Trump asks GA Officials to “Find” Votes
The sitting president is asking GA officials to find votes despite the fact that the results have been confirmed thrice.
President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.
The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
Specifically:
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
And
At another point, Trump said: “So look. 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.”
There is audio at the link.
It does not matter what Trump believes or what nonsense he is being fed by aides or OAN, he is asking for a state-level elections official to change electoral results.
Results, I would add, that have been confirmed three times.
Worse, Trump’s interaction included threats
“That’s a criminal offense,” he said. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”
This is the indefensible behavior of an authoritarian wannabe who can’t accept reality.
This is really disgusting and a low point in the history of presidential transitions.
This is arguably criminal and undoubtedly immoral.
(And yet, this will either be ignored and/or defended by allies and sycophants who will simply say he only wants GA to prove there was no fraud. After all, we don’t want fraud, do we? So please prove that there wasn’t any! No evidence for fraud will be provided, but an ongoing demand to prove a negative will persist).
I recommend everyone read the whole piece.
The silence from OTB Republican-leaning voters on all of these issues is deafening.
Honestly, the worst thing for this country’s future is if Trump escapes prosecution at the Federal or State level.
Wow, that’s terrible.
I kind of wonder if it wouldn’t be a good thing to put this phone call on blast. To put the audio recording out there on the internet and let people listen to it themselves. Not everyone will be convinced, of course, but man.
Raffensperger seems to have handled it as well as can be expected:
“This is really disgusting and a low point in the history of presidential transitions.”
To date. I suspect worse is yet to come.
Wow. Just wow. Listened to the recording twice, because I thought I was hallucinating.
Just think, my generation thought Nixon was a delusional, paranoid whack-job. Ok, I mean, he was, but this is spinning the volume up past 11.
Raffensperger spent most of that “conversation” in deferential silence, it seemed like. Trump is out there rambling about shredded ballots and tampered machinery, and the SoS lets him just go and go. Man, I don’t care if he’s president, you’ve got to cut that bullshit off. When he’s wrong, you have to tell him exactly that and do it repeatedly until he understands. You can’t be deferential in the face of unreasonable requests.
I applaud the SoS for holding his ground on the ultimate election result, but that call sounds too much like a person already cowed who’s delivering “unfortunate news” to someone they desperately want to keep the respect of. Makes me think if the margin had been 150 he would have considered the request.
@Jay L Gischer:
Raffensperger is an example that it is possible for an elected official to serve with divinity even when the head of his own national threatens him.
He is what Cruz, Graham, and so many other politicians (and talkers and party members) pretend they are.
Too bad he will be made out to be the bad guy in all of this.
This is pathetic, astonishing, and yet completely on-brand for Trump.
The sooner January 20th gets here, the better.
What struck me immediately–other than the utter desperation, verging on hysteria, in Trump’s voice–was how he used the phrases “the rumor is” and “according to what I’ve heard.”
He doesn’t have a shred of evidence to substantiate any of the wild claims he’s making.
This is one of his defining characteristics. It’s always “many people are saying” or “I hear that” or some equivalent locution that means absolutely nothing.
The AJC’s article is even more damning and it makes it clear that Meadows was also involved.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/trump-demands-georgia-elections-official-overturn-his-defeat-in-hourlong-call/6MRGK445JNAGHBL2HXLZ3FIVZU/
@mattbernius:
He chose to run for office as a Republican. Lie down with dogs… ETTD.
IANAL, but how is Trump’s call not soliciting election fraud? Is that not a felony? Does Trump lose immunity from federal prosecution in 17 days? Is he not subject to state prosecution at any time? Is this a state or federal crime? Is the GA Atty Gen’l not a Republican? See, although IANAL, I eventually answered my own question.
You know what? There’s time. Impeach him again. Let this piece of garbage go down in history as the only president ever impeached TWICE for DIFFERENT OFFENSES.
I’m furious, and a good chunk of voters are just like “yep, that’s our guy.”
If trump doesn’t wind up behind bars, you can say goodbye to democracy in America.
There’s this:
I think if it were me, I’d leave off the “respectfully”. The guy just insulted you in public. I’d be tempted to say more, but it probably would work against me, message-wise.
Do we have time to impeach him again?
It’s pretty close to moot, but I would want the Republicans to have to go on record supporting or opposing this. I would like the Republican Party to step away from the brink of sedition, and I’m willing to offer them a hand — I don’t know that it would be effective, or whether it would just paper over problems for a few years, but it’s worth trying.
Also, it would be nice to impeach him. Give everyone something to do between the new Congress being sworn in and the new President being sworn in.
