January 6 committee spoke with Michigan secretary of state

By Annie Grayer and Jeremy Herb, CNN

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and members of her staff met virtually Tuesday with the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Benson spokesperson Tracy Wimmer told CNN.

Wimmer did not divulge much from what was discussed in the meeting, but said the topics included the 2020 presidential election and the events leading up to January 6.

In addition to Benson, the committee has also interviewed Chris Thomas, a former longtime Michigan director of elections who was brought in during the 2020 election to oversee absentee ballot processing at the TCF Center in Detroit.

Thomas said he was interviewed about a month ago by the committee. He said he was asked about his experiences at the TCF Center, including the final day of counting when things got disruptive. He was also asked about whether he had interactions with Republican lawyers who were involved in Michigan, though he said he did not.

Michigan was one of several key battleground states won by Joe Biden where former President Donald Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election result, falsely claiming he won the state even though he lost by more than 150,000 votes. Trump brought Republican Michigan state legislators to the White House as he sought to have the GOP-led state legislature appoint an alternate slate of presidential electors, and he pressured Republican state and county canvassing board members not to certify the state’s election result.

This comes as Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who chairs the committee, told CNN earlier this week that the panel had spoken with numerous election officials from various states where Trump falsely claimed there was evidence of fraud.

“They go from Trump appointees and those in the administration to election officials in Arizona to election officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia,” Thompson said Thursday.

As CNN previously reported, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a GOP official who forcefully batted down pressure from Trump to overturn his state’s election results, spoke to the committee for more than four hours on Tuesday.

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