Pressure on Georgia Election Investigator Frances Watson

In December 2020, Donald Trump personally called Frances Watson, the chief elections investigator for the state of Georgia, while she was conducting a ballot signature audit in Cobb County following the 2020 presidential election.

During the call, Trump urged Watson to “find the dishonesty” in the ballots and suggested that she would be “praised” if she uncovered fraud. He also claimed, without evidence, that she would discover irregularities if she “looked hard.”

At the time of the call, Watson was overseeing an official election investigation. Trump’s direct outreach to a state investigator raised immediate concerns that he was attempting to improperly influence an ongoing election-related proceeding.

Investigators noted that Trump’s comments went beyond expressing opinion and instead framed the desired outcome of the audit, implicitly pressuring Watson to produce findings that would support Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Trump reportedly told Watson that she could become a “national hero” if she changed the outcome of the investigation. Congressional investigators and legal analysts concluded that this language suggested an effort to incentivize altering official findings.

Legal Concerns Raised by Investigators

Obstruction of an Official Proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2))

If Trump’s statements were intended to influence or alter the results of an official election audit, they could qualify as an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding under federal law.

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371)

Pressuring an election investigator to change findings could constitute participation in a scheme to interfere with the lawful functions of government, even if the effort ultimately failed.

Georgia Election Law (Georgia Code § 21-2-604)

Under Georgia law, encouraging an election official to produce a false result may qualify as criminal solicitation to commit election fraud.

While Trump was not charged specifically for this phone call, investigators treated the incident as part of a broader pattern of efforts to overturn or interfere with the lawful certification of the 2020 election.