WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State to “find” enough votes to nullify Joe Biden’s victory in the state’s presidential election, repeatedly citing refuted allegations of fraud and raising the possibility of “criminal offense.” “if employees did not change the vote count, according to a recording of the conversation.
The liaison with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday, it was the last step in an unprecedented effort by an incumbent president to pressure a state official to reverse the outcome of a free and fair election that he lost. The Republican President, who refused to accept his defeat for Democratic President-elect Biden, has repeatedly argued that Raffensperger could change the certified results.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than us,” said Trump. “Because we won the state.”
Georgia counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s victory by a margin of 11,779 votes, noted Raffensperger.
“President Trump, we have had several lawsuits and we have had to respond in court to the lawsuits and disputes,” he said on the call. “We don’t agree that you won.”
Audio excerpts from the conversation were posted online for the first time by The Washington Post. The Associated Press obtained the full audio of Trump’s conversation with Georgia officials from a person on the call. The AP has a policy not to expand misinformation and unproven complaints. AP plans to post the full audio as it notes a transcript with fact-checking material.
Trump’s renewed intervention and persistent and unfounded allegations of fraud occurred almost two weeks before he stepped down and two days before the second round of the Georgia elections, which will determine the political control of the U.S. Senate.
It also added a level of intrigue to Trump’s Georgia rally on Monday night – probably the last of his term – in which he is expected to support the two Republican candidates. Furious after Raffensperger’s call, Trump launched the idea of withdrawing from the rally, which would have potentially devastated the GOP’s chances in what is expected to be a couple of fine races.
But Trump was persuaded to move on with the rally as a stage from which to reiterate his allegations of electoral fraud and present, as he tweeted on Monday, the “real numbers” of the race. Republicans, however, were wary of whether Trump would focus only on himself and potentially diminish participation, undermining faith in the runoff elections and not promoting both Republican candidates.
The president used Saturday’s hour-long phone conversation to check a list of allegations about the election in Georgia, including that hundreds of thousands of ballots mysteriously appeared in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta. Officials said there was no evidence of this.
Georgia officials on the call are heard repeatedly contesting the president’s claims, telling him that he is relying on debunked theories and, in one case, a selectively edited video.
“It was pretty obvious that we had debunked each of these theories early on,” Raffensperger told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, “but President Trump continues to believe them.”
Also during the conversation, Trump appeared to threaten Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s legal adviser, suggesting that both could be held criminally responsible if they didn’t discover that thousands of ballots in Fulton County had been destroyed illegally. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim.
“This is a criminal offense,” says Trump. “And you can’t let that happen.”
Other participants on the call included Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and lawyers who helped Trump, including Washington attorney Cleta Mitchell. Trump lost the Electoral College to Biden by 74 votes, and even if Georgia, with his 16 votes, ended up in his column, it would have no impact on the election result.
The call was the first time that Raffensperger and Trump spoke, although the White House had tried to establish a conversation on 18 occasions, officials said.
Democrats and some Republicans condemned Trump’s actions, while at least one Democrat called for a criminal investigation. Legal experts said Trump’s behavior raised questions about possible violations of electoral law.
Biden’s senior adviser, Bob Bauer, called the recording “Trump’s irrefutable proof” by threatening an official in his own party to “rescind a state’s certified and legal vote count and manufacture another in its place.”
“It captures the whole shameful story about Donald Trump’s attack on American democracy,” said Bauer.
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second Democrat in that chamber, said that Trump’s conduct “deserves nothing less than a criminal investigation”.
Trump said in a tweet on Sunday that he had spoken to Raffensperger. He attacked how Raffensperger conducted the Georgia elections, tweeting, “He has no idea!” and he said the state official “did not want or was unable” to answer the questions.
Raffensperger’s response on Twitter: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you are saying is not true. The truth will come out. “
Several election officials across the country and former Trump attorney general William Barr said there was no widespread election fraud. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, also ensured the integrity of his state elections. Almost all legal challenges to Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two contested by the Supreme Court, which has three judges appointed by Trump.
Still, Trump publicly downgraded the election, raising concerns among Republicans that Republican Party voters might be discouraged from participating in Tuesday’s contests that pit Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff.
Rebecca Green, who helps run the electoral law program at William and Mary Law School, said that while it is appropriate for a candidate to question the outcome of an election, the processes for doing so for the presidential election are now over. The states certified their votes.
Green said Trump raised “many questions” about whether he violated any electoral laws.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said Trump had shown “reprehensible and possibly illegal conduct”.
Trump noted in the call that he intended to repeat his claims about fraud at Monday night’s rally in Dalton, a heavily Republican area in northern Georgia.
“The people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry, ”he says in the recording.
Biden is also expected to campaign in Georgia on Monday. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, perplexed in Garden City, Georgia, on Sunday, criticizing Trump for the call.
“It was a bald, bald and bold abuse of power by the President of the United States,” she said.
Loeffler and Perdue broadly supported Trump in his attempts to overturn election results. But on Sunday, Loeffler said he has not decided to join his Republican colleagues to challenge the legitimacy of Biden’s victory over Trump when Congress meets on Wednesday to affirm Biden’s 306-232 victory at the College. Electoral.
Perdue, who was quarantined after being exposed to the coronavirus, said he supports the challenge, although he is not an acting senator when the vote comes because his term has expired. Still, he told Fox News Channel that he was encouraging his colleagues to object, saying that it is “something that the American people demand now”.
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Amy and Brumback reported from Atlanta. Additional reporting contributed by Associated Press writers Russ Bynum in Garden City, Georgia, Jonathan Lemire in New York and Zeke Miller in Washington.