Email reveals Trump campaign told fake voters in Georgia to use ‘total secrecy’

In the email, Sinners also told Trump constituents to mislead security guards when they arrived at the statehouse and tell them they would be attending a meeting with two state senators, Brandon Beach and Burt Jones.

“Please, at no time should you mention anything that has to do with presidential constituents or speak to the media,” Sinners wrote.

A source familiar with the campaign said the secrecy was necessary due to restricted access to the statehouse during the coronavirus pandemic and post-election political turmoil. The need to meet in the state house was critical to making the sham voter list potentially workable under the law, if a Biden victory was blocked, the source said.

The Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Elie Honig, a senior legal analyst at CNN and a former federal prosecutor, noted that the email could become part of a conspiracy investigation because it could show the scheme went beyond idle talk and instead involved the campaign giving voters a specific address. She also pointed out the importance of asking voters to hide their actions.

“A prosecutor would argue to a jury, ‘Why the secrecy? What were they hiding?'” Honig said.

Federal investigation grows serious

In recent weeks, the federal criminal investigation into voters in Georgia and at least one other state has grown more serious.

The subpoenas represent a flurry of investigative activity in recent weeks by the Justice Department to take the sprawling investigation, the largest in Justice Department history, beyond the rioters who looted the Capitol on January 6, and to examine the role of people who worked in politics. organizing around Trump.

The growing investigation comes as Justice Department officials eye the calendar, with the midterm elections less than six months away. Senior justice officials are aware that open investigative activity, such as the issuance of subpoenas, may be suspended later this summer, people briefed on the internal discussions say. Department guidelines traditionally ask prosecutors to generally avoid interfering with an impending election.

The meeting was not ultimately secret.

It’s unclear whether the people who received Sinners’ instructions even read the message or followed his calls for secrecy, a person familiar with him told CNN.

Sinners told CNN this week that at the end of 2020 he was working under the direction of lawyers for the Trump campaign and Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, who was a constituent. “The attorneys advised me that this was necessary to preserve the longevity of the pending legal challenge,” Sinners said.

“Following the former president’s refusal to accept the election results and allow a peaceful transition of power, my view on this matter has changed significantly from where I was on December 13,” Sinners added. He now works in the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who resisted pressure from Trump after the election.

Shafer’s attorney told CNN his client didn’t try to keep things secret.

“None of these communications, nor his testimony, suggest that Mr. Shafer requested or desired confidentiality around the provisional voters,” said attorney Robert Driscoll. “Instead, President Shafer invited television news cameras into the proceedings and both issued a statement and gave a televised news interview immediately afterward.”

Beach and Jones, whom constituents said they would meet with, also did not respond to requests for comment. None of the state officials was to be an alternate voter, but Jones stepped in as one when one of Trump’s constituents on the day of the meeting dropped out, according to documentation of Trump constituents released by the federal government.

The meeting of the electors finally did not take place under such a cloak of secrecy. At least one local media outlet captured video of voters voting for Trump. Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer was also interviewed on camera at the time, explaining that the group wanted to provide an alternate slate should Trump be successful in any of his court challenges.

He was not there.