Trump hid reports disproving 2020 election fraud claims: Report
Cami Mondeaux
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Former President Donald Trump made calls to several state officials pushing to overturn his 2020 loss despite already having a report commissioned by his own campaign that showed his claims of widespread election fraud were false.
In the weeks following the 2020 election, the Trump campaign spent more than $600,000 to investigate claims that thousands of dead people had voted and led to President Joe Biden’s victory, according to the report obtained by the Washington Post. The “Project 2020” report was returned to Trump on Jan. 1, 2021, and cited evidence disproving those claims — but that research was never made public.
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One day later, Trump made his now-infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, urging him to overturn his loss in the state.
“Dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people,” Trump said. “And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.”
However, Trump’s claims contradicted the findings from his campaign’s report. Researchers concluded with “high confidence” that only nine ballots were cast in the name of a deceased person in Georgia’s most populous county, with a “potential statewide exposure” of 23 such votes, according to the report.
Despite these findings, Trump continued his efforts. Trump filed a lawsuit in Nevada alleging more than 1,500 dead people voted and another 42,284 voters cast their ballots twice. However, the Trump-commissioned report showed that only 20 dead people statewide cast their ballots in the 2020 election — 1,486 fewer than what Trump claimed.
The “Project 2020” report has now been handed over to the Justice Department as it investigates Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. As part of that effort, witnesses have been asked questions about meetings Trump held in December 2020 and January 2021 to consider actions aimed at overturning the election, as well as his pressure campaign on former Vice President Mike Pence to assist with that effort on Jan. 6.
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The investigation aims to uncover what the former president told his attorneys and senior officials to do as part of their bid to change the 2020 election outcome, and there are two other paths that could lead to additional scrutiny of Trump.
One centers on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding, similar to charges levied against those arrested for storming the Capitol. Another involves charging Trump with fraud in connection to the false electors plot or his efforts to pressure the DOJ to overturn the results of the election.