The audio file from a December 23rd conversation between former President and Investigator Francis Watson was revealed when Georgia’s Secretary of State responded to a request for public recordings. The personal acquaintance spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to describe the internal process.
The Washington Post first reported details of how the audio from the phone call appeared in December.
Earlier, CNN reported that during a phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state in December, Trump called on their lead investigator, Watson, to find fraud in the 2020 presidential election, telling her she would be “praised” for canceling the results in favour of President Joe Biden.
Earlier, government officials told CNN that they did not think the sound of the December call from Trump to Watson existed.
Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis sent a series of letters to Georgian government officials in February, including Georgia’s secretary of state, asking them to keep election-related documents. Willis is currently conducting a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 elections in Georgia.
The secretary of state is also separately investigating Trump for his attempts to annul the election results in the state.
An audio of a one-hour phone call on January 2nd, in which Trump repeatedly pressured Republican Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger to “find” the exact number of votes needed to cancel Biden’s victory, surfaced shortly after the call. But the call went public in December only last week.
Watson told CNN’s WSB-TV investigative reporter Mark Win that she recorded Trump’s December call for offspring.
“Not every day will probably ever happen again in my life,” Watson told the WSB.
It’s still unclear why Watson moved the call from the conversation to his trash can, but Watson told Wynn that although she was surprised that Trump called her, she didn’t feel any pressure from his phone call.
“This is something that is not expected, as I mentioned in the conversation, you know I was shocked that he would take the time to do that,” Watson said.
In a December call, Trump encouraged Watson to reveal “dishonesty” in checking his signature for missing ballots in Fulton County, the state’s most populous county and home to most of Atlanta.
“But if you go back two years and get to Fulton, you’ll find things that will be amazing,” the former president said. “The dishonesty we’ve heard about. But Fulton is the mother.”
Later during the phone call, Trump told Watson that he hoped “we” would win Georgia and that “you have the most important job in the country right now.”
The report added to examples of Trump’s extraordinary efforts to make false allegations of widespread voter fraud and to influence Georgia’s election officials as they verify the results of state elections.
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