>> thank you, mr. chairman, and madame vice chair. on november 3rd, 2020,, donald trump ran for reelection to the office of the presidency, and he lost. his opponent joe biden finished ahead in the key battle ground states of arizona, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, georgia, and elsewhere. nevertheless, and for the first time in history, the losing presidential candidate fought to hold onto power. as we have seen in previous hearings, he did so through a variety of means. on election day, he sought to stop the counting of the vote. knowing that the millions of absentee ballots, elections officials would be counting on election day and there afterwould run strongly against him and deliver a victory to joe biden. next, and when he could not stop the counting, he tried to stop state legislatures and governors from certifying the results of the election. he went to court and filed dozens of frivolous lawsuits