Bankrolling the Big Lie — Methodology

Lawmakers who voted against the certification of the 2020 election results betrayed our democracy. Relying on baseless claims of election fraud, these lawmakers spent months inspiring fear and paranoia regarding our electoral system, helping to foment and normalize the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. This is, in many ways, the original sin of this new era of particularly virulent efforts to erode democracy. Other members, elected since, ran for office promoting the Big Lie of a stolen election. 

In June 2021, Congress passed a resolution to establish the select committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection. This committee would eventually publish the 845-page “January 6 Report,” based on thousands of interviews and millions of documents, which highlighted Trump’s role in the insurrection. Voting against the creation of the January 6th Committee signaled an unwillingness to treat threats against democracy seriously, and more specifically, to seek accountability for those who tried to overturn a democratic election and incited an attack on the Capitol.

In December 2020, 106 members of Congress signed onto an amicus brief in the Supreme Court Case, Texas v Pennsylvania, which asked the Court to prevent the certification of the 2020 Election results in four states, thereby disenfranchising millions of voters, and particularly, large numbers of minority voters, over baseless claims that COVID-safe voting options offered by states during the 2020 Election violated the Constitution.

Nearly 180 members of Congress signed on to an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court in the Trump v. Anderson case, which sought to have Trump removed from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That amendment bars from office any person who swore an “oath … to support the Constitution of the United States” as a federal or state officer and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” The friend-of-the-court brief signed by these members of Congress argued against a common sense reading of the amendment in a way that would have effectively exonerated Trump for his role in the January 6th attack, downplayed the severity of that attack by falsely equating the violence that day to largely nonviolent protests and claimed the president isn’t an “officer” under the Constitution.

Senator Steve Daines, as chairman of the NRSC, along with Senator Roger Marshall and 26 members of the House submitted amicus briefs supporting President Trump’s claims of absolute immunity from prosecution for his actions on January 6th and beyond.

In February 2021, Trump faced a second impeachment vote in the Senate for his role in the January 6th Insurrection. Similar to voting against the creation of the January 6th committee, voting against impeachment also reflects an unwillingness on the part of lawmakers to hold Trump accountable for his attacks on our democracy.