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PUTTING THE PRESSURE ON: Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Elections Officer. Photo: Brynn Anderson / AP
In a phone conversation with election official Brad Raffensperger in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump pressured him to find enough votes to reverse the election result.
It appears in the footage of the conversation obtained by the Washington Post.
The telephone conversation took place on Saturday and lasted one hour, and was between outgoing President Trump, who brought with him, among others, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to the White House, and Republican Raffensperger, who is Administration Minister in Georgia. , and two people from his staff.
Trump alternated between scolding Raffensperger, flattering him, begging him to do something, and threatening him with vague criminal consequences if he refused to do something about the president’s false allegations of voter fraud.
At one point, Trump warned Raffensperger that he was taking a “great risk,” the newspaper writes.
PRESSURE: President Donald Trump wanted to find votes to change Georgia’s election results. Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP
During the phone call, Raffensperger denied and communicated Trump’s allegations to his office, saying the president “believed in rejected conspiracy theories.”
They also said that incoming President Joe Biden’s victory with 11,779 votes in Georgia was fair and accurate.
Trump rejected their arguments, saying, among other things:
– There is nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you have recounted.
To which Raffensperger responded, “The challenge you have is that your information is incorrect.”
At a later point in a phone conversation, Trump said:
– Listen: 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 also claimed that it was not “completely impossible” to lose Georgia.
– It’s not possible. We won with hundreds of thousands of votes, Trump said.
hear the whole phone call here and read the transcript.
Division in the Republican Party
On Saturday, eleven Republican senators came out and said they would challenge incoming President Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College when the votes are counted and formally passed on January 6.
Another Republican senator and up to 140 Republican members of the House of Representatives had already announced that they would do the same.
To contest the election, the support of at least two elected representatives from the House of Representatives and one from the Senate is required.
On Sunday, ten senators from the parties issued a statement opposing the Republican attempt to contest the election. Among them are Republican Senators Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Bill Cassidy.
DISAGREE WITH TRUMP: Sen. Mitt Romney (R) strongly disagrees with outgoing President Donald Trump. Photo: Thomas Nilsson / VG
They write, among other things, that “the 2020 elections are over” and that attempts to question the legitimacy of the elections are the opposite of what is “the clearly expressed will of the American people.”
– The voters have spoken and Congress must now fulfill its responsibility to approve the election result.
“It’s time to move on,” they write at the end.
