Listen to this articleTom Williams/CQ Roll Call
- Trump official Ken Cuccinelli claims to not keep in mind Donald Trump calling the 2020 election “rigged.”
- Cuccinelli, who Trump appointed to the Department of Homeland Security, met with the January 6 committee in 2021.
- “I am not prepared to validate that word,” Cuccinelli told investigators, in keeping with testimony released Friday.
In a 24-hour span after dropping the 2020 election, one-term President Donald Trump used the term “rigged” no fewer than 3 times on Twitter: “RIGGED ELECTION,” he posted. “Rigged and Corrupt Election!” he continued. And “Rigged Election Hoax!” he added for good measure.
But Ken Cuccinelli, who Trump appointed to a position on the Department of Homeland Security — an appointment later decided to be unlawful — does not keep in mind all that, or so he claimed in a 2021 interview with investigators for the House committee inspecting the January 6 riot.
While at DHS, Cuccinelli, was one of many faces of the Trump administration’s election-security efforts. And in that role he told investigators he noticed no proof that China or another international actor was capable of change any votes forged in the 2020 election, a conspiracy idea that was pushed by one other Trump official, Jeffrey Clark, and the previous president himself.
But in his December 2021 testimony, released Friday, he asserted that he was unfamiliar with efforts by Trump and others to undermine religion in the election.
“Is it fair to say,” an investigator requested, “that seeds of distrust were sown with respect to the 2020 election — after the November 2020 election?”
“I am not prepared to say that,” Cuccinelli responded, although including that “outcomes on a state-by-state and overall basis were being addressed aggressively from several different perspectives.”
Cuccinelli, who beforehand served because the legal professional normal of Virginia and as a high Trump immigration official, also presupposed to be unfamiliar with anybody calling the election stolen.
Asked an investigator: “Are you aware of any elected officials saying that the election was rigged in the immediate aftermath of [the] November 2020 election?”
“I don’t remember the quote,” Cuccinelli said.
“Do you remember the president making comments along those lines?” the investigator continued.
Again, Cuccinelli couldn’t recall. “I remember the president expressing in strong terms concerns along those lines, but you used a specific word, and I am not prepared to validate that word.”
In reality, Trump not only claimed the election was “rigged” after he lost however before any ballots had been even forged. In May 2020, for instance, he asserted that the presidential contest can be “the greatest Rigged Election in history.”
So typically did Trump declare a “Rigged Election!” that, in keeping with an email from Trump aide Dan Scavino — provided to the January 6 panel by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — the previous president wished to trademark the term lower than per week after dropping to Joe Biden.
The January 6 investigator who interviewed Cuccinelli tried as soon as more to jog his reminiscence.
“You don’t recall the president using the word ‘rigged’?” they requested.
“No,” Cuccinelli said. “I don’t.”
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