I would like to thank whatever member of the Deep State (possibly of Georgia) recorded this and got it to the press. He, she or they are a true patriot.
@Jay L Gischer:
I think the “respectfully” might have been intended ironically.
@mattbernius:
Agreed, and the prosecutions shouldn’t stop with Trump. From the AJC article you linked to:
How can anyone parse what Meadows says here as anything but admission that they don’t have anything that will pass muster in front of a judge?
Ken White/Popehat just dropped this:
BTW we are LESS that a year past being told the President had “learned his lesson” about calls.
Also remember when it was important to not have the Senate decide his fate, but, rather leave it up to an election.
@Kathy: Don’t be excessively melodramatic.
Certainly if Trumpism is not broken, but Trump personally behind bars does nothing much.
Breaking Trump’s ability to fund his games is rather more important than his physical person behind bars.
The election services companies defamation suits as well.
@mattBernius: BTW we are LESS that a year past being told the President had “learned his lesson” about calls.</quote?
Who said such a thing?
I do not think anyone serious (and not a mere propagandist spinning dezinformatsia) past 2018 had any real belief Trump can possibly learn or change.
Trump is incapable of learning any lessons.
As if they would actually step away from that brink…it is painfully obvious that the GOP is nothing more than the Cult of Trump and with all the lickspittles and cowards, there aren’t enough Never Trumpers to change the party…
@Lounsbury:
How quickly they forget:
And again it was a call pressuring a leader about providing election support for the 2020 race that was at the heart of that issue.
But hey, it was just a recently reelected senator explaining why she didn’t vote against the President.
And she is one of those moderates both-sides folks seem to LOVE!
@Lounsbury:
It wasn’t anyone serious. It was Susan Collins who the great people of Maine decided to re-elect as their Senator in November.
Seeing on Parler that Brad R is the monster here, because what kinda scumbag elected official leaks phone calls!
Also for giggles, here was the rest of Collins’ statement:
Time to re-up this:
http://www.thebulwark.com/portrait-of-the-president-as-a-gangster/
Full audio is now available via WaPo.
He spends 10 minutes counting up how he was shorted hundreds of thousands of votes, gets told he’s wrong, and leans back on the petitions they’ve made to the court that have been thrown out and explicitly don’t accuse anyone of fraud.
Just for the record, whoever recorded the phone call was in the room with trump. That being said, I don’t see Raffensberger releasing the tape.
@ptfe: Molly Jong Fast has it on twitter.
@OzarkHillbilly: No edit. To clarify, she has the critical 4:20 up.
@OzarkHillbilly: in Georgia you can record a phone call without consent from the other party. IDK who released the tape.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Teve:
Today it is quite likely that the call was being recorded by the WH, the State of GA and the Sec of States office as a matter of normal business. Today, governments and large business record everything.
@Teve: Listen to the recording. Whoever taped it was in the room with trump. Raffensbergers and Ryan’s voices sound (to me anyway) as tho they come thru a speaker phone.
*ftr I’ve only listened to just enough of it to confirm what was reported. trump’s voice is fingernails on the chalkboard for me so that is all I could stand.
@Sleeping Dog: I’m sure they all did, and I’ll admit to my unfamiliarity with the latest technology. But there is a definite difference in the tenor of the voices I heard and I would think that if they were being recorded thru the phone lines, at whichever end of the call, they would all have a similar tinny sound to them. But to repeat myself, the technology is foreign to me.
@OzarkHillbilly: Under no circumstances will I voluntarily listen to any Republican politician, ever again. Stupid lies give me stress.
It’s amazing what these guys are alleging. Things he alleges in this call:
– Dead people voting
– Living people voted for by others
– Said living people denied the right to vote day-of
– Shredding actual ballots
– Counting ballots that weren’t actually cast
– Multiply counting ballots (“used 3 times”)
– A specific counter got every ballot into a machine to go to Biden
– The SoS office is not fully transparent because it isn’t providing things it isn’t allowed to provide under law
Also, he had big rallies and polls (? not sure which ones he was looking at) so he must have won.
Trump is stunningly bad at this, too. He insults and flatters and tells people how amazing he is. I can’t imagine listening to this for an hour and thinking, That guy’s got it together and knows what he’s talking about.
“We just want the truth … the real truth is I won by 400,000 votes.” Yup, that’s a guy looking for the truth, babeeeeee.
@OzarkHillbilly: I haven’t had a chance to listen to the call but I can make at least one general observation about recorded calls. One party’s voices have gone through various switches and lines to get there so their voices well be effected (also by compression). Meanwhile the voices of those in the building will experience those degradations.
