[ad_1]
The phone conversation between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was made public by The Washington Post. You can listen to it here.
During the conversation, Trump criticized Raffensperger, then tried to praise him, called for action and threatened to take unclear legal action. Trump warned the secretary of state that he was “very at risk.”
VIDEO: 2020 Highlights Foreign Events: From Coronavirus Geopolitical Challenges to A. Navaln Poisoning
Raffensperger, for his part, explained that the president relied on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about electoral fraud and that Democrat Joe Biden’s victory by 11,779 votes was fair and accurate.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. There’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, you miscalculated,” Trump said.
“Well, Mr. President, the challenge is that the data you have is wrong,” Raffensperger responded.
At the same time, the outgoing president said: “Look. I just need you to. I just want you to find 11,780 votes. One more of those we have. Because we won the state. “
“There is no way he lost in Georgia. Impossible. We received hundreds of thousands of votes, “Trump said.
White House leader Mark Meadows and attorney Cleta Mitchell also participated in the conversation.
The White House, the Trump campaign and Meadows did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump wrote on Twitter after speaking with Raffensperger, assuring him that the secretary was “unwilling or unable” to answer questions about the voter fraud.
Raffensperger responded on Twitter that the president was lying.
Compared to the Watergate scandal
Democrats soon condemned this conversation.
“It just came to our notice then. Again. On the record,” House of Representatives member Adam Schiff told Twitter.
“Pressuring an electoral official to ‘find’ votes so that he can win is a potential criminal offense, and another scandalous case of a corrupt man who would be a despot if we allowed him to abuse power.” We will not allow that, “the Democrat added.
Some political commentators compared that conversation to the Watergate scandal in the 1980s, which led to the resignation of then-President Richard Nixon.
Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists who uncovered the Watergate scandal, called the recording of the conversation between Trump and Rafensperger an “obvious clue.”
Trump claims that there was fraud during the election without providing any evidence.
But the vote count in several states confirmed Biden’s victory, the courts rejected the Trump team’s complaints, and in early December, then-United States Attorney General Bill Barr said the Justice Department had not found evidence of significant manipulation during elections.
At one point, Trump had invited Michigan Republican election officials to the White House, apparently in an effort to pressure them to confirm their votes.
In another phone conversation, the president lobbied the Republican Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp.
Raffensperger and other election officials, after rejecting Trump’s requests, received death threats from supporters in Georgia and other states.
Under Georgia law, Raffensperger had the right to record a conversation with Trump without the latter’s consent.
[ad_2]
