- Bobby Christine, the new U.S. attorney who oversees federal prosecutions in Atlanta, said in a call to staff that he was pleasantly surprised that there were no legitimate election fraud cases, according to a survey obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .
- President Donald Trump has appointed Christine after he allegedly put pressure on his predecessor to resign over the lack of case fraud cases.
- Christine said he had already rejected the two cases the department was looking at, which he said had no merit.
- Trump sought to reverse the outcome of the election he lost, focusing his efforts on Georgia.
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The newly appointed acting federal prosecutor in Atlanta said in a telephone conversation with staff members on Monday that he was surprised to find out that the office does not have legitimate election fraud cases.
“To be honest, if you were just watching television, you would assume that you were piling election cases from floor to ceiling,” U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine said in a recording of the call obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is. “I’m so glad to find out that’s not the case, but I did not know how to get in.”
President Donald Trump appointed Christine on January 5 as the acting U.S. attorney in the northern district of Georgia after his predecessor, Byung Pak, abruptly resigned. U.S. attorneys usually stay in their roles until the end of a presidential administration and often continue in new ones.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Trump was pressuring Pak, also a nominated Trump, to resign. According to the Journal, Trump was frustrated because Pak did not investigate election fraud in Georgia, which electoral officials and independent experts agree does not exist.
Usually when a U.S. attorney resigns, the role will go to their deputy, but Trump bypassed the process and chose Christine, who is also the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Georgia. The Northern District of Georgia includes the city of Atlanta, which has a large black population and where Trump directed his efforts to cast votes.
But in the call recording obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Christine told staff members that on his first day he rejected two of the most sensational investigations into election fraud and found that they had no merit.
“I closed the two most – I do not know, I think they would call them a high profile or the two most pressing election issues this office has,” Christine said. “I said I believe, as many people around the table believe, there is nothing wrong with them.”
Christine donated $ 2,800 to Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the maximum allowed by law.
In the survey, staff members at the Northern District Office asked Christine if he had been appointed for political reasons and why Pak’s deputy had not been selected for the role. Christine did not want to discuss why he was appointed.
Trump focuses on efforts to block Georgia election
Since losing the November 3 presidential election, Trump has falsely claimed to have actually won and has fueled numerous conspiracy theories about election fraud. He and his allies have filed more than 40 lawsuits to challenge the results, and none of them succeed.
Trump’s efforts to reverse his loss focused on Georgia, where he lost by less than 12,000 votes and became the first Republican to lose the state in a 28-year presidential election. The results were maintained in several audits of the state’s results. Democrats later won both of the state’s Senate races.
Neal Jump, sheriff of Glynn County, left, speaks on June 4, 2020 with U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine in Brunswick, Georgia.
Sean Rayford / Getty Images
In a call with Georgia’s Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger earlier in January, Trump appeared to pressure him to participate in election fraud himself and “find” votes that would enable him to win the state. The call has sparked new calls for indictment.
Trump is expected to be re-arrested on Wednesday after inciting a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol building to prevent Congress from confirming Biden’s victory. In a pre-insurgency rally, Trump once again falsely claimed that he had won and that the presidential election had been damaged by widespread voter fraud.
Christine told staff members in the Northern District of Georgia that he had brought in two staff members from the election fraud of his office in the southern district to investigate fraud claims, but ultimately the most important matters the district looked into, from the hand showed.
“In my opinion there is not there, there, ‘he said.