President Donald Trump urged Georgia’s chief election investigator to find “dishonesty” that could help reverse the state’s election results, framing his work as a matter of national importance, according to the audio of a December phone call obtained from Secretary of State’s office on Monday.
Authorities discovered the recording of the conversation between Trump and Frances Watson, the lead investigator for the elections for Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in a trash folder on Watson’s device while responding to a public registration request, according to a source familiar with the internal process.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the audio.
“You have the most important job in the country right now,” Trump told Watson, who was conducting an audit of missing vote signatures in Cobb County at the time, according to the audio.
“Because if we win Georgia … the people of Georgia are so angry at what happened to me, they know I won,” he continued, repeating the false claim that he won the state.
President Joe Biden defeated Georgia by 12,670 votes, according to Georgia’s certified election results.
“When the right answer comes, you will be praised,” Trump told Watson at another point in the call, adding: “People will say ‘great’, because that is what it is all about, the ability to check and correct, because everyone knows that is wrong. “
Previous reports from NBC News and other news organizations, including The Washington Post, wrongly cited the exact words Trump used to urge Watson to seek fraud based on Assistant Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs’s account of Watson’s recollections. of the conversation.
“After listening to the tape, it is clear that [Watson’s] the recollection accurately portrayed the president’s claims that there was fraud to be discovered and that she would receive praise for it, “said Fuchs on Monday in a statement to NBC News.
In a statement on Monday, Trump expressed appreciation for the Post’s correction by repeating the false allegations of widespread electoral fraud in Georgia that he made in the months after Biden won the election.
During the conversation, which took place on December 23, Trump said that his chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, asked him to call Watson after Meadows visited Cobb County the day before.
At one point, Trump, referring to the process of matching voters’ signatures on file with the polling station and the signatures on their ballots, said that he expected Watson to be reviewing older signatures, rather than just the most updated ones on file. for voters.
“If you go back two years and you can get to Fulton, you will find things that will be unbelievable, the dishonesty from which we hear only good sources, really good sources,” Trump said before claiming without evidence that Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold and home to Atlanta, it was the “main lode” of such fraud.
“I appreciate your comments,” replied Watson. She admitted that she was “shocked” that he had time to call her.
“Whatever you can do, Frances, it would be – it’s a big deal,” Trump told her, according to the audio. “It is an important thing for the country. So important. You have no idea. So important. And I am very grateful.”
Watson said his team was “only interested in the truth” and “finding information based on the facts”. Trump then asked if his team of investigators would continue to work after Christmas to “keep it running fast.”
“Because, you know, we have that date on the 6th, which is a very important date,” he said, apparently referring to the joint session of Congress to formalize the results of the Electoral College. A pro-Trump crowd attacked the Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to disrupt the process of formalizing Biden’s electoral victory.
Trump also made calls to Raffensperger and Republican Governor Brian Kemp as part of his efforts to overturn the election results, particularly in Georgia, which he became the first Republican candidate in nearly 30 years to lose.
During the call to Raffensperger, which took place in early January before the Capitol riot, Trump pleaded with him to “find” enough votes to override the results and hand him over to the state.