EXCLUSIVE: Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler will object to the certification of the results of at least one state during the counting of votes at the Electoral College on Wednesday by Congress, Fox News learns.
The joint session of Congress to certify the result of the Electoral College is scheduled to take place just one day after the long-awaited Georgia Senate elections, pitting Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock, and Senator David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff.
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“Elections are the foundation of our democracy and the American people deserve to be 100% confident in our electoral systems and their results. But now, tens of millions of Americans have real concerns about how the November presidential election was conducted – and I share your concerns, “said Loeffler in a statement to Fox News on Monday.
“The American people deserve a platform in Congress, allowed by the Constitution, for electoral issues to be presented so they can be addressed,” continued Loeffler. “That is why, on January 6, I will vote to give President Trump and the American people the fair hearing they deserve and support the objection to the Electoral College certification process.”
Loeffler added that she “has already introduced legislation to establish a commission to investigate electoral irregularities and recommend electoral integrity measures.
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“We must restore confidence and integrity in our electoral system,” said Loeffler.
A source familiar with Loeffler’s thinking told Fox News that she is likely to object to certifying the results of Georgia’s presidential election and left open the possibility that Loeffler could oppose others as well.
The source also told Fox News that Loeffler “will object on his own”, not as part of Senator Ted Cruz’s election commission, which he presented over the weekend.
On Saturday, Cruz, from Texas, and a group of other Republican senators said they would oppose certification unless there was a 10-day emergency audit of the results by an election commission. In addition, last month, Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Said he would object, at the very least, to the results in Pennsylvania.
Loeffler’s pledge comes just hours before Georgians arrive at the polls to vote on Tuesday, in disputes in which the Senate balance of power will be decided.
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And Loeffler’s likely objection to Georgia’s results comes after President Trump made a phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked that he “find” enough votes to reverse the results of the state elections.
During the conference call, according to audio obtained by The Washington Post, the president said: “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.”
According to the Post, Trump later added: “So what are we going to do here, guys? I just need 11,000 votes. Guys, I need 11,000 votes. Give it a break.”
Georgia’s certified election results show that Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, won the November 3 state election by 11,779 votes.
“We are disappointed that the Secretary of State and his team secretly recorded and released a confidential discussion to resolve the two pending cases,” Trump’s lawyer Kurt Hilbert said on Monday. “While they may think this behavior is appropriate, we are not. Consequently, we will not comment on discussions about the deal.”
Meanwhile, a Georgia government source told Fox News on Monday that Trump tried to contact Raffensperger 18 times before Saturday’s call.
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Democrats are criticizing the president for his conduct in liaison with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, saying that “his shameful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and distorting the total legally confirmed votes in his state reaches the heart of our country. democracy and deserves nothing less than a criminal investigation. “
On Monday, Democratic MPs Ted Lieu of California and Kathleen Rice of New York sent a criminal reference to the FBI, claiming that the president requested electoral fraud during the call.
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The FBI confirmed to Fox News that it had received the letter from Lieu and Rice, but declined to comment further.
President Trump refused to yield to President-elect Joe Biden and his campaign launched a series of legal challenges. The president called on states with governors and republican legislatures to revoke Biden’s victories.
But while the Trump campaign has contested the results in dozens of lawsuits, judges in several states have rejected them. Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press last month that “so far, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have caused a different outcome in the election.”
Meanwhile, two Republican House officials told Fox News that more than 100 Republican Party members will oppose the election results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin.