Donald Trump’s closest campaign advisers, top government officials and even his family were dismantling his false claims of 2020 voting fraud on election night, but the defeated president was becoming “detached from reality,” clinging to outlandish theories to stay in power, several said.
Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien testified Monday before the House Jan. 6 committee that Trump was “growing increasingly unhappy” at the election results as the night wore on.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to steer Trump away from attorney Rudy Giuliani and his far-flung theories of voter fraud that advisers believed were not true.
Former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue recalls breaking down one claim after another — from a truckload of ballots in Pennsylvania to a missing suitcase of ballots in Georgia —- and telling Trump “much of the info you’re getting is false.”
“He was becoming detached from reality,” said former Attorney General William Barr, who resigned. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”
