by the legislature to retroactively change that process for the November 3rd election would be unconstitutional and immediately enjoined by the courts, resulting in a long legal dispute and no short-term resolution.[228]
President Trump responded by directing his ire at Georgia officials and, throughout the month of December, President Trump grew even more relentless in his social media attacks against Kemp than he had been the previous month. He retweeted attorney Lin Wood calling on Georgians to call and urge the FBI to focus more on election fraud and "[t]ell them to also investigate @BrianKempGA @GeoffDuncanGA & @GaSecofState."[229] And he retweeted another post by Lin Wood that depicted Governor Kemp and Secretary Raffensperger wearing masks digitally altered to show the Chinese flag, and warned that they "will soon be going to jail." [230] Even without his many retweets, President Trump posted an average of about one tweet per day in December 2020 either criticizing Governor Kemp or pressuring him explicitly or implicitly to take actions to help overturn the election.[231]
President Trump seemed consumed with his plans to overturn the election and, based on documents obtained by the Select Committee, it appears that the President received input from many outside donors or advisors who had access to his staff's email addresses. On December 7th, a Trump donor named Bill White emailed senior Trump advisors, including Dan Scavino and Rudolph Giuliani, to say that he "[j]ust spoke to [Georgia State] Senator [William Burton] Jones [who] asked if Potus can R[e]T[weet] this now pls," along with a tweet by Senator Jones that read: "Georgia Patriot Call to Action . . . call your state Senate & House Reps & ask them to sign the petition for a special session."[232] President Trump and Giuliani each retweeted Senator Jones's tweet an hour later.[233]
Bill White also emailed Molly Michael, Dan Scavino, and Giuliani, on December 8th with information that he said "POTUS asked me last night" to send right away.[234] He recommended a Presidential tweet criticizing Georgia's Lt. Gov. Duncan as well as tweets to put pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan and Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller.[235] He wrote that President Trump would be calling Dugan and Miller "to ask them to call special session and strategize with them why they are keeping this from happening."[236] Dugan later confirmed that he had received a call from President Trump's office but that the two of them were not able to connect.[237] And the following day, Steve Bannon revealed on his podcast that President Trump spoke to Georgia House Speaker Ralston and Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones.[238] Speaker Ralston confirmed that he spoke
