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FILE PHOTO: United States President Donald Trump departs on a trip to West Point, New York from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, USA, December 12, 2020. REUTERS / Cheriss May
US President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s top election official to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat in the southern state, according to a recording of the hour-long call released by US media on Sunday.
Saturday’s call was the latest move in Trump’s two-month effort to insist that his loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election was the result of widespread electoral fraud, a claim that has been widely rejected in state and federal elections. officials, as well as multiple courts.
Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, came as some of Trump’s allies in the US Congress said they plan to oppose formal certification on Wednesday of Biden’s victory. The former vice president won by a margin of 306-232 in the Electoral College state by state, and by more than 7 million votes in total.
The Washington Post, which first reported on the call, said Trump alternately complimented, pleaded and threatened Raffensperger with vague criminal consequences in an attempt to undo his loss.
Raffensperger and his office’s attorney general rejected Trump’s claims at all times, telling the president that he relied on debunked conspiracy theories spread on social media about what a fair and accurate election was, according to audio excerpts and the newspaper account.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry,” Trump said, according to audio of the call posted online by the Post. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
“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 said on the recording, insisting that there was“ no way ”he would lose in Georgia.
The White House declined to comment. Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Biden, said the recording captures “the whole shameful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”
“We now have irrefutable evidence that a president pressured and threatened an official in his own party to rescind the legal and certified vote count of one state and fabricate another in its place,” Bauer said.
Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia was the first by a Democratic presidential candidate in a generation and has raised hopes among Democrats that they could win a pair of U.S. Senate elections in the state on Tuesday, giving his party the control of Congress.
Even if Trump had won all 16 votes from the Georgia Electoral College, he would still have lost the White House to Biden, who will take office on January 20.
Before the Washington Post published its report on the call, Trump said on Twitter Sunday that he had spoken with Raffensperger on the phone about election fraud in Georgia.
“He did not want, or could not, answer questions like the ‘ballot under the table’ scam, destruction of ballots, ‘voters’ from other states, dead voters and more. You have no idea! “Trump tweeted.
Raffensperger responded on Twitter: “Respectfully, President Trump: what you are saying is not true. The truth will come out. “
‘Potentially criminal’
News of Saturday’s call drew immediate criticism from Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, who said it could constitute an illegal act.
“Trump’s contempt for democracy is exposed. Once again. Recorded, ”Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Pressuring an election official to ‘find’ the votes so that he can win is potentially criminal, and another blatant abuse of power by a corrupt man who would be a despot, if we let him. We do not.”
There is a strong case that Trump violated a Georgia law against solicitation of voter fraud, as well as a similar federal law, according to Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University.
“If anyone else did this, someone else with the power to influence an election official, I have no doubt that at least a criminal investigation would be opened immediately,” Kreis said, adding that he thought it unlikely under prosecutors from Georgia or the Biden administration.
“There just doesn’t seem to be the political will for that,” he said.
The call came days before US Senator Ted Cruz led several of Trump’s allies in a risky attempt to disrupt the formal recognition of Biden’s victory when the Electoral College results are posted in Congress on January 6. .
Cruz has said that he and nearly a dozen Republican senators will oppose voters in states that have been at the center of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud, and will demand a 10-day emergency audit of the results. of those states.
The measure, seen as a largely symbolic protest, challenges Republican Senate leaders, who have argued that the upper house of Congress plays a largely ceremonial role in certifying the results of presidential elections.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump supporter, said in a statement Sunday that Cruz’s insistence on a vote audit committee had “zero chance” of success.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer posted a link to the Washington Post story on Twitter, adding that if Cruz and “his gang” wanted to investigate voter fraud, they should start with Trump’s call with Raffensperger.
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