Former San Diegan Christina Bobb was on the controversial phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which President Trump said: “I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes.”
Working under Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Bobb was in the office of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that day, Jan. 2, 2021, she told investigators with the January 6 congressional committee.
“It was an unremarkable call,” Bobb said in a “voluntary interview” (and “not a deposition”) made public Thursday. “I know the media has sensationalized it, but none of us thought anything of it.”
Bobb — who earned an MBA from San Diego State University and attended law school here — called the Trump call seeking votes to void Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia “perfectly fine.”
“If you look at the [Georgia call] transcript, [Trump] was not asking anything improper,” she added during the 5 1/2-hour interview. “He wasn’t asking him to do anything illegal. There was a lot of indicators of fraud. That’s what he was talking about.”
Nobody in the Meadows office thought there was anything wrong with the call, she said.
“I think it was perfectly fine,” Bobb repeated in the 50,000-word interview that included her own attorney, Joe Sibley, and nine unnamed congressional staffers.
By the end of the interview, though, Bobb wasn’t perfectly fine with what she termed an “inquisition.”
Calling it a “one-sided partisan investigation” and “disgusting,” the former One America News reporter turned the tables.
The one-time Mission Valley resident, 36, asked the staff about “supposed violence at the Capitol.”
- “Why aren’t you looking into the police officers, and why aren’t you looking into the fact that they did not use the proper protocol for the … escalation of force?”
- “Why aren’t you looking into the fact that they opened the gates, that they removed the barricades?”
- “Why aren’t you looking into the fact that the FBI had an informant and they are instigating? Why aren’t you looking into the fact who were those FBI informants and what was federal law enforcement doing trying to instigate people to go into the Capitol?”
Bobb was asked about her Jan. 6, 2021, retweet of an image of 1776 Revolution violence.
“Why was that relevant to what was happening on January 6?” Bobb was asked.
“Wow,” she replied. “Because from my perspective we had an illegal election. I believe
wholeheartedly that not just Democrats, I think it was Democrats in conjunction with — I
think it was the swamp. The swamp rigged and stole the election and the American
people lost their voice.”
A staffer continued: “So did you think that violence was necessary or appropriate on January 6, 2021, with respect to the joint session of Congress?”
Bobb replied: “I can’t believe you are honestly asking me these questions. There’s nothing
about my social media account that calls for violence or that asks for violence. I’ve
never done anything violent. I’ve never called for violence from anybody.”
She wasn’t even sure that she retweeted the 1776 image from a Greek account.
“I would never call for violence,” Bobb added. “I never expected violence and was very saddened. And I’m really, really saddened by what’s happening with our country right now. I think Democrats have completely destroyed it. It’s really, really disgusting, and I think this inquisition is disgusting. That’s what I think.”
In reply to a series of questions, Bobb told Times of San Diego via Twitter DM: “I tell my side of the story in my book that’s available for pre-order and will be published Jan. 24, 2023. Any reader wanting to know the truth can read ‘Stealing Your Vote’ on Jan. 24.”
A large portion of the interview dealt with Bobb’s previously reported role in the so-called Fake Electors scheme.
But she denied any wrongdoing.
In fact, she said her role as an investigator in several states — including Arizona, Michigan and New Mexico — was to make sure that things were done legally.
“I didn’t come in going: Hey, you know what, I’m going to tell the state legislators that they need to reverse the election,” she said in the 181-page transcript.
“No. I didn’t join the legal team thinking that but, I mean, is it possible that the state legislators have concerns like we see a lot in Wisconsin right now, that maybe the wrong slate of electors was sent or, you know, the election was certified improperly? It’s certainly possible. Yeah.”
Bobb was asked what evidence she found in any state that would lead to the presidential election being overturned.
“It depends on what you are looking at,” she began. “Like if you are looking at were Republicans excluded from the process, we have I would say pretty conclusive proof that that happened on election night.”
Bobb said “some stuff … was pretty solid and conclusive. And then other stuff it was very much an open question and we were trying to investigate. And I think we are still there at some point.”
Then she said: “I’m sure you gentlemen have already concluded that the election was conducted properly. I personally, as I sit here, I don’t think that’s true. And I have open questions about that. And there are — there’s a lot even more evidence has come out, you know, in the last year.”
Despite 60 failed court challenges and top Trump aides testifying that major election fraud claims were “BS,” Bobb persisted:
“I think there’s a lot of evidence that there was bad actors during our election. I think there’s a lot of evidence that there were problems and possible fraud, possible cheating, possible ballot dumping, multiple votes from multiple people, ballot harvesting. I think voter manipulation seems to be a really significant problem.
“So yeah, there’s a lot of evidence that, you know, I don’t think — I don’t think it’s been
resolved.”
Bobb said she met with Giuliani and others at his Willard Hotel room the afternoon of the Jan. 6 attack — after filing OAN reports from the Cannon House Office Building near the Capitol.
Investigators asked her: “Do you remember Mr. [John] Eastman being there?”
Bobb: “Yeah. I remember Eastman. I have no idea who that little — who is that?”
Investigator: “Okay. So you don’t know who that is?”
Bobb: “No idea. Who is he?”
Investigator: “I’ll represent to you he’s been described as someone associated with the 1st
Amendment Praetorian, a business development person. I’m not familiar with him being a lawyer.”
Bobb: “He was not on the [Giuliani] legal team. That’s for sure.”
Eight months after she was sued by Dominion Voting Systems — part of a $1.6 billion defamation suit mainly targeting OAN-owning Herring Networks of San Diego — Bobb was asked what she knew about fraud accusations involving the election tech company.
Investigator: “Do you have concerns that Dominion in particular engaged in bad behavior with respect to the election, whether it’s called fraud, irregularities or otherwise?”
Bobb: “I mean, yeah, I’m still concerned about it. I would like to see evidence and, you know, I would like to have an opportunity to actually investigate. And I don’t think a thorough investigation has been done. And to me that’s suspicious. … Why can’t the voters know that our vote is being counted accurately?”
But a Jan. 6 staffer zeroed in: “Is there in your mind I guess conclusive evidence of wrongdoing with respect to Dominion as far as how the votes were counted?”
Bobb: “I don’t know. I have not investigated Dominion.”
She said she looked into whether dead people voted in Arizona, “double voters,” vote buying and ballot harvesting there. And also issues in other states. “I mean, yeah, I looked into all of it and found evidence of most of it.”
Six weeks after the interview, Bobb signed a legal statement certifying that all sensitive U.S. records in Trump’s possession at his Mar-a-Lago home had been returned to the government.
When an August search turned up hundreds of classified documents, Bobb became exposed to legal danger. And now a special counsel, Jack Smith, is looking into potential crimes by Trump.
Unlike many Trump associates, Bobb never took the Fifth Amendment in the April interview.
But she did exercise her right to avoid replying to questions that touched on protected attorney-client talks or her legal “work product.”
Bobb says she volunteered to help former New York City mayor Giuliani when she heard he was taking up “the election question.” She began her role Nov. 15, 2020 — a week after the election had been called for Biden.
She continued in that work through Jan. 6 — even while anchoring for OAN.
“I talked to the network about it,” she told investigators. “The network was fine with that, and that was it.”
Updated at 7:23 p.m. Dec. 29, 2022