@Teve: I’m not sure that how many similar phone calls are out there as long as ~45% of the population believes that they not only don’t matter, but also are important to making sure that the Democrats don’t destroy their way of life.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@Matt: This was once true, but not so much anymore. For instance, if the calls are VOIP they should sound the same as they went in.
you can just scroll to any part of it and see Trump behaving like a lunatic.
This is nice. Clear-cut proof of a felony. He is threatening Kemp in order to compel Kemp to commit a felony of his own. That is, what’s the term? Oh yeah: crime. If he made the call from DC it may be a state crime in two states, as well as a federal crime. If he was anything but POTUS he’d be hearing from the FBI. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen the evidence.
This guy is a fucking clown. Jesus Christ, on an open line? With Kemp, whose political career is already over so he has not a goddamn thing to lose? Seven hours ago Kemp tweets, ‘time will tell asshole, and so will voice memo on my iPhone, you fat orange bitch!’ (I paraphrase.)
But I won’t have Trump compared to Nixon. Nixon was a crook, and he let his paranoia bring him down. That’s Shakespearean. That’s the old hubris story. This is not Shakespeare. This is pathetic.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Hey, their corporate/political masters already destroyed ours, why shouldn’t we return the favor? Asking for a friend.
@Michael Reynolds:
Sorry, Raffensperger.
@Michael Reynolds: Hunter Thompson’s eulogy for Nixon had some great lines.
@Teve: Too bad, so sad. Everything Trump touches dies, didn’t they know? I hope this absolutely kills any chance Perdue and Loeffler had.
And you certainly can’t blame Raffensperger for leaking it at a bad time for them–they’ve been firmly allied with Trump’s constant attacks on him. I’d make sure it got out to hurt them as much as it could.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nah. trump’s voice isn’t that pleasant.
@Mikey: am I totally off-base for thinking Trump, Meadows, and others might be looking at criminal charges?
@Michael Reynolds:
If Nixon was Shakespearean, then Trump is appropriately Marxist: History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.
@Michael Reynolds:
Point conceded, Michael. Nixon was a pro. Trump is the amateur who breaks out the window on the unlocked car, and uses a screwdriver in the ignition when the keys were already in it.
@Teve: See @mattBernius upthread. Popehat is generally quite circumspect about asserting a crime has been committed, so to see him saying “my sense is feds could find a crime to fit if they wanted to” means they could be, if the relevant authorities choose to charge them.
Personally, I’d love to see the House impeach Trump again. Get the Republicans on record saying this wasn’t an impeachable offense. Let America know they support crimes when a Republican commits them.
That is already common knowledge, the problem is 45% of American voters think IOKIYAR.
@Kathy:
“Trump is appropriately Marxist”
Groucho, Chico or Harpo?
@OzarkHillbilly:
If it were taped by and enterprise system, you couldn’t tell which side was recording. It one side is clear and the other not, then the recording occurred on the clear side, but either an add on device or a recording device, most likely someone’s phone
@Moosebreath:
I’d suggest Gummo, but that’d be an insult to a respectable human being.
@Teve:
And that is why I said, there is no downside for Republican elected officials for supporting Trump until the end. The base will love them for it and the passives will vote for them because they are not Democrats.
And both groups will loudly virtue signal (especially when it doesn’t matter) about how much principles matter to thier party.
@Mikey: What is it with the Left and Grand Futile Gestures. Showing Elan to charge into the machine guns? Bloody daft idea, delusional in thinking, useless waste of political time, an own goal.
For what it’s worth, I was taking high school civics in Dayton Ohio back in 1963 and I recall someone asked about the peculiar Southern habit of having separate water fountains for Whites and Colored People. For some reason this wasn’t well explained or even mentioned in our textbook. There was a pause of several seconds, and our teacher explained slowly that “I got to tell you. In. The. South. They. Do. Things. Very. Differently.” And that was all he was willing to say.
(There were reasons all those damned college kids in the 1960s — even the conservative Goldwater-boosting kids like me — used to denounce parents and just about every other adult in sight so vociferously as liars and hypocrites.)
So what I want to know now is whether any part of the last 4-5 years of the Trump Era will ever be mentioned in American high school civics books? Or, for that matter, in the sort of introductory civics courses many states require for college students?
@Kathy: Irrelevant, but years ago I read a biography, I think of Keynes. Whoever it was traveled to Russia in the 30s and in Moscow was introduced to Marx.
The author gives you a paragraph break to do a double take before saying it was Harpo, who was on a European tour.
@mattbernius:
“The silence from OTB Republican-leaning voters on all of these issues is deafening.”
