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      Revealed: White House liaison sought derogatory info on E Jean Carroll from DoJ official

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      The White House liaison to the Department of Justice (DoJ), Heidi Stirrup, sought out derogatory information late last year from a senior justice department official regarding a woman who alleges she was raped by Donald Trump, according to the person from whom Stirrup directly sought the information.
      The revelation raises the prospect that allies of the US president were directly pressing the justice department to try to dig up potentially damaging information on a woman who had accused Trump of sexually attacking her.
      E Jean Carroll, a journalist and advice columnist, sued Trump in November 2019, alleging he had defamed her when he denied her account of having been raped by him. Carroll alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman, a high-end Manhattan department store, in either late 1995 or early 1996.
      Trump at the time responded to her allegations by claiming Carroll was “totally lying” and attempted to ridicule her by saying “she’s not my type”. Those and similar comments led Carroll to sue him.
      Stirrup apparently believed the justice department had information that might aid the president’s legal defense in the suit. The attorney who Stirrup sought information from regarding Carroll said that Stirrup approached them not long after a judge had ruled the justice department could not take over Trump’s defense.
      Stirrup asked if the department had uncovered any derogatory information about Carroll that they might share with her or the president’s private counsel. Stirrup also suggested that she could serve as a conduit between the department and individuals close to the president or his private legal team.
      Stirrup also asked the official whether the justice department had any information that Carroll or anyone on her legal team had links with the Democratic party or partisan activists, who might have put her up to falsely accusing the president.
      Earlier, Trump himself, without citing any evidence, suggested that his political opponents were behind the allegations: “If anyone has information that the Democratic party is working with Ms Carroll or New York Magazine [to whom Carroll first told her story], please notify us as soon as possible,” Trump said.
      The official from whom Stirrup sought information admonished Stirrup, telling her that her request was inappropriate.
      The official recalled “conveying to her in the strongest possible terms” that it was wrong in the first place to seek out such information, and instructed her not to do so in the future.
      When it was learned Stirrup had later sought out non-public information from other justice department officials about other ongoing investigations, including around election fraud, and non-public information in regards to matters of interest to the White House, Stirrup was told she was unwelcome at the justice department and banned from the building.
      On 3 December the Associated Press, citing three sources, reported Stirrup’s banning “after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House”. It has not been previously reported, however, that one of the issues that led to Stirrup’s banning was her seeking out information about the Carroll case.
      It is unclear whether Stirrup was acting on her own or at the direction of the White House when it comes to the Carroll case.
      But many see it as unlikely that Stirrup was making her inquiry entirely independently. Stirrup served as the liaison to the justice department during a period when the White House was removing its liaisons to virtually every major federal agency who they believed might be disloyal – while informing their replacements that they would no longer reporting to the agencies they were assigned to but rather directly to the White House.
      A justice department spokesperson declined to comment, saying that they had been unsuccessful in uncovering more information.
      The outcome of the Carroll defamation case may have immense political and legal consequences for Trump.
      Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, said that if the case comes to trial, Trump will have to “provide evidence and give testimony about the underlying rape allegation” and he could run the risk of perjury.
      Not testifying truthfully during a civil case can have severe consequences for a president or other high-profile political figure. When former president Bill Clinton was sued for sexual harassment, and later admitted to giving misleading testimony in that case, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, acquitted by the US Senate after a trial, and voluntarily surrendered his license to practice law for five years.
      Judge Lewis Kaplan, of the southern district of New York, who considered the justice department’s attempt to take over Trump’s legal counsel, noted in a 26 October ruling, that any finding that Trump defamed Carroll would probably be considered an implicit finding by a jury that Trump indeed raped Carroll.
      “The question as to whether Mr Trump in fact raped Ms Carroll appears to be at the heart of her lawsuit. That is so because the truth or falsity of a defendant’s alleged defamatory statements can be dispositive of any defamation case,” Kaplan said.
      In early September, the justice department, at the direction of the then attorney general, William Barr, sought to replace Trump’s private legal counsel with department attorneys, to defend him from Carroll’s lawsuit. Justice officials contended that while accusing Carroll of lying and further attacking her, Trump was acting in his official capacity as the president of the United States.
      Kaplan ruled that the justice department could not take over Trump’s defense, concluding Trump’s alleged defamation of Carroll had nothing to do with his official duties as president or “the operation of government” or “within the scope of his employment”.
      The justice department pledged to appeal Kaplan’s decision. But it is unlikely the justice department of Joe Biden will move forward with any such appeal.
      Justice officials and outside legal observers say the department’s position that the president was acting in official capacity while allegedly defaming his alleged rape victim – from about 20 years earlier – is a position that would be unlikely to prevail with most judges.
      Last week, while announcing that he was nominating the federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland to be his new attorney general, the president-elect said he would end Trump’s practice of “treating the attorney general as his personal lawyer and the department as his personal firm”. More

