Georgia GOP chairman says he was just following orders from Trump lawyers

Legal representatives representing David Shafer, the embattled chairman of the Georgia Republican Politician Celebration, are arguing their customer needs to not be charged with any criminal offenses for his actions following the 2020 election due to the fact that he was following guidance offered by lawyers working for previous President Donald Trump, according to a letter sent out to Fulton County District Lawyer Fani Willis recently.

Particularly, Shafer’s lawyers state their customer was counting on “repetitive and in-depth guidance of legal counsel” when he arranged a group of “contingent” electors from Georgia and acted as one himself, therefore “getting rid of any possibility of criminal intent or liability,” according to a copy of the May 5 letter.

The letter, which was initially reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, comes as Willis and her group of district attorneys examining efforts to reverse the 2020 election leads to Georgia are preparing to make a statement on possible charges versus Trump or his allies later on this summertime.

Shafer, who sources formerly informed CNN might be amongst those prosecuted when Willis makes her charging statements, has actually come under analysis for his function in the effort to advance alternate slates of electors to obstruct the accreditation of the 2020 governmental vote.

In their letter to Willis’s workplace, Shafer’s legal representatives state he was “offered extremely direct, in-depth legal guidance on the treatment he must follow, and he followed those directions to the letter.”.

” I think that any fair-minded individual, with ownership of all the truths, would conclude that Mr. Shafer and the other governmental elector candidates acted legally and properly,” the letter includes.

The district lawyer’s workplace decreased to comment.

Willis has actually suggested she is seriously weighing bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with Trump’s actions in the Peach State around the 2020 election.

A minimum of 8 of the Republican politician “phony electors” in Georgia have actually accepted resistance handle the continuous criminal examination, according to a court filing recently, and the recently protected cooperators might use insights into a crucial prong of Willis’ vast examination into election disturbance.

Willis had actually formerly informed all 16 GOP phony electors in Georgia that they were targets in her examination.

Other Republican politicians who acted as pro-Trump electors, consisting of Shafer, might still deal with legal direct exposure in her examination, according to individuals knowledgeable about the matter.

Willis started her vast examination in early 2021 quickly after she took workplace, and right after the notorious January call ended up being public in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “discover” the votes needed for Trump to win Georgia’s electoral votes.

Private investigators have at least 3 recordings of Trump pushing Georgia authorities, consisting of a telephone call that he made to the Georgia Home speaker to promote an unique legal session to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 success in the state.

The Fulton County probe broadened beyond the Trump call to consist of incorrect claims of election scams to state legislators, the phony elector plan, efforts by unapproved people to gain access to ballot makers in one Georgia county and hazards and harassment versus election employees.