THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2022 CANADA WORLD A9 WA I GTO The House committee heard chilling, tearful testimony Tuesday that Donald We cannot let relentless pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election provoked widespread threats to the of our de- of conspiracy election workers and local officials who fended off the thug violence. defeated demands de- spite personal risks. The panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol fo- cused on efforts to undo Joe victory in a most local way by leaning on officials in key battleground states to reject ballots outright or to submit alternative electors for the final tally in Con- gress.
The pressure, described as poten- tially illegal, was fuelled by the pres- false claims of voter fraud which, the panel says, led directly to the deadly insurrection at the Capi- tol. handful of election officials in several key states stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American Chair Ben- nie Thompson said, praising them as heroes and the of our The hearing was punctuated throughout with accounts of the personal attacks faced by state and local officials. Arizona Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers said he was subjected to a public smear cam- paign, including relentless bullhorn protests at his home and a pistol- wielding man taunting his family and neighbours. Officials in Michigan, Pennsylva- nia and other states told similar sto- ries of having their cellphone num- bers and home addresses spread publicly after they refused demands. At one gripping moment, two Georgia election workers, a mother and daughter, testified that they lived in fear of saying their names aloud after Trump wrongly accused them of voter fraud.
were a lot of threats wish- ing death upon said Wandrea ArShaye (Shaye) Moss, a former state election worker. The public hearing, the fourth by the panel this month, stemmed from its year-long investigation in- to unprecedented attempt to remain in power, a sprawling scheme that the chair of the Jan. 6 committee has likened to an tempted The panel insisted that lies over the election threaten democracy to this day, as local officials face ongoing threats and challengers try to take over their jobs. The vice chair, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, implored Americans to pay atten- tion to the evidence being present- ed, declaring, Trump care about the threats of vio- lence.
He did not condemn them, he made no effort to stop cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug she said. Other key witnesses included Re- publican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who testified about phone call asking him to votes that could flip his state to prevent elec- tion victory, and his deputy Gabe Sterling, who became a notable fig- ure during long recount in 2020 when he urged Trump to tone down the rhetoric. While the committee cannot charge Trump with any crimes, the Justice Department is watching the work closely. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS We fought Trump pressure: officials Arizona Republican said he was subject to a smear campaign, taunts by armed man LISA MASCARO A FA A I I America be- come a nation theories and REPUBLICAN REP. LIZ CHENEY ICE-CHAIR OF PANEL PA AUSTIN, TEXAS Police had enough officers on the scene of the Uvalde school massacre to have I care if stopped the gunman three minutes after he entered the building, and they would have found the door to the classroom where he was holed up unlocked if they had bothered to shorts, you go check it, the head of the state police testified Tuesday, pronouncing the law enforcement response an ject Officers with rifles instead stood in a hallway for over an hour, wait- ing in part for more firepower and other gear, before they finally stormed the classroom and killed the gunman, putting an end to the May 24 attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
care if you have on flip- flops and Bermuda shorts, you go Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in blistering testimony at a state Senate hearing. The classroom door, it turned out, could not be locked from the inside, according to McCraw, who said a teacher reported before the shoot- ing that the lock was broken. Yet there is no indication officers tried to open it during the standoff, McCraw said. He said police in- stead waited around for a key.
have great reasons to believe it was never McCraw said of the door. about trying the door and seeing if Delays in the law enforcement re- sponse have become the focus of federal, state and local investiga- tions. McCraw lit into Pete Arre- dondo, the Uvalde school district police chief who was in charge, say- ing: only thing stopping a hall- way of dedicated officers from en- tering Room 111 and 112 was the on- scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple. Because terrible decisions were made by the on-site com- McCraw said. He said in- vestigators have been unable to Arredondo.
Arredondo has said he con- sider himself the person in charge and assumed someone else had tak- en control of the law enforcement response. He has declined repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press. A lawyer for Arre- dondo did not immediately re- spond to a request for comment Tuesday. Texas lawmakers hearing the lat- est details reacted with fury, some decrying Arredondo as incompe- tent and others pressing McCraw on why state troopers on the scene take charge. McCraw said the troopers did not have legal author- ity to do so.
The public safety chief presented a timeline that said three officers with two rifles entered the building less than three minutes after the gunman, an 18-year-old with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. Several more officers entered min- utes after that. HE ASSOCIATED PRESS Texas top cop: Uvalde police response an Safety director said responders check classroom door JIM VERTUNO A JA I you have on flip-flops and Bermuda in. COL. STEVE CCRAW DIRECTOR OF THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY Using photos of doors from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw testifies at a Texas Senate hearing at the state capitol Tuesday in Austin, Texas.
ERIC GAY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RINGING IN A NEW YEAR An Andean spiritual leader takes a photo during a New ritual in El Alto, Bolivia, on Tuesday. Aymara Indigenous communities are celebrating the Andean New Year, which is referred to as or return of the sun in Aymara, coinciding with the southern June 21 winter solstice. JUAN KARITA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS I TAT Boy, 5, dies after hours in hot car A five-year-old boy has died after being left in a vehicle in the Hous- ton area as his mother prepared for a birthday party and as tempera- tures soared past 100 degrees, au- thorities said. Harris County Sher- iff Ed Gonzalez said the boy died Monday as his family was getting ready to celebrate his eight-year- old birthday. The boy, his sister and his mother went to the store to buy some items for the party, and when they returned home, the mother assumed both children had got out of the car on their own.
ETHIOPIA Tigray blockade should end: EU The European Union says Ethio- government must reconnect its northern Tigray region to the world as a year-long partial block- ade has left food aid for almost 1 million hungry people stuck in warehouses without the fuel to de- liver it. Janez Lenarcic, the EU commissioner for crisis manage- ment, told reporters on Tuesday that the recent increase in aid con- voys arriving in Tigray was a posi- tive development but added that needs to be before the EU normalizes relations with Afri- second-most populous country with 115 million people. RUSSIA Legislator jailed for war stance A court in the Russian capital on Tuesday extended the arrest of a municipal legislator charged with discrediting the military after his criticism of mil- itary action in Ukraine. Meshchansky District Court or- dered Alexei Gorinov to be kept in custody pending his trial. Gorinov, a member of the municipal council of Krasnoselsky District, has remained in jail since in April.
FRANCE grave finally gets name A First World War head- stone finally bears a name: 2nd Lt. Osmund Bartle Wordsworth a great-great-nephew of English poet William Wordsworth who was recently identified by DNA re- search, and given a funeral ceremo- ny Tuesday, 105 years after he died. A new headstone for Wordsworth, who was killed in action in the Bat- tle of Arras on April 2, 1917, was mounted at a cemetery in Ecoust- Saint-Mein in northern France. EWS SERVICES WO I.
