Michiganders with Lenawee County ties provided testimony to Jan. 6 Committee

The work done by the recently disbanded U.S. House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, did more than recommend charges against former President Donald Trump and piece together how he and his allies tried to overturn election results in several key states, including Michigan.

In many cases, its 18-month-long investigation, televised hearings and lengthy interviews uncovered — or confirmed — lurid details previously unknown to the public about what went on behind that effort, including in Michigan, how some state and party officials participated in it, or begged off doing so, or railed against what some saw as a pressure campaign based on little or no evidence.

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Much has been reported on the Democrat-led committee’s efforts and its 845-page final report released last month. But with Friday marking the second anniversary of the attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters — a riot investigators say Trump egged on by his refusal accept the outcome of the election for President Joe Biden — here’s a look at some of the Michiganders who got wrapped up in that investigation and some of the more compelling and revealing things they had to say:

Cox rails against ‘cockamamie’ plans to try to seat false electors

Former state Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox, an Adrian High School graduate, made it clear in her deposition in May of last year that she had no role in or interest in facilitating a plan that involved making it appear that Trump had won the state by having false Electoral College electors certifying him as the winner. She said when Hillsdale College Vice President Bob Norton called her, explaining how the electors would be sneaked into the state Capitol the night before so they could meet and sign the certificate — as required by state law — on Dec. 14, 2020, she told him “in no uncertain terms, that that was insane and inappropriate.” She added, “It was a harebrained idea and the more details I got, it became more harebrained.”

She and her staff drew up a more “ceremonial” document to be signed by the electors at state party HQ in Lansing that made clear if some court decided Trump had won or the election was thrown into doubt —something that didn’t happen in Michigan or elsewhere — that the Republican electors were ready to cast their votes for Trump. But she told the committee — in a deposition where she was represented by her husband, former state Attorney General Mike Cox — she was unable to attend the meeting because during an earlier event in Michigan, Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani had given her COVID-19. When the false electors met, they signed a document holding themselves out as true electors as if Trump had won. Noting that one of the electors — Trump ally and current party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock — wanted to bring her husband and a camera crew, she said she assumed Maddock “was part of some of these cockamamie plans.”

More:Fake GOP electors from Michigan refused to answer Jan. 6 committee questions

Shirkey fed up with ‘hollow claims’ by Trump supporters

One of the people Cox touched base with to make sure there would be no attempt to smuggle electors into the state Capitol was former Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, who by Dec. 14 was starting to boil over. Shirkey, who represented Lenawee County's Cambridge Township when he was a state representative, had become fed up with the repeated claims being made and the pressure being brought on him and other legislative leaders to overturn the election results, an act he believed violated the law without more evidence. He had been called, with then-House Speaker Lee Chatfield, to the White House and Trump had called him three times — including once when he was in a tree stand hunting. And while he said Trump never specifically asked him to do anything like call the Senate into session to try to overturn the election, a fourth call on Dec. 14 — which he remembered little of — may have pushed him further, as later that day he issued posts on social media saying the Senate was still investigating, but if Trump’s lawyers had “concrete proof” of fraud, they needed to share it.

“I was getting frustrated,” he told the committee. “All these allegations, all these claims, and all the damage, potential damage we're doing to the country and confidence in elections. And I was tired of hollow claims with no action. And I just wanted to put a pin in it. I didn't want any more calls … from constituents, from people that were claiming that we weren't doing enough or we're ignoring the process or ignoring what's in front of us.”

Senate leader tells Trump why he lost Michigan

By that point in December, it might be surprising that Trump was still talking to Shirkey, considering how their White House meeting went in late November. According to his and Chatfield’s discussions with the committee, Trump launched into a “litany” of claims about voting irregularities in Michigan, from late-night vote “dumps” in Detroit to machines changing votes in tiny Antrim County, charges which were thoroughly debunked shortly after.

