The defendant had early notice that his claims of election fraud in Georgia were false. Around mid-November, Campaign advisor JASONMILLER told the defendant that his claim that a large number of dead people had voted in Georgia was false. The defendant continued to press the claim anyway, including in a press appearance on November 29, when he suggested that a large enough number of dead voters had cast ballots to change the outcome of the election in Georgia.

Four days later, on December 3, GIULIANI orchestrated a presentation to a Judiciary Subcommittee of the Georgia State Senate. In the morning in advance of it. GIULIANI had spoken to the defendant on the phone for almost twenty minutes. And at the hearing. GIULIANI arranged for co-conspirators and agents to repeat the false dead voter claim. The claim was so patently false that everyone around the defendant knew it: during the hearing, Chief of Staff MARKMEADOWS and ERICHERSHMANN exchanged text messages on their personal phones confirming that a Campaign attorney, P22 had verified that GIULIANI claim of more than 10,000 dead voters was false and that the actual number was around 12 and could not be outcome-determinative.

During the subcommittee hearing, the conspirators also set in motion a sensational and dangerous lie about election workers at State Farm Arena that would result in the defendant’s supporters harassing and threatening those workers. First, P23 one of the defendant’s private attorneys, claimed that more than 10,000 dead people had voted in Georgia. Next, JACKIEPICK an agent of the defendant, played misleading excerpts of closed-circuit camera footage from State Farm Arena and insinuated that it showed election workers committing misconduct, counting ‘suitcases” of illegal ballots. Lastly, based on the false fraud allegations, JOHNEASTMAN who had already been engaged as a private lawyer for the defendant but did not disclose that at the hearing encouraged the Georgia legislators to decertify the state’s legitimate electors.

While the hearing was ongoing, the defendant simultaneously amplified the misinformation about the State Farm Arena election workers, falsely tweeting, “Wow! Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia. Ballot stuffing by Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room. Plenty more coming, but this alone leads to an easy win of the State!” He did this just after re-tweeting two of his Campaign account’s Tweets that promoted the false claim about election workers at State Fam Arena.

Over the next week, the claim of misconduct at State Farm Arena was disproven publicly as well as directly to the defendant. The day after the hearing GABRIELSTERLING the Chief Operating Officer of the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, posted a Tweet explaining that Secretary of State officers had watched the video in its entirety and confirmed that it showed normal ballot processing.” GABRIELSTERLING again forcefully debunked the conspirators’ claim about the State Farm video in a press conference on December 7, explaining at length the election workers’ innocent conduct depicted in the closed-circuit camera footage and stating:

And what’s really frustrating is the President’s attorneys had this same videotape. They saw the exact same things the rest of us could see. And they chose to mislead state senators and the public about what was on that video. I’m quite sure that they will not characterize the video if they try to enter it into evidence because that’s the kind of thing that could lead to sanctions because it is obviously untrue. They knew it was untrue and they continue to do things like this.

On December 8, the defendant called Georgia Attorney General CHRISCARR. CHRISCARR had advance notice that the topic of the call was Texas v. Pennsylvania, an election lawsuit in which Texas was suing other states-including Georgia to attempt to prevent the certification of election. U.S. Senator DAVIDPERDUE the told CHRISCARR that the defendant had heard that CHRISCARR was “whipping,” or lobbying, other state attorneys general against filing amicus briefs in support of Texas. CHRISCARR was not lobbying against the suit, and told DAVIDPERDUE so; DAVIDPERDUE asked CHRISCARR if he would speak with the defendant about it, and CHRISCARR agreed. Shortly thereafter, the defendant called CHRISCARR and immediately raised Texas v. Pennsylvania, saying, “I hope you’re not talking to your AGs and encouraging them not to get on the lawsuit.” CHRISCARR told the defendant that he was not affirmatively calling other state attorneys general, but that if they called him, he was telling them what he was seeing in his state-which was something that the defendant probably did not want to hear: CHRISCARR was just not seeing evidence of fraud in Georgia. The defendant nonetheless raised various fraud claims. CHRISCARR told him that state authorities had investigated the State Farm Arena allegations and found no wrongdoing, and that he thought another claim the defendant raised about Coffee County, Georgia, had been similarly resolved, but would check. The defendant asked CHRISCARR to look at them again “because we’re running out of time.” CHRISCARR tried to steer the call to an end by thanking the defendant and telling him that he had voted for hinm twice and appreciated the defendant, to which the defendant responded, Yeah, I did a hell of a job, didn’t I?” At one point, the defendant raised with CHRISCARR the impending run-off election for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats and how important it was to re-elect DAVIDPERDUE and KELLYLOEFFLER. The day after the call, the defendant-in his private capacity as a candidate for president intervened in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania: his attorney for that matter was JOHNEASTMAN.

