Inside the meeting of Republican electors who sought to thwart Biden's election win in Georgia

Georgia Republican Shawn Still hands an electoral certificate to Donald Trump reelection campaign worker Robert Sinners during a meeting of Republican electors who cast votes for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at the Georgia Capitol, Dec. 14, 2020, in Atlanta,. The meeting of the electors has become a key element in the prosecution of Trump and 18 others in Georgia. Still, now a state senator, is one of the four people present that day who was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in August 2023 on charges that he conspired to illegally overturn Democrat Joe Biden's win in Georgia. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, File)

It was a bad place to keep a secret.

When Republicans gathered on Dec. 14, 2020, claiming to be legitimate electors casting the state’s 16 electoral votes for Donald Trump, they met at the Georgia Capitol in a room just upstairs from the building’s public entrance. A Trump campaign official asked for the electors’ “complete discretion,” telling them to say only that they were meeting with two state senators who were there.

“Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion,” Robert Sinners wrote in an email uncovered by investigators.