Trump&ndash;Raffensperger phone call

Trump–Raffensperger phone call

On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, U.S. President Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change from the 2020 presidential election. Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the election, but refused to accept the outcome and made an unprecedented, months-long effort to overturn the results. Prior to the call to Raffensperger, Trump spoke repeatedly to state and local officials in at least three states, urging them to recount votes, throw out some ballots, or replace the Democratic slate of electors with a Republican slate. Trump's call with Raffensperger was first reported by The Washington Post and other media outlets the day after it took place.
According to the publicly released recording of the call and reports made by multiple news agencies, Trump attempted to pressure the Secretary into "finding him votes", despite being repeatedly told that there was no electoral error. Trump's repeated efforts to convince the Secretary to find some basis to overturn the election results were perceived as pleading and threatening. At one point on the call, Trump told Raffensperger, "What 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." During the call, Trump falsely suggested that Raffensperger could have committed a criminal offense. Legal experts have suggested that Trump's behavior and demands could have violated state and federal laws.
On January 11, the phone call was cited in a new article of impeachment introduced in the House of Representatives.
Background

In the 2020 United States presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump, in part through a narrow victory over Trump in the state of Georgia. Nevertheless, Trump's campaign continued to claim baseless accounts of voter fraud which have been resoundingly dismissed by fact-checkers, elections-security experts, and courts. Nearly all of were unsuccessful, but he has repeatedly refused to accept the outcome of the election. Audits were conducted and hand recounts requested, all of which ultimately concluded there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would considerably change the results. Biden was officially confirmed the winner of Georgia on November 19.
In November and December, as his lawsuits were repeatedly rejected in court for lack of evidence, Trump personally communicated with Republican local and state officials in at least three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. He talked in person or via phone to state legislators, state attorneys general, and governors, pressuring them to overturn the election results in their states by recounting votes, throwing out some of the ballots, or getting the state legislature to replace the elected Democratic slate of Electoral College members with a Republican slate of electors chosen by the legislature. In December he spoke by phone to the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and made public demands on the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans who had supported Trump in the election. He demanded that they reverse the Georgia election results, threatened them with political retaliation when they did not, strongly criticized them in speeches and tweets, and tweeted that Kemp should resign.
December 23 phone call with chief elections investigator
On December 23, 2020, Trump called the chief investigator for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, who was then conducting a ballot audit in Cobb County. Raffensperger had ordered the audit in response to allegations of fraud. Trump told the investigator that he or she would be a "national hero" if they could “find the fraud." Some legal experts have said that this phone call appears to be bribery or obstruction on Trump's part. On December 29, the audit ended. The allegations of fraud were determined to be baseless; Trump was unhappy with those results.
Trump's December 23 phone call to the chief investigator was acknowledged by Raffensperger during a Good Morning America interview on January 4. The Washington Post revealed more details of the phone call on January 9, but did not reveal the name of the chief investigator to protect that person's safety. Trump was joined by chief of staff Mark Meadows, trade adviser Peter Navarro, Justice Department official John Lott Jr., law professor John Eastman, and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Cleta Mitchell and Kurt Hilbert. Raffensperger was joined by his general counsel Ryan Germany. On January 3, The Washington Post and other media outlets obtained a recording of this phone conversation. He said that Raffensperger should "reevaluate" the election's results, citing a variety of different conspiracy theories regarding voting in the state. Raffensperger, in response, answered that the election results in that state were correct and legitimate, and that Trump "had got his data wrong". During his attempts to pressure Raffensperger into changing the election results, Trump said, "I just want to find 11,780 votes", the number needed to overcome Biden's advantage in Georgia. Trump also tried to intimidate Raffensperger, hinting that Raffensperger and his attorney could face a possible criminal investigation. Trump said, "You know, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you."
After the Georgia call, Trump and his team spoke on Zoom with officials in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Release of the tape
On January 3 Trump said on Twitter that he had spoken to Raffensperger and that Raffensperger was "unwilling or unable to answer questions" about alleged election fraud and that he "has no clue". Later that day, the recording of the conversation was released to the Washington Post and other media outlets; a local television station said they had obtained it from "government sources".
Raffensperger said he had not initially intended to release the tape, but felt compelled to respond after Trump misrepresented the call on Twitter. He added that the call had been hastily arranged after Trump saw Raffensperger say on Fox News that morning that the election had been fair and honest and that Trump had lost.
Investigation
Legal experts said Trump's attempt to pressure Raffensperger could have violated election law, Election-law scholar Edward B. Foley called Trump's conduct "inappropriate and contemptible" while the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called Trump's attempt "to rig a presidential election ... a low point in American history and unquestionably impeachable conduct." According to Michael Bromwich, Trump might have violated Title 52 of the United States Code when he said "I just want to find 11,780 votes", as reported in The Guardian. NBC has said the call from Trump to the secretary of state could warrant an investigation into possible conflicts of interest.
Federal
On January 4, Democratic congressional leaders, believing Trump "engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes", requested the FBI to investigate the incident. In addition, while some House Republicans tried to defend Trump's Georgia call, Democrats began drafting a censure resolution.
State
The Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis said on Monday that she found the phone call with Trump and Raffensperger "disturbing" and said a Democratic appointee from the State Election Board had requested the Secretary's Elections Division to investigate the call, after which the Board would refer the case to the office and the state Attorney General. Once the investigation is complete, the case will be referred to the district attorney's office.
Reactions
The day after the Trump call was disclosed, Republican Georgia voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling sharply refuted Trump's claims of election fraud during a press conference with Raffensperger, listing and debunking several claims made by Trump and his allies that thousands of teenagers, dead people, and unregistered citizens had voted, and a misleading video that had been distributed supposedly showing fake ballots being secretly retrieved from suitcases. Sterling said, "The president's legal team had the entire tape, they watched the entire tape, and from our point of view, intentionally misled the state's senate, voters and the people of the United States about this. It was intentional. It was obvious. And anybody watching this knows that."
Carl Bernstein, one of the investigative journalists who revealed the Watergate scandal, said the allegations were "far worse than Watergate" and called the recording of the phone call "the ultimate smoking gun tape". U.S. Representative Hank Johnson has called it "a violation of state and federal law", while Senator Dick Durbin has said it "merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." House Democrats were reported to be drafting a censure resolution. The Washington Post called it "extraordinary" that a sitting U.S. president would attempt to pressure a Secretary of a U.S. state into changing the votes of a state.
Democrats condemned Trump's conduct. Dick Durbin, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, called for a criminal investigation.
Several House and Senate Republicans also condemned Trump's conduct, although no Republican described the conduct as criminal or an impeachable offense.
Raffensperger tweeted that "the truth will come out" regarding the incident. On January 4, Raffensperger confirmed the phone conversation during an interview which aired on Good Morning America. He said, "I’m not a lawyer. 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."

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