Donald Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday to spend a full hour recreciting fantasy and outright lies about the election he lost two months ago. Amidst this hour-long windstorm, Secretary Raffensperger stuck with the plain facts:
President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. Um, we don’t agree that you have won. And we don’t — I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you’d mentioned. And I can go through that point by point.What we have done is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time going through the election issue by issue and then on the state House, the government affairs committee, we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of contention. And then just a few days ago we met with our U.S. congressmen, Republican congressmen, and we gave them about two hours of our time talking about this past election. Going back, primarily what you’ve talked about here focused in on primarily, I believe, is the absentee ballot process. I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand retally, a 100% retally of all the ballots and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table [Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffansperger, response to Donald Trump, phone call, 2021.01.02; as transcribed and posted by CNN, 2021.01.03].
Raffensperger directly refuted Trump’s claim that 5,000 dead people voted:
Well Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen and they were surprised.
But they — I guess there was a person Mr. Braynard who came to these meetings and presented data and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong. There were two [Raffensperger to Trump, 2021.01.02].
The Secretary shot down Trump’s promise to release a new “devastating” tape purporting to show thousands of ballots being counted multiple times:
You’re talking about the State Farm video. And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. The next day we brought in WSB-TV and we let them show, see the full run of tape and what you’ll see, the events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by, you know — [Raffensperger, interrupted by Trump, 2021.01.02].
In response to Secretary Raffensperger and his general counsel Ryan Germany’s stubborn adherence to fact, Trump spluttered toward pressuring Georgia officials to commit election fraud:
Trump: …Why don’t you want to find this, Ryan? What’s wrong with you? I heard your lawyer is very difficult, actually, but I’m sure you’re a good lawyer. You have a nice last name.But, but I’m just curious why wouldn’t, why do you keep fighting this thing? It just doesn’t make sense. We’re way over the 17,779, right?…And every single ballot went to Biden, and you didn’t know that, but, now you know it. So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this. And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don’t want to find answers. For instance, I’m hearing Ryan that he’s probably, I’m sure a great lawyer and everything. But he’s making statements about those ballots that he doesn’t know. But he’s making them with such — he did make them with surety. But now I think he’s less sure because the answer is they all went to Biden and that alone wins us the election by a lot. You know, so.Raffensperger: Mr. President, you have people that submit information and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.Trump: Why do you say that? I don’t know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you say that? First of all they don’t even assign us a judge. They don’t even assign us a judge. But why wouldn’t you — Hey Brad, why wouldn’t you want to check out [name] ? And why wouldn’t you want to say, hey, if in fact, President Trump is right about that, then he wins the state of Georgia, just that one incident alone without going through hundreds of thousands of dropped ballots. You just say, you stick by, I mean I’ve been watching you, you know, you don’t care about anything. “Your numbers are right.” But your numbers aren’t right. They’re really wrong and they’re really wrong, Brad. And I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you know — Look ultimately, I win, okay? [Trump/Raffensperger call, 2021.01.02].
Living in a fantasy world isn’t illegal, but soliciting election fraud is, and Trump’s hectoring may have crossed that line:
Georgia state law includes two provisions that criminalize “solicitation of election fraud” and “conspiracy to commit election fraud.” Trump’s detractors also pointed to a federal statute that criminalizes “the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”
Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said: “The Georgia code says that anybody who solicits, requests or commands or otherwise attempts to encourage somebody to commit election fraud is guilty of solicitation of election fraud. ‘Soliciting or requesting’ is the key language. The president asked, in no uncertain terms, the secretary of state to invent votes, to create votes that were not there. Not only did he ask for that in terms of just overturning the specific margin that Joe Biden won by, but then said we needed one additional vote to secure victory in Georgia.”
“There’s just no way that if you read the code and the way the code is structured, and then you look at what the president of the United states requested, that he has not violated this law — the spirit of it for sure,” Kreis continued.
Kreis added that the phone call could not be divorced from recent episodes in which Trump amplified a false conspiracy theory about Raffensperger’s family and his vows to end the political careers of people like the secretary of state and Kemp for upholding Biden’s victory in the election. He also said Trump’s request for a specific number of votes — just enough to prevail by one — undercut the notion that he was simply asking for the truth.
