Rusty Bowers

2022 - 6 - 21

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Image courtesy of "NPR"

Arizona lawmaker Rusty Bowers details the pressure put on him by ... (NPR)

Bowers testifies that Rudy Giuliani told him of allegations of voter fraud committed by undocumented immigrants or dead people who were listed as having ...

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Image courtesy of "Axios"

Arizona House speaker: "I didn't want to be used as a pawn" in effort ... (Axios)

Arizona House Speaker Russell "Rusty" Bowers (R) testified Tuesday that former President Trump and his allies attempted to convince him that the election ...

- Bowers said he told the president he would not pursue anything illegal on his account. - When the lawyer pressed Bowers on it, the Arizona House speaker said he told him, "You’re asking me to do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath." - He said that after asking "multiple times" for evidence, Trump interrupted and said, "Give the man what he needs, Rudy!"

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Image courtesy of "CNN"

Who is Rusty Bowers? - CNNPolitics (CNN)

The Arizona Republican who delivered emotional testimony Tuesday about resisting efforts to overturn the 2020 election long has been known as a maverick, ...

, has paid a high price for his resistance. His daughter died the 69-year-old Bowers one of the "few Republicans at the (state) Capitol who declined to give in to the collective psychosis that has infected some of the baser portions of his political base."

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

Who Is Rusty Bowers? (The New York Times)

The speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers, who was the focus of an intense pressure campaign by President Donald J. Trump's allies ...

This year, Mr. Bowers was given the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his handling of the pressure campaign. Ahead of Mr. Bowers’s appearance, Mr. Trump issued a statement trying to undermine the lawmaker before he testified. The speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers, who was the focus of an intense pressure campaign by President Donald J. Trump’s allies after the 2020 election, will tell his story publicly for the first time at the Jan. 6 hearing on Tuesday. Parts of Mr. Bowers’s experience have been revealed previously: Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, called Mr. Bowers as part of their efforts to undo Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House, faced intense pressure from Trump allies.

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Image courtesy of "Forbes"

Who Is Rusty Bowers? Arizona's GOP House Speaker Who Defied ... (Forbes)

The Arizona House speaker pushed back on Trump's request to toss out Arizona's 2020 election results—and opposed sweeping changes to Arizona's election ...

Republican officials in some other states also pushed back against Trump, including state legislators in Pennsylvania and Michigan who refused to declare Trump the winner of their states’ electoral votes. The House January 6 committee is unveiling the results of its months-long investigation into the Capitol riot over a series of public hearings, with a focus on Trump’s push to stay in office despite losing his reelection bid. “But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”

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Image courtesy of "The Washington Post"

Alone in Washington, Rusty Bowers tells world what happened in ... (The Washington Post)

Hours before Arizona House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R) testified about how he refused to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election results, ...

“I may, in the eyes of men, not hold correct opinions or act according to their vision or convictions, but I do not take this current situation in a light manner, a fearful manner or a vengeful manner,” he said. How else will I ever approach him in the wilderness of life knowing that I ask this guidance only to show myself a coward in defending the course … he led me to take.” “I did have a conversation with the president,” he said carefully and deliberately, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. At the end of his testimony, Bowers read a journal entry from December 2020. A “circus had been brewing” around these allegations, and Bowers said he didn’t want it brought into the Arizona House. And it is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired — of my most basic foundational beliefs. He asked Bowers to support decertifying the electors. They screamed at Bowers through bullhorns, filmed his home and led parades to ridicule him that featured a civilian military-style truck. Bowers recalled them asking him to convene the legislature to investigate their unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and set in motion a strategy to replace chosen electors with another group more favorable to Trump. Bowers repeatedly asked them for evidence beyond hearsay and innuendo that the election was stolen. Bowers — a professional artist known for his storytelling — then recounted his first conversation with Trump and Giuliani, which came after a church service in the weeks after the 2020 election. Anywhere anyone, anytime, has said that I said the election was rigged — that would not be true.” Bowers and Moss both received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award this year for their efforts to protect democracy.

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Image courtesy of "AZCentral.com"

Thank Rusty Bowers, but remember these Arizona politicians who ... (AZCentral.com)

House Speaker Rusty Bowers stood tall in his testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, as he has since the 2020 election. Remember those that didn't.

“I do not want to be a winner by cheating. Should the fake electors plot not work, Townsend had a backup plan – a bill calling on the Legislature to decertify the vote and appoint the phony electors. Meanwhile, in Washington, Reps. Andy Biggs, Debbie Lesko and Paul Gosar were trying their level best to nullify Arizona’s vote. What remains utterly surprising – stunning, really – is the sheer number of Arizona’s so-called leaders who were (are) willing to set aside their oaths and overturn democracy. How they repeatedly pressured him to go along with decertifying Arizona’s election anyway and ask Congress to accept the GOP’s “alternate” set of electors. How else will I ever approach him in the wilderness of life knowing that I asked his guidance only to show myself a coward in defending the course he let me take?” (Never mind that there isn’t and you shouldn’t.) Rep. Walter Blackman of Snowflake, now a candidate for Congress, also signed onto the plan. Her bill noted that the Legislature has a “constitutional and legal obligation to ensure that the state’s presidential electors truly represent the will of the voters of Arizona.” Now Finchem is back this year with a similar bill to decertify the 2020 election, claiming there is “clear and convincing” evidence that the election was stolen – and oh, by the way, will you vote for him? “I do not want to be a winner by cheating,” Bowers told the House Select committee on Tuesday. “I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.” The fake slate was led by Kelli Ward (likely a future candidate for Congress) who like Finchem refused to comply with a subpoena to explain to the House Select committee how the fake elector scheme was hatched.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

'I Took an Oath,' Rusty Bowers Says of Rejecting Efforts to Overturn ... (The New York Times)

Over nearly an hour, Rusty Bowers, a Republican who is the speaker of the House of Representatives in Arizona, testified on Tuesday in painstaking and ...

“I thought of the book, ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,’” Mr. Bowers said. Mr. Bowers also recalled speaking to Mr. Trump, making clear to the president that he “wouldn’t do anything illegal for him,” as one questioner, Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, said. Mr. Bowers’s personal journal contained an entry in which he said, “I do not want to be a winner by cheating. He also recalled his reaction when he learned that Trump advisers pushed ahead with a scheme to put forward slates of “alternate” electors. “She said, ‘Yes.’” “I said, ‘I want the names. The effort to persuade him to take steps to flip the outcome in Arizona to Mr. Trump’s column — the state was won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. — began with pressure from Mr. Trump, and one of his lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who maintained that he had evidence of fraud. Mr. Bowers described Ms. Ellis asserting that they had evidence of widespread voter fraud, only to provide none. “I did have a conversation with the president,” Mr. Bowers said. He was also asked for his reaction to a statement from Mr. Trump criticizing Mr. Bowers’s testimony in advance, in which he claimed that Mr. Bowers had told him the election was “rigged” and that he had won the state. “Aren’t we all Republicans here? (She died in late January.)

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