed to this report.</font></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></section></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BS on bail</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.2rem; line-height: 1.3;" roboto="Roboto" condensed="Condensed" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New Castle’s Matthew Stroia leaving Capitol Hill after 17 years of federal service, Erie native Timothy Butler taking helm as new chief</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington - U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) today announced that Lawrence County native Matthew Stroia, who has served as Kelly's chief of staff for nearly a decade, will depart Capitol Hill to begin a new role in the private sector. Timothy Butler, Kelly's Erie-based district director, will be promoted to chief of staff.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Matthew’s exceptional service to our team, our district, and our great country cannot be overstated," said Kelly. “For the past decade, he has led our staff with wisdom and integrity, and I am excited to see where his new role takes him. While Matthew will be missed, I am proud to announce Tim Butler as our new chief of staff. Tim is a faithful, principled, and patriotic Erie native who is the perfect person for the job. I congratulate him on his well-earned promotion. Our team and district are in great hands.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both Stroia and Butler have served with Rep. Kelly since his first term began in 2011. Butler has held many roles since then, including scheduler, administrative director, district director, and now chief of staff. Stroia was Kelly's legislative director before his promotion to chief of staff one year later. Stroia spent 17 years in public service including the Department of the Navy's Office of General Counsel and the U.S. House of Representatives.</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kelly “recently touted the results of an ‘internal investigation’ that identified Matt Stroia, his chief of staff at the time, as the intermediary for the lists…. Kelly’s office…said Stroia, now a Pfizer lobbyist had a previous relationship with members of the Trump team”</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.goerie.com/story/news/politics/state/2022/07/23/rep-mike-kelly-speaks-in-erie-about-claims-of-pardons-and-fake-electors/65379480007/">https://www.goerie.com/story/news/politics/state/2022/07/23/rep-mike-kelly-speaks-in-erie-about-claims-of-pardons-and-fake-electors/65379480007/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx vid</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>In combative news conference, Rep. Mike Kelly responds to claims of pardon, fake electors</div><div>Matthew Rink</div><div>Erie Times-News</div><div>
</div><div>U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly on Friday challenged the veracity of a recent column written by the Erie County Democratic Party chairman and urged his opponent in the upcoming midterm election to condemn what he called "blatant lies."</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly, of Butler, R-16th Dist., however, was met with allegations of spreading lies of his own — about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election — from those political foes. And when asked by members of the Erie news media to address his past statements on the election and his office's recently alleged role in a false elector scheme aimed at overturning the election, the six-term congressman deflected and denied.</div><div>
</div><div>"We're at a point in this country where people are losing their faith and confidence and trust in our system," Kelly told the media Friday morning. "And when people can print whatever they print, whenever they want to print it and it be a blatant, outright lie, and then sit back to see how you're going respond to it, my response to it is they don't deserve a response."</div><div>
</div><div>U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, of Butler, R-16th Dist., reacts to a question during a press conference held at Erie County Republican Party Headquarters in Millcreek Township on July 22, 2022.</div><div>2020 election:Ron Johnson now says he helped coordinate effort to pass false elector slates to Pence</div><div>
</div><div>Fake electors:Rep. Kelly calls U.S. senator's claims 'patently false'</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly calls Wertz article false</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly had already issued an unsolicited response and requested the media's presence Friday morning at his Erie campaign office to further denounce a recent column in the Erie Reader written by Erie County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Wertz, who is a contributing editor to the free alternative newspaper and news website.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wertz, in the article "Erie At Large: A Congressman and a State Senator Walk Into a Bar," addressed — in his words — how Kelly and state Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-49th Dist., Erie, "both found their way onto Donald Trump's pardon request list for their roles in attempting to overturn election results in 2020."</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Jim Wertz is the chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party. He was elected by Democratic committee members at a June 2018 meeting. Wertz succeeds Bill Cole.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In the opinion piece, Wertz explains how on Jan. 11, 2021, <b>Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks emailed Molly Michael, former President Donald Trump's then-executive assistant, asking Trump to issue general "all-purpose" pardons to any lawmaker who either opposed the certification of the Electoral College votes from Pennsylvania </b>or Arizona or who signed an amicus brief in an election-related lawsuit filed by Texas against several states, including Pennsylvania.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">That would include Kelly and Laughlin, even though their names or the names of others aren't specifically stated in Brooks' pardon request.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Kelly on his votes: Marriage Act a political ploy, says same-sex, interracial marriage 'law of the land'</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>The Texas lawsuit aimed to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in key battleground states because, the suit alleged</b>, they violated the U.S. Constitution by making changes to election law through non-legislative means.</div><div>
