Georgia fake voters say they were considered the target of a criminal DA investigation

More importantly, however, Republican election candidates say they were unaware of a deeper scheme by close Trump allies – including lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani – to « abuse » their votes. and pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to count the « contingent. » ” voters as valid, even without a court decision annulling the results.

« [T]Designated voters did not and could not have had any involvement or knowledge of such a plan, as it was not even conceived until several weeks after GOP voters completed their contingent voter rolls on December 14, 2020. said the Republican’s lawyers. the electors’ nominees wrote, « and, in any event, this was never disclosed or discussed with the designated electors at any time ».

“As such, none of the named voters could have foreseen on December 14, 2020 that there could or would be an attempt to abuse their lawfully constituted contingent voters list in this manner, nor did they or did ‘Couldn’t they have participated in the same thing,’ wrote the attorneys, Holly Pierson and Kimberly Debrow.

The filing highlights how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has stepped up his investigation into efforts to reverse Georgia’s results. She has in recent weeks subpoenaed several members of Congress, Georgia state lawmakers and key members of Trump’s inner circle, including Eastman and Giuliani. His investigation also includes a review of the phone call Trump made to Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, urging him to « find » just enough votes for Trump to win.

Trump’s effort to grab a second term he did not win depended in large part on the existence of these fake voters. He pressed for much of December to persuade Republican state legislatures — in at least seven states won by Joe Biden — to assert the power to nominate pro-Trump voters alongside the Democratic slate. No state legislature agreed, but on Dec. 14, 2020, when the Electoral College was required by law to meet and vote for the presidency, Trump allies gathered lists of “alternate” voters for organize mock ceremonies and vote in the same way.

Trump later cited the existence of the lists as he sought to pressure Pence to single-handedly help overturn the Jan. 6, 2021, election results. to lead the electoral vote count, could either refuse to count Biden’s votes or delay the session altogether and urge state legislatures to reconvene and certify Trump voters instead, according to the plan laid out by Eastman and backed by Trump. But Pence refused to join the plan, a move that enraged Trump and inflamed a pro-Trump crowd that had surrounded the Capitol.