• Schmidt was a Pennsylvania election official in November 2020.
  • Trump attacked Schmidt on Twitter after election day for not calling the results fraudulent.
  • MAGA supporters threatened to execute his family for betraying Trump.

Former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt told the January 6 select committee Monday that MAGA supporters threatened to kill his immediate family after then-President Donald Trump complained on Twitter that Schmidt wouldn't overturn the 2020 election results. 

Schmidt testified about the targeting during the House committee's second public hearing, telling lawmakers that Trump's outburst on November 11, 2020 took the threats he had already been receiving as an elections official from generally disturbing to horrifyingly close-to-home. Committee member Zoe Lofgren of California showed screenshots of some of the messages Schmidt shared with investigators, including text messages and emails that mentioned his kids being "fatally shot," assailing him for betraying his country, and calling for "heads on spikes" for the "treasonous Schmidts." 

 

"After the president tweeted at me, by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific. Much more graphic. And included not just me, by name, but included members of my family, by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home. Just every bit of detail that you could imagine," Schmidt said. "That was what changed with that tweet." 

In his online attack, Trump lashed out at Schmidt for not going along with his baseless claims of election fraud. 

"He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty," Trump wrote before losing his social media accounts for messages that could incite violence in the aftermath of the deadly siege at the US Capitol. 

Before Trump singled him out, Schmidt said the threats he'd been getting from election deniers were more in the vein of corrupt officials getting what they deserved or that he was "walking into the lion's den." 

Schmidt also told the January 6 panel that he looked into every allegation of potential fraud in Philadelphia's 2020 presidential election results and reiterated that he had found none. 

"We took seriously every case that was referred to us, no matter how fantastical, no matter how absurd," Schmidt said. 

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