They might be silent here, but I would think they are really vocal with Trumpian chants somewhere, trying to sooth the raging dissonance. Trump is the smartest umm, Trump is the most powerful umm, Trump is
Fighting corruption umm, every one says so umm…
“Honestly, the worst thing for this country’s future is if Trump escapes prosecution at the Federal or State level.”
This phone call should be a gimme, for even the most inept prosecutor. The genius decided to take matters into his own hands and go full idiot, (or 9 dimensional chess master). I have gotten over my shock after he won the primary. I see this call as nothing short of beautiful, as good as a full confession to attempted insurrection. He is just to stupid to be aware of the cover Guiliani et al were giving him up to now.
PS hats of to Brad Raffensperger. Republican or not, he is a hero, imo
@OzarkHillbilly: Exactly! In addition, what Trump and Meadows are talking about is a crime to these people; it’s an attempt to prevent the destruction of America and preserve it from “God’s Judgement [tm].”
Oh sure! Give me an edit button when I got nuthin to add. 🙁
I’m suspicious of this bit from the transcript
What exact route would “shake up the whole world”?
Gateway Pundit is referring to “Dirty Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger “
For now this thing is Republican v. Republican. I think it’s best to leave it that way, for Democrats to not inject themselves into it overly much.
This is one of the reasons why Trump is able to get away with so much–so many of the actions that could be taken against him are simply dismissed by the hoi polloi…
@Just nutha ignint cracker: The Qoopers think that this was Trump giving Raffensperger one last chance to come clean before The Plan is executed.
@Blue Galangal: I’m seeing Parler comments like “yeah! Trump has got them right where he wants them!” etc. I don’t think Wednesday is going to go well for them.
This is disturbing. Trump is getting high end, competent legal advice.
@MarkedMan: VOIP involves compression as I mentioned earlier which causes audio quality loss. Packet loss can further degrade audio quality.
@Mikey: We already have Republicans “on record” saying they’re fine with Trump criming, and 74 million of the sumbitches voted for MOAR CRIMING, and Susan Collins now has her “very serious, most concerned” face on….
But I see guillotines are now on sale for the cheap, cheap price of $600!!! 🙂
@Lounsbury: Whatever. Sometimes one must make it clear on which side one stands. If you don’t understand why, I can’t help you.
@Mikey: No you can’t help me as your help would consist of doing things that are flagrantly stupid, useless. Battle of Somme and elan levels of useless wastes of human effort as part of idiotic gestures.
No one has any doubts where the Left stands, cementing in precedent of failure doesn’t help you, it merely builds negative precedent.
@Lounsbury: Eh. Maybe you’re right, the political effort would be better expended elsewhere. He’s out of office in 17 days no matter what, after which he’s open to criminal prosecution.
@Lounsbury:
It doesn’t matter one whit if it makes political sense.
The fact is this was a flagrant abuse of power and clearly against GA State Law, if not Federal Law.
When the corrupt (read, Trump) are not held accountable, their successors are invited to be worse.
The lesson Trump learned from not being held accountable by his Republican sycophants during the first Impeachment Trial, is that he could do any damn thing he wanted with no consequences. Which is what we saw with this phone call, and WHO THE FUQ KNOWS what other calls have been made?
Democrats cannot make Republicans, the party of other peoples personal accountability and responsibility, to actually hold their own members accountable and responsible.
That doesn’t mean Democrats shouldn’t continue to actually do the right thing. Even if it doesn’t make political sense.
@Moosebreath: It couldn’t be Harpo, who was famous for remaining silent.
@Matt: To clarify when I said
I meant the voices of those in the building/room will NOT experience those degradations in audio quality.
Politico’s write-up. Raffensperger recorded it because he had already been run through this mill by Lindsey Graham. What triggered the release was being slimed by Trump in a tweet.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/01/04/the-backstory-of-trumps-georgia-call-491268
Trump must be gob-smacked. Very rarely does he encounter both a spine and a brain within his party.
@mattbernius: The problem is EVERYONE KNOWS THIS ELECTION IS BEING STOLEN!!! THERE IS “EVIDENCE” and we either look at it now or when we go on down the road and find, in fact, all the evidence of Fraud “BEYOND A DOUBT” these people and their family’s will pay a “THE” PRICE!!! Only if it is without a doubt!!!
@james hunt: Could you provide this evidence?
(And no, everyone does not know this election is being stolen, including former AG Bill Barr, who stated there was no evidence of the fraud you are alleging).
@james hunt: I’m gonna give james hunt praise: he got ‘their’ correct, even though he then immediately fucked up the plural of ‘family’.