Georgia secretary of state spoke with January 6 committee about election lies
Georgia Secretary of State Ben Raffensperger holds a press conference on the status of ballot counting on November 6
By Zachary Cohen, Jason Morris, Sara Murray, Ryan Nobles and Annie Grayer, CNN
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger spoke with the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol Hill riot for roughly four hours on Tuesday, according to his office and an aide working for the House panel.
“I spoke to the January 6th committee to ensure they included the full record of how stolen election claims damage our democracy — whether in 2016, 2018, or 2020,” Raffensperger, a Republican and Georgia’s top elections official, said in a statement to CNN.
“While liberals in Washington, D.C. remain focused on Trump, conservatives should focus on the kitchen table issues that really matter to the American people,” he added.
Raffensperger told CNN in August that he would talk to the committee if asked to do so.
During a now-infamous phone call in January, then-President Donald Trump pressed Raffensperger to “find” the more than 11,000 votes needed to overturn results showing Joe Biden had won the state. Raffensperger refused.
The call and the White House’s efforts to pressure Raffensperger and Georgia officials to overturn the election have emerged as significant areas of interest to the House select committee.
CNN previously reported that criminal investigators in the state have been quietly conducting interviews, collecting documents and working to build a line of communication with congressional investigators as they aim to build a case against Trump for his alleged attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Another key area of focus in that probe has been the Georgia secretary of state’s office, after Trump called officials there following the 2020 election and pressed them to help to investigate his allegations of fraud.
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who chairs the committee, told reporters after the panel’s call with Raffensperger that the Georgia secretary of state had talked about how “his family has suffered because of his truthfulness.”
“He said he could find no illegality or irregularity in the election,” Thompson added.
When asked specifically if the panel had discussed the lead-up to January 6, Thompson did not want to reveal the details of the interview but said, “There are some things that will come out.”
This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday.
The-CNN-Wire
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CORRECTION: A caption for this story has been updated to correct the name of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.
