Former President Donald Trump and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel allegedly asked GOP members of the Wayne County, Michigan, Board of Canvassers not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News.
Two weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Trump allegedly told GOP canvassers Monica Palmer and William Hartmann on a phone call that they would look “terrible” if they signed documents certifying the vote, The Detroit News reported.
“We’ve got to fight for our country,” Trump reportedly said on the phone call. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”
The phone call reportedly occurred within 30 minutes of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting ending on November 17, 2020. At another point during the call, McDaniel told the canvassers, “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
“We’ll take care of that,” Trump added, according to The Detroit News.
In the initial vote on November 17, 2020, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers did not certify its election results after ending in a 2-2 deadlock, with Palmer and Hartmann voting against certification. After the deadlock, Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox said she was “proud” of the party and the Trump campaign showing “enough evidence” of possible voter fraud to refuse to certify the results.
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“I am proud that, due to the efforts of the Michigan Republican Party, the Republican National Committee and the Trump Campaign, enough evidence of irregularities and potential voter fraud was uncovered resulting in the Wayne County Board of Canvassers refusing to certify their election results,” Cox said.
Later that night, however, the GOP canvassers reversed course and the board voted unanimously to certify the election, sealing Joe Biden’s win in Michigan. Then a day later, both Palmer and Hartmann signed affidavits saying they regretted their vote to certify the election and argued that they faced “intense bullying and coercion” to agree to vote in favor of certification.
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“I rescind my prior vote to certify Wayne County elections,” Palmer said in the affidavit. “I fully believe the Wayne County vote should not be certified.”
The Trump campaign responded to The Detroit News story on the former president’s alleged phone call with the Wayne County GOP canvassers, saying Democrats are “desperately leaking misleading information to interfere in the election.”
“All of President Trump’s actions were taken in furtherance of his duty as President of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen 2020 Presidential Election. President Trump and the American people have the Constitutional right to free and fair elections,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire. “Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats are spinning their wheels in the face of devastating polling numbers and desperately leaking misleading information to interfere in the election.”
Around 878,000 votes were cast in Wayne County, which is home to Detroit, in the 2020 election. In that year, more than 1.4 million of the state’s 8 million registered voters lived in Wayne County, according to the Michigan Voter Information Center, and 62% of the deep blue county cast a ballot in the 2020 election, which was a slight increase from the 59% voter turnout rate in the 2016 election.
The massive spike in absentee and mail-in voting in the 2020 election caused waves of controversy in multiple states and especially rocked Michigan after poll watchers at a Detroit voting center said they were locked out of the building and began chanting, “Let us in!” and “Stop the count!”
An audit report from Michigan’s Auditor General’s Office in March of 2022 said that over 99.9% of the ballots in the state in the 2020 election were legally cast and properly counted, Bridge Michigan reported. Of the 5.5 million votes cast in the state in 2020, auditors found 41 “duplicate” votes. Biden won the state by over 154,000 votes in 2020.
In a statement to The Detroit News, McDaniel said she has continued to stand by her call for an audit of the 2020 election results in Michigan, which she requested along with the state’s GOP chair on November 21, 2020.
“What I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as referenced in my letter on Nov. 21, 2020, is that there was ample evidence that warranted an audit,” said McDaniel.