A Democratic congresswoman has published a nearly 2,000-page report that collects posts on social media about the 2020 election of House Republicans who voted to overturn the results. The report exposes how some Republicans relentlessly pushed theories of misinformation and conspiracy about election fraud, and remained so even after Trump supporters attacked the United States Capitol.
“Like former President Trump, any elected member of Congress who helped and incited the insurgency or incited the attack seriously threatened our democratic government,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren writes in the introduction to her report.
The California legislature suggests that posts on social media could be used as evidence of possible punishments for these members of Congress, including expulsion and any criminal charges arising from the Capitol insurrection.
“Statements that are readily available in the public sphere may form part of any consideration of the constitutional prerogatives and responsibilities of Congress,” Lofgren writes. “Accordingly, I asked my staff to take a look at the posts on public social networks of members who voted to cancel the 2020 presidential election.”
All the information in the report was already publicly available, but this is the first comprehensive review of how lawmakers relentlessly promoted falsehoods about the elections on Facebook and Twitter. It compiles publications between November 3, 2020 and January 31, 2021 of the 147 House Republicans who voted to annul the election result.
The report shows that some of former President Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House launched more than 100 attacks on election integrity in less than three months.
Representative Paul Gosar it was the most prolific, with its publications occupying 177 pages of the report. The Arizona Republican’s messages include false allegations of his own state that “stole” the election and support protests against local election officials. He wrote in a post that officials who “stole” votes were committing “sedition and betrayal”.
Gosar’s office declined to comment on CBS News.
Messages from Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, one of the first members of Congress to publicly challenge Trump’s defeat, span 123 pages of the report. Messages from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgian Republican sworn in Congress on Jan. 3, are about 100 pages long.
The publications echo many popular conspiracy theories which was later denied through investigations, including claims that dead people were voting and that Dominion voting machines gave a vote to Joe Biden. Some Republicans in the house posted selfies of “Stop the theft” protests against election results. Some also told supporters that Mr. Trump had won the election.
These falsehoods fueled the crowd of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 as Congress counted the electoral votes that confirmed Mr. Biden’s victory. The siege resulted in five deaths and was blamed on Trump for the second time just a week before the end of his term.
But the report shows that even that didn’t change the tone of some Republicans, who continued to post about election “irregularities” and “fraud” in the days after the riot. Several equated the Capitol riot with Antifa, Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests nationwide from 2020 onwards.
“Those who provoke insurgency and spread conspiracy theories have blood on their hands,” Taylor Greene wrote in a Jan. 7 tweet linking top Democrats to people’s violence. “They must be expelled.”