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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State to “find” enough votes to undo Joe Biden’s victory in the state presidential election, citing repeatedly refuted fraud allegations and raising the prospect of a “criminal offense” if officials did not change the vote count, according to a recording of the conversation.
The phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Saturday was the latest step in an unprecedented effort by a sitting president to pressure a state official to overturn the result of a free and fair election he lost. The Republican president, who refused to accept his defeat to Democratic President-elect Biden, has repeatedly claimed that Raffensperger could change the certified results.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than what we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”
Georgia counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s victory by a margin of 11,779 votes, Raffensperger noted.
“President Trump, we have had several lawsuits and we have had to respond in court to lawsuits and disputes,” he said on the appeal. “We don’t agree that you won.”
Audio clips of the conversation were first posted online by the Washington Post. The Associated Press obtained the full audio of Trump’s conversation with Georgian officials from one person on call. The PA’s policy is not to amplify misinformation and unproven allegations. The AP plans to display the full audio as it annotates a transcript with fact-checking elements.
Trump’s renewed intervention and the persistent and unfounded allegations of fraud came nearly two weeks before he left office and two days before the double second round of elections in Georgia that will determine political control of the US Senate.
It also added an extra level of intrigue to Trump’s Georgia rally on Monday night – likely the last of his tenure – in which he is supposed to bolster the two Republican candidates. Angry at Raffensperger’s call, Trump pitched the idea of pulling out of the rally, which would have potentially devastated GOP’s chances in what should be a pair of razor-thin races.
But Trump was persuaded to move forward with the rally as a step from which to reiterate his election fraud allegations and present, as he tweeted on Monday, the “real numbers” of the race. Republicans, however, were wary of whether Trump would focus solely on himself and potentially lower turnout by undermining confidence in the run-off election and failing to promote the two GOP candidates.
The president used Saturday’s hour-long phone conversation to go through a list of allegations about the Georgia election, including the fact that hundreds of thousands of ballots mysteriously appeared in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta . Officials said there was no evidence that this was happening.
Georgian officials on call are repeatedly heard rebuffing the president’s claims, telling him he’s relying on debunked theories and, in one case, a selectively edited video.
“It was pretty obvious early enough that we had debunked each of these theories early on,” Raffensperger told ABC’s “Good Morning America” 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, by suggesting that the two could be criminally responsible if they did not find that thousands of ballots in the county. de Fulton had been illegally destroyed. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim.
“It’s a criminal offense,” Trump says. “And you can’t let that happen.”
Other participants in the call included Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and attorneys assisting Trump, including Washington attorney Cleta Mitchell. Trump lost the electoral college to Biden by 74 votes, and even if Georgia, with 16 votes, ended up in his column, it would have no impact on the outcome of the election.
The call was the first time Raffensperger and Trump had spoken, although the White House had tried 18 times previously to arrange a conversation, officials said.
Democrats and a few 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 election law.
Biden’s senior adviser, Bob Bauer, called the recording “irrefutable evidence” of Trump threatening an official in his own party to “quash one state’s legal and certified vote count and fabricate another to its place”.
“It captures the whole shameful story of Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy,” Bauer said.
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in this chamber, said Trump’s conduct “deserves nothing less than a criminal investigation.”
Trump said in a tweet earlier Sunday that he had spoken with Raffensperger. He attacked the way Raffensperger conducted the elections in Georgia, tweeting: “He has no idea! and he said the government official “was unwilling or unable” to answer the questions.
Raffensperger’s Twitter Response: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you are saying is not true. The truth will come out. “
Various election officials across the country and former Trump attorney general William Barr said there was no widespread fraud in the election. The Republican governors of Arizona and Georgia, key battlefield states crucial to Biden’s victory, have also guaranteed the integrity of their national elections. Almost all of the court challenges by Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two dismissed by the Supreme Court, which has three judges appointed by Trump.
Yet Trump publicly denigrated the election, causing Republicans to fear GOP voters would be discouraged from entering Tuesday’s run-off between Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff.
Rebecca Green, who helps run the Election 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 have run their course. States have certified their votes.
Green said Trump had raised “a lot of questions” about whether he violated election laws.
Carl Tobias, professor of law at the University of Richmond, said Trump had shown “reprehensible and, possibly illegal,” conduct.
Trump noted on the call that he intended to repeat his fraud allegations at Monday night’s rally in Dalton, a heavily Republican region in northern Georgia.
“The Georgian people are angry. The locals are angry, ”he said on the recording.
Biden is also due to campaign in Georgia on Monday. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris remained puzzled in Garden City, Ga. On Sunday, criticizing Trump for the call.
“It was a bald, bald and daring abuse of power on the part of the President of the United States,” she said.
Loeffler and Perdue have largely supported Trump in his attempts to overturn the election results. But on Sunday, Loeffler said she has not decided to join her fellow Republicans in challenging the legitimacy of Biden’s victory over Trump when Congress meets on Wednesday to affirm Biden’s 306-232 Election College victory. .
Perdue, who was in quarantine after being exposed to the coronavirus, said he supports the challenge, although he is not a sitting senator when the vote takes place because his term has expired. Still, he told Fox News Channel he encouraged his colleagues to oppose, saying it was “something the American people are demanding right now.”
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Amy and Brumback reported from Atlanta. Additional reports provided by Associated Press editors Russ Bynum in Garden City, Ga., Jonathan Lemire in New York, and Zeke Miller in Washington.
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