speakers from head's estate to business and policy leaders will discuss evolving technology, education, culture, sustainability, and the impact on the economy. ah, ah . a new flash point between russia and the u. moscow warms lithuania of severe consequences for banning the transit of sanctioned goods to its baltic outburst. ah, hello, i'm adrian finnegan. this is al jazeera live from though also coming up, launch ponts of brick and grind to a halt on to the biggest rail striking 30 years. as

a seller of discontent over the rising cost of living takes hold, stranded without shelter, tens of thousands of people are struggling for aid. after heavy rain triggers flood, sid ponts of ne them india and bangladesh and lebanon signs a us back deal to ship natural gas from egypt by syria. a russian outpost in the baltics coline grab, has emerged as a new frontier of tension between moscow and the european union over ukraine. russia has threatened lithuania with serious consequences after it halted rail transit of several sanctioned goods to its ex clave. the kremlin has summoned the u ambassador to moscow to convey its anger. lithuania has defended the band saying that it only applies to some goods under e. u. sanctions, which include construction materials, coal and steel. much of its in if we sit,

maybe prices will gray or maybe there will be none of the goods that we are used to . it'll be with you kristen or it's a story construction local stop development of roads. it's all only going to get worse. the and grabbed government's head of information says that he hopes lithuanian decision will be reversed. how shortly after school one of them we still hope our neighbors will overcome the madness there suffering from now. because like the rest of the sanctions, these measures painfully hit lithuanian economy. let's not forget, our neighbors aren't good money on callin and grad transit people. gallon in grad lies, 400 kilometers west of mainland russia. it lies between nato and e. u members. lithuania and poland. it was cut off from the rest of russia after the collapse of the soviet union in 1991. as a result, the regions main rail linked to russia and it's half a 1000000 residents goes through lithuania and belarus. it is strategically vital for russia's navy. it's where it keeps its black c fleet with around 80 warships

and submarines. some of them can fire nuclear missiles. i'll to 0 is dominick cain reports now from berlin. well, now there are 2 perspectives. there is the perspective of russia that sees its territory now with sanctions being imposed on it. and then the baltic states and poland, who look at the russian presence, and wondered what might happen from there. for many people in the baltic states and in poland who see alanine grad close to their territory, know that there are substantial russian forces in that territory and wonder what they might be used for. certainly the fear amongst members of the baltic states, most of the senior elements of government there have warned about the position of russia for some considerable time. but clearly since the war and ukraine began their warnings there, please for help have been much louder. certainly several different, nicer countries, europeans and others, canadians,

americans maintained some forces on the baltic states. but all of this relates to the decision taken by the e. you to impose sanctions on russian goods and services being transported on e u territory. and the thing there, the lithuanian government says quite clearly that what they are doing is in line with what the e u has said should be done and they are doing what any other e u country would do. the russian view is very different. russian view is this impinges on russia's sovereignty on its ability to allow the transit of goods from the ex clove of callian ingram to russia proper. the main russian federation, russia's president says he's planning to fully modernize. the military. vladimir putin says it's in response to growing threats from outside. the country. plans include making wash as ground troops more combat effective for future conflicts as machine yet we will continue to develop and strengthen our armed forces, taking into account potential military threats and risks based on the lessons of

modern armed conflicts. and our priority is quitting troops with new weapons systems that will determine the combat effectiveness of the army and navy in the years and decades to come. in addition to the new weapons already tested, troops are receiving s 500 air defense and missile defense system that are unmatched in the world yoyo in ukraine, a school in the east and donate screeching has been hit by russian shelling original governor released this footage, showing the building in flames and the city of of div cup. it's one of about a 200 schools destroyed across the don't ask region, has been fist fighting the several weeks as washing ukrainian forces battle for control of the east. the u. s. attorney general is made an unannounced visit to ukraine, better garland met with ukraine's prosecutor general to discuss international efforts to support ukraine and identifying and prosecuting washing individuals involved in war crimes. i'm here to express the unwavering support at the united

states for the people of ukraine in the midst of the unprovoked and unjust russian invasion. i'm here to continue our discussions between myself and the prosecutor general. but the actions of united states is taking to assist the reigning authorities and holding accountable those responsible for the atrocities for the war crimes that the entire world has seen. united states is sending an unmistakable message. there is no place to hide, we will, we and our partners will pursue every avenue available to make sure that those were responsible for these atrocities are held accountable in ukraine's eastern south. the situation has been described as a stalemate with both sides suffering heavy losses. now to do as charles stratford sat down with president flor to me as a lends case advise up and spoke to him about what lies ahead. you said that there would never be any kind of deal to potentially seed territory to russia. how realistic is that?

when you look at an area of, of land, the size of crimea, for example, an area of land in order to take control back of it, militarily, will involve potentially billions, more dollars worth of western weapons and thousands of lives. louis did address no, still get any surrender of ukrainian territory would mean the war will continue with greater intensity. and on an even greater scale here, you should not see russia as an honest negotiating partner and sound legal agreements with. it is not believing it will be credible and honored in 2 or 3 years in russia is expansionist the go. so it exists only by attacking other states and attacks in various ways using its energy resources, its military migration for using food as a weapon. before acquaint can never santa deal with russia and this context expense . and therefore, the president clearly asked western pioneers to participate in this war because ukraine doesn't have the military sources that russia has a, we want to finish this war the right way up a coin. and that means liberating our territories and falls with it and re

establishing our sovereignty with an internationally recognized borders. this is good figured out. so do you believe everything that western leaders like president micron, like all of shots, for example, say, giving you. certainly in rhetoric, wholehearted support. when you look at the facts, we're looking potentially a global recession, a global food crisis, rising inflation, huge challenges with gas supplies to europe in winter. how long do you honestly think that the europeans can continue this level of support gets down like his new brochure, but you know, some countries living standards are dropping because of the situation in ukraine on it. but this is an all out war when it's happening on european territory. so of course, some living standards are decreasing, which because europeans are indirectly involved in this war, much thought they are paying for the expenses of this war. i understand they want to preserve their pre war life and comforts, and nobody wants bad news, little. but if russia gains more territory reasoning, it will think its tactics and strategy of humiliating other countries works to win,

and it will continue black mailing europe the wind of what you say to you countries . you say that you are not yet ready for you candidacy status and yes, there are values that are worth living for that any quinn is proving on the battlefield, that these values cost lives. they are european values and secondly, i don't understand why you candidacy cannot be seen as an opportunity for ukraine to make the reforms we need for membership. unfortunately, not every country understands the sea and is unnecessarily speculating that ukraine is not ready. but europe is important for ukraine, and that works both ways. linelle, what after the u. s. congress, where is the 4th hearing of the house committee investigating the january 6th 2021 riots of the capital? the focus is on how former president donald trump tried to pressure officials in swing states where he had lost listenin. this is what former attorney general bill

bar said to president trump about allegations in georgia. we took a look hard look at this ourselves and based on our review of it, including the interviews of the key witnesses, the fulton county allocations were had no merit. the the, the ballots under the table were legitimate bout ballots. they weren't in the suit case. they had been pre opened for eventually feeding into the machine all the stuff about the water leak and that there was some subterfuge involved. we felt there was some confusion, but, but there was no evidence of a subterfuge to create an opportunity to feed things into the account. and do so, we didn't see any evidence of frost in the fulton county episode and acting deputy attorney general richard donahue told donald trump this

and i said something to you back there sir. we've done. does. ready investigations, hundreds of interviews. the major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. mr. trump was told by his own advisors that he had no basis for his stolen election claims. and he continued to pressure state officials to change the election results. second, you will hear about a number of threats and efforts to pressure state officials to reverse the election outcome. one of our witnesses today, gabriel stirling explicitly warned president trump about potential violence on december 1st 2020. more than a month before january 6th. you will see excerpts from that video repeatedly today . it has all gone to borrow. oh, joseph gentlemen to day asked for, chris crept a patriot,

who ran sessa to be shot. a 20 something check, and gwinnett county today as death threats and a noose put out saying he should be home for treason because she was transferring a report on batches from d. a miss to account a computer so we could reach it passed to sto mister president. you're not condemned. these actions were this language. senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions this past to stop. we need you to step up. if you're taking position of leadership show, so my boss, 2nd revenue for his address is out there. they get people doing cubans from their house. they've had people come on to their property, it has to stop the selection.

this is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a day, a word or complicit in this point is this. donald trump did not care about the threats of violence. he did not condemn them. he made no effort to stop them. he went forward with his fake allegations anyway. one more point. i would urge all of those watching today to focus on the evidence the committee will present. don't be distracted by politics. this is serious. we cannot let america become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence. finally, i want to thank our witnesses today. are all of your service to our country. to day all of america will hear about the selfless actions of these men and women who acted honorably to uphold the law, protect our freedom,

and preserve our constitution. to day, mister chairman, we will all see an example of what truly makes america great. thank you mister chairman. i go back without objection, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. this issue for an opening statement. thank it was chairman and madame blazed share. on november 3rd, 2020 donald trump ran for reelection to the office of the presidency, and he lost his opponent, joe biden finished ahead and the key battleground states, arizona, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, georgia, and elsewhere nevertheless, and for the 1st time in history, the losing presidential candidate fought to hold on to power as we have seen in previous hearings, he did so through a variety of means on election day, he sought to stop the counting of the vote. knowing that the millions of absentee ballots, elections, officials would be counting on election day. and thereafter would run strongly