Shirkey said Trump never made an “ask” of them at that meeting, either, but at one point went on about Detroit and Wayne County, disparaging the vote there as if that cost him the election. “At one point in time I made it clear to him that he didn't lose Michigan because of Wayne County,” Shirkey said, adding that he pointed out that he actually did better there than he had in 2016. “And that was — I could tell by his body language that wasn't necessarily what he wanted to hear.” Shirkey said he went on to tell the president that it was his underperformance in Oakland and Kent counties that cost him and that if he had run as well as the sheriffs in those counties, he could have won the state.

Shirkey added that Trump had Giuliani dial in and he launched into his “routine” about vote corruption. At one point, Shirkey got fed up. “So I was, ‘Rudy? Rudy? Rudy?’ He finally stopped talking. I simply asked, ‘So when are you going to file charges, file a lawsuit in Michigan?’ And there may have been a two-second void, and then he just kept talking.”

More:Shirkey Jan. 6 committee deposition reveals details of Trump calls, White House visit

McDaniel, RNC stayed away from Antrim claims

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel — a Northville resident and former Michigan Republican Party chair — said like many other GOP officials that she still has concerns about the level of absentee voting in the 2020 election and whether ballots were adequately safeguarded. But she acknowledged in her interview with the committee that the RNC was careful not to parrot Trump and Giuliani’s claims that Dominion voting machines used in Antrim County and elsewhere were somehow rigged, especially since it quickly became known that human error — not machine issues — were to blame for an initial counting error that was caught and corrected.

McDaniel said the RNC didn’t investigate Trump’s claims. “However, based on what my (legal) counsel said, we were very careful not to engage in anything without substantiation,” she added.

McDaniel also said she and Cox talked about the effort to bring in what she called “contingent” electors, also believing it was being done just in case a court case was successful. “I know Laura raised some concerns with me — I don't know if it was via phone — where some (of the electors) were going over to the (state) Capitol to meet and asked if that was something that they should do. And I said — you know, I don't think you should do that. Just have them gather and whatever you feel comfortable with.”

The RNC chair also explained to the committee how she had little to do with the effort by Trump and his allies to get Vice President Mike Pence to reject Biden’s electors in his role as presiding officer of a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 — which Pence refused to do, even as the mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. McDaniel said she had surgery for a broken ankle and several blood clots around that time and was largely out of action.

Benson frustrated by delay in police response

It was widely reported at the time how Trump supporters — some armed — gathered outside Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s Detroit home in early December 2020, demanding an audit of the election on the theory that it was somehow stolen from the former president. Benson, at the time, was at home with her husband and 4-year-old son.

Speaking to the committee, she called it “a scary time,” though she was trying to project an air of calm so as to not upset her child. But she was getting a little upset herself, she said, because someone had earlier seen a social media post that protesters were headed to a state official’s home — it was either her or state Attorney General Dana Nessel — at 8 p.m. and state police had been alerted. By 9 p.m. she said, she began to hear noises outside but there were no police. A neighborhood security guard stood on her doorstep.

“Michigan State Police, again, knew at 8 o’clock that night (about the protest) — they didn’t show up to my house until 9:45. …. The biggest frustration was that no one showed up until 9:45,” she said. “As soon as Michigan State Police showed up and then, about five minutes later, Detroit Police showed up — as soon as that happened, they dispersed.” She added that then-Detroit Police Chief James Craig — who would later run as a Republican for governor — called her and said he hadn’t heard anything about the protesters, despite her husband calling 911. “And we left my home after that,” she added. “We stayed at a hotel by my kid’s school for a few days just to get out of the house because we, again, didn’t know if people were going to show up again.”

More:Jocelyn Benson to receive presidential medal on Jan. 6 anniversary of US Capitol attack

A ‘sense of urgency’ regarding the Biden electors

Benson also told the committee that, while she knew nothing about Trump’s plans to try to seat Republican electors to cast doubt on the outcome of the election in hopes they could be used to forestall the certification for Biden on Jan. 6, 2021, by Congress, she did feel a “sense of urgency” among officials working to finalize Michigan’s Democratic electors for him on Dec. 14, 2020.

