As former President Donald Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, nearly a dozen Republican members of Congress — including Maryland’s Andy Harris — gathered with the president in the White House and discussed having Vice President Mike Pence reject the election results, according to the Jan. 6 committee.
The House members’ attendance at the Oval Office meeting — which the committee said also included Pence, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorney Rudy Giuliani — was confirmed by White House visitor logs, the committee said during a hearing Tuesday.
The disclosure of the Dec. 21, 2020, meeting adds to evidence showing Trump’s congressional allies played a significant role in the Republican president’s plan to reject Democratic President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Part of Trump’s strategy “involved certain members of Congress who amplified his unsupported assertions that the election was stolen,” Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida said during the hearing.
Harris is running unopposed in the July 19 primary for the GOP nomination for a seventh two-year term. Two Democrats, Heather Mizeur and David Harden, are competing for their party’s nomination to face Harris in November. Libertarian candidate Daniel Frank Thibeault also will challenge Harris in the general election.
Mizeur and Harden both called Harris a “traitor” Tuesday afternoon in response to the news of his attendance at the White House meeting. Harden tweeted: “Andy Harris is a traitor to our democracy.” Mizeur issued a statement saying, “Andy Harris is a traitor to our nation, plain and simple.” She also called on him to disclose whether he “was ever involved in pardon discussions.”
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