A Republican lawmaker has refused to answer any questions about how he was recruited for the scheme to forge election paperwork.
In a video captured by KPNX in Phoenix, Arizona, this weekArizona Republican State Rep. Jake Hoffman was question about why he signed a fake document in which he, along with others, claimed to be the true voters for the state. The fake electors cast votes for Trump in the document, even though President Joe Biden won it by a narrow margin.
Hoffman claimed he participated because he believed that there had been fraud in the 2020 election — disinformation that has been repeatedly proved false.
“In unprecedented times, unprecedented action occurs,” Hoffman told a reporter. “There is no case law, there is no precedent that exists as to whether or not an election that is currently being litigated in the courts has due standing, which is why we felt it appropriate to provide Congress and the vice president with dueling opinions.”
Trump and his allies may have won, but they are not alone. Many lawsuits were filed in an attempt to prevent election results from being certified. in a number of states that Trump lost — including Arizona — judges haven’t sided with the former president in a single case. Arizona certified its election results in early DecemberHoffman and other Republicans did not produce the forged document.
When asked whether he and the other fake electors had been recruited to take part in the scheme, Hoffman said that he was not “in charge” of the electors who took part. “You would need to ask the party chair that,” he said.
NEW Journalism in Arizona can be a team sport. GOP State Rep. Jake Hoffman refused the question of 12News photojournalist (which I asked) about why he signed a fake declaration in 2020 that Arizona electors voted Trump. Watch as AZRepublic’s @ruelaswritings folos up… pic.twitter.com/Qp3YOLyBl9
— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) January 13, 2022
“How did you know to show up that day?” the reporter pressed on.
“As I said, you can go ahead and ask the party chair,” Hoffman said.
“Do you not know how you arrived at a place?” the reporter asked. Hoffman quickly walked off, refusing to answer the question.
Hoffman’s evasion of local reporters in Phoenix follows reporting from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was interviewed earlier in the week by the host. How fake Republican electors from at least five states made forged documentsThey claimed to be the true electors. Maddow noted that these fake electors submitted their documents to National Archives in order to secure additional Electoral College voting votes for Trump. Maddow also noted that all of the fake electors were from states Biden had won.
“It’s not like they created these documents to like, hold close to their chest and fantasize that this had been the real outcome. It’s not like they created these documents just to keep [for] themselves as keepsakes,” Maddow said on her show. “They sent them into the government, as if they were real documents.”
The actions appeared to be coordinated, as the documents “all match, exactly,” and have the “same formatting, same font, same spacing, almost the exact same wording,” Maddow went on.
Several documents released over the past year have revealed schemes by Trump and his allies — some within the Department of Justice — to use “forged slates of electors” in order to create confusion in the Electoral CollegeMaddow agreed. If these measures had been implemented as planned, the House of Representatives could have decided on the election. This would have likely led to Trump being elected president for another four-year term.
Maddow then speculated whether there was coordination to overturn the election results among Trump’s White House and Republicans elsewhere.
Did the Trump DOJ help “Republicans in those states do it?” Maddow asked on her program, referring to the forgeries. “We don’t know, but somebody helped them do it, because they all filed the exact same document.”
