A number of prominent Republicans ridiculed President Donald Trump behind his back over his false claims that the 2020 election had been “stolen,” including Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the New York Times reported Tuesday night after obtaining secret grand jury transcripts.
“I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short,” Graham said in his testimony to a special purpose grand jury, called as part of the investigation into Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he’d be inclined to believe it. I’m sorry he lost, but he lost it.”
Trump was indicted in 2023 over his alleged plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he claimed had been “rigged.” Trump would continue to make numerous outlandish claims about the election, such as that 50,000 ballots had been discovered “in a river,” that “thousands” of dead people voted in the election, and that the voting machines had “stolen” votes from him and “given” them to former President Joe Biden.
And yet, despite the charges being perceived as the strongest criminal case against Trump, they were ultimately dropped in 2024 after Trump won the presidential election, and after Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from the case after admitting to having an active romantic relationship with her own special prosecutor.
At the time, Republicans appeared to rally around Trump and his false claims that the election had been stolen. But in private, while testifying before a special grand jury, it was a different story.
“The craziest thing I’ve heard,” said David Ralston, the former House speaker in the Georgia legislature, telling the grand jury of a phone call with Trump where he was presented with false evidence that the 2020 election had been stolen. “Right off the bat, I’ve got to tell him I disagree with him.”
And Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who oversaw the state where Trump infamously asked over the phone to help him “find 11,780 votes,” the exact margin by which Trump lost to Biden in the state, told the grand jury that Trump’s demands were a “fruitless exercise.”
“President Trump was very persistent, as you can imagine, and repeatedly asked for things,” Kemp told the grand jury. “And I repeatedly told him, you know, what the law was here.”
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