Politico reports:
Three Georgia Republicans who falsely claimed to be electors for Donald Trump — and are now charged alongside him in a sprawling racketeering indictment brought by local prosecutors — say they took the steps they did because Trump, then the sitting president, told them to.
In a series of court filings this week, those false electors, who became part of Trump’s last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, said it was Trump and his campaign lawyers who urged them to sign the false documents, claiming they were necessary to preserve Trump’s flailing court efforts to reverse his defeat to Joe Biden.
That exhortation from Trump’s campaign lawyers, they said, amounted to federal government permission to take the actions they did. The three false electors making the argument are David Shafer [photo], a former state GOP chair; Shawn Still, now a state senator; and Cathleen Latham, a local GOP official.
Read the full article.
NEW: Three of Donald Trump’s codefendants say they became false/”contingent” electors as Trump’s “direction.”
They say they should be viewed as carrying out a federal function, in part because of Trump and his attorneys’ blessing.https://t.co/XTq7Y5fo2d
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 25, 2023
Trump’s Codefendants Point The Finger, Tell Court They Became Fake Electors At His ‘Direction’ https://t.co/AEaB0gpJSs
— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) August 25, 2023