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On Monday, Georgia’s top election official systematically rejected and dismantled inaccurate claims by President Trump and his allies about the election, calling it “anti-disinformation Monday.” Gabriel Sterling’s press conference came just hours after two House Democrats called on the FBI to open a criminal investigation into President Trump’s explosive appeal with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for possible violations of federal and state electoral laws.
“All of this is easily proven false. Yet the President persists,” Sterling said, going one by one through the various unfounded and false allegations about the Dominion’s voting systems and countless ballots.
Congressman Ted Lieu from California and Congressman Kathleen Rice from New York made their request in a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray on Monday after the audio of Mr. Trump with Raffensperger was obtained and published by several news outlets on Sunday, including CBS News. During the appeal, the president pressured the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” to reverse his loss in the presidential election in Georgia.
“The evidence of Mr. Trump’s electoral fraud is now exposed,” the two Democrats wrote. “The prima facie case for the above crimes has been satisfied.”
Lieu and Rice, both former prosecutors, believe that the president “engaged in a solicitation or conspiracy to commit a number of electoral crimes.” The couple cited two federal laws they believe Mr. Trump violated, as well as a Georgia state law regarding the solicitation of electoral fraud.
During their conversation, Mr Trump told Raffensperger: “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than us. Because we won the state. . “
“The Georgian people are angry, the people of the country are angry,” the president said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, uh, you recalculated.”
President-elect Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes, and the votes cast in the state were counted three times in total, with Mr. Biden’s victory confirmed each time.
The President has repeatedly claimed in the call that he won the election in Peach State and suggested the ballots were shredded in Fulton County. The president also claimed that Dominion Voting Systems, a provider of electoral technology, was removing or tampering with the machines.
Raffensperger and his attorney general Ryan Germany, who was also on appeal, have repeatedly rebuffed Mr. Trump’s claims, with the secretary of state saying the state’s election results were “accurate.”
“Mr President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is wrong,” Raffensperger told the President.
Since November 3, election day, Raffensperger’s office has received 18 attempted telephone calls from the White House. Saturday’s call, however, was the first call the Secretary of State has made with Mr. Trump since polling day.
Mr. Trump’s comments raised questions as to whether he could be subject to legal scrutiny.
Raffensperger told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that his office would not open an investigation because it could be a conflict of interest, but he believes the Fulton County prosecutor “wants to look into it. “.
“Maybe this is the right place for it to go,” he said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a statement she found the call “disturbing” and cited reports that the only Democrat on the state’s electoral board had asked the electoral division to ‘investigate the appeal, after which the board may refer the matter to Willis’ office. and the state attorney general.
“As I promised voters in Fulton County last year, as a district attorney, I will apply the law without fear or favor. Anyone who violates Georgia law in my jurisdiction will be held accountable, ”she said. “Once the investigation is completed, this matter, like all matters, will be dealt with by our office on the basis of the facts and the law.”
Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, said it was “very possible” that the president violated federal law and possibly broke Georgia state law.
“It mostly depends on what the president honestly believes at this point, and the only choices aren’t great,” he told CBS News. “So either he understands the reality and knows that there aren’t 11,800 ballots sitting somewhere that are Trump votes that weren’t counted in the recounts and audits, in which case he has committed a crime. If he really understands the true nature of the world, if he can tell fact from fiction, he has probably committed a crime. “
But, “if he doesn’t, then we have a CEO who is still in office for 16.5 days and who cannot reliably distinguish between fact and fiction based on the information that he has. ‘he receives,’ continued Levitt.
“It’s not a big consolation prize,” he said, adding that there was “a lot” in Mr. Trump’s appeal with Raffensperger “which is an alarming indicator that the president cannot not distinguish fact from fiction, that he adhered to his own conspiracy theories. “
Levitt suggested that White House President and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was on call, may also have broken an 1871 criminal conspiracy law to subvert civil rights if they agreed that the purpose of the call “was to see if we can convince him to make a fake account.”
“If Meadows knows, if he can tell the difference between fact and fiction, and if he has the same purpose as the president, then that’s all the conspiracy requires,” he said.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who headed the Justice Department under President Obama, tweeted on Sunday that those listening to the audio of Mr. Trump’s appeal should “consider this federal criminal law,” and he said included an image of a law which states that any person in a federal election who “deprives, defrauds or knowingly and willfully attempts to deprive or defraud residents of a state of a fair and impartial electoral process, s. .. obtaining, depositing or tabulating ballots known to the person to be materially false, fictitious or fraudulent under the laws of the state in which the election takes place “would be fined or up to five years in prison.
Adam Brewster contributed to this report
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