A federal prosecutor in Georgia who was installed by President Donald Trump reportedly dismissed the president’s claims of election fraud, telling staff members Monday that there appears to be “nothing to them.”
During a conference call with staff members, a recording of which was obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Bobby Christine acknowledged he rejected two election fraud cases his first day on the job.
“I would love to stand out on the street corner and scream this, and I can’t,” Christine reportedly said on the call. “But I can tell you I closed the two most — I don’t know, I guess you’d call them high profile or the two most pressing election issues this office has.”
“I said I believe, as many of the people around the table believed, there’s just nothing to them,” he added.
Christine’s office declined to comment.
Trump hand-picked Christine to lead the U.S. attorney’s office after his predecessor, BJay Pak, was reportedly forced to resign because the president didn’t feel he was doing enough to investigate election fraud. (The Justice Department and election officials nationwide have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud or ballot-counting irregularities.)
During the call Monday, Christine reportedly said he was surprised to find so few election-related cases on his desk when he took over last week.
“Quite frankly, just watching television you would assume that you got election cases stacked from the floor to the ceiling,” Christine reportedly said. “I am so happy to find out that’s not the case, but I didn’t know coming in.”
Trump has railed against election officials across the country, with special focus on Georgia, a state he won in 2016 but narrowly lost to President-elect Joe Biden in November. During an hourlong phone call on Jan. 2, Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to overturn Biden’s win in the state.
“We have won this election in Georgia,” Trump falsely claimed during the call. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having the correct ― the people of Georgia are angry. ... And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated.”
Raffensperger can be heard pushing back on Trump’s pressure, telling the president that the data he used to back up his claims are “wrong.”
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump told Raffensperger at another point in the conversation.