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      Jamie Raskin: grieving congressman leads push to impeach Trump

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      For Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman and constitutional law professor who is leading the push to impeach Donald Trump for a second time, the last fortnight has been tumultuous.He lost his son 25-year-old son, Tommy, who had struggled with depression, on New Year’s Eve.Seeing it as his duty, Raskin attended last week’s certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Congress with members of his family, from whom he was separated as a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol building.Despite these profound emotional shocks, Raskin has spent the last week drafting the article of impeachment against Trump over his role in inciting the storming of Congress, which is likely to be voted on by the House of Representatives later on Wednesday.The day before the storming of the Capitol, Raskin had buried his son, who died after leaving his family a note. “Please forgive me,” he had written. “My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”As he stood to speak in the debate on the certification less than 24 hours later, Raskin – who had pinned a piece of black cloth to his lapel – received a standing ovation from fellow members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, who were aware of his recent loss and that he had still come to vote.Not long afterwards, the Trumpist mob broke in.Since then, Raskin has authored the House resolution that called on the vice-president, Mike Pence, to invoke the 25th amendment and declare Trump unable to complete his term, which expires next week. Pence ruled out doing that Tuesday night.The chamber quickly moved to the article of impeachment, which Raskin also helped draft. He has been clear about why he has needed to push through the difficult emotions he and his family have been confronting to hold Trump to account.“The president is a lethal danger to the American republic and the American people,” Raskin told the Atlantic magazine last week as he began drawing up the article of impeachment. “There has been nothing like this since the civil war.”And as Raskin told the Washington Post, he felt his son’s presence throughout the recent events. “I felt him in my heart and in my chest,” he said. “All the way through the counting of the electoral college votes and through the nightmare of the armed attack on the Capitol.”His son, a law student, as Raskin explained to the paper, had once asked him a question that had focused his mind.For a class about the first amendment issue of freedom of speech, Tommy Raskin had asked his father about “incitement to imminent lawless action”, and whether a government official who had sworn an oath to uphold the constitution should be held to a higher standard.“That ironically is going to be the critical issue for us talking about Donald Trump,” said Raskin. “Some people are saying: ‘Well, Donald Trump was just exercising his free speech.’ As president of the United States, he cannot be encouraging, counselling and inciting mobs that go and attack the Capitol of the United States.”Raskin is clear about what the US is confronting in the aftermath of the assault on Congress.“The president didn’t want to let go, and the fruit of his obsession with his big lie that he had actually won the election was this nightmarish assault on Congress,” Raskin said. “The president has become a clear and present danger to the republic.”“That is the groundwork for fascism, when you add racism, antisemitism, conspiracy theory and magical thinking. That is an absolute powder keg in terms of an assault on democracy,” Raskin said of the riot in an interview. “So we have to be very tough, and very strong right now in defending the constitution and democracy.”During the storming of Congress, Raskin’s thoughts were mostly on his 23-year-old daughter, Tabitha, and his son-in-law, who had accompanied him to the Capitol and were separated in the mayhem.When they were eventually reunited, Raskin assured his daughter that the next time she went to the Capitol, it would be calmer. “Dad, I don’t think there’s gonna be a next time,” she replied.Associated Press contributed to this reportIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. More

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      in US Politics

      Pompeo scraps Europe trip after EU leader calls Trump 'political pyromaniac'

