Though it’s been nearly 2 months since the 2020 presidential election and weeks since President-elect Joe Biden was declared the winner, President Trump still doesn’t believe Democrats were able to lawfully turn Georgia blue.
In a phone call obtained by CNN, President Donald Trump was caught pressuring GOP Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to overturn the election results in Georgia.
“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,” Trump said during the conversation.
The call, which was first reported on by The Washington Post, comes after months of failed GOP attempts—including lawsuits and flagged social media posts—to prove that there was widespread presidential election fraud.
According to people close to Trump staff members, the president had been pressuring staffers to get him on the phone with Georgia’s Secretary of State, and other Georgia officials for the past few weeks. CNN reported a total of 18 attempted phone calls made from the White House to Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office since the election on November 3, 2020.
The president finally got in touch with the Secretary’s office on Saturday and continually pressured Raffensperger to confirm his claim that thousands of votes were cast illegally by out-of-state voters and people who are deceased. Throughout the hour-long call, the Secretary repeatedly told Trump that his claims were false and that he would not go on record to confirm that illegal votes were cast.
On January 4, Raffensperger was interviewed on Good Morning America, where he spoke on how the state handled the election. “I’m not a lawyer,” Raffensperger remarked. “All I know is that we’re going to follow the law, follow the process…Truth matters. And we’ve been fighting these rumors for the last two months.”
Though Raffensperger would not speak on the legality of Trump’s call, Georgia officials say that Trump might have violated state and federal election fraud statutes. With this though, lawyers speaking to the New York Times on January 3 said that it is not likely that charges will be brought against the president.
The new Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, has released a statement expressing her concerns about the call. She has pledged to fairly investigate the case if it is brought to her office.
“Like many Americans, I have found the news reports about the President’s telephone call with the Georgia Secretary of State disturbing,” Willis wrote. “As I promised Fulton county voters last year, as District Attorney, I will enforce the law without fear or favor.”
