In a December phone conversation with the lead investigator in Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, former President Donald Trump insisted on winning Georgia’s presidential election, telling the investigator that “ the country is counting on ” an audit that was Launched to Determine the Signature Verification Process According to a recently published audio recording obtained by The Wall Street Journal, correspondence was properly conducted in the state’s third largest county.
“This country is counting on it because it’s very interesting. … I’ve won everything but Georgia, you know, and I’ve won Georgia – I know – a lot, and the people know, and you know, something is there. I mean, something bad has happened, “Trump told the lead investigator, Frances Watson, according to the recording of the six-minute conversation.
The former president goes on to say to Watson, “When the right answer comes, you will be praised. … People will say, great because that’s what it’s all about, that ability to control it and it’s right because everyone knows it’s wrong. is. “
The existence of this new audio recording comes amid a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to reverse the results of the November election in Georgia, which he lost by 11,779 votes. Central to that investigation, launched by the Fulton County district attorney last month, is a one-hour phone call Trump had with Raffensperger on Jan. 2. In that phone call, Trump spit out baseless conspiracy theories and lies about the election. and begged Raffensperger to “find” the exact number of votes he needed to win Georgia. Trump has denied wrongdoing, and his impeachment attorneys disputed that he “acted inappropriately in any way during that phone call.”
A Trump spokesman did not respond to ABC News’s request for comment.
Raffensperger announced on December 14 that investigators in his office, in coordination with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), would conduct a signature match audit of absentee ballots, saying there were specific and credible allegations that signatures were not matched correctly. had been conducted by election officials in the June primaries. A total of 15,118 oath-absentee envelopes, where voters sign, were randomly selected to be checked.
The audit was completed on Dec. 29 and investigators discovered only two ballots that should not have been accepted as they were and that should have undergone the “healing process”. But the GBI director also made it clear that neither ballot had been issued fraudulently.
According to the recording, Watson assured Trump that her team and the GBI are “only interested in the truth and finding, you know, finding information based on the facts.”
ABC News reported the existence of this call earlier in January. At the time, a source familiar with the matter said Trump had told Watson to “track down the fraud” and that she would be a “national hero” for it. Those exact words are not spoken in the audio recording of the call. In a follow-up interview, that source told ABC News that Watson had interpreted the president’s words that way and how she described the appeal to this source.
When the call was first reported, ABC News did not identify the investigator because the source sharing the details of the call asked Watson to remain unnamed due to the threat faced by election officials. In this recording, however, Trump calls her by name.
ABC News has contacted Watson for comment on the call and audio recording, but has heard nothing. However, ABC’s Atlanta branch, WSB, also got the recording and spoke exclusively to Watson.
“It is something that is not expected, and as I said in the call, I was shocked that he would take the time to do so,” Watson told WSB’s Mark Winne.
She also said that she did not feel pressured and that the investigative service had asked for a phone call.
In a statement, Raffensperger spokesman Ari Schaffer said: “This call is just one more example of how Secretary Raffensperger’s public comments also reflect what was said in one-on-one conversations: we would follow the law, any legal vote and investigate all allegations of fraud. That’s exactly what we did, and how we got to the right final vote. “
In the recording of the call, Trump refers to a meeting between Watson and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Watson indicates that this happened a day prior to the call. ABC News previously confirmed that Meadows was in Cobb County to observe the audit that took place on Dec. 22. Raffensperger’s deputy, Jordan Fuchs, said at the time that she would not allow Meadows to enter the room where investigators were working, but would allow him to stand in the doorway.
Trump carries on much of the talk on this call, sometimes roaming his election victories in other states, such as Florida, Ohio, Alabama, and Texas, implying those victories are proof that his loss in Georgia was impossible.
“Whatever you can do, Frances, it would be – it’s great. It’s important to the country, so important. You have no idea, so important. And I appreciate it very much,” he said. the recording.
Toward the end of the phone call, Trump asked Watson if the detectives would work through to Christmas, saying, “Because you know we have that 6th date, which is a very important day.”
January 6 was the day Congress counted electoral votes, the final step in the certification process of the victory of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
That morning, Trump told a crowd of supporters at a rally, “I know everyone here will soon be marching to the Capitol and making your voices heard peacefully and patriotically. … We’re fighting like hell. And if you don’t. ” I’m not fighting like crazy, you won’t have any more land. “
It wasn’t long after that when a mob of Trump supporters and violent extremists broke into the Capitol and overcame police to infiltrate the nation’s seat of government, forcing lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to seek safety as insurgents attempted to obstruct Congress . and Pence from fulfilling their constitutional duty to affirm Biden’s victory.