In footage never seen before, documentary filmmaker Alex Holder shows how former President Donald Trump wanted the Georgia state legislature to engage in illegal actions so that they could give him the state’s 16 Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential race, even though he lost the election to President Joe Biden.
Trump’s calls for lawmakers to change the election result were based on false claims of widespread election fraud, which made his improper demands all the more dubious.
In the video, which the filmmaker shared with CNN, Holder interviews Trump in early December 2020, where Trump makes many unwarranted claims of election fraud, including debunked allegations that signatures were forged on mail-in voting ballots.
“They should open it up, verify the signatures,” Trump demanded. “When you do, you’ll see that all of those people that signed didn’t have the right to vote.”
It’s not clear from the video who Trump is alluding to, but it appears that he means everyone who voted by mail — the vast majority of whom were Biden supporters — should have their votes discounted.
“They were forgeries and other things,” Trump incorrectly states. “And all we want is that, and it’s simple, or a special session. Let their legislature make the decision, because they’re already largely on our side. Because they see what happened in Georgia.”
Georgia did not hold a special session to re-evaluate the outcome of the election, as doing so is not permitted under the state constitution. It certified its results, giving its Electoral College votes to Biden. Later in the month, the state completed an audit of its mail-in signatures, finding no evidence of fraud that would warrant overturning the outcome of the presidential election.
In spite of that, Trump continued to harangue election officials to overturn the election results — including demanding that Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, simply “find” him 11,780 additional votes, the exact number needed to overcome Biden’s totals.
Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger was recorded by the latter, and may demonstrate an illegal action on Trump’s part, as it is against state law to try and coerce or threaten a state official into changing an election result. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is currently conducting a special grand jury investigation into the matter, where several former Trump officials have already been subpoenaed.
In addition to cooperating with the January 6 committee after being subpoenaed to share his documentary video evidence with them, Holder is also sharing his video segments with investigators in the Georgia inquiry as well. Many legal experts believe that, while the work of the January 6 investigation is important, it’s the Georgia state inquiry that is most likely to land Trump with an indictment and possible conviction of a crime.
“Once you look at what he said, trying to get Brad Raffensperger to come up with extra votes to make him a winner in Georgia, and put in the context about the January 6 committee has found, I think they have gotten a case beyond a reasonable doubt,” former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman said last month in an interview with MSNBC.
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