…Ned Foley, director of election law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, said: “The character of what I heard on the call does raise the question whether under federal law or state law it’s functionally equivalent of asking someone to falsify election returns, which is presumably criminal in every state in the country. He’s trying to pull every string or every lever or do everything, including things that may be criminal, to the point of subverting the result.”
[Allie Bice, Kyle Cheney, Anita Kumar, and Zach Montellaro, “Trump’s Pressure on Georgia Election Officials Raises Legal Questions,” Politico, 2021.01.03].
Worth noting: recording and releasing this call to the public is not illegal, as Georgia, like South Dakota, is a “one-party consent” state, allowing any party to the conversation to record it, and as a conversation like this between public officials should most certainly be a matter of public record.
Update 07:05 CST: Secretary Raffensperger’s office recorded and released the call to ensure they could respond to any lies Trump tried to spread about the conversation… which lies Trump started Tweeting Sunday morning.
I you are outraged by trumps assault on the democratic election process stay tuned…way more to come…he is embolden beyond belief now and he knows he is protected by his ultra conservative base. He thinks he is Immune from any prosecution. because he would pardon himself. He will NEVER stop his ranting and lies. He will do the same thing when the Georgia Senatorial election results do no please him. Him and his cronies will muck up the Presidency of Joe Biden at every opportunity starting on Wednesday Jan 6… His puppets transplanted in every US government agency will fight to their death for him to hold onto their power..What you heard on the tape is just the beginning of KING trump his grip on the former republican party and the end of free and fair elections.
I was going to write a note to Pretty Boy Thune and his sidekick, Smiley Rounds, but I feared I would have a difficult time keeping my 4-letter adjective inventory under control. What, exactly, did they expect when they overlooked crotch grabbing, campaign finance violations, 10 felony counts in the Mueller report, “good” Nazis, international blackmail and abuse of power… Did they still think he would “grow into the job.” What do you think of your creation now, Senator Frankenstein? Fercryinoutlowd!
The Georgia criminal statutes cited in this story are especially dangerous to Trump as it appears his status as President gives him no protection whatsoever from criminal prosecution if Georgia is willing to prosecute. He can’t even pardon himself, or be pardoned by Pence if he resigins at the last minute, since they are State statutes rather than federal criminal statutes.
Perhaps Trump’s attacks on Governor Kemp and othe Republican State officials will weaken the Trump-publican shield against enforcing the criminal law that we have seen causing voluntary blindness of some Trump sychophants. And there can be no greater case of “probable cause” that Trump violated the cited statutes – these recorded calls are uncontracted evidence similar to actual confessions of the facts that show a violation.
At least Thune has spoken up and said it is important to move on and the election is over. Rounds? Radio silence. His political path of least resistance strategy is pathetic.
Rumours abound drumpf is headed for Scotland on January 19th for an extended stay at golf course. There are numerous reports of US military actions at air base nearby Turnberry course and an AF 757, similar to one drumpf has used has been spotted there recently. Maybe he plans to grant golf course a pardon for something or another.
Daily Mail has carried this story.
ps I don’t see any criminal charges against drumpf by any red run state as magats and wingnuts have, all along, refused to hold drumpf accountable fvor anything. Don’t get your hopes up.
It’s ok folks, let the lying loser continue to rip apart the used to be GOP. It will make the next election so much better.
After reading the transcript of the call, one can only recall the words of former VP Dan Quayle. “… a mind is a terrible thing to lose.”
The 27 South Dakota traitors have been exposed for not only being corrupt but also Anti-American, more or less on the same order of a common communist. There is nothing legitimate about the 27 republicans in Pierre and that is why we stay stuck in the ditch while they enrich themselves. The cabal in Pierre needs to fold it’s tent and move on back under the pond scum. If we want anything done for the state’s welfare, we just need to do initiatives.
BTW, Dick Cheney is now the voice of reason. trump is a common criminal mafia style, a thug.
Actually listening to the recording brought up images of pet shop owner Michael Palin trying to convince customer John Cleese the parrot he just purchased is not dead, rather it is just “pinin’ for the fiords”:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwqnp
While I normally cannot stand to listen to Trump’s rants for more than about five minutes, this particular rant was so off the wall that it kept my attention for the full hour and two minutes of the call.
No offense Jerry, but that seems to be a insult to common communists.