</div><div>That's where Laughlin comes in. Though Laughlin supported <b>Act 77 of 2019, the bipartisan election reform bill that allowed Pennsylvanians to cast no-excuse, mail-in ballots,</b> he joined other state GOP lawmakers in signing what's known as a friend-of-the-court brief, or amicus curiae, in the Texas lawsuit. The brief asked the U.S. Supreme Court to also rule on the role Gov. Tom Wolf's administration and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court played when they extended by three days the deadline for county boards of elections to receive mail-in ballots in order for them to be counted. They argued that the Wolf administration and the state high court had usurped the authority of the GOP-controlled General Assembly.</div><div>
</div><div>At the time, Laughlin said he was not claiming there was fraud in the election and was not attempting to overturn the results by signing the document.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Kelly, as it has been widely reported, filed lawsuits against Act 77, </b>saying that permitting no-excuse, mail-in voting required lawmakers to change the state's constitution, which did not happen. It was among the reasons Kelly objected to the certification of Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, which gave President Joe Biden enough votes to defeat Trump.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Brooks' letter was sent five days after Congress certified the election results, the same day scores of Trump supporters violently forced their way into the U.S. Capitol in an effort to disrupt the proceedings.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Mail-in ballots: Supreme Court rejects US Rep. Mike Kelly's election appeal; he calls ruling 'astounding'</span></div><div>
</div><div>But in PA Commonwealth Court: U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly celebrates court's unconstitutional ruling on PA mail voting law</div><div>
</div><div>U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, of Butler, R-16th Dist., holds a press conference at Erie County Republican Party Headquarters in Millcreek Township on July 22, 2022.</div><div>
</div><div>Wertz defends his claims</div><div>
</div><div><b>A statement from Kelly's office sent to the media early Friday said Kelly never asked Trump for a pardon. He had no reason to, the statement said. Kelly noted that he's considering filing a lawsuit against the Erie Reader.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But instead of stating what was inaccurate about Wertz's column, he said it was the job of the local media to vet the article.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"The chairman of the Democrat party in Erie is the author of a blatant lie. And you want me to reply to it? Shame on it. Shame on it."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Didn't you call the press conference?" the Erie Times-News asked.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Wertz issued a statement in response to Kelly's remarks and then called a news conference of his own Friday at Democratic headquarters. Defending his column, Wertz called it "well-researched" and said he took care to include links to source information in the online version.</div><div>
</div><div>"Mike Kelly said this morning that he never requested a pardon in an attempt to refute what I had written in the Erie Reader," Wertz said, with fellow Democrats standing behind him. "The problem with that statement is that I never said in this article that Mike Kelly requested a pardon. It appears that he failed to actually read the article."</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly wanted Dan Pastore, the Fairview businessman who won the May 17 Democratic primary for an opportunity to face Kelly in November, to refute Wertz's piece.</div><div>
</div><div>"At the end of the day, the truth should count and character should count," Kelly said. "And so if I have an opponent (Pastore) that sits back and doesn't respond to it and says, 'oh, I think that's OK, because it's a piece of attacking, they're attacking my opponent' ... are you kidding me?"</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>But when the Erie Times-News questioned Kelly about his own past statements about the 2020 election, the car dealership owner wouldn't directly answer.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked if he still believed that the election was stolen from Trump, Kelly responded, "Well, we're already what, almost two years into this administration? So I think that's past tense. There's no use discussing it today. Nothing's going to change today. I stated my opinions back when it took place."</span></div><div>
</div><div>Kelly, however, brought it up about two months ago.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">At a rally with Trump in support of GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz on May 6, Kelly called the 2020 presidential election "the greatest steal in American history," but there is no evidence that the election was stolen or that there was widespread fraud.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kelly has not been swayed by the findings of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump's efforts to overturn the election. That's because Kelly hasn't paid attention to the hearings, he said.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It's a sham," he said.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The hearings have included the testimony of former Trump administration officials, including former Attorney General William Barr, who have said under oath that they saw no evidence of election fraud.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Kelly would, later in Friday's news conference, say that the basis for his objection to certify Pennsylvania's Electoral College vote was because he believed Act 77 was unconstitutional. Kelly did not bring a lawsuit against Act 77 until after the general election, though. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his lawsuit.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Fake electors claims</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly on Friday also said he was unaware of reports that have shed more light on his office's alleged role in a scheme to introduce slates of fake electors from key battleground states to Vice President Mike Pence during the election proceedings. The House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 has made the scheme part of its focus of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">As Politico, The Hill and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have reported, a Trump campaign official, Mike Roman, allegedly asked Kelly's then-Chief of Staff Matt Stroia to get slates of electors for Wisconsin and Michigan to Sen. Ron Johnson's office. Stroia, as Politico reported, asked another Kelly staffer, who also no longer works for the congressman, to take the paperwork to Johnson's chief of staff.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Early reporting:Sen. Ron Johnson wanted to hand-deliver fake electors' votes to Mike Pence on Jan. 6, texts reveal</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Despite Kelly's office claiming to have conducted an internal investigation into the matter, Kelly himself said he was not aware of reports of Stroia's alleged role. Kelly said he had not discussed the matter with his current Chief of Staff Tim Butler, who was quoted in Politico:</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Matthew got the information,” Butler, said in an interview with the publication, reported on July 15. “There was another staffer here in the office who was asked to physically walk it over. And it’s just those two individuals that were involved</span>.”</div><div>
