Experts say this new recording could help prosecutors overcome one of their biggest challenges: proving Trump’s state of mind. Former President Trump’s legal trouble in Georgia just got worse. A brand-new audiotape of Trump urging a Georgia election official to find the “right answer” while checking ballots for irregularities could help prosecutors build a case against him, legal experts said. The six-minute tape from December follows the infamous hourlong call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, which helped launch a criminal investigation into Trump, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, over potential election fraud. Experts say this new recording could help prosecutors overcome one of the biggest challenges they face: proving Trump’s state of mind. In late December, when Georgia was conducting an audit of ballot signatures from the November election, Trump placed a call to the lead investigator, Frances Watson, who reacted with surprise that the president of the United States would take time to reach out to a mid-level state election official. At the time, Georgia was among a handful of key battleground states Trump needed in his column in order to flip his 2020 defeat into a victory—and the margin was razor-thin. “Something bad happened,” Trump told Watson, according to a recording obtained by VICE News. “When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.” (…) Trump was more succinct and restrained on this six-minute call than he was in a subsequent, hour-long, taped call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In that previously-released conversation, on January 2, Trump urged Raffensperger to help him “find” exactly enough votes to let him win the state, and switched tones between flattering, cajoling, and threatening. This new call doesn’t appear to contain any outright criminal behavior, legal experts said. But the context still matters.
via vice: This New Trump Call Tape Makes His Legal Trouble in Georgia Even Worse
