Jan. 6 documents: Georgia legislators answered Trump’s call to overturn 2020 election
ATLANTA — With his chances of winning Georgia slipping away in December 2020, thenpresident Donald Trump hit upon a novel scheme to stay in power: State legislators would name him the winner.
So, while his allies spun dubious tales of voting fraud at the Georgia Capitol, Trump’s campaign called nearly 120 Republican legislators to ask whether they would appoint a slate of presidential electors who would vote for Trump instead of Democrat Joe Biden. A log of those phone calls recently released by congressional investigators shows some lawmakers were eager to help.
“Hell, yes,” said one. “100%,” replied another. “Very supportive and ready to go,” a third lawmaker told the campaign.
In all, about 30 Republican legislators expressed some level of support for allowing the General Assembly to name Trump the winner of the presidential election, according to the call log. The log and other documents released by investigators suggest scores of other lawmakers also may have supported the plan.
The documents appear to offer the fullest picture yet of Trump’s effort to pressure legislators to help him overturn the election — and the willingness of lawmakers to go along with that plan.
Some lawmakers say the documents are not accurate. Fourteen legislators the Trump campaign identified as supporting his plan told
The Atlanta Journalconstitution that they either do not remember receiving such a call or said they never supported a plan to appoint Trump electors.
“I do think there were some issues with the election,” said state
Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-dalton. “But that was not the way to go.”
No legislator contacted by the AJC admitted to taking the Trump campaign’s call or supporting his plan. Seventeen lawmakers the campaign identified as supporting Trump’s plan did not respond to requests for comment or could not be reached.
The reluctance of some lawmakers to talk about Trump’s plan is in stark contrast to the climate that gripped the Georgia Capitol in the wake of the 2020 election. With the president demanding loyalty and bullying politicians who failed to get in line, plenty of Georgia lawmakers were willing to publicly support his efforts. Calls to convene a special session to tighten voting rules quickly evolved into calls for legislators to “take back the power to appoint electors.”
The congressional documents don’t reveal the stance of every Republican lawmaker, and they don’t necessarily reflect how legislators would have voted if given the chance to overturn the election. That chance never came — Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative leaders rejected calls to convene a special session that would have allowed the General Assembly to name Trump the winner.
But the documents suggest plenty of lawmakers were ready to reject the will of a majority of Georgia voters on the flimsiest of pretenses.
Trump and his supporters spent weeks challenging Biden’s victory with unsuccessful lawsuits. But his campaign also pursued another strategy: convincing legislators in Georgia and other states that fraud had cost Trump the election, and that lawmakers had the authority to set things right.
The strategy was dubious from the beginning. Trump’s fraud claims were investigated and debunked. In Georgia, a hand recount of every ballot confirmed Biden’s victory.
What’s more, legal experts across the political spectrum rejected the idea that legislators could determine the outcome of the election after the fact. But some Georgia lawmakers were willing to try. Several dozen sought to convene a special session of the Legislature to “take back the power to appoint electors.”
In addition, a dozen Georgia lawmakers signed a letter — released by congressional investigators — urging Vice President Mike Pence to delay congressional certification of Biden’s victory so legislatures could consider “certification or decertification of the election.” And 28 Georgia legislators filed a brief in support of an unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to allow state lawmakers to decide the election.
Much of this was done publicly. But documents and interviews released by congressional investigators have shed new light on what was happening behind the scenes.