Georgia officials were interviewed as part of a criminal investigation into whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke state law with phone calls about the 2020 election results.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said members of his office have communicated with Fulton County investigators for the inquiry that began in February after Trump’s call to Raffensperger, in which he asked the official to “find” the 11,780 votes sufficient to reverse his loss to President Joe Biden.
“They’ve asked us for documents, they’ve talked to some of our folks, and we’ll cooperate fully,” Raffensperger told the Daily Beast in a report published on Sunday.
The team led by Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, interviewed at least four officials in the secretary of state’s office with questions that conveyed an interest in phone conversations Raffensperger had with Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, according to the report, citing unnamed sources.
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Graham, a Trump ally, asked during a call 10 days after the November election if the secretary of state had the ability to throw away mail ballots in certain counties, Raffensperger told the Washington Post. Graham later denied he tried to have legal ballots set aside and said such a suggestion by Raffensperger was “ridiculous.” The Republican senator insisted to the news outlet he was attempting to understand signature-matching requirements and was not asked by Trump to reach out.
Ryan Germany, an attorney for the secretary of state’s office who was on the call with the White House on Jan. 2 when Trump pushed Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” is one of the officials who has reportedly been questioned. Communications specialist Ari Schaffer, chief operating officer Gabriel Sterling, and outreach director Sam Teasley are three others from the agency said to have been interviewed.
News of the interviews follows a Washington Post report in July that cited a source familiar with the investigation who said it was ending a “voluntary phase,” after which subpoenas could be issued to those who did not agree to interview or document requests.
Raffensperger has not yet been interviewed, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which also reported investigators are coordinating to obtain documents from the U.S. House lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
During his January phone conversation with Trump, which leaked to the media, Raffensperger stood by the election results in his state as the then-president pushed him to recalculate the results in his favor.
“The data you have is wrong,” Raffensperger said at one point.
Raffensperger, who announced in May he will seek reelection in 2022, is set to face off against Trump-endorsed GOP Rep. Jody Hice for the Republican nomination in the Peach State’s race for secretary of state.
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When prosecutors in Georgia opened the investigation earlier this year, Trump’s spokesman at the time, Jason Miller, criticized the move and called attention to the fact that Willis is a Democrat.
“The timing here is not accidental given today’s impeachment trial,” Miller said, referring to the Senate impeachment trial related to the Capitol riot that ended in acquittal. “This is simply the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it.”
Trump has also cast the New York criminal investigations into his business empire as a continuation of the “witch hunt” he has spoken of since the Russia investigation.