On the same day as the defendant’s call with CHRISCARR the defendant’s Campaign staff acknowledged that the State Farm Arena claim was unsupported, emailing one another about the fact that television networks may decline to run Campaign advertisements promoting it. In frustration regarding the claim and others like it, JASONMILLER-who spoke with the defendant on a daily basis and had informed him on multiple occasions that various fraud claims were false wrote, *When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases. I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”

On December 10, however, GIULIANI further perpetuated the false State Farm Arena claim when he appeared at another hearing, this one before the Georgia House of Representatives’ Government Affairs Committee. During it, he displayed some of the same footage as had been used in the December 3 hearing that had been debunked in the interim by Georgia officials, and nonetheless claimed that it showed voter fraud right in front of people’s eyes.” He then named two election workers SHAYEMOSS and her mother. RUBYFREEMAN -and baselessly accused them of quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine,” and suggested that they were criminals whose places of work, their homes, should have been searched for evidence of ballots, for evidence of USB ports, for evidence of voter fraud.” As these false claims about RUBYFREEMAN and SHAYEMOSS spread, the women were barraged by racist death threats. In the years since, they have spoken about the effect of the defendant and co-conspirators’ lies about them: as RUBYFREEMAN explained in an interview with congressional investigators, “when someone as powerful as the President of the United States eggs on a mob, They haven’t stopped even today.” Indeed, to this day, the defendant has never stopped that mob will come. They came for us with their cruelty, their threats, their racism, and their hats. Falsely attacking RUBYFREEMAN and SHAYEMOSS. Although none of the false claims against them were ever corroborated, the defendant has continued to levy them on social media, including when the defendant attacked RUBYFREEMAN in January 2023 just after her testimony to congressional investigators was made public.

Throughout the post-election period, the defendant used Twitter to publicly attack Georgia Governor BRIANKEMP with particular aggression. In the thirty-five days between November 30, 2020, and January 3, 2021, the defendant tweeted critically about BRIANKEMP by name or title, more than forty times. These tweets included the ones also attacking DOUGDUCEY described above, as well as others particular to BRIANKEMP like, Why won’t Governor @ BRIANKEMP the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes. It will be a ‘goldmine of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state”; “I will easily & quickly win Georgia if Governor @ BRIANKEMP the Secretary of State permit a simple signature verification. Has not been done and will show large scale discrepancies. Why are these two Republicans’ saying no? If we win Georgia. everything else falls in place!” “The Republican Governor of Georgia refuses to do signature verification, which would give us an easy win. What’s wrong with this guy? What is he hiding?”; and “How does Governor @ BRIANKEMP allow certification of votes without verifying signatures and despite the recently released tape of ballots being stuffed? His poll numbers have dropped like a rock. He is finished as governor!”

In the post-election period, the defendant also made false claims in court about fraud in Georgia unsuccessfully. For example, in Trump v. Kemp, a federal lawsuit in which the defendant sued Georgia’s Governor and Secretary of State, the defendant signed a verification of fraud allegations that he and his attomey on the case, JOHNEASTMAN knew was inaccurate. ERICHERSHMANN spoke with the defendant and JOHNEASTMAN in late December regarding the proposed verification. First, he told JOHNEASTMAN and another private attorney. CLETAMITCHELL that they could not have the defendant sign it because they could not verify any of the facts. And ERICHERSHMANN told the defendant that any lawyer that signed the complaint that the verification supported would get disbarred. JOHNEASTMAN acknowledged this problem in an email on December 31 to KURTHILBERT lead counsel for the defendant as candidate in Trump v. Kemp, and another private attorney, writing that in the time since the defendant signed a previous verification in the case, he had been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate” and that signing a new affirmation “with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate.” Nonetheless, on December 31, the defendant signed the verification, and JOHNEASTMAN caused it to be filed.

