About
Jody Hice (R-Ga.) is an evangelical who represented Georgia’s 10th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015–22. He was a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, and chose to run for secretary of state in Georgia in 2022 instead of campaigning to keep his congressional seat. That move immediately earned Trump’s endorsement, yet in May 2022 he lost in the GOP primary to incumbent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R).
Before he ran for office, Hice was a pastor and conservative talk radio host. A “gold circle member” of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a right-wing Christian power network, he founded Let Freedom Ring Ministries, an organization “dedicated to keeping America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and values in the mainstream and to preserving ‘the free exercise of religion’ in the public square.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Hice showed his loyalty to Trump by helping to spread the Big Lie, refusing to certify President Biden’s Electoral College win and voting against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
January 6, 2021
- On Dec. 21, 2020, Hice was among the group of congressional Republicans and Trump administration staff members who met with the president at the White House to plot how to keep him in power by preventing Congress from certifiying the Electoral College results on Jan. 6.
- As a mob of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol, Hice posted on Instagram, “This is our 1776 moment,” apparently referring to the year America announced the Declaration of Independence during the Revolutionary War. He later deleted the post.
- Just hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Hice joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election. He raised the objection to Georgia’s electors, which failed to receive support in the Senate and was not brought to a vote by the joint session of Congress.
- Hice voted against impeaching Trump for his role in instigating the attack on Congress and the Capitol, and fanning the flames once the riot broke out.
- At a March 10, 2021 House Oversight Committee hearing, Hice claimed that during the insurrection “it was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others.”
- On May 19, 2021, Hice voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.
The Big Lie
- In the months following the 2020 election, Hice repeatedly echoed Trump’s baseless and discredited claims of widespread voter fraud.
- On Nov. 6, 2020, Hice and 38 other House Republicans signed a letter to then Attorney General Bill Barr asking that the Justice Department investigate the presidential election results based on “widespread reports of irregularities” during ballot counts.
- On Dec. 1, 2020, Hern and 36 other House Republicans, submitted a follow-up letter to Barr asking that the Justice Department investigate the election due to “a number of anomalies, statistical improbabilities and accusations of fraud” during the voting process.
- On Dec. 3, 2020, Hice posted a video on Twitter that he claimed showed poll workers in Georgia submitting falsified ballots after kicking poll watchers out of the room. Georgia election officials disputed this claim and explained that poll watchers had chosen to leave because the count continued well past midnight.
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Hice signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- On Dec. 15, 2020, Hice signed a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), ostensibly to request a “briefing” on the subject of voter fraud in the state during the presidential election. The bulk of the public letter restated the litany of unproven and discredited claims that had already been circulating on social media.
- After Hice and other GOP politicians spread rumors on social media that Raffensperger had helped steal the election from Trump, Reuters reported that he and his family were forced to go into hiding due to credible threats on their lives.
- On Dec. 17, 2020, Hice and 18 other congressional Republicans sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and other congressional committee heads requesting that Congress immediately investigate “all allegations of illegal conduct” during the presidential election process.
Post-2020 Election Subversion
- In March 2021, Hice announced his candidacy for secretary of state in Georgia. In the preceding year, he had repeatedly rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and elsewhere in the U.S., claiming there was credible evidence of widespread voter fraud despite lacking any proof whatsoever.
- Shortly after Hice announced his candidacy, Trump—who spearheaded attempts to convince Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” enough votes to give him a win in the state—endorsed him. But in May 2022, Hice lost the GOP primary to Trump’s nemesis, the incumbent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) who, in 2020, refused to break the law at Trump’s request.
- In July 2022, a Georgia grand jury investigating illegal interference in the 2020 presidential election from Trump and his allies subpoenaed Hice to testify.