PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Jan. 6 committee held its second public hearing on Monday, with a focus on former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. One of those who testified was former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt.
Two panels of witnesses testified; Schmidt was on the second.
Schmidt, who was the only Republican city commissioner, was singled out by the then president in the days after the 2020 election. As mail-in ballots were being counted at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Schmidt maintained there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
That led to threats of violence, which Schmidt previously described in a Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing in October 2021. He said he received a number of messages, some threatening to shoot his family.
“I have three kids. My youngest is 7 years old. No matter what our party affiliation, this is not OK. And let’s be clear: This is domestic terrorism,” Schmidt testified last fall. “The whole point is to terrorize, to intimidate and to coerce and to prevent our democracy from functioning as it should.”
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At the hearing Monday, Schmidt again discredited the Trump administration's notion that 8,000 dead people had cast thousands of mail votes in Pennsylvania.
“You investigated those claims of voter fraud. Can you tell us what you found?” committee member Zoe Lofgren (D-California) asked.
“Not only was there not evidence of 8,000 dead voters voting in Pennsylvania, there wasn’t evidence of eight," Schmidt said.
"We took seriously every case that was referred to us, no matter how fantastical or no matter how absurd. We took every one of them seriously, including these.“
On Nov. 11, 2020, Trump tweeted about Schmidt, calling him a "RINO" (Republican in name only) who "refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty."
Schmidt again recounted the threats sent to himself, his staff and his family that followed Trump's tweet. He said the threats became more specific and graphic.
“It included not just me by name, but included members of my family by name, by ages, our address pictures of our home," said Schmidt.
“On some level, it almost seems silly to talk about a tweet, but we can really see the impact that they have. Because prior to that, the threats were pretty general in nature. Corrupt election officials in Philadelphia are going to get what is coming to them. You are what the Second Amendment is for. You are walking into the lion’s den.”
Committee officials shared images of some of the messages at the hearing:
In November 2021, Schmidt announced he was resigning as a city commissioner after 10 years. He became the president and CEO of the election watchdog group Committee of Seventy at the beginning of the year.
Monday’s Jan. 6 hearing is being streamed live here.
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