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The audio obtained by The Washington Post reveals that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, in an extraordinary one-hour phone call, asked the Secretary of State of Georgia, the Republican Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to reverse their defeat.
Georgia is one of several pivotal states in which Trump lost the Nov.3 election to Joe Biden and where Trump has since made unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and sought to nullify the results.
The newspaper says Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act, and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the Secretary of State refused to pursue his false accusations, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking charge. . a great risk ”.
During the call, Raffensperger and his office’s attorney general rejected Trump’s claims, explaining that the president has debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s victory with 11,779 votes in Georgia was fair and accurate.
Trump rejected their arguments. “The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, you recalculated.” Raffensperger responded, “Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is wrong.”
The White House declined to comment. Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bob Bauer, an advisor to Biden, issued a statement to reporters on the case, in which he says: “We now have irrefutable evidence of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to rescind a legal and certified vote count .and make another in its place.That shows the essence of Donald Trump’s shameful attack on American democracy.
On Tuesday, Georgia holds an election that will define a majority in the United States Senate. The last two seats will be defined, and if both are won by Democratic candidates, Republicans will lose their current lead.
This is because there are 100 senators. So far, Republicans have won 50 seats and Democrats 46, but two more are with independent senators, who vote alongside Democrats. If the Democrats reach 48 seats, in addition to the support of independent colleagues, there will be almost a power tie.
In these cases, in important votes, if it is impossible to decide, the tiebreaker vote is attributed to the vice president, considered president of the Senate. Today this role falls to Republican Mike Pence. As of January 20, however, the position will be held by Kamala Harris, a deputy for Joe Biden from the Democratic Party.