By law, Biden’s were the only electors to be duly elected, since he had won the state by more than 154,000 votes over Trump. But that had to be done in the state Capitol, at an appointed time, with Benson playing a largely ceremonial role. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had to authorize the certification and send it to Congress and the National Archives as the official Electoral College result, which she did. Benson said it was impressed upon her that she be on time and everything moved with deliberate speed, for a reason — the threat of an attempt to certify alternate electors there — that she was unaware of at the time.

Later, she got a copy of the fake slate of electors, which made it to Washington after the true certification did. “My initial interaction was, well, these are illegitimate, but now I understand some of the sense of urgency behind getting our materials in as quickly as possible. And, again, it was … palpable, the sense that it was very important that these physical documents get into the hands of the National Archive as soon as possible.”

Some people 'jumped' at chance to work for Trump effort

Ian Northon, a west Michigan lawyer who worked on several Republican lawsuits questioning whether some officials were adhering to voting procedures before and after the 2020 election, suggested to the committee that while he and others were gathering affidavits in support of those cases, efforts by the Trump campaign to get the Legislature involved may have impacted their chances.

Noting that affidavits from various witnesses involving voting problems began to “overlap” in legal filings, Northon also said Giuliani, when he came to Lansing to lobby legislators to investigate, gave testimony referencing many of those same affidavits. “Where he got those affidavits, I do not know. He did not get them from me. But in talking with my clients or friends in the Legislature, some of the things he submitted were some of the things that we filed in those cases. And he trotted out some of these witnesses and took them up to the Capitol with him.”

That was “problematic,” he said, “because I had an affidavit from somebody that I'm getting ready to file in court, and now they're saying something, either similar or different, in open court.” He also said that the lawsuits he was involved in were focused on whether the process was followed or not — not who won or didn’t. “They (the Trump team) were trying to do something entirely different. They were trying to make sure their guy won, and I, frankly — that wasn't what I was doing, and it wasn't what I was being paid to do. …. So I know, as I sit here, that a lot of those affidavits ended up in more than one case, and I know that a lot of the witnesses, you know, jumped at the chance to be on TV or jumped at the chance to go work with the Trump people. But those weren't — that's not what I filed, that's not what I was doing.”

Ryan Kelley, a question of privilege

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley was called before the committee to talk about what he saw and did when the U.S. Capitol was being attacked on Jan. 6, 2021, an event he told investigators he considered “99%” peaceful.

Asked whether he considered it a “positive” occurrence, he responded, “A bunch of people coming to the Capitol exercising their First Amendment peacefully, hoping that the Congress would take a look at the election and do an audit so we can figure out the validity of how everything turned out in the states that 99.9% of the people (at the event) took part in? Yeah. Absolutely.”

Kelley, who has been charged with misdemeanors in connection with the attack, did decry any property destruction and harm caused to law enforcement and said he did not engage in any violence or condone it. He denied that a voice on a video saying, “This is war, baby,” was his. But as to video purporting to show him on or at the U.S. Capitol grounds, he refused to verify or deny it was him, claiming … Well, it got interesting.

As one video was shown to him, he said, “I won't be identifying myself in any videos or any pictures or anything like that.” Asked whether he were invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege to not incriminate himself, he first said, yes, then, no, because, he said, “I didn’t do anything criminal that day.”

He then wanted to assert his First Amendment right to “peaceably assemble,” to which the investigator said, “How would answering that question impede your ability to peaceably assemble? It's a video of a thing that happened more than a year ago.”

“Yeah. Well, I elect not to identify myself in any videos,” Kelley responded. This question of privilege — and Kelley’s understanding or not of it — was repeated on a couple of occasions. Finally, the investigator said the committee would just have to note he wouldn’t answer the question. The investigator also said, “Mr. Kelley, perhaps this is a situation in which it would've been beneficial for you to have counsel for this deposition.”

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: What Michigan witnesses told the Jan. 6 Committee