Georgia governor Brian Kemp reveals he spoke to Trump 2020 election interference investigators ‘months ago’

Georgia governor Brian Kemp pictured August 2023-1608045838.jpg

Georgia governor Brian Kemp says that he was interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith’s office “months ago” about the investigation into former president Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The Republican told CNN that he had spoken to investigators last summer in connection with the Department of Justice probe into the former president’s actions after losing to Joe Biden.

“I basically told them the same thing I told the special grand juries: that I follow the law and the Constitution and answered all their questions truthfully,” Mr Kemp told Kaitlan Collins.

Mr Kemp said the interview did not last very long and that he did not remember when exactly it took place.

Mr Smith has brought charges against former president Trump, accusing him of spreading lies in the months after the 2020 election which he claimed he won and alleging that the election was “stolen.”

Part of that campaign involved a phone call to Kemp from Trump, in which the beaten candidate tried to pressure the Republican governor into auditing absentee ballots. Kemp refused to do what Trump asked of him, saying at the time that it was the Secretary of State who held the power to do this.

Trump also spoke to the Secretary of State in a now-infamous call, in which he said he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, insinuating that was something Brad Raffensperger could help with.

The former president has argued that he has immunity from prosecution because he was still a sitting President at the time. Governor Kemp questioned that stance.

“I don’t think anybody is above the law,” Kemp said. “A Democrat, a Republican, an independent, myself or anybody else, so that is my personal opinion.”

Collins asked him if the DOJ case should go to trial before November’s election so that voters could decide on who to support based on the outcome.

“I think most voters feel the same way I do. We are a country that was built on laws and the constitution and it’s up to us as elected leaders to be the ones that exemplify that, in a lot of ways,” Kemp continued. “I think probably they will be ruled on before the election.”

Trump also faces 13 charges relating to his attempts to overturn the 2020 result in a separate case being prosecuted in Georgia’s Fulton County. That case has come under scrutiny after it emerged District Attorney Fani Willis and prosecutor Nathan Wade had a relationship.

Kemp told CNN that voters should not get distracted by that case and that they should focus on what could happen in November instead. Despite Trump’s legal woes, Kemp said the Republican frontrunner could win again, but that he could also lose and that was his concern for his party.

A request from The Independent for further comment from the Governor went unanswered Wednesday morning.

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