Donnie must be having nightmares from Daddy Fred Trump calling him a loser. Fred Trump was worse than Donald and severely traumatized the family, particularly the sons (according to niece, Mary Trump). Severely traumatized dysfunctional families pass their dysfunctionalism down from generation to generation. In Trump’s dreams, his daddy is telling him to go fix the election results. :(
From the Frank miller movie “Sin City” hospital speech fom Sinator Roarke to shot up cop Hartigan on what constitutes real power. Mightr be drumpf and wingnuts have taken this to heart…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5eFubO_iLM
two and a half minutes. Monty Python is always good stuff, once you get the concept of British humor.
Trumpty Dumbty sat on his wall,
Trumpty Dumbty had a great fall
all Trumptys minions and all Trumptys fixers
should go to a jail built just for LOSERS
And you hope things will improve in 2021? “After House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy downplayed Trump’s stunning demand, other Republicans rushed to his defense — and some refused to take issue with the President’s actions.(CNN)”
They are still locked into an us-vs.-them political party fight. No thought for the republic or the Constitution or We the People.
Beyond the obvious issues here, I found this phone conversation to be amazing in that Trump sounded weak, desperate, and like ‘The Sopranos’ without the edge.
History will not be good to the enabling Republicans who have allowed this to happen and to continue to happen.
Carl Bernstein has called this phone conversation the “smoking gun”, but for what? Impeachment, indictment, or commitment?
How could a nation that defeated fascism, put a man on the moon, won the Cold War, and entered the 21st century both solvent and strong be now led by such a political oddity and mess?
I blame NAFTA, but so would Trump. But Trump was never the answer, rather he was a lingering by-product of our missteps over the last twenty plus years on trade and foreign policy.
If we are to be strong again in a post Trump era, we need to restore the middle class with a nation that works for the average person, which means not only a domestic policy which protects and promotes the middle class, but also a foreign policy that always has their best interests first as well.
Bear, how I would love to see Trump’s unbridled arrogance lead him into such a fatal legal error, subjecting himself to state-level prosecution from which he cannot escape.
I haven’t listened to the audio; I only read the text. But even in the text, the lawyers at Trump’s side occasionally seemed to be trying to steer the conversation away from the dangerous legal waters Trump was plying, as if they recognized that he was about to cross a line between persuasion and illegal solicitation of fraud.
“Hourlong Phone Harassment “
I’ve noticed the GA SOS has been a major player in his active role in long and ongoing statewide voter suppression assuring his (R) continuing to flame bright red, regardless of this instance. He, unlike Trump, listens to his administration’s lawyers. Facts are facts.
There’s a lot of smoke on this one .. I think there’s fire on the whole election evidence thing.
Mr. Dale — just like there was fire on the evidence of President Obama’s birth certificate. Will you rubes ever really require your cult leader to produce the evidence he says to have at his hand?
As is the always the case with this President, the only thing that accompanies his smoke is mirrors — not fire.
I haven’t listened.
But here for some mirth are a few short excerpts of his 22 thousandth rally (last night in Georgia):
@SethAbramson·
9h
73/ Trump is inviting Marjorie Greene up to the stage and is WAY MORE EXCITED about her than he was about Loeffler, apparently she is going to speak now and for as long or longer than Loeffler did
This is incredible, she is a literal deranged lunatic
53/ Ivanka, Meadows, Don Jr., and Kimberly Guilfoyle are in the background talking and laughing not listening to Trump at all and why would they, they’ve heard all these lies 1,000 times before
47/ Trump calls Democrats “communists,” says “They hate our country” blah blah blah
On Pence: “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you… he’s a great guy. Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.”
32/ Perdue now speaking via video with his usual absence of charisma, apparently he was dared to say “socialism” every four words
18/ As we await Trump, I want to note how seamlessly the GOP has created its new racist dog-whistle: “the mob.” It mostly means Black activists, but because it *technically* also includes the antifa movement, which is seen as white, they believe they’ve skirted claims of racism.
drumpf had a lawyer from a semi-prestigious firm advise him on the phone call and since her firm was not engaged in any of the election shenanigans, she is out of a job. Does the sheer stoopidity of drumpf’s organization ever end?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/politics/cleta-mitchell-resigns-trump-georgia/index.html