against him and deliver a victory to joe biden. next, and when he could not stop the counting, he tried to stop state legislatures and governors from certifying the results of the election. he went to court and filed dozens of frivolous lawsuits making unsubstantiated claims of fraud. when that 2 failed, you mounted a pressure campaign directed at individual state legislators to try to get them to go back in this session and either declare him the winner. decertified joe biden is the winner or send to slates of electors to congress one for body, and one for him, and pressure vice president pence to choose him as the winner. but the state legislatures wouldn't go along with his scheme. and neither would, the vice president, none of the legislatures agreed to go back in the special session and declare him the winner. no legitimate state authority in the states. donald trump last would

agree to appoint fake trump electors and send them to congress. but this didn't stop the trump campaign, either. they assembled groups of individuals and key battleground states and got them to call themselves. electors, created phony certificates associated with these fake electors. and then transmitted these certificates to washington and to the congress to be counted during the joint session of congress on january 6th. none of this worked, but according to federal district judge david carter, former president, trump, and others likely violated multiple federal laws by engaging in this scheme, including conspiracy to defraud the united states. you will hear evidence of the former president and his top advisers, direct involvement and key elements of this plot are what judge carter called a qu in search of a legal theory for as the judge explained,

president trump's pressure campaigned to stop. the electoral count did not end with vice president pence. it targeted every tier of federal and state elected officials, convincing state legislatures, he said to certify competing electors was essential to stop the count and ensure president trump's reelection. as we have seen in our prior hearings running through this scheme was a big lie that the election was played with massive fraud and somehow stolen. you'll remember what present the president's own attorney general bill bar said he told the president about these claims of massive fraud affecting the outcome of the election hand. ah, i told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public were book was bullshit. i mean that the claims of fraud were bullshit. the presidents lie was and is

a dangerous cancer on the body politic. if you can convince americans that they cannot trust their own elections at any time, they lose, it is somehow illegitimate. and what is left but violence to determine who should govern the springs us to the focus of today's hearing. when state elections, officials refused to stop the count. donald trump in his campaign, tried to put pressure on them. when state executive officials refused to certify him, the winner of states, he lost, he applied more pressure. when state legislators refused to go back into session and appoint trump electors, he amped up the pressure yet again. any one who got in the way of donald trump's continued hold on power. after he lost the election, was the subject of a dangerous, an escalating campaign of pressure. this pressure campaign brought angry phone calls and texts arm protests, intimidation, and all too often threats of violence and death state

legislators were singled out. so too were statewide elections. officials, even local elections, workers diligently doing their jobs, were accused of being criminals and had their lives turned upside down. as we will show, the present supporters heard the former president's claims of fraud, and the false allegations he made against state and local officials as a call to action. oh, still i say your name brenda. and on a luncheon, oh oh, oh, do you have a room in about 45 minutes later we started to hear the

noises outside my home and that's my stomach sank and i thought it's me and there and then it just, we don't know what's going and the uncertainty of that was what was the fear, like are they coming with kinder? they get attack my house. i'm in here with my kid. you know it's, i'm trying to put in the bed and so it was. yeah, that was the scariest moment. just not knowing what was going to happen. this pressure campaign against stay, the local officials expanded numerous contested states. as you will see in this video, produced by the select committee. my name is josh rosalyn, i'm an investigative counselor for the house select committee to investigate the january 6th attack and the united states capital. beginning and late november 2020 . the president and his lawyers started appearing before state legislators urging them to give their electoral vote to trump,

even though he lost the popular vote. i represent the president trump, along with jenna ellis, and this is our 4th or 5th hearing. this election has to be turned around because we want pensylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot. this was a strategy with both practical and legal elements. the select committee has obtained an e mail from just 2 days after the election, in which a trump campaign lawyer named quito, mitchell asked another trump lawyer, john eastman. to write a memo, justifying the idea. when do you remember this coming up as an option in the post election period for the 1st time, right after the election might have been before the election, eastman prepared a memo attempting to justify the strategy which was circulated to the trump white house, rudy giuliani, legal team and state legislators around the country and he appeared before the georgia state legislature to advocate for it publicly. you could also do what the florida legislature was prepared to do, which is to adopt

a slate of electors yourself. and when you add in the mix of the significance statistical anomalies in sworn affidavit, the video evidence of outright election fraud, i don't think it's just your authority to do that. but quite frankly, i think you have a duty to do that to protect the integrity of the election year in georgia. but republican officials in several states released public statements recognizing that president trump proposal was unlawful. for instance, georgia governor, brian can called the proposal unconstitutional while arizona how speaker rusty bowers wrote that the idea would undermine the rule of law. the pressure campaigned to get state legislators to go along with a scheme intensified when president trump invited delegations from michigan and pennsylvania to the white house. either you or speaker chappy, or did you make the point to the president that you were not going to do anything that violated michigan law? i believe we do. whether not was to those exact words or not,

