‘Find the fraud,’ president is said to urge official

Call to Georgia investigator draws legal experts’ attention

President Donald Trump in a lengthy December phone call urged Georgia’s lead elections investigator to “find the fraud,” saying the official would be a “national hero,” according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the conversation.

Trump placed the call to the investigations chief for the Georgia secretary of state’s office shortly before Christmas — while the individual was leading an inquiry into allegations of ballot fraud in Cobb County in the suburbs of Atlanta, according to people familiar with the episode.

The president’s attempts to intervene in an ongoing investigation could amount to obstruction of justice or other criminal violations, legal experts said, though they cautioned that a case could be difficult to prove.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had launched the inquiry after allegations that Cobb County election officials had improperly accepted mail-in ballots with signatures that did not match those on file — claims that state officials ultimately concluded had no merit.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Raffensperger confirmed that Trump had placed the Dec. 23 call. He said he was not familiar with the specifics of what the president said in the conversation with his chief investigator but that it was inappropriate for Trump to have tried to intervene in the case.

“That was an ongoing investigation,” Raffensperger said. “I don’t believe that an elected official should be involved in that process.”

The Post is withholding the name of the investigator, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment, because of the risk of threats and harassment directed at election officials.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Since Election Day, Trump has made at least three calls to government officials in Georgia in an attempt to subvert President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, beginning with a conversation with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in early December to criticize him for certifying the state’s election results.

The president has expressed anger at both Raffensperger and Kemp, who have refused to echo his claims that the election was rigged. Trump has complained that they betrayed him after he endorsed both of their 2018 elections. At a rally Wednesday in Washington, shortly before his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump criticized the officials, calling the two men “corrupt.”

Trump’s call to the chief investigator occurred more than a week before he spent an hour on the phone with Raffensperger, pushing him to overturn the vote. In that Jan. 2 conversation, the president alternately berated the secretary of state, tried to flatter him, urged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the fellow Republican refused to pursue Trump’s claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”

Legal experts said Trump’s call to the secretary of state may have broken state or federal laws that bar the solicitation of election fraud or prohibit participating in a conspiracy against people exercising their civil rights.

Trump’s earlier call to the chief investigator could also carry serious criminal implications, according to several former prosecutors, who said the president may have violated laws against bribery or interfering with an ongoing probe.

“Oh, my god, of course that’s obstruction — any way you cut it,” said Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor in New York and a onetime member of the Watergate prosecution team, responding to a description of Trump’s conversation with the investigator.

Akerman said he would be “shocked” if Trump didn’t commit a crime of obstruction under the Georgia statutes. He said the fact that the president took the time to identify the investigator, obtain a phone number and then call “shows that he’s trying to influence the outcome of what’s going on.”

However, such cases can be difficult to prove, and legal experts said any decision to prosecute Trump — even after he leaves office — would be a politically fraught one.

Robert James, a former prosecutor in DeKalb County, Ga., said proving obstruction would hinge on what Trump said and the tone he used, as well as whether his intentions were clear.

Without the audio of the call, it would be more difficult to prove wrongdoing, he said. The later call with Raffensperger is more convincing, he said, because of the power of the audio that was made public.

“He says, ‘Go find me some votes.’ That can clearly be interpreted as asking someone to break the law,” James said.

Raffensperger briefly mentioned Trump’s December call to the chief investigator in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” last week. But the details of the conversation had not been previously reported.

On the call, Trump sounded much like he did while talking to Raffensperger, according to the person familiar with the discussion — meandering from flattery to frustration and back again.