Jan. 6 hearing recap: Trump pushed ‘big lie’ despite being told election fraud claims were false, aides testify

A Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia who investigated Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the city testified Monday he found no evidence of the former president’s insistence that dead people voted there in the 2020 election.

Al Schmidt, part of the three-member board that oversees elections in Philadelphia, also detailed the torrent of threats he and his family faced once Trump named him in a tweet that falsely claimed he was ignoring the accusations.

For instance, Schmidt told the committee, his commission looked into a claim put forward by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that 8,000 deceased people voted in the election.

“Not only was there not evidence of 8,000 dead voters voting in Pennsylvania, there wasn’t evidence of eight,” Schmidt said Monday. “We took seriously every case that was referred to us, no matter how fantastical, no matter how absurd, and took every one of them seriously, including these.”

Schmidt also discussed how Trump going after him publicly and personally escalated threats against him in an alarming way. After the Nov. 11 tweet from Trump, Schmidt faced a barrage of detailed threats, including references to his family members, their addresses and photos of their homes.

“After the president tweeted at me by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific, much more graphic,” Schmidt said.