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On Nov. 25, 2020, members of the Pennsylvania State Senate’s Majority Policy Committee held a public hearing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to air fact-free claims of election fraud. The day before the event, the Pennsylvania Department of State had certified that Biden won the state by a margin of more than 80,000 votes.
Republican State Senator Doug Mastriano, who Trump later endorsed in a failed bid for governor in 2022, organized the event, where Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and former New York City mayor, pushed the baseless claim that the 2020 election had been stolen. When the president called in to the meeting, he told lawmakers and members of the public that “we won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all these swing states by a lot.” A number of others at the so-called hearing claimed they had witnessed electoral foul play, but none of them had sworn an oath to tell the truth before speaking.
Just prior to the former mayor’s testimony, however, a Pennsylvania appellate court temporarily halted the further certification in response to a lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) seeking to reject all votes from mail-in ballots. A few days later, the state Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, allowing the certification to proceed.
A month later, Trump invited all of the GOP members of the Pennsylvania State Senate to lunch at the White House.