MSNBC’s Ari Melber interviewed former Trump 2020 campaign strategic adviser Boris Epshteyn, who has been subpoenaed to appear before the Jan. 6 House committee, on Friday night.
The 10-minute long interview was combative at times and saw Epshteyn push debunked allegations that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and defend a coordinated effort led by Rudy Giuliani to replace Biden electors with Trump electors.
“There’s also been reporting about the attempt to seat fraudulent electors. Is that something you ever worked on or would support, for example, in Michigan?” Melber asked, referencing letters sent from seven states that submitted fake pro-Trump electors for certification.
“That’s so funny. Not fraudulent electors, Ari. It’s alternate electors,” Epshteyn responded.
“There’s a process for electors to be challenged,” He continued. “If those challenges are successful, you need an alternate slate of electors like in 1960 when the Hawaii slate was challenged. It was not challenged successfully, but it was challenged. The same thing happened in 1876 as you know.”
Melber then asked Epshteyn if he ever personally made calls to local Republican officials to pressure them to send in “alternate electors” and declare Trump had won their state.
Epshteyn said he had done so on behalf of the Trump campaign and claimed: “It is not against the law., it is according to the law.”
Melber continued to push on the legality of the pro-Trump push to “seat fraudulent electors.
“First of all, Ari, I don’t think you’re the one who’s going to be determining, or your audience, whether there was any perpetration of fraud,” Epshteyn shot back. “I will tell you the perpetration of fraud was absolutely done and it was done by the Democrats, it was done by the left, Marc Elias, and others, and that perpetration was on the American people.”
Epshteyn concluded,
So, Ari, everything that was done was done legally by the Trump legal team according to the rules and under the leadership of Rudy Giuliani. We fought for the truth and the truth is that there was overwhelming fraud in the 2020 election, and I’m doing everything possible within all the rules, laws, and regulations to make sure that the truth comes out.
Melber shot back, “part of what you said is false, but we are going to move on.”
Watch the full interview above, via MSNBC