</div><div>A 'non-event'</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly called the alleged exchange a "non-event" because the slates were never given to Pence.</div><div>
</div><div>When first asked about the issue at his news conference, Kelly's first response was, "We've already responded to it."</div><div>
</div><div>"Not to us," a reporter from Erie News Now replied.</div><div>
</div><div>Kelly has also not accepted interview requests in recent weeks on the matter from the Erie Times-News.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Kelly said the Democrats and Pastore should focus on high inflation, record-high gas prices and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan this past August, among other issues.</b></div><div>
</div><div>"All this action is about distraction," he said, challenging Pastore to condemn Wertz's remarks.</div><div>
</div><div>Dan Pastore, Democratic nominee taking on Republican incumbent Mike Kelly in the 16th Congressional District, talks with supporters at Calamari's in Erie on May 17, 2022 during the 2022 primary.</div><div>Pastore issued a challenge of his own Friday.<b> In a statement, he called on Kelly to release phone records, emails, text messages between Kelly and his staff and anyone who served in the Trump Administration or his reelection campaign, and the "various groups that organized rallies that falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen" between Election Day and the Jan. 6 insurrection.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“If Mike Kelly won’t take this simple step to be transparent, there is absolutely no reason to believe anything he says," Pastore said in the statement.</div><div>
</div><div>Contact reporter Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com or on Twitter at @ETNRink.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> D.C. - January 6, 2023 marks the second anniversary of the U.S. Capitol attack. Supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. Their efforts were unsuccessful but following the attack, the House created a committee to investigate what led up to the attack. In their final report, the Committee points the finger at Trump for the attack in an attempt to stay in power. <b>Also in this 800-plus report, it names northwest Pennsylvania Representative Mike Kelly’s (R- PA) former chief of staff as </b></span><b><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">allegedly </span><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">being part of the scheme.</span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></b></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack pulled out all the stops in their investigation. They gathered more than a thousand witness interviews, a million pages of documents and issued several subpoenas. Through their nearly 18-month long investigation, the Committee laid out what they said was a multipart plan by former President Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election. </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">“He mounted a pressure campaign directed at individual state legislators to try to get them to go back into session and either declare him the winner, decertify Joe Biden as the winner or send two slates of electors to Congress; One for Biden, and one for him and pressure Vice President Pence to choose him as the winner,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) during one of the Committee’s hearings. </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">The Committee said part of that plan was a fake elector scheme. </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">“At the request of the Trump campaign, the electors from these battleground states signed documents falsely asserting that they were the ‘duly elected electors from their state,’” said a Committee investigator. </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div class="AdvertisementUnit AdvertisementUnit--wideGreyBase" id="id" data-addata="{" ownerinfo="ownerinfo" loc="loc" share="share" screensizes="screensizes" wncc="wncc" news="News" serverrendered="serverRendered" true="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 40px; margin-top: 24px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">According to the Committee’s final report, two days before the attack, the Trump campaign asked republican party officials in Wisconsin to fly their fake elector documents to D.C. The Committee </span><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">alleges </span><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">the<b> former Chief of Staff for Representative Mike Kelly (R- PA) for taking part in this. Transcripts would later </b></span><b><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">allege Matt Stroia as Kelly's former chief of staff</span><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></b></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The report states, “On the morning of January 6, Representative Kelly’s then chief of staff texted an aide to the vice president, Chris Hodgson, about hand delivering the fake elector votes to the vice president’s team before the joint session, a message that Hodgson ignored: ‘Just following up any chance you or someone from your team can meet to take the Michigan and Wisconsin packets.’” </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report continues saying according to the office of </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Representative Kelly’s chief of staff then had a phone call with Senator Johnson’s chief of staff at 11:58 a.m. “about how Kelly's office could get us the electors [sic] because they had it.”</b></span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b> </b></span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“A staffer for Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson texted a staffer for Vice President Pence just minutes before the beginning of the joint session,” said a Committee investigator. “This staffer stated that Senator <b>Johnson wished to hand deliver to the Vice Presidents two fake electors votes from Michigan and Wisconsin.