Washington Justice Department special counsel Jack Smiths team has contacted Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump pushed Kemp to overturn the presidential election result in Georgia after he narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden. After Kemp refused Trump tried to sink the governors reelection efforts by recruiting a challenger in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Federal investigators are focused on Trumps efforts and those of his top lawyers as they organized fake electors to submit votes to Congress on his behalf and sought to sway thenVice President Mike Pence into blocking the election result certification. Trump received a target letter in Smiths investigation last Sunday and his team is now bracing for an indictment in the case. The target letter cites three statutes that Trump could be charged with pertaining to deprivation of rights conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud the United States and tampering with a witness. Kemp appeared before the special grand jury in Fulton County for roughly three hours. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has indicated that charging decisions could come in the next few weeks. The Justice Department has been known in the investigation to be examining possible violations of the law around conspiracy and obstruction of the congressional proceeding on January which is part of the witness tampering law previously reported following a Justice Department search of a Trump administration advisers home. Back in November Kemp provided testimony in the separate investigation by Atlantabased state prosecutors into Trumps attempts to overturned the election in Georgia. Kemp told earlier this week. I was not mad at him. I told him exactly what I could and couldnt do when it came to the election and I followed the law and the Constitution. And as Ive said before thats a lot bigger than Donald Trump. Its a much bigger than me. ItsA lot bigger. than the Republican Party Kemp told. s Shania Shelton contributed to this report. The Washington Post was first to report Smiths reachout to Kemp. Smiths investigators have also recently contacted former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey whom Trump pressured to overturn. the election after losing that state in as well. The Wall Street Journal cited a person familiar with the matter as saying that Smiths contacted Kemps office this week according to a personamiliar with the outreach. Kemp was reelected despite Trump’s efforts. He told the Washington Post in November that he had no regrets about his decision to stand down from the presidential race and that he would not be resigning from his position as the governor of Georgia. He said that he was proud to have served as the Republican candidate in the Georgia gubernatorial primary and that the election was not a referendum on his leadership. Kemp also told the Post that he did not regret his decision not to resign from the White House in the first place and that it was a decision that he made for the greater good of the state and the country. He also said he was happy to be the Republican nominee in the 2016 presidential election. Kemp said he would continue to run for re-election in the 2018 presidential election despite the pressure from Trumps lawyers and the Republican National Committee to get him out of office.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp contacted by Justice Department special counsel in 2020 election probe. Georgia governor contacted by special counsel as part of investigation into 2020 election.
