Former President Donald Trump was recorded pressing two Wayne County, Michigan, election canvassers to not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, the Detroit News reported Thursday.
According to four recordings listened to by the Detroit News, which were reportedly made by a person present during the conversation, the then-president and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, spoke with Monica Palmer and William Hartmann — Republican members of the county’s Board of Canvassers — on November 17, 2020.
At the time, Trump was falsely claiming the election had been stolen from him, filing dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits based on unfounded claims of voter fraud.
During a meeting of the election board earlier that day, Palmer and Hartmann had refused to certify the county’s election results, which showed Democrat Joe Biden beating Trump. They eventually reversed their decision during that same meeting after public outcry, agreeing to support certification.
During the phone call with Palmer and Hartmann, which the Detroit News reported had taken place a half hour after the board of canvassers meeting ended, Trump reportedly said the county canvassers would look “terrible” if they signed the certification after refusing to do so initially.
“We’ve got to fight for our country,” Trump said, according to the Detroit News. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”
The Detroit News also reported that McDaniel told Palmer and Hartmann “we will get you attorneys” if they refused to sign the official documents certifying Biden had won Wayne County, the largest county in the state.
One day after this phone call, both canvassers asked to “rescind” their support for certification, alleging they were pressured. They were unsuccessful in this attempt, and Michigan eventually certified Biden’s victory in the state.
Palmer had previously acknowledged the phone call with Trump, telling The Washington Post in 2020 that the then-president had called her to express support and had not put pressure on her to act in his favour.
“His concern was about my safety, and that was really touching,” she said. “It was not pressure. It was genuine concern for my safety.”
Trump also publicly expressed support for the Wayne County Republicans at the time.
Trump, currently the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is battling felony charges related to his actions in the weeks and months after his 2020 election loss.
In Georgia, he has been charged with more than 12 counts related to his attempts to overturn the election results in that state. He’s also facing federal charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters as Congress met to certify the Electoral College count.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment.