A whole lot of pages of deposition transcripts launched Wednesday by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault supplied new insights into the roles Pennsylvania Republicans performed in aiding President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee is anticipated to situation the total report on its investigation on Thursday. However the newly launched transcripts had been crammed with new particulars together with that Mike Roman, a Kensington native and one in every of Trump’s prime election advisers, helped spearhead the hassle to ship pro-Trump electors to Washington as Congress met to certify the election outcomes that day.

In addition they revealed a beforehand undisclosed try by State Sen. Doug Mastriano to entry sure voting machines days earlier than Jan. 6 in addition to references to a plan floated by the White Home to sue Pennsylvania immediately within the U.S. Supreme Courtroom over its administration of the 2020 vote. The paperwork additionally shed new gentle on the position a congressional staffer for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly performed behind the scenes.

Listed below are a few of the highlights from the committee’s interviews:

Roman, a longtime Philadelphia Republican political operative, appeared to play a key position in organizing false electors in swing states corresponding to Pennsylvania as a part of a plot to overturn the election.

A former Philadelphia ward chief and senior adviser to the Trump marketing campaign, Roman was designated by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as “the lead for executing the voting” by the pretend electors on Dec. 14, 2020, in response to an e mail the committee cited in an interview transcript launched Wednesday.

» READ MORE: Transcript of Mike Roman’s interview with the Jan. 6 Committee

Requested by committee investigators whether or not Giuliani had assigned him that position, Roman asserted his Fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination. Roman repeatedly asserted that proper, together with in response to questions on his discussions with Trump and whether or not Roman went to the Capitol on Jan. 6, in response to the Aug. 10, 2022 transcript.

Trump and his allies had hoped the submission of “alternate” pro-Trump electors from battleground states would assist stress Vice President Mike Pence to reject the respectable electors for Joe Biden. Pence declined to take action in the course of the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 — a significant purpose a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.

The interview transcript suggests the pro-Trump electors in Pennsylvania had been involved about attainable authorized publicity in the event that they signed official certificates purporting to be the respectable electors.

Within the interview, investigators referenced a Dec. 12, 2020, e mail despatched to Roman from Trump marketing campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.

“Mike, right here is my steered language for coping with the priority raised within the PA convention name about electors probably going through authorized publicity, parenthesis, by the hands of a partisan AG, shut parenthesis, if they appear to certify that they’re at present the legitimate electors,” the transcript says.

Investigators additionally requested Roman whether or not he knew if Mastriano, the state senator who ran because the GOP’s candidate for Pennsylvania governor this yr, had expressed issues in regards to the elector plan. Roman pleaded the Fifth.

The transcript suggests Roman additionally performed a task in organizing the supply of Wisconsin Republicans’ pretend elector certificates to Congress on Jan. 6. An individual investigators recognized as Michael Brown texted associates that he “ought to in all probability purchase Roman a tie for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been performed since 1876 …”

That’s an obvious reference to the disputed presidential election that yr.

Roman refused to say whether or not he’d instructed Brown to ship the doc, the transcript says.

The interview transcript additionally references a briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers in November 2020 about purported election fraud. On Nov. 8, 2020, Roman shared with an affiliate a screenshot of a message he’d obtained that mentioned: “Possibly the Trump marketing campaign ought to get some precise proof of fraud and file in courtroom. They’ve been horrible of their courtroom filings. We simply bought a report from their authorized group. They advised us on caucus they’ve zero proof.”

Roman declined to inform investigators who despatched him the message or to debate the briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers, apparently delivered by Kentucky’s secretary of state.

Committee investigators repeatedly requested Roman throughout his deposition what he knew about behind-the-scenes efforts to undermine the election by a longtime prime aide to U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Butler County Republican and a prime Trump ally within the Home.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 4, 2020, Roman exchanged 25 messages with Kelly’s then-chief-of-staff, Matt Stroia, in response to questioning within the deposition transcripts. These included exchanges that steered Stroia could have performed a extra energetic and earlier position within the efforts by Trump and his allies than was beforehand identified.

His identify had beforehand surfaced within the committee’s work in reference to efforts to ship the slates of pro-Trump electors to Pence on Jan. 6.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has mentioned his workplace handed alongside the lists to Pence however that it was Kelly’s workplace that had supplied it to him. And whereas Kelly initially denied Johnson’s claims as “patently false,” the congressman’s workplace later acknowledged that an “inner investigation” had discovered Stroia had been in touch with Johnson’s employees.

However Roman’s deposition earlier than the Jan. 6 Committee suggests Stroia can also have performed a task in organizing a raucous Nov. 25 state Senate listening to in Gettysburg, throughout which Mastriano and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis pushed unfounded claims of fraud within the Pennsylvania election. Trump known as in from Washington to voice his assist.

“I hope it seems like we envisioned,” Stroia wrote to Roman three days earlier than the listening to in a message quoted within the deposition transcripts.

Throughout his interview with the Jan. 6 Committee, Roman pleaded the Fifth and refused to reply questions on it or talk about whether or not he or Stroia had any involvement in organizing the Gettysburg listening to.

However different messages cited in Roman’s deposition present Stroia was in direct contact with Giuliani, who spearheaded Trump’s election challenges within the state. In a single trade with Roman, Stroia mentioned he’d directed the president’s lawyer to speak to Roman as an alternative.

“Have you learnt why Mr. Giuliani would have been calling Mike Kelly’s chief of employees … about presidential election points relatively than you, who was performing as director of election day operations for the marketing campaign?” committee staffers requested. He added: “I advised him that you’ll know the whole lot I do.”

Requested to elucidate, Roman once more pleaded the Fifth.

The committee’s interview with Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis additionally make clear Mastriano’s postelection actions.

“We made good headway convincing [hopefully] two counties with Dominion machines in Pennsylvania,” Mastriano wrote in a Dec. 28 e mail to Ellis, in response to the transcript.

» READ MORE: Transcript of Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis’ deposition with the Jan. 6 Committee

In one other e mail Mastriano makes reference to efforts to achieve entry to “poll photographs.” Ellis declined to inform investigators why Mastriano was keen on that.

In a Dec. 29 e mail, Mastriano advised Ellis that he’d e-mailed Trump himself with a letter associated to “securing voluntary entry for Dominion forensics.”

Fulton County later gave a third-party agency entry to its Dominion voting machines, facilitated by Mastriano and State Sen. Judy Ward (R., Blair), for a supposed “audit” of the votes. That prompted the state to decertify these voting machines and pressure the county to acquire new ones. It wasn’t instantly clear which different counties Mastriano and different Trump allies sought handy over entry to voting machines.

Ellis was additionally questioned about her contacts with Pennsylvania Home Speaker Bryan Cutler and Jake Corman and Kim Ward, the GOP leaders of the State Senate. She declined to reply questions, nevertheless, on any efforts she and Giuliani had made to stress them to put aside the state’s election outcomes.

Cutler beforehand advised the committee that Giuliani and Ellis known as him each day in the course of the run-up to Congress’ certification of the election, seeking to push a baseless idea that state legislatures may put aside election outcomes based mostly on unsupported suspicions of fraud and appoint a brand new slate of Electoral School delegates as an alternative.

Cutler mentioned he largely averted these calls, pondering they had been inappropriate and had his attorneys reply, asking Giuliani and Ellis to cease contacting him.

In December 2020, Trump had White Home attorneys draft a criticism to sue Pennsylvania within the U.S. Supreme Courtroom over the administration of its election, in response to committee questioning within the deposition of former Justice Division lawyer Jeffrey Clark.

Clark, a Philadelphia native who attended Father Choose Catholic Excessive College earlier than launching his profession in Washington as a authorities lawyer, has emerged as a central focus for the committee resulting from his position in a drama during which Trump briefly thought of appointing him lawyer basic within the waning days of his administration.

» READ MORE: Transcript of Jeffrey Clark’s deposition with the Jan. 6 Committee, Half 1

» READ MORE: Transcript of Jeffrey Clark’s deposition with the Jan. 6 Committee, Half 2

Clark had been launched to the president by U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican and key ally of the president in Congress. And in response to earlier testimony earlier than the committee, Clark had expressed a willingness to make use of the Justice Division to stress state legislatures in battleground states to overturn their election outcomes regardless of no proof of serious fraud.