where i think the words that i would have more likely use is we're going to follow the law. nevertheless, the pressure continued the next day president trump tweeted, quote, hopefully the courts and or legislatures will have the courage to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our election and the united states of america itself. the world is watching. he posted multiple messages on facebook listing the contact information for state officials and urging his supporters to contact them to quote, demand a vote on de certification. in one of those post president trump disclose, mike shook his personal phone number to his millions of followers. i remembered is receiving over just shy at 4000 text messages a short period of time calling to catch. there's a loud noise loud. consistent keeps of, you know,

we heard that the, that the, the trump folks are calling and asking for changing the electors. and you guys can do that, you know, they were there were believing things that were true. these efforts also involved targeted outreach to state legislators. hi. my name is angela mccalla. i'm calling from trump campaign headquarters in washington dc. you do have the power to reclaim your story and, and it's a slate of electors that will support as in trumping vice president trump lawyers. and from trump himself. i'd become friendly with legislators that i didn't know 4 weeks ago. another legislator, pennsylvania. how speaker brian cutler received daily voicemails from trump's lawyers in the last week of november. speaker, this is really silly. and jenna ellis were calling you together because we like to

discuss obviously the election. hello mr. figure. this is jenna ellis and i'm here with mayor giuliani. hey, brian, it's really, really have something important to call your attention. i think really changes things. cutler felt that the outreach was inappropriate and asked employers to tell rudy giuliani to stop calling. but juliani continued to reach out. i understand that you don't want to talk to me now. i just want to bring some facts to your attention. ringback and talk to you as a fellow republicans on december 30th trump allies deep band and announced a protest cutler's home were getting on the road and we're going down to cutler. we're going to start going to offices and we have to, we're going to go to homes and we're going to let them know what we think about them. there were multiple per tests. i actually don't remember the exact number. there was at least 3, i think outside either my district office or my home. you are correct. my son might then 50 year old son was home by himself for the 1st one. all of my personal

information was docs online. it was my personal email, my personal cell phone, my home phone number. in fact, we had to disconnect our home phone for about 3 days cuz it would ring all hours and i would fill up a messages. i have a weird thing clerks facing felony charges in michigan hold, watchers denied access and fees as well. another element in the upper trump campaign spend millions of dollars reading as online in on television evidence is overwhelming. calling your governor and legislator demand they inspect the machines and here are the evidence. public pressure on state officials off anchored dangerous in the lead up to january 6th. i like to hit on by you and i

should not advise it now, but i do right. the punishment for treason is de the state pressure campaign, and the danger posed to state officials and the state capitals around the nation was a dangerous pre cursor to the violence we saw on january 6th with u. s. capital. today you'll hear from rusty bowers. the republican speaker of the arizona house of representatives. you will tell us about his conversations with the president, rudy giuliani and john eastman and what the president's team asked of him and how his oath of office would not permit it. you will then hear from brad reference burger, the republican secretary of state of georgia, who trump directed to quote, find 11780 votes that did not exist, but just the exact number of votes needed to overtake joe biden. you will also hear

from gabriel sterling, the chief operating officer, his chief operating officer about this various claims of fraud in the elections in georgia. and who responding to a cascading set of threats to his elections team warned the president to stop that someone was going to get killed. and you will hear from one drea, one dreyer's seamus, a former local elections worker in fulton county, georgia about. busy how all of the lies about the election impacted the lives of real people who administer our elections. and still do, you will hear what they experienced when the most powerful man in the world. the president of the united states sought to cling to power after being voted out of office by the american people. the system held but barely. and the system held because people of courage, republicans and democrats, like the witnesses you will hear to day. but their oath of to the country and

constitution above any other consideration. they did their jobs as we must do ours. thank you mister chairman. and i yield back an al welcome. our 1st panel of witnesses were joined to day by distinguish legislator from arizona, rusty bowers, who's a republican speaker of the arizona house of representatives. mister bowel was 1st elected to the state legislature in 1993 and have served as speaker since 2019. welcome speak of ours rad ransoms. burger is a 2008 secretaries state of georgia serving in this roles since 2019 as an elected official and a republican secretary, rassen berger is responsible for supervising elections and georgia and maintain in the states public records. welcome the secretary. gabriel sterling is

a chief operating officer in the georgia secretary of state's office. miss of sterling was the state wire. ready boating systems implementation manager for the 2020 election in georgia, responsible for leading the secretary of state's response to the cove at pandemic, and rolling out modernized voting equipment. i will swear in our witnesses, the witnesses will please stand and raise a right hand. do you swear i'm for a form on the pillow, the appraiser that the testimony you about to give is a truth. oh truth and nothing but the truth. so help you. god. thank you. please be seated at a record reflect that the witness is answered in the affirmative. speaker bowers, thank you for being with us today. you had us.