Trump meets with Pennsylvania Republican who supports bogus audit of election results

Former President Donald Trump has reportedly met with a Pennsylvania lawmaker who has joined calls for his state to undertake an audit of the state’s 2020 election results similar to the widely-criticized effort in Arizona.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Mr Trump met with Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano, a top supporter of the former president’s baseless election fraud conspiracies, at his Trump Tower office in New York.

The Independent has reached out for comment from the former president’s office. Mr Mastriano was engulfed in controversy earlier this year and faced calls for his resignation after he attended Mr Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington DC on the day of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

His campaign was revealed to have spent thousands on charter buses, which he used to ferry supporters to the nation’s capital ahead of the attack that left members of Congress fearing for their lives and hiding in secure areas.

Mr Mastriano recently joined a group of Pennsylvania state Republican lawmakers who traveled to Arizona to meet with GOP officials involved in that state’s audit of Maricopa County’s results, a widely criticized effort that has led to turmoil between the state Senate and the county’s Board of Supervisors.

“I’m not about overturning anything,” he said Wednesday during his visit to Phoenix, according to The Wall Street Journal. “I’m just trying to find out what went right, what went wrong, and how do we have better elections in the future?”

The former president has reportedly continued to take an active interest in efforts to overturn his election defeat in recent months, and was reported by The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman this week to be telling supporters that he could be “reinstated” as president by August.

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