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      US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has cancelled a trip to Europe at the last minute after European officials were publicly critical of Donald Trump’s role in last week’s storming of the Capitol.The official reason for the cancellation of the trip, originally to Brussels and Luxembourg, was the need to coordinate with a transition team from the incoming Biden administration, but it comes after the unprecedented attack on American democracy that stunned many world leaders and US allies.The Luxembourg leg of the trip was called off on Monday after its foreign minister Jean Asselborn called Trump “criminal” for inciting the attack.Asselborn described the outgoing US president to RTL radio as a “political pyromaniac who must be brought before a court”.Reuters and Fox News both quoted diplomatic sources as saying it was Luxembourg that had called off the meeting, a devastating snub from a tiny country for a secretary of state that continually claims to have restored “swagger” to the state department.Pompeo was also due to meet the Belgian deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sophie Wilmes, who tweeted while the assault in Washington was underway, “These images are shocking, also because they hurt our democratic ideals.”“They show the extent of President-elect Biden’s task, which will be to unite American society around a common project. We trust him to do that.”Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, who was due to have a dinner with Pompeo had described the scenes in Washington as “shocking” and said: “The outcome of this democratic election must be respected.” A Nato spokesperson confirmed that Pompeo had cancelled on Tuesday, giving as a reason the need to focus on the transition.Reuters reported that EU officials had declined to meet Pompeo on his last foreign trip, but a EU spokesperson denied there had been any plan or request for meetings with EU leaders.The state department, in a statement, attributed the cancellation to transition work before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on 20 January, even if until recently Pompeo had been reluctant to unequivocally recognise Biden’s win. Also on Tuesday, the US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft cancelled a planned visit to Taiwan. The state department declined further comment on European officials’ rejection of meetings with Pompeo.The cold shoulder was a contrast with Pompeo’s previous visits to Brussels, which is home to Nato and EU headquarters, over the past three years, where he has given key-note speeches on US policy and met the EU’s chief executive, even as Europe balked at Trump’s foreign policy. More

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      The Guardian view on democracy in America: the threat is real | Editorial

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      The inauguration of Joe Biden as US president on 20 January has become a touchstone moment in the history of American democracy. Following the outrage of last week’s storming of Congress by Donald Trump supporters, at least 10,000 members of the national guard will be deployed in Washington by this weekend. Reports have detailed FBI warnings of possible armed protests in the capital and across the United States in the days ahead. The area around the Washington Monument, close to where Mr Trump urged supporters to “fight” for his right to stay in office, has been closed to the public. The mood is fearful, febrile and somewhat surreal. In the words of one newspaper headline: “Is this America?”Since the foundation of the federal republic, the peaceful transition of power has been fundamental to America’s understanding of itself. In US democracy’s choreography, the presidential inauguration is designed as a moment of civic celebration that transcends partisan differences. That Mr Trump chose to mobilise an insurgency against the handover gives the measure of his narcissism, hubris and deranged will to power. Last week’s riot was not a one-off piece of performance theatre that got out of hand. The pitch for an assault on democracy had been rolled for months. In the autumn, speaking more like a mobster than a president, Mr Trump told the neo-fascist Proud Boys movement to “stand by”, and warned that the Democratic party would try to “steal” the election. Last week’s violent mayhem, which led to five deaths, was the culmination of a strategy to intimidate and discredit the democratic institutions of the country he leads.Democrat members of the House of Representatives are therefore right to launch impeachment proceedings for a second time against a rogue president. As the charge sheet states, Mr Trump incited “violence against the government of the United States”. Assuming Wednesday’s vote to impeach is passed in the Democrat-controlled House, the next stage will take place in the Senate, currently in recess until after Mr Biden’s inauguration. A two-thirds supermajority would be required to convict, but it seems improbable that a sufficient number of Republicans will do the right thing. Another shaming moment looms for a party that has abased itself at Mr Trump’s feet in the pursuit of power and lost its soul in the process.But even if legal process were to deliver Mr Trump his just deserts, the crisis of America’s growing polarisation – of which the president is a symptom as well as a cause – would remain. Tribalism has become a disabling virus in the US body politic, cracking the public square in two. Social media, belatedly under new scrutiny, is used by citizens to sustain alternate, conflicting realities: three in four Republican voters continue to believe that there was widespread voter fraud in November, despite the rulings of close to 100 judges to the contrary. As faith in the neutrality of public institutions declines, studies have shown a disturbing rise in the number of Americans – on both left and right – who believe that political violence is sometimes justified.Against this dismal backdrop, the theme of Mr Biden’s inauguration speech will be “America united”. It seems likely that it will be delivered in the shadow of impeachment proceedings against his predecessor, and a mass military presence. This is a script that should belong to a bingeworthy drama on Netflix during lockdown. Instead, it is America’s dystopian reality. The new president’s healing message will be the right one. Making it heard will be the defining challenge of his long political career. More