On Monday, the Jan. 6 Committee referred him to the Justice Division for potential prison prosecution.

Throughout two contentious deposition interviews with the committee in November 2021 and February 2022, Clark refused to reply virtually any questions on his relationship to Perry, his conversations with Trump, or the concepts he floated on how the Justice Division may assist contest the election. He repeatedly invoked government privilege — the doctrine that enables presidents and their employees to withstand some legislative oversight — in addition to his Fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination.

He additionally balked at answering questions in regards to the draft criticism {that a} White Home assistant despatched to prime officers on the Justice Division on Dec. 29, 2020, for a go well with in opposition to Pennsylvania. Correspondence referenced within the deposition of Ellis, the Trump lawyer, additionally referenced a Trump marketing campaign plan to ask the Supreme Courtroom to order new elections in as many as eight states to “guarantee electoral integrity.” These fits had been by no means filed.

As a substitute, the Trump marketing campaign filed a quick in assist of a long-shot lawsuit filed on the Supreme Courtroom by Texas Lawyer Common Ken Paxton, looking for to overturn Pennsylvania’s election. The justices declined to listen to the case.

For his half, Clark throughout his deposition — in one in every of his solely substantive exchanges with committee members — lamented the present partisan state of politics in Washington, recalling his personal upbringing in a primarily white, working-class neighborhood close to the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.

“My dad was a truck driver who by no means graduated from highschool,” he mentioned. “He was a lifelong Democrat and a Catholic. My mother was a lifelong Republican and a Protestant. I wound up as a mix of the 2, a Catholic conservative Republican.”

His lawyer Harry MacDougald was extra acerbic. He known as the Jan. 6 committee’s questioning “railroading” and accused members of indulging in a “paranoid fantasy.”

“It isn’t sufficient in Washington to merely disagree with somebody about coverage questions,” he mentioned. “As a substitute, they should be destroyed. Those that disagree with Mr. Clark search his destruction by any means accessible.”

Deposition transcripts had been additionally launched Wednesday for 2 Virginia males who made headlines in Philadelphia after they confirmed up outdoors the 2020 vote depend on the Pennsylvania Conference Heart in a Hummer crammed with weapons and emblazoned with QAnon stickers.

However the transcripts present neither Joshua Macias, president of the group Veterans for Trump, or his bodyguard, Antonio LaMotta, had been forthcoming of their interviews with committee investigators. Each males asserted their Fifth Modification rights repeatedly, citing their ongoing prosecution in Philadelphia for weapons violations and tried election interference.

(They had been each later convicted on the weapons counts in October, however acquitted on the election associated fees. LaMotta has since been federally charged with illegally getting into the Capitol on Jan. 6.)

» READ MORE: Transcript of Joshua Macias’ deposition with the Jan. 6 Committee

» READ MORE: Transcript of Antonio LaMotta’s deposition with the Jan. 6 Committee

The committee’s investigators tried to quiz each males on their contacts with different right-wing extremist teams just like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters — the leaders of which Macias and LaMotta had been proven in movies to have interacted with on Jan. 5.

One video performed throughout an earlier committee listening to confirmed Macias assembly with Enrique Tarrio, then-president of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, in a Washington, D.C. parking storage the day earlier than the Capitol assault. Committee members have beforehand cited the video to recommend some coordination amongst extremist teams within the run-up to Jan. 6.

However when requested in his deposition how he got here to be within the storage, Macias remained tight lipped.

“I walked,” he responded.

Investigators requested him why. “I used to be requested to,” he mentioned.

By whom? “Somebody mentioned, ‘Hey come right here,” Macias replied.

He refused to say what they mentioned in that assembly.

As for whether or not he thought of himself a QAnon adherent, Macias responded: “I don’t ascribe to folks’s beliefs. I’ve my very own perception system.”

Workers writers Jonathan Tamari and Jonathan Lai contributed to this text.