Audio clips obtained by the New York Times show President Donald Trump giving explicit instructions to Republicans in Georgia on how to flip the result of the 2020 election, in which Trump lost Georgia to then-President-elect Joe Biden.
On Wednesday, the Times reported it had obtained the clips as part of a collection of documents pertaining to the recently dismissed Fulton County, Georgia criminal case against Trump and more than a dozen of his advisors and associates. In one 12- minute phone call, Trump is heard talking to the late former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (R) — who died in 2023 — about calling a special legislative session to address supposed "fraud" in the 2020 election.
"Who’s gonna stop you for that?" Trump is heard saying.
"A federal judge, possibly," Ralston replied with a laugh.
Later in the call, Trump is heard giving direction on how Ralston would conduct the special session, and baselessly alleged that he had won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes (he in fact lost by roughly 12,000 votes statewide). Trump repeated debunked conspiracy theories about ballot boxes being stuffed at Atlanta's State Farm arena, as former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani frequently argued.
"If we had a special session, we will present, and you will say, ‘Here, it’s been massive fraud. We’re going to turn over the state,'" Trump said.
Ralston never committed to holding the special session, though the call was used as evidence in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) prosecution of Trump and his associates. Willis alleged that Trump illegally solicited Ralston to violate his oath of office by calling a special session "for the purpose of unlawfully appointing presidential electors from the State of Georgia." Judge Scott McAfee ultimately quashed those initial charges, saying Willis was not specific enough in naming what specific statutes had been violated.
"I march to my own drummer, and my own drummer says I want Donald Trump to remain the president," Ralston said on the call.
Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).