CNN
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Fulton County investigators have an audio recording of a phone call former President Donald Trump made to the Georgia House speaker requesting a special session to undo Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Fulton County Special Grand Jury, which investigated Trump’s actions in the state after the 2020 election, heard the recording of Trump’s call to David Ralston, according to five of the jurors who spoke anonymously at the AJC. A source confirmed to CNN the existence of the recording, which has not been made public.
The recording adds to what is known about Trump and his allies’ pressure campaign on Georgian officials. This is the third audio recording of the former president’s phone calls to Georgian officials known to exist.
The special grand jury recently concluded its work and recommended several indictments, according to the foreman who spoke publicly. It is now up to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to make the charging decisions.
Ralston, who died last year, described his December 2020 call with Trump during an interview the next day.
Trump “would like a special session of the Georgia General Assembly,” Ralston said. “He’s been clear about this before, and he was clear on the phone conversation yesterday. You know, I shared with him my belief that, based on my understanding of Georgian law, it was going to be an uphill battle.
According to the Georgian Constitution, not only can the governor call a special session, but the General Assembly can call itself into a special session, although this requires the signatures of 3/5 of the Georgia House.
Former U.S. Senator David Perdue, a staunch Trump ally in Georgia, also called for a special session to be called during a December 2020 meeting at Truist Park, where the Atlanta Braves play. Governor Brian Kemp, Perdue, and former Senator Kelly Loeffler, the state’s other U.S. Senator at the time, and their aides attended.
Perdue did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
And Trump pressured Kemp in late 2020 to call a special session to overturn Biden’s victory and to order an audit of mail-in ballots. Kemp rejected Trump’s request for a special session and said he had no authority to order a separate audit of mail-in ballots.
There is also a recording of Trump’s call to a high-level investigator from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office in December 2020, while they were looking into allegations of signature-matching irregularities in Cobb County, in the Atlanta metro area.
In that phone call, Trump urged the pollster to look for fraud in the 2020 presidential election, telling her she would be “praised” for overturning the results in favor of Biden. Audit results in Cobb County found no fraudulent ballots or wrongdoing.
The special grand jury investigation was launched by the Fulton County District Attorney after audio was released of an infamous hour-long phone call in which Trump lobbied the Secretary of State. State Brad Raffensperger to ‘find’ the exact number of votes needed to overturn Biden’s victory. and suggested that he publicly announce that he had “recalculated” the election results.
The Fulton County investigation has expanded beyond Trump’s phone calls to include false allegations of voter fraud to state lawmakers, the bogus voter scheme, efforts by unauthorized individuals to gain access at voting machines in a Georgia county and threats and harassment against election workers.
The special grand jury met for about seven months in Atlanta and heard testimony from 75 witnesses, including some of Trump’s closest advisers during his final weeks in the White House.
Trump, who launched his 2024 campaign for the White House, denies any wrongdoing. He claimed that Willis, a Democrat, is politically biased and still regularly promotes the false claim that he actually won the election in Georgia.
Willis hinted in January that his decision on whether to press charges was “imminent.”
CORRECTION: This headline has been updated to reflect that Trump called a Georgia state official.
