and ari and katy, what we re seeing on screen is people are going to fill in. we re expecting the hearing to start momentarily. you can see photographers taking pictures of the opening witness who is chris stirewalt, the one who made that call that so incensed donald trump and was jumping ahead of the other networks and it was a very controversial decision days before the other networks did come confirm that donald trump had in fact lost. we ve had a two-minute warning as the photographers are taking pictures. we re expecting to hear from the chair, benny thompson. the committee has had the staff, as you can see there. main podium. beginning to look like another of these major committee
stalwart. bill step yen, former president trump s campaign manager was s&ped to be here and was in washington this morning, ppd to testify, kevin moreno, mr. step yen s attorney, is here with us today. thank you, mr. moreno for coming. he has advised us that mr. step yen s wife went into labor this morning. mr. step yen unexpectedly had to travel to be with his wife, and we wish him the best. due to the depth and rigor of our investigation, with several hours of mr. step yen s testimony from when we interviewed him in february we will be presenting that testimony today. i will now swear in our witness. the witness will please stand and raise his right hand. do you swear or affirm under pen al of perjury that the testimony
my frustration with some of the claims that people would throw at president trump regarding, you know you know, need to look at this. you know, this happened in this state, or that happened in that state. and it would be you know, those would flow to us to look into. i talked about that before, i think. yes. you know, this is an example of that. i recall i recall in arizona someone had thrown out, i believe this to be the claim, that there were thousands of illegal citizens, people not eligible to vote having cast their ballots in arizona. someone had thrown out that claim to president trump. and with, you know, the margins being as close as they were, as i previously described, you know, that could potentially
vote in person. donald trump knew before the election that the counting of those mail-in ballots in several states would not begin until late in the day and would not be complete for multiple days. this was expected, reported, and widely known. you will also hear testimony that president trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night. and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently eeastbound reiated rudy giuliani to just claim he won and insist that the vote counting stop, to falsely claim everything was fraudulent. he falsely told the american people that the election was not legitimate, in his words, quote a major fraud. millions of americans believed him. second, pay attention to what donald trump and his legal team said repeatedly about dominion voting machines.
out and the courts upheld the will of the people. this morning, we ll tell the story of how donald trump lost an election and knew he lost an election and as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy. an attack on american people by trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy and in doing so, lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of january 6th when a mob of his supporters stormed the capitol sent by donald trump to stop the transfer of power. today, my colleague from california, miss lofgren, and our witnesses, will detail the select committee s findings on these matters. but first, i will recognize our distinguished vice chair, miss cheney of wyoming, for any