WASHINGTON: Defeated US President Donald TriumphThe effort to steal an election he decisively lost comes loud and clear in a leaked phone call in which he is heard alternately pleading, flattering, intimidating and threatening two Republican officials in Georgia to manipulate the results.
Witnessing the resilience of the democratic system, the two officials bravely confront the president, exposing his false conspiracy theories and maintaining that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.
“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state, “Trump says in the hour-long phone call that was first published in the Washington Post. Then he adds,” So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Friends, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break “.
The cajoling is interspersed with implicit threats of criminal prosecution and backlash from the public if officials refuse to pursue their false claims of large-scale fraud. At one point, Trump warns Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that he is taking “a great risk” and that “the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, you’ve recalculated,” Trump suggests. Raffensperger responds, “Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is incorrect.”
The extraordinary phone call has led to calls to indict and prosecute Trump on charges of violating the laws for criminal solicitation of voter fraud. Campaigning in Georgia, where the second round of two Senate elections that could decide the balance of power in Washington will take place tomorrow, Kamala harris He said Trump’s call was a “blatant and audacious abuse of power by the President of the United States” and characterized it as a “voice of despair.”
“At any other conceivable point in our history, this tape would result in the leadership of both parties calling for the resignation of the President of the United States immediately,” said journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, calling it the weapon “and clear evidence of Trump’s plot “to undermine the electoral system and illegally, inappropriately and immorally try to instigate a coup in which he remains president of the United States.”
While several major Republicans were also appalled by the presidential overreach amid talks about a coup, Trump loyalists maintained that he was within his right to require state officials to review the results, though he made false claims that were bluntly refuted. by state officials who also happen to be establishment Republicans.
At one point, Trump claims in the phone call that the votes were scanned three times, only to be countered by Raffensperger: “Mr. President, they didn’t. We audited that and showed conclusively that they were not scanned three times.”
Another claim by Trump: More than 5,000 ballots were issued in Georgia in the name of deceased people, Raffensperger: “The real number was two. Two. Two dead people who voted.”
On another occasion, Trump invokes a rumor to claim that the ballots were shredded. “Do you think it’s possible they trashed the ballots in Fulton County? Because that’s the rumor. And also that Dominion brought out machines. That Dominion is moving really fast to get rid of his, uh, machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?
Raffensperger’s attorney, Ryan Germany, responds: “No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.”
Triumph: “But have they moved the internal parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?”
Germany: “No.”
Triumph: “Are you sure Ryan?”
Germany: “I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr. President.”
Trump and his cohorts have repeatedly invoked false claims and rumors produced by his conspiratorial followers and recycled in right-wing echo chambers like OANN and Newsmax to question the outcome of an election that the Biden-Harris team won by more than 7 million votes. and an electoral college margin of 306-232.
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