President Trump’s desperation to convince Georgia election officials to reverse the state’s election result was made clear in a newly surfaced recording of a call Trump had with a top elections investigators in the state.
Trump’s call to the investigator came several days before his infamous call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. That Trump spoke separately to another official in Raffensperger’s office was previously reported by the Washington Post.
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal made public for the first time a recording of that earlier call, in which Trump attempted to cajole and sweet-talk Frances Watson, who is the chief investigator in Raffensperger’s office.
On the call, Trump urged Watson to focus her attention on Fulton County, which is home to Atlanta.
“You are going to find things that are going to be unbelievable — the dishonesty,” Trump said, according to the Wall Street Journal recording.
“Fulton is the motherlode, as the expression goes,” he said.
Trump told Watson that if he wasn’t declared the winner in Georgia, the two Republicans who were up for a run-off the next month were likely to lose their seats in the U.S. Senate.
“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump told Watson, while claiming that she had the “most important job in the country right now.”
Amid his encouragement of Watson, he mentioned that “the people of Georgia are so angry at what happened to me, they know I won.”
The recording also suggest that at the time of the call Trump was already fixated on producing bogus evidence of fraud ahead of Congress’ certification of Biden’s win on Jan. 6.
“We have that date of the sixth, which is a very important date,” Trump said.
Trump’s pressuring of Georgia election officials is now the subject of an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, and she is also looking at the ouster of the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, whose replacement Trump hand-picked.
Trump needed her to do him a favor, though
And sure enough…
We have that date of the sixth, which is a very important date,” Trump said.Ah. So the planning of the insurrection was already well underway.
Also, there appear to be more recordings of Trump than the Beatles. I can’t say I care much for his Spotify channel.
This sounds like a threat from Trump to his fellow Republicans. That if he goes down, he takes the Republican Senate down with him. What an all-around great guy and awesome leader!
Trump:
Fair enough.
Meanwhile, Watson said little more than how much she appreciated him and his call. She had to say it a few times because it’s all she could say each time he paused.