</b> The Vice President’s aide unambiguously instructed them not to deliver the fake votes to the Vice President.”</span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>A statement from Rep. Kelly’s press secretary initially denied those claims from Johnson's office, calling them “patently false”</b>. Kelly’s office would later launch their own internal investigation. Kelly’s press secretary told us in an email “To date, our current chief of staff has not found staff members to have prior knowledge of Mr. Stroia’s reported actions.” <b>They also add” Further, Mr. Kelly is unaware of Mr. Storia’s reported actions. We have closed the internal review.”</b></span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b> </b></span></font></p></div></div><div class="AdvertisementUnit AdvertisementUnit--wideGreyBase" id="id" data-addata="{" ownerinfo="ownerinfo" loc="loc" share="share" screensizes="screensizes" wncc="wncc" news="News" serverrendered="serverRendered" true="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 40px; margin-top: 24px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>According to transcripts released by the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Committee, they interviewed Pennsylvania republican political operative Mike Roman</span></b>. In the transcripts, they asked him about 25 messages between himself and Matt Stroia.</span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">In the transcripts,<b> the Committee suggests Stroia may have been involved in a November state senate hearing in Gettysburg</b>, which pushed unfounded claims of fraud in the state’s election. The Committee said Stroia and Roman shared text messages days before that meeting between the two, which they allege Stroia said in part “I hope it turns out like we envisioned”.</span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Roman would plead the fifth quite often</b> in the Committee’s questioning including when the Committee asked point blank: “Did Mr. Stroia or Representative Kelly assist in any efforts to have state legislators choose Trump electors in Pennsylvania after the November 2020 election?” </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Roman replied: “The fifth.</span><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">” </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Committee followed up with “Did you ever talk to Representative Kelly about having Pennsylvania state legislature choose Trump electors?” </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div class="AdvertisementUnit AdvertisementUnit--wideGreyBase" id="id" data-addata="{" ownerinfo="ownerinfo" loc="loc" share="share" screensizes="screensizes" wncc="wncc" news="News" serverrendered="serverRendered" true="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 40px; margin-top: 24px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roman would again reply, “The fifth.” </span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="Article-paragraph" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 24px 0px; line-height: 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">Mr. Stroia declined to comment when we reached out to him. We also reached out to Rep. Kelly but his office said it’s unlikely they’ll have time for an interview because of the back-and-forth Speaker of the House vote. They also add <b>“At this time, we have no additional comment on the Jan. 6</b></span><b><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;">th</span><span data-contrast="none" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> committee’s report.”</span><span data-ccp-props="{" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: inherit !important;"> </span></b></font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pitts pa npr</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Various names have come up during the hearings regarding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including Pennsylvania Congressman <b>Mike Kelly.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Late last week, the Butler Republican’s office <u style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2022-07-25/kelly-says-he-didnt-know-former-aide-part-of-false-elector-scheme-even-as-his-office-confirms-it" class="Link" target="blank" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; text-decoration-line: none;">confirmed members of his staff were involved</a></u> in a plot to alter the Electoral College vote count in the 2020 presidential election.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scheme involved offering former Vice President Mike Pence alternate, pro-Trump electors from Wisconsin, because Pence oversaw the Senate’s confirmation of the Electoral College votes.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The electors were shared with Pence’s staff by the staff of Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.</font></p><p style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When asked about the origin of the electors, Johnson deferred to Kelly’s former Chief of Staff </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Matt Stroia.</span></font></p><p style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kelly’s office recently completed an internal investigation, which concluded that current staff members had no knowledge of Stroia’s alleged actions. Kel</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ly himself has denied ever speaking to Stroia regarding the plot.</span></font></p><p style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I would point out that Mr. Stroia was a chief of staff to Mr. Kelly for about a decade,” says <u style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.wesa.fm/people/chris-potter" class="Link" target="_blank" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; touch-action: manipulation; text-decoration-line: none;">Chris Potter</a></u>, WESA’s government and accountability editor. “What we're being told here is that you had a chief of staff engaged in a very high profile, very significant effort to affect the outcome of the 2020 election, allegedly without the consent or knowledge of his boss.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 700px; margin: 20px auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Further probes into Kelly’s office are unlikely, as the Jan. 6 Committee has said it has concluded its investigation into Johnson’s office. However, Potter says the Department of Justice has begun to look into plots of false electors.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>