A criminal investigation has been opened by a prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, into former President Donald Trump for his "attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia general election."
According to CNN, in a letter sent Wednesday to numerous Georgia state election officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Fulton County District Attorney F Willis requested that they preserve documents related to Trump's phone call last month in which he pushed Raffensperger to "find" votes to reverse his election loss.
This investigation comes as Raffensperger's office has launched its own probe into Trump's attempts to overturn the election, an inquiry that includes a review of both that call and another phone call the then-President made to a Georgia election official.
Willis said her "investigation includes, but is not limited to, potential violations of Georgia election law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office, and any involvement in violence of threats related to the election's administration."
"This matter is of high priority, and I am confident that as fellow law enforcement officers sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and Georgia, our acquisition of information and evidence of potential crimes via interviews, documents, videos and electronic records will be cooperative," the letter read.
Willis' office confirmed to CNN that though Trump is not named in the letter the probe concerns his phone call with Raffensperger. The letter also says Fulton County authorities currently "have no reason to believe that any Georgia official is a target" in the probe.
The criminal probe adds to a growing list of significant legal pressures on the former President, including a Senate impeachment trial in which House Democrats are pushing to convict him for inciting the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol.
Last year, in a recording obtained by The Post, Trump "alternately berated" Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking "a big risk."
"The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry... And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated," Trump said in the recording, to which Raffensperger responded, "Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."
The Georgia Secretary of State debunked the conspiracy theories by Trump and said President-elect Joe Biden's 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.
( With inputs from ANI )
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