In one case, FBI agents asked a prominent Republican in Georgia if he had spoken directly with Trump.
“They asked who talked to me. If anyone from the Trump campaign had been in touch with me. Did Giuliani talk to me? Did Trump talk to me?” Patrick Cardland said he was willing to serve as a selector, but he left. He described how two FBI agents went to his home in Mariatta, Georgia a few weeks ago.
Investigators have been searching for answers this month from both Gordland and others affiliated with GOP in Georgia and Michigan – both FBI interviews and grand jury sapons for documents and testimony. Investigators are investigating whether the Trump campaign played a role in the submission of false election certificates, according to people who approached the judiciary.
Searching for documents in Georgia
Saponas issued to Cortland and others in Georgia should be contacted, including “any member, employee or agent of Donald J. Trump or any organization advocating for Donald J. Trump’s re-election in 2020”, including his official campaign.
The question that hangs over the Georgia GOP and the Trump campaign is whether voters put together fake slates to fraudulently thwart Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, or whether they hope to submit alternative slates if Trump’s court challenges succeed. No court has allowed Trump to annul the election results.
Trump’s spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
No one has been charged in connection with the alternatively abled voters. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which oversees the DOJ’s hearing on Jan. 6, declined to comment.
Federal chaplains are presented to Republicans with one thing in common: those who planned to serve as voters for Trump in 2020, but eventually withdrew.
Cortland became an Election Board official in 2020 and served as state elector until stepping down from the election process. The FBI asked Cortland about the episode.
He told the FBI he had not been in direct contact with anyone during the Trump campaign. “But hey, I’m nobody,” he joked in an interview with CNN.
FBI agents have spoken several times this month with Jason Shepherd, another former Georgia GOP party official.
Gardland asked Shepherd to fill his place as a selector, but Sheppard did not eventually serve in that role. He said he also received a sapona for documents prior to October 1, 2020, and to testify before a federal grand jury this month.
“They asked about the campaign and the slate in Georgia, trying to figure out what I could have accessed and personally,” Shepherd told CNN.
Shepard said he had no documents to return to, but he encouraged federal investigators to sabotage other state party officials. He said serving voters may have thought it would help the Trump administration and the Republican Party.
“The devil really has to be small and detailed,” Shepard said.
The other three Georgia GOP voters – except Shepherd and Cardland – withdrew from the slate before January 6 last year. They did not respond to CNN’s inquiries or declined to comment.
Shepard was not specifically asked about his communications with Trump, and he said he would not have to report anyway.
FBI Interview in Michigan
In Michigan, federal investigators shared information about the Trump electoral system following Republicans who played similar roles in 2020.
Gerald Wall, a longtime Republican official in rural North Michigan, said he came home two weeks ago to find two men in black outside his garage.
One was an FBI agent and the other was a member of the National Archives. “Instead of standing in the garage, I invited them into the house,” Wall said.
Federal agents spoke to Wall for about 45 minutes, asking him about the voter slate for Trump in Michigan in 2020, which was submitted to the federal government despite Biden winning there.
“I have nothing to do with the signing of the affidavit,” Wall told CNN on Friday. Investigators said, “I asked him how he felt about it. Yes, he said there was abuse in Michigan.”
Before leaving, agents handed Wall a sapona for his large jury testimony, he said. But he told them he could not travel that far by himself and had nothing to share. “I told them in my form that I was not going to Washington,” Wall said.
The title and story were updated with an additional statement on Friday.
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