AZ House speaker Rusty Bowers testifies before Jan. 6 committee

On June 6th, 2021, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified before the January 6th congressional committee. Below are notable moments from his testimony.

Bowers testified that he was not aware that fake electors met in Phoenix on December 14th, 2020, to plan to cast votes in favor of then-President Donald Trump, and that he heard later on that those fake electors attempted to send fake votes to Washington, D.C.

“I thought of the book ‘The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight,’ and I thought, ‘this is a tragic parody.’”

Bowers also presented an excerpt from his personal diary he was keeping in December 2020.

“It is painful to have friends who have been such a help to me turn on me with such rancor. I may in the eyes of men not hold correct opinions 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.

“I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to with any contrived desire toward inflection of my deep foundational desire to follow God’s will, as I believe he led my conscience to embrace.” 

“How else would I ever approach him in the wilderness of life, only to show myself a coward in defending the course He let me take, led me to take?”

Bowers also described the toll the protests and threats he and his family received as a result of his decisions took, including the flood of emails, voicemails and texts that overran his office.

“At home, up to even recently, it is the new pattern in our lives to worry about what will happen on Saturdays, because we have various groups come by, and they have had video trucks with videos of me claiming to be a pedophile and a pervert and a corrupt politician, and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood, and leaving literature on my property, arguing and threatening with neighbors, and with myself.”

 “At the same time on some of these, we had a daughter who was greatly ill, who was upset by what was happening outside, and my wife was a valiant person, very strong, quiet, very strong woman. It was disturbing, it was disturbing.”