Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified before the Jan. 6 committee that former President Donald Trump asked him to send new electors from the state, which he refused to do.
Bowers began his testimony by affirming that Trump had lost the state of Arizona in the 2020 election and rejected Trump’s statement from earlier Tuesday that castigated him as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only. He rejected Trump’s claims that he told the president “that the election was rigged and that [he] won Arizona.”
TRUMP DECRIES ARIZONA HOUSE SPEAKER AS ‘RINO’ AHEAD OF JAN. 6 HEARING
“I certainly did have a conversation with the president — that certainly isn’t it,” Bowers said. “There are parts of it that are true, and there are parts that are not.”
This fourth June hearing of the committee is focusing on voter fraud claims in Arizona and Georgia and the Trump campaign’s requests that they send different electors who would vote for Trump in the Electoral College.
“I said, ‘Look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath,'” Bowers said he told Trump. “I swore to uphold the Constitution, to uphold it, and I also swore to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona. And this is totally foreign as an idea or a theory to me, and I would never do anything of such magnitude without deep consultation with qualified attorneys. And I said, ‘I’ve got some good attorneys, and I’m going to give you their names. But you’re asking me to do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath.'”
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Bowers also recounted the toll of protests outside his home and how political allies turned on him. He has blocked efforts in Arizona aimed at overturning the election.
