Witnesses testified in front of the committee for nearly four hours. They detailed their experiences working at the TCF Center in Detroit during the election.
“When the GOP people were getting escorted out, with or without handcuffs, every poll worker and all Democrats stood and clapped like they all won a lottery ticket. And that is exactly when I decided I’m going to do this because that was heartbreaking. Because these people were doing a job— a volunteer job, they were not getting paid— they all were leaving their work to be here for their country. To ensure election integrity. And they were treated like criminals, and that’s not fair,” said Hima Kolanagireddy, a poll challenger at the TCF Center.
“Throughout the entire night, many employees were conducting theft of duplicate ballots. So they would come up to the table of duplicate ballots, grab 3 or 4 duplicate ballots, run back to their table, give one to another person at another table, and never complete a duplicate process,” said Andrew Sitto, a volunteer at TCF Center.
“And Nick said there was a big data loss. They started freaking out, stepped off the stage, got on their phones. I asked them what was going on and they said it was taken care of. Nick sent Samuel over to this warehouse for about 3 hours,” said Melissa Carone, a Dominion IT Contractor.
“What I believe is, it wasn’t a data loss, it was actually when they found out Trump was ahead 100,000 votes and they sent Nick over there to assist with these ballots that came in on in these vans full of ballots.”
The questioning sessions got hostile at times. Representative Cynthia Johnson said these witnesses should be under oath and said they were lying. Rudy Giuliani responded, saying that every witness in the hearing has presented affidavits, which were made under oath on penalty of perjury.
“Point of order is to have them under oath. ... and I know they’re lying!” said State Rep. Cynthia Johnson.
Committee Chair Matt Hall asked if there was so much fraud, why haven’t more people come out to testify? Carone said it’s because people’s lives are destroyed if they do.
“I'll tell you why. My life has been destroyed. My life has been completely destroyed because of this. I’ve lost family. I’ve lost friends. I’ve been threatened. My kids have been threatened. I’ve had to move. I’ve had to change my phone number. I’ve had to get rid of social media. Nobody wants to come forward. They’re getting threatened. Their lives are getting ruined. I can’t even get an actual job anymore,” said Carone.
Jenna Ellis, the Trump campaign’s senior legal adviser, said to the Michigan state legislature, it is “very apparent the circus has only been on one side.” Ellis said that “honest, sincere and forthright citizens” were bringing their concerns to the legislature, but the representatives were saying “there are concerns but only looking forward.” She said the body was not doing their “constitutionally obligated and mandated duty,” and urged them to carry out their roles.
“What the Constitution obligates you to do is to take back your plenary power because the certification was false, clearly. And you can do that and you should do that, because you have obligations as state legislatures,” said Ellis.
Giuliani said the hearing only saw a small portion of the witnesses, and there were many more who submitted affidavits.
