In Secret Testimony, Republicans Derided Trump’s Stolen Election Claims

The testimony, part of the derailed Georgia election interference case, makes clear how dismissive some senior Republicans were of claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina found President Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020 “unnerving.” Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia described Mr. Trump’s efforts to get his state’s lawmakers to intervene a “fruitless exercise.” David Ralston, a former speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, called the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states he had lost “the craziest thing I’ve heard.”

Transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case against Mr. Trump and his allies, obtained this week by The New York Times, show just how alarmed and exasperated a number of senior Republicans felt about the president’s efforts to overturn an American presidential election