ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump rehashed his discredited claims about Georgia's 2020 election during a town hall with CNN on Wednesday night.
Trump offered familiar claims on the now-infamous phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021 when he urged the state's top election official to "find" the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss.
When asked about that call by the town hall's moderator, Kaitlan Collins, Trump said: "I said 'you owe me votes because the election was rigged.'"
Transcripts from the call show Trump did not say that exact phrase during the conversation with state election officials. The call was taped and later leaked to The Washington Post.
But the comments offer another window into his thinking about Georgia at the time — and about a specific episode at the heart of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' investigation into 2020 election interference.
On Twitter, Georgia State University constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis wrote Trump's comments could imply "an admission of corrupt intent." The comments, Kreis said, could be used in a potential case against Trump brought by Willis.
Trump, as in the past, maintained Wednesday night it was a "perfect call." Asked if he would make it again, the former president said he would.
"Yeah, I called questioning the election," Trump said. "I thought it was a rigged election, I thought it had a lot of problems."
President Joe Biden's victory in Georgia was exhaustively vetted by state officials. Three counting of the votes and the dismissal of numerous allegations confirmed Biden's win.
Trump was challenged on that point Wednesday by Collins, who asked him about Republicans who debunked his fraud claims.
"Who?" he asked.
"Republican officials in Georgia and every single state, your own election officials, Mr. President," Collins said. "...In Georgia there were multiple recounts, including a hand recount."
The fraud claims in Georgia were also litigated in numerous court cases that uniformly failed at the earliest procedural hurdles.
Darry Cohen, an attorney in Atlanta, gave some perspective on the case. Cohen believes any criminal case Willis might have against Trump will not succeed or fail only on Trump’s phone call or his comments about it.
“There is no one thing that's going to make or break this. It's going to be a combination of things. Piece by piece, piece by piece. And then more pieces by pieces," Cohen said.
Willis previously told 11Alive that the earliest a Fulton County grand jury could hear evidence in the election investigation is July 17. Potential indictments of Trump and his allies will come before Sept. 1, she said.