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      in US Politics

      Capitol police officer who steered mob away from Senate chambers hailed a hero

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      A police officer is being hailed for his role steering an angry mob away from the Senate chambers during Wednesday’s deadly storming of the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, identified by CNN reporter Kristin Wilson, could be seen in video footage distracting rioters away from the chamber as police raced to secure the area.In the confrontation, Goodman puts himself between a man wearing a black QAnon T-shirt and a hallway leading to the Senate chambers, then shoves the person to induce him and the crowd to chase Goodman towards officers in the opposite direction.Here’s the scary moment when protesters initially got into the building from the first floor and made their way outside Senate chamber. pic.twitter.com/CfVIBsgywK— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 6, 2021
      Capitol Police did not respond to a request regarding the identity of the officer. The efforts by Goodman, who is Black, gave police the time needed to race to lock the doors to the Senate chamber, according to the Washington Post.Several lawmakers have praised Goodman’s actions.Jaime Harrison, an associate chair of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted: “The word hero does not appropriately describe officer Eugene Goodman. His judgment & heroism may have saved our Republic.” Harrison called for Goodman to be considered for the congressional gold medal.Correction.. Congressional Gold Medal— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) January 10, 2021
      US Representative Bill Pascrell wrote on Twitter on Sunday: “As Trump’s fascist mob ransacked the US Capitol, this brave USCP [United States Capitol police] officer kept murderous rioters away from the Senate chamber and saved the lives of those inside. God bless him for his courage.”Congressman Scott Peters tweeted: “Officer Eugene Goodman strategically led an angry mob away from the Senate floor during last week’s insurrection. His courage & decisive action likely saved lives. We owe Officer Goodman & many other law enforcement officers who kept us safe that day a debt of gratitude.”Several members of Congress with military experience, including Ruben Gallego and Jason Crow, have also been praised for calming frightened colleagues and helping with the evacuation during the chaos.Trump, who has sought unsuccessfully to overturn his November election loss to Joe Biden by falsely claiming widespread fraud, had called on supporters gathered in Washington to protest against the congressional counting of electoral votes certifying Biden’s victory.Five people including a Capitol police officer died as a result of Wednesday’s rioting and dozens of people have been charged.Among the mob who stormed the Capitol were individuals who waved Confederate flags and wore clothing carrying insignia and slogans espousing white supremacist beliefs.The chief of the Capitol police resigned after the attack and a federal prosecutor said he would charge any Capitol police member found to be complicit.Two Capitol police officers have been suspended as a result of their actions during the attack. Tim Ryan, a Democratic senator of Ohio, said on Monday that one of the officers took a selfie with someone and the other put on a “Make America Great Again” hat. He said of the latter that the “interim chief determined that to be qualifying for immediate suspension”. More

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      Acting US homeland security secretary Chad Wolf resigns

