January 5, 2021 – Nonprofit ethics watchdog group American Oversight today submitted requests demanding the release of records reflecting communications between Georgia state officials and the White House or Trump lawyers, including emails about the January 2, 2021, call between Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and President Donald Trump, in which the president pressured Raffensperger to overturn the election results.

“We all heard loud and clear just how low Trump is willing to go to cling to power and reverse this already-decided election.” said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight. “Trump’s Ukraine scheme went far beyond one phone call, and the public needs to know what else the president and his team are doing to pressure Georgia’s leaders.”

This weekend, the Washington Post released audio of the president’s call with Raffensperger, in which Trump pressured the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” so as to switch Georgia’s electoral votes from Joe Biden. The records requests submitted today seek all communications received or sent by the offices of the governor or secretary of state about that call. The requests also seek any emails or text messages between those offices and external individuals associated with President Trump’s unprecedented efforts to delegitimize election results, including lawyer Cleta Mitchell and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, both of whom were on the Jan. 2 call. Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and anyone communicating from email addresses associated with the White House or the Trump campaign are also included in the requests.

In October 2020, a lawsuit by American Oversight prompted Georgia’s secretary of state’s office to release thousands of pages of records related to the management of elections and previous efforts to limit voting access. Last month, American Oversight also sued Muscogee County to compel the immediate release of communications between county elections officials and right-wing groups challenging the voter registration statuses of over 360,000 voters in Georgia.

Today’s requests are available here: Requests for records related to Jan. 2 call: SOS, GOV Requests for all communications from Dec. 20, 2020, through date of request receipt: SOS, GOV

American Oversight is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit ethics watchdog and is the top Freedom of Information Act litigator investigating the Trump administration. American Oversight has filed more than 200 public records lawsuits since March 2017, uncovering and publishing tens of thousands of documents exposing conflicts of interest, abuse of power, and misuse of taxpayer resources at the highest levels of the government. In 2019, American Oversight launched its State Accountability Project to investigate voter suppression and has filed dozens of records requests in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Follow us at @weareoversight and learn more at http://www.americanoversight.org.

American Oversight es una organización sin fines de lucro e independiente dedicada a la transparencia y a la lucha contra la corrupción. American Oversight es el litigante principal utilizando la Ley de Libertad de Información (Freedom of Information Act o FOIA por sus siglas en inglés) para investigar a la administración de Trump. Desde su comienzo en el marzo de 2017, ha presentado más de 200 demandas para la divulgación de archivos públicos, descubriendo y hecho público decenas de miles de documentos, incluyendo calendarios, correos electrónicos, y registros de gastos de altos funcionarios. Síguenos a @ojocorrupcion y aprende más en nuestro sitio web www.americanoversight.org.