Former Georgia Lt. Gov: Jan. 6 wouldn’t have happened if Trump had conceded Georgia

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan chastised former President Trump’s decision not to acknowledge his 2020 election defeat in Georgia on Thursday as Trump surrendered on criminal charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn the election results.

“Think how much easier this could have been if Donald Trump would have stood up and said, ‘I think this election was rigged’ and watched us in Georgia go through recount after recount after recount and finally go to that moment and said, ‘You know what, I’ll come back and win this again, you’ve done your job and I’m going to move on,’” Duncan said during a CNN interview.

“We wouldn’t have had January 6, we wouldn’t have completely soiled the Republican brand for maybe decades, people’s lives wouldn’t have been trainwrecked to the point that they are,” he continued.

Duncan, who testified to the grand jury that decided to indict Trump and 18 others on criminal charges, has become a target of right-wing Republicans after he continued to criticize the former president.

Trump repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election in Georgia was stolen and rigged against him, refusing to accept evidence from a state investigation that found no fraud in the electoral process.

Georgia prosecutors allege that Trump led a scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in the state by organizing a slate of fake electoral college votes. His 18 co-defendants include his attorneys, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

The trial in the case will start on Oct. 23 for at least one defendant, former Trump attorney Kenneth Cheseboro, who demanded a speedy trial. Prosecutors will likely ask for all 19 defendant’s cases to start on that date, which Trump’s attorneys have opposed.