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      Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary, who helped enact key pieces of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda, resigned on Monday, as the nation confronts heightened security threats after an attack on the US capitol by supporters of the president.Wolf said in a letter to staff at the Department of Homeland Security that he had intended to remain in office until the inauguration of Joe Biden but would instead step down at 11.59pm on Monday night.His departure, he said, was compelled in part by “recent events” and by court rulings invalidating some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, citing findings that Wolf was illegally serving in the role.“I am saddened to take this step, as it was my intention to serve the Department until the end of this Administration,” said Wolf, who had been serving in an acting capacity since November 2019 and was never confirmed by the Senate.A report by the Government Accountability Office determined that Wolf’s appointment to the role violated the rules of succession and as such he had been serving unlawfully in the role. Judges cited that finding in court rulings to invalidate some of the policy changes enacted by the Trump administration during his tenure. On Monday, Wolf cited the “ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my authority as Acting Secretary” as a reason for stepping down.“These events and concerns increasingly serve to divert attention and resources away from the important work of the Department in this critical time of a transition of power,” he wrote.The letter does not explicitly mention last week’s assault on the Capitol, which Wolf described as “tragic and sickening” in a statement on 7 January. In that statement, he also called on Trump to “strongly condemn” the violence that had been carried out in his name and committed to staying in his position to ensure an “orderly transition” to a Biden administration. He is the third cabinet secretary to resign following the attack.Pete Gaynor, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will take over as acting homeland security secretary, less than two weeks before the department will help coordinate security for Biden’s inauguration amid heightened threats of violence and protests.As a last act, Wolf announced that he had authorized the US Secret Service to begin enhanced security operations on 13 January, nearly a full week before the inauguration ceremony, “in light of events of the past week and the evolving security landscape leading up to the inauguration”. Before the riots, the secret service was due to begin implementing special security measures on 19 January.During his time in office, Wolf was among the president’s most loyal lieutenants, eagerly stepping into the spotlight to defend the administration’s actions before Congress and on cable news. This summer, he became the public face of the administration’s crackdown on protesters in the wake of nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and racism. His decision to deploy tactical agents to detain protesters in Portland sparked national backlash and criticism that he was bending the department to Trump’s political agenda.Wolf’s resignation comes hours before Trump is due to visit Alamo, Texas, where he will survey progress on the US-Mexico border wall.“I leave knowing that the Department has positioned itself for an orderly and smooth transition to President-elect Biden’s DHS team,” he wrote. “Welcome them, educate them, and learn from them. They are your leaders for the next four years – a time which undoubtedly will be full of challenges and opportunities to show the American public the value of DHS and why it is worth the investment.” More

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      Anywhere but Washington: an eye-opening journey in a deeply divided nation

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      Oliver Laughland, US southern bureau chief: It was somewhere along the 700-mile night-time drive from Tampa, Florida, to my home in New Orleans that I realized filming the Anywhere But Washington series was becoming one of the hardest assignments in my career.Hours earlier, my colleague Tom Silverstone and I had interviewed a conservative radio host spreading baseless conspiracy theories about Covid-19 to a crowd of at-risk, Donald Trump-supporting senior citizens. We had been forced to make a sharp exit, and got caught in the middle of a powerful thunderstorm that drenched us through. Thankfully, we’d managed to keep the camera dry and preserve the footage, but the whole day became a precursor to the rest of our two and half month long trip through America.Fiery interactions, pervasive disinformation and mammoth car journeys became normality. Alongside countless nasal swabs, hundreds of disposable face masks, and seemingly endless nights editing the films over Zoom on increasingly tight deadlines, while preparing for shoots in the coming days.It was not only an immense logistical challenge and a constant battle to establish facts, but an eye-opening journey into a bitterly divided country during the most important election in a generation.Tom Silverstone, senior video producer: For many months, I’d been confined to making short videos through Skype – fuzzy webcam interviews that make it hard to go deep into a story. So it was with some relief, and a bit of a trepidation, that Oliver and I, along with our video-editor colleague Noah Payne-Frank, who is based in London, were given the go-ahead for the series.Trying to encompass how an entire country feels about its election is tricky at the best of times. America’s deep complexities, size and diversity have always made singular narratives hard to find. But the pandemic made everything a lot more difficult. As we travelled from state to state, we found empty streets and cancelled public events, and few political events to attend – particularly on the Democratic side as the party toed a stricter, safer line on the pandemic.This meant that canvassing public opinion became a harder task and we had to organize almost every element of each episode, days – sometimes weeks – beforehand.OL: It was clear throughout our journey that two diametrical forces were underpinning this election and it was vital for any viewer seeking to understand the state of US politics to encounter both in our films.We made a commitment to visit as many diverse communities as possible to examine how Joe Biden’s candidacy was viewed, and interrogate his platform as best we could. We were interested in how progressive politics and rapidly diversifying populaces in once conservative strongholds might tip the outcome of the election, prompting trips to Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.But we were also determined to robustly engage with the post-factual, conspiracy-tinged world ushered in by the Trump presidency, as well as to hold him accountable for the numerous policy failures of his tenure.TS: Four years ago I filmed our 2016 version of the series and watched as Trump successfully motivated his base with cultural and racial narratives to create anger and division.This time, what Oliver and I encountered was even more extreme. At mainstream Republican events we came into contact with groups like the Proud Boys – the far-right “western supremacists” who now patrol Maga [Make America Great Again] marches across the country. We interviewed Republican candidates running for Congress who pushed baseless conspiracy theories tied to QAnon.After years of Trump repeating cries of “fake news”, his rallies have become hostile places for reporters, and we were often met with deep distrust. On one occasion a small group of his supporters followed us back to our car, labelling us “agitators” as we tried to film their public event. It did not always feel safe.But away from these rallies, we found people who were curious about two reporters roaming across the country, eager to speak to us about their lives. We met unemployed factory workers in Ohio, let down by Trump’s broken promises; evangelical Christians in North Carolina, loyal to the president despite his transgressions; and progressive Latina Democrats looking to flip a historically conservative Texas. After four years of Trump, this is a country in a passionate and frequently angry debate about what it was, what it is – and what it could be.OL: We ended the series as the news networks eventually called the election Joe Biden, acutely aware that this was far from the end of the story.The shocking events in Washington last week, a mob invasion of the US Congress, only serve to emphasize this further. Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud alongside four years of extremist rhetoric and policy have fundamentally altered the fabric of American democracy. And the end of Trump’s presidency is far from the end of Trumpism.So Tom and I will continue to produce new Anywhere But Washington episodes, starting from Biden’s inauguration later this month. We want to examine if the 46th president will deliver for the communities he promised, what efforts he makes to restore faith in institutions, and what the long-term legacy of Trump’s four years in office will be. It all starts from day one, when Biden’s desk will be landed with a public health crisis, a humanitarian disaster on the southern border, and a host of other national and geopolitical issues stemming from the past four years.We’ve been blown away by the support from Guardian viewers in the US, UK and around the world, and appreciated the dozens of encouraging emails and direct messages sent to us over the course of the series.We’d love to hear more suggestions about where to visit next, the sort of stories you’d like to see us engage with. We’re keen to visit new areas of the country and revisit many of the communities we spent time with last year, and we hope you’ll continue with us throughout the journey. More