On January 2, Georgia Secretary of State RAFFENSPERGER appeared on Fox News and said that various rumors of election fraud were false, and the defendant had lost in Georgia:

Our office has been very busy with what I call the rumor whack-a-mole. Every day, a rumor will pop up and then we whack it down. What we do is, we basically whack it down with the truth. And people can’t handle the truth sometimes because they’re very disappointed in the results. And I get that. I voted for President Trump also, but at the end of the day, we did everything we could. We did an audit of the race; President Trump still lost. Then we did a full recount; President Trump still lost… we had a safe, secure process.

RAFFENSPERGER like BRIANKEMP been on the receiving end of the defendant’s Tweets. These included: *Why isn’t the @GASecofState RAFFENSPERGER a so-called Republican, allowing us to look at signatures on envelopes for verification? We will find tens of thousands of fraudulent and illegal votes”: “RINOS @ BRIANKEMP @ GEOFFDUNCAN & Secretary of State RAFFENSPERGER will be solely responsible for the potential loss of our two GREAT Senators from Georgia, @ DAVIDPERDUE & KELLYLOEFFLER Won’t call a Special Session or check for Signature Verification! People are ANGRY!;” and “Georgia, where is signature verification approval? What do you have to lose? Must move quickly! @ BRIANKEMP @ GEOFFDUNCAN @GaSecofState.”

Shortly after seeing the interview, the defendant set up a call with RAFFENSPERGER to discuss his pending private lawsuit, Trump v. Kemp, in which RAFFENSPERGER was a named defendant. For this reason, RAFFENSPERGER at first hoped to avoid speaking with the defendant but ultimately acquiesced because the defendant was persistent in seeking to set it up. Also because of the pending lawsuit, RAFFENSPERGER arranged for his general counsel, RYANGERMANY to participate. Joining the defendant on the call were Chief of Staff MARKMEADOWS and three private attorneys – KURTHILBERT and ALEXKAUFMAN counsel of record in Trump v. Kemp and the attorneys whom JOHNEASTMAN had emailed about the defendant’s false verification, and CLETAMITCHELL whom MARKMEADOWS introduced on the call as someone who is not the attorney of record but has been involved.”

The defendant began the call with an animated monologue in which he argued that he had won the election in Georgia, saying, “Okay, thank you very much. Hello RAFFENSPERGER and RYANGERMANY and everybody. We appreciate the time and the call. So we’ve spent a lot of time on this, and if we could just go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially, uh, Georgia.” Throughout the call, the defendant continued to state that he had won and referenced Biden’s margin of victory that he needed to overcome to prevail in the state, including by asserting that I just want to find 11,780 votes.” He did not reference other elections on the same ballot. After the defendant’s opening salvo, RAFFENSPERGER stated, “Well, I listened to what the President has just said. President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won.”

The defendant raised multiple false claims of election fraud, each of which RAFFENSPERGER refuted in tum. When the defendant attacked RUBYFREEMAN called her a professional vote scammer and hustler,” and mentioned her dozens of times throughout the call. RAFFENSPERGER said. “You’re talking about the State Fam video. And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that GIULIANI or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context.” He then offered the defendant a link to a video disproving the claim, to which the defendant responded, I don’t care about a link, I don’t need it. I have a much, RAFFENSPERGER I have a much better link.” When the defendant claimed that 5,000 dead people had voted in Georgia RAFFENSPERGER said, “Well. Mr. President, the challenge you have is the data you have is wrong… The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so that’s wrong, that was two.” When the defendant claimed that thousands of out-of-state voters had cast ballots, RAFFENSPERGER counsel, RYANGERMANY responded, “We’ve been going through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, that Ms. CLETAMITCHELL was just saying, they’re not accurate.”

At one point, the defendant became frustrated after both RAFFENSPERGER and RYANGERMANY explained repeatedly that his claims had been investigated and were not true and stated, And you’re gonna to find that they are-which is totally illegal it’s, it’s, it ‘s more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, you know, that’s a criminal offense. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to RYANGERMANY your lawyer. That’s a big risk.” The call ended with RYANGERMANY stating that he would coordinate with the lawyer representing RAFFENSPERGER office in the private lawsuit and get together with KURTHILBERT as agreed earlier in the call.

The day after the call, on January 3, the defendant falsely tweeted, “I spoke to Secretary of State RAFFENSPERGER yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia. He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!” RAFFENSPERGER promptly responded in a Tweet of his own: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”