Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan plotted with Trump to stop Biden from becoming president, House January 6 committee says

• Jan. 6 committee says GOP lawmakers worked with the Trump White House to stop Biden from becoming president.
• Reps. Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, and Marjorie Taylor Greene were among the GOP representatives named by a former White House aide.

Republican lawmakers held calls with former President Donald Trump in December 2020 to plot ways to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to court records filed by the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.

The committee filed deposition excerpts on Friday, which detail how Republican lawmakers, such as Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, plotted with Trump to stop then-candidate Joe Biden from becoming president.

Gaetz, Jordan, and other Republican lawmakers participated in calls and meetings with Trump and his aides after he lost the 2020 presidential election, according to testimony given to the committee by Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Hutchinson said in the deposition records that various Republican lawmakers, including Gaetz, Jordan, Reps. Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Louis Gohmert, either met in person or dialed into meetings discussing ways to usurp Biden's victory.

"They felt that [former Vice President Mike Pence] had the authority to — pardon me if my phrasing isn't correct on this, but — send votes back to the States or the electors back to the States," Hutchinson said.

Other Republican lawmakers who are part of the House Freedom Caucus were also part of these meetings, Hutchinson said. Representatives for Gaetz, Jordan, Perry, Taylor Greene, and Gohmert did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

During these meetings, the Republican lawmakers explored avenues that "could potentially be a constitutional and viable option to either stall certification of the election or to delay the inauguration or to assert that Mr. Trump had actually won," she said.

After the results of the 2020 presidential election came out, the Trump campaign has filed dozens of lawsuits alleging voter fraud, most of which have so far been denied, dismissed, or withdrawn.

Independent election watchdog groups have said repeatedly that there was no widespread voter fraud. After the results came out, for example, The New York Times contacted election officials in every state, each of which said there is no evidence that fraud influenced the presidential election.

But even after leaving office, Trump has continued to insist that the election was rigged. Republican lawmakers have echoed his unsubstantiated claims.