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The testimony, part of the derailed Georgia election interference case, makes clear how dismissive some senior Republicans were of claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Jan. 13, 2026Updated 8:04 p.m. ET
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina found President Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020 “unnerving.” Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia described Mr. Trump’s efforts to get his state’s lawmakers to intervene a “fruitless exercise.” David Ralston, a former speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, called the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states he had lost “the craziest thing I’ve heard.”
Transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case against Mr. Trump and his allies, obtained this week by The New York Times, show just how alarmed and exasperated a number of senior Republicans felt about the president’s efforts to overturn an American presidential election. The testimony, given in 2022, is emerging at a time when Mr. Trump is again raising complaints about his 2020 defeat and voicing regret that he did not order the National Guard to seize voting machines after the election.
He has also said he wanted to “lead a movement” to ban voting machines and mail-in ballots in time for the midterm elections this year.
The transcripts were part of the investigative file in the case brought by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who obtained indictments of Mr. Trump and 18 of his allies on election interference charges in 2023. The case was dismissed in November after Ms. Willis was removed from prosecuting the case.
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The interviews were conducted by a special purpose grand jury that was convened in Atlanta as part of Ms. Willis’s investigation. In Georgia, these kinds of grand juries are somewhat rare. Unlike ordinary grand juries, the special-purpose kind do not issue indictments; rather, they allow prosecutors to present everyday citizens with testimony and documents and receive recommendations before seeking an indictment. In this case, the special-purpose grand jury recommended indicting more than twice as many Trump allies as Ms. Willis eventually charged.
