Michigan election chief: Trump suggested I be arrested for treason and executed
Jocelyn Benson said she was told that the former president made the remark in a White House meeting. A Trump spokesman accused Benson of lying.
www.nbcnews.com
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's top election official, faced an onslaught of threats after the 2020 presidential election for refusing to overturn results that showed Joe Biden had won the state.In those hectic weeks, she says she also received an especially disturbing piece of information: President Donald Trump suggested in a White House meeting that she should be arrested for treason and executed.
Benson, a Democrat, revealed the alleged remark for the first time in an interview with NBC News. She said she learned of it from a source familiar with Trump's White House meeting.
"It was surreal and I felt sad," Benson said, recalling her reaction.
"It certainly amplified the heightened sense of anxiety, stress and uncertainty of that time — which I still feel in many ways — because it showed there was no bottom to how far he (Trump) and his supporters were willing to stoop to overturn or discredit a legitimate election."
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Benson, Michigan's secretary of state, is now locked in an election fight with a Republican candidate who parrots Trump's false claims about the 2020 election. In speeches and on her podcast, Kristina Karamo has said the election was "rigged and stolen" and "Secretary of State Benson should go to jail."