[ad_1]
US President Donald Trump redoubled his false claims of electoral misconduct on Monday, a day after it emerged that he pressured a senior election official in Georgia to “seek” votes to change the outcome of the presidential election .
When Trump was heading to Georgia Monday night for a campaign event ahead of the second round of the Senate election on Tuesday, he vowed to produce “real numbers” to underscore his claims of voter fraud.
“How can an election be certified when the numbers being certified are verifiable INCORRECT,” he wrote on Twitter. But hours later, election officials in Georgia debunked Trump’s allegations of voter fraud.
At a press conference in Atlanta, Gabriel Sterling, manager of voting systems for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, accused Trump of undermining Georgians’ faith in the electoral system.
In a lengthy presentation, he refuted several of the points made by the president about voter fraud during Saturday’s recorded phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. On the “ridiculous” claims about the fraud involving the Dominion voting machines, Mr. Gabriel said: “None of that is true. Not an iota. ”
Likewise, he questioned the accusations about the coincidence of signatures, although he pointed out that all the minutes had been put online. “This office has been open and transparent,” he said.
Describing Trump’s comments on the phone call with Raffensperger as “unusual and out of place,” he said: “We have certified this election so there are no more votes to find.”
Earlier in the day, Raffensperger suggested that a local district attorney’s office in Georgia could launch a criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to change the election, though legal experts were divided on whether the president was likely to be indicted.
Divisions in GOP
Controversy over the phone call has flared just days before members of Congress meet in a joint session to officially declare the election results. At least 12 Republican senators, and possibly more than 100 Republican members of the House of Representatives, are expected to oppose the recount of electoral votes in some states when Congress meets Wednesday.
Divisions have emerged within the Republican Party over the president’s attempts to reverse the outcome of the November elections.
While senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley will force a debate Wednesday when Congress meets, several Republican senators plan to keep the result. These include the two senators from Utah, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, Rob Portman from Ohio and Tom Cotton from Arkansas.
Cotton, a right-wing senator and a staunch Trump supporter, said he would not support efforts by his colleagues to subvert the election result, saying it would violate the constitutional right of states to declare their results.
Trump criticized the Republicans’ reluctance to challenge Joe Biden’s victory, highlighting Cotton in particular.
“The ‘Surrender Caucus’ within the Republican Party will fall into infamy as weak and ineffective ‘guardians’ of our Nation, who were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers!” wrote on Twitter.
In a tweet addressed to Mr. Cotton by name, he said: “Republicans have pros and cons, but one thing is for sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!”
Meanwhile, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser called in the National Guard ahead of planned pro-Trump protests in the city this week.
“We will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city,” he said, adding that a curfew may be imposed on the nation’s capital.
[ad_2]