In late December, former President Donald Trump called Frances Watson, the chief investigator in the Georgian Secretary of State’s office, and during the six-minute phone call, he encouraged her to look for fraud in mailing notes that were being audited. Wall Street Newspaper reports.
The connection was first reported by The Washington Post in January, but it hasn’t been released yet. Trump told Watson several times that he won the state, and “something bad has happened”, the daily reports. He told Watson that she had the most important job in the country and “when the right answer comes, you will be praised”. Trump also said that the ballots were “discarded”, but did not explain what he meant, and Watson did not pressure him anymore, the daily it says.
There were two recounts across the state in Georgia, with both discovering the same thing: President Biden won the state by about 12,000 votes and Trump lost. At the time of calling Watson, a forensic audit was underway on 15,000 Cobb County postal ballots; it was later announced that no evidence of fraud was found. Trump told Watson that he was calling at the request of his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and she said she was “honored” to speak with him and was “only interested in the truth and finding information based on the facts.”
Trump picked up the phone again in early January to urge Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger (R), to “find” enough votes to nullify Biden’s victory in the state. This led to a criminal investigation into attempts to influence the 2020 presidential election, now underway by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
In a statement to the daily, Raffensperger’s spokesman said Trump’s connection to Watson is “just another example” of how his office promised “to follow the law, count all the legal votes and investigate any allegations of fraud”.
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