It was a bad place to keep a secret.

When Republicans gathered in December on August 14, 2020, they met at the Georgia Capitol in a room just above the building’s public entrance, claiming to be legitimate voters who cast the state’s 16 electoral votes for Donald Trump. A Trump campaign official asked for complete discretion from voters, telling them only to say they were meeting with two senators who were there.

“Your duties are absolutely necessary to ensure the end result of a victory in Georgia for President Trump, but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” Robert Sinners wrote in an email discovered by investigators.

But reporters from the Associated Press and other news organizations noticed the Republicans entering the building and were eventually allowed into the room, where they photographed and recorded the proceedings. In the chaotic weeks following the 2020 election, the significance of the meeting was not immediately clear. But it has emerged as a crucial element in the prosecution of Trump and 18 others who were indicted by a Georgia grand jury in August for trying to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state.

The meeting was named Friday as a central element in the legal proceedings as part of a last-minute deal with attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to file false documents.

Chesebro, who prosecutors say helped orchestrate the plan for Republican voters to meet in states where Biden was declared the winner, is now one of three people who have pleaded guilty in the case. Attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday to six felonies accusing her of deliberately disrupting the performance of election duties as part of a broader conspiracy. Prosecutors said this violated Georgia’s anti-extortion law.

As Democrats gathered in the ornate Senate chamber to cast electoral votes for Biden, Republicans huddled around three worn and battered wooden conference tables to consider options to keep Trump in the White House. In the words of prosecutors, these were fake or fraudulent voters. At least eight Republican voters in Georgia who were present that day have agreed to testify in exchange for immunity from state charges.

The meeting was chaired by David Shafer, then chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. Giving it the appearance of an official proceeding, a court reporter was present, something Shafer denied during questioning by Fulton County prosecutors in April 2022. That denial contributed to a charge of false statements and writings against Shafer.

More impromptu elements of the meeting became apparent as the group examined its officers. For example, Shawn Still, who is now a senator, was not initially elected secretary. But midway through the meeting, Shafer noticed that Still’s name was on documents as secretary.

“I want to prevent the documents from being reprinted,” Shafer said, asking voters to replace Still with another Republican.

As one of only three people the grand jury indicted for participating in the vote, Still may have found himself in legal jeopardy when he was elected secretary. The third voter charged, Cathy Latham, was also charged

for with

helping outsiders access state voting equipment in South Georgia’s Coffee County.

As the meeting progressed, Republicans sought to replace four voters who previously lined up to support Trump. One had registered to vote in Alabama and was no longer eligible. State Senator Burt Jones, later elected lieutenant governor with Trump’s support, took his place.

Three other voters did not show up, including John Isakson Jr., son of the late Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. Isakson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2022 that he stayed away because the meeting seemed like a political game.

Prosecutors allege Shafer and Still committed additional crimes by creating a document purporting to fill these vacancies. State law says action was necessary. permission from Brian Kemp. The Republican governor had declared Biden the winner of Georgia for the second time days earlier after a recount.

Sinners, the Trump official, printed new voter certificates on a noisy portable printer. The noise from the machine gave the meeting a mundane, bureaucratic feel in an unadorned room usually reserved for state lawmakers to receive voters.

One by one, the sixteen Republicans were called up. They all stood up and walked to the table, signing certificates declaring Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence as the preferred choice of Georgia voters. That’s when, grand jurors allege, they committed the crimes for which they were charged: impersonating a public servant, first-degree forgery and making false written statements.

They were fake voters; they pretended to be voters. They were not voters,” Fulton County Prosecutor Anna Cross told a federal judge in September, adding that there was no evidence that Shafer, Still, Latham or other Republicans believed Trump had actually won.

Their defenders call them alternate or contingent electors and say they were merely trying to keep Trump’s legal options open while a lawsuit questioned Georgia’s election results. Some Republicans argue that Trump never got a fair hearing in Georgia because that lawsuit was never tried, despite a state law that calls for election challenges to be heard within 20 days. A Republican Party of Georgia website that raises money to defend voters calls them patriots who served.”

If we didn’t hold this meeting, our election campaign would essentially be halted, Shafer said at the December meeting, speaking with attorney Ray Smith, who was there to advise voters and was also charged. And so the only way we can get a judge to judge the merits of our complaint, the thousands of people who we allege voted illegally, is by holding this meeting.

Shafer defended his actions then and now by citing an episode that took place in Hawaii in 1960. The Democrats met that year after Republican Richard Nixon was declared the winner of the state, sending three electoral votes to the U.S. Senate that supported John F. Kennedy.

Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia, signed a statement on July 11 concluding that the actions of Shafer and other Republican voters in Georgia were legal, reasonable, just and necessary given the electoral contest and precedent in Hawaii.

Lawyers for the accused voters argue that it was up to Congress to determine which lists should be counted.

But Fulton County Dist.

rict

Att

orne

j. Fani Willis’ office disputed Shafer’s claim in a lawsuit that the actions of Georgia Republicans in 2020 bore some resemblance to those of Hawaii Democrats in 1960. Her staff notes an important distinction. Democrats ultimately won a recount in Hawaii that certified a court and the governor, who sends official documents to the Senate.

The actual situations are so easy to distinguish that the comparison becomes meaningless, wrote Willis’ team, which opposed Shafer’s attempt to take his case to federal court. Willis’ office wrote that the Republican rally was used to further a clumsy but ruthless pressure campaign on the vice president and state lawmakers, and as a means to publicly undermine the legitimate results of the presidential election.

Sinners, the Trump campaign official who helped organize the rally, is now dismissing its purpose. He denies the idea that Trump won Georgia and now works for Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who came to national attention for rebuffing pressure from the then-president to find enough votes to secure his victory. Sinners worked with the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the violent insurrection on January 6, 2021. He has not said whether he is working with Willis.

In an interview, he made it clear that he regretted what happened in the Georgia Capitol during one of the most turbulent periods in American politics.

This was an ill-advised attempt by the former president’s campaign to create a false reality of a victory, Sinners said.