fraud in Pennsylvania that must be investigated, remedied and rectified."[264] President Trump sent that letter to John Eastman, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, Rush Limbaugh, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Lou Dobbs, and others.[265]
As January 6th approached, Senator Mastriano's involvement in attempts to overturn the election only grew. On December 23rd, he led a second group of Pennsylvania State senators for a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office, which Giuliani claimed "swayed about 20" of them.[266] Neither Speaker Cutler nor Senate President Corman participated.
Mastriano also sent emails indicating that he spoke with President Trump on December 27th, 28th, and 30th, along with files that President Trump had requested or that he had promised to him.[267] One of these was a pair of letters from State senators asking U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to reject Pennsylvania's electoral votes on January 6th.[268] President Trump's executive assistant notified the White House's Director of Legislative Affairs that "[t]he President would like the below attached letters to be sent to Mitch and Kevin and all GOP house and senate members," but was told in reply, "[g]iven the political nature of the letters, would you mind sending them?"[269]
On January 5th, President Trump spoke again with Mastriano and then notified the White House operator that Mastriano "will be calling in for the Vice President" soon.[270] That evening Senator Mastriano sent two more emails for the President. One was a letter addressed to Vice President Pence on behalf of nearly 100 legislators from various States; the other was a letter directed to McConnell and McCarthy from Pennsylvania lawmakers, this time asking Congress to postpone acting on the 6th.[271] President Trump tweeted the letter that night, captioning it "BIG NEWS IN PENNSYLVANIA!" and, after midnight, he retweeted that "Pennsylvania is going to Trump. The legislators have spoken."[272] As described elsewhere in this report, that letter, and letters like it, were used in the effort to convince Vice President Pence that he could and should affect the outcome of the joint session of Congress on January 6th.
The Select Committee subpoenaed Senator Mastriano to testify about these interactions with President Trump and his advisors, among other matters. Unlike numerous other witnesses who complied with subpoenas and provided deposition testimony to the Select Committee, Mastriano did not; he logged in to a virtual deposition at the appointed time but logged out before answering any substantive questions or even taking the oath to the tell the truth.[273]