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      in Elections

      'Find the fraud': details emerge of another Trump call to Georgia officials

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      While election officials in Georgia were verifying signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in one metro Atlanta county, Donald Trump pressed a lead investigator to “find the fraud” and said it would make the investigator a national hero.The December call, described by a person familiar with it, is yet another link in the chain of the extraordinary pressure campaign waged by the US president on state officials as he sought to overturn the results of the November election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.It is one of at least three phone calls, held over the course of a month between early December and early January, where Trump sought help from high-level Georgia officials in subverting the election – only to be rebuffed each time. Trump lost to Biden in Georgia by 11,779 votes.The call to the investigator preceded Trump’s call on 2 January to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, where he asked election officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state. It occurred as election officials were conducting an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in Cobb County.The audit, which reviewed more than 15,000 signatures, found no cases of fraud. The Georgia bureau of investigation helped conduct the signature audit.Trump and his allies have for months made false claims about Georgia’s signature verification process for absentee ballots and about the results of the November election. Among other things, they demanded an audit of the signature matches.The White House had no immediate comment. The call was first reported on Saturday by the Washington Post, which said it was withholding the name of the investigator, who did not respond to requests for comment, because of the risk of threats and harassment directed at election officials.Various election officials across the country and Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have said there was no widespread fraud in the election. Raffensperger and other officials in Georgia have repeatedly disputed Trump’s false claims about the election and said it was conducted freely and fairly.Congress certified Biden’s electoral college win early on Thursday – hours after a violent throng of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol.During another call in early December, Trump pressed Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, to order a special session of the state legislature to subvert Biden’s victory. Kemp refused.Trump repeatedly lashed out at Raffensperger and Kemp, both fellow Republicans, and others he saw as standing in his way of overturning the election loss.In last week’s call with Raffensperger, Trump urged the secretary of state to change the certified results. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”Raffensperger said in response: “President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won.”Legal experts said the call raised questions about possible election law violations by Trump, and several Democrats in the state have called for an investigation to be opened. More