Re: January 6, 2021: Insurrection or “normal tourist” visitation?
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 5:01 pm
Trump Pressured Georgia Secretary of State to ‘Find’ Votesyouthathletics wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:05 pmSerious question, why is it disingenuous for the last administration to ask a few states to double check their counts before conceding? Ignore that it was Trump b/c that taints your view. And suppose they found errors that flipped a state(s)....how would you then argue your point?MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 3:33 pmInteresting article, but do you not agree that making up entirely false claims of fraudulent votes eg. dead people, Chavez controlled election machines, and organizing an effort to ignore the actual vote count, and encouraging a riot when that doesn't work and the VP won't go along with breaking the law...that's quite a bit more than a "sore loser"...and quite a bit different from warning about rules that make it harder to cast a ballot (suppression) and rules that allow the rule makers (GOP) to ignore the actual vote count and simply declare a winner (subversion)...? Not really the same, right?kramerica.inc wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 2:46 pm Former President Donald Trump questions the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. For half the country, this makes him a “sore loser” who promotes “conspiracy theories” and pushes “The Big Lie.” But when President Joe Biden in his recent press conference preemptively questions the legitimacy of the 2022 midterm elections, nine months before they even occur, suddenly the analysis changes:
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... on-results
‘There is nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you recalculated,’ the president told Brad Raffensperger
Listen: Trump Pressures Georgia’s Raffensperger to ‘Find’ Him Votes
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Listen: Trump Pressures Georgia’s Raffensperger to ‘Find’ Him Votes
Listen: Trump Pressures Georgia’s Raffensperger to ‘Find’ Him Votes
In a weekend phone call, President Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and repeatedly made unfounded assertions about voting irregularities.
By Cameron McWhirter
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and Lindsay Wise
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Updated Jan. 4, 2021 10:24 am ET
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ATLANTA—President Trump in a Saturday telephone call urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the November election results that delivered the state to President-elect Joe Biden.
At one point in the roughly hourlong call, Mr. Trump told Mr. Raffensperger that he could face legal action and said he wanted him to find nearly 12,000 votes so he could reverse Mr. Biden’s victory.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” he told Mr. Raffensperger on the call, adding later, “It’s not a problem that is going away.” Mr. Biden won the state by 11,779 votes out of about 5 million cast.
A recording of the call was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
News of the extraordinary conversation of a sitting president pressuring a state elections official to overturn election results comes just days before Tuesday’s runoff elections in Georgia that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate and a Wednesday joint session of Congress to ratify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win.
Listen to Trump and Georgia Secretary of State's Full Phone Call
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Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden, said Sunday of the Trump phone call, “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place. It captures the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”
Looking ahead to Wednesday’s joint session of Congress, 11 current and incoming Republican senators said Saturday they would vote to reject the Electoral College votes of some states as not “lawfully certified” unless Congress appoints a commission to conduct an emergency, 10-day audit of the election results.
None of the challenges are expected to succeed, but they could slow the process and give Mr. Trump’s allies a high-profile chance to demonstrate their loyalty to him.
The controversy was thrown into further turmoil by the recording of Mr. Trump’s call. He spent much of it angrily and repeatedly alleging fraud in voting, ballot destruction, voting-machine manipulation and other charges.
“What we are seeing is not at all what you are describing,” Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, told the president.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger oversaw the state’s elections.
PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Throughout the conversation, Mr. Raffensperger, who oversaw the state’s elections, rejected pressure to further investigate an election that has gone through multiple recounts and legal challenges without any evidence of widespread fraud being found.
“There is nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you recalculated,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, in the conversation.
During the call, first reported by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump repeatedly asserted the election was fraudulent and claimed hundreds of thousands of votes were destroyed and that he had clearly won the state.
“Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is that the data you have is wrong,” Mr. Raffensperger said at one point.
“There are many, many infractions, and the bottom line is, it’s many, many times the 11,779 margin that they said we lost by,” Mr. Trump said at one point. “We had vast, I mean you have, the state is in turmoil over this, and I know you would like to get to the bottom of it, although I saw you on television today, and you said that you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know, and I didn’t lose the state, Brad. People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way. A lot of the political people said that there is no way they beat me, and they beat me.”
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Mr. Raffensperger held a special hand recount of every paper ballot, as well as a scan recount of the ballots and a special partial audit of one county and all showed no widespread irregularities. Several court challenges to the election in Georgia have been dismissed.
The president asserted repeatedly that thousands of dead people had voted in the election, a claim Mr. Raffensperger said was false. At another point, Mr. Trump claimed ballots were being burned and voting machines removed. “This may or may not be true,” he said.
He also attacked the elections in Michigan and Pennsylvania during the call.
“We have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly,” he said.
In the rambling call, the president asserted that in Georgia, “We won the state and we won it very substantially and easily,” and, “The people of Georgia are angry.” Mr. Trump did the majority of the talking. Mr. Raffensperger disputed assertions by Mr. Trump of impropriety.
On Monday, Mr. Trump plans to hold a rally in Dalton, Ga., on behalf of Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both locked in close races. Mr. Perdue, whose term as senator expired Sunday at noon, is battling Democrat Jon Ossoff for another six-year term. Ms. Loeffler, who was appointed last year to fill a Senate seat vacated by Sen. Johnny Isakson who retired due to illness, is seeking to defeat Democrat Raphael Warnock to finish two years of a term.
President Trump at a rally for Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Valdosta, Ga., on Dec. 5.
PHOTO: JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
The runoffs, which have drawn national attention and hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending, have been overshadowed in many respects by Mr. Trump’s continued claims that he didn’t lose the state in November.
Democrats need to win both races to take control of the Senate for the first time since Republicans gained power in 2015. In November, no candidates in the two races received more than 50% of the vote. Under Georgia law, that triggered runoffs between the two top vote-getters.
Mr. Ossoff said Sunday that Mr. Trump’s remarks to Mr. Raffensperger amounted to disenfranchising Georgians, including many Black voters, who helped deliver Mr. Biden’s razor-thin victory.
“That is a direct attack on our Democracy, and if David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler had one piece of steel in their spines…they would be out here defending Georgia voters from that kind of assault,” Mr. Ossoff said at a drive-in rally for the Democratic ticket in Savannah, Ga.
MORE ON GEORGIA’S RUNOFF RACES
Republicans Pour Resources Into Georgia Runoff Races (Jan. 3)
David Perdue to Quarantine Days Before Georgia Runoffs (Dec. 31)
Biden, Trump to Campaign in Georgia Senate Runoffs (Dec. 30)
Georgia Runoffs Test Democrats in Turning Out Black Voters (Dec. 27)
As Georgia Runoff Looms, a Controversial Video Seeds Threats (Dec. 17)
Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The 11 senators’ planned move to reject some electoral college votes highlights deepening divisions within the Republican Party over whether to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election as legitimate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and other Senate GOP leaders have congratulated Mr. Biden and have urged their colleagues not to join in efforts to dispute the outcome.
Mr. McConnell has been fielding calls from anxious Senate Republicans, telling colleagues that it was a bad idea to join the group, according to a person familiar with the matter.
By law, Congress must hold a joint session on Jan. 6 to ratify Mr. Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win. Objections from some Republican senators and House members are expected to force debate and votes in both chambers of Congress. Majorities in both the House and Senate would have to agree for the challenge to be successful, an unlikely prospect given that Democrats control the House.
The GOP senators who signed onto the effort to push for an electoral commission are Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana. It was also joined by Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
In a statement Saturday, the senators and senators-elect said the commission was needed because the 2020 presidential election was rife with “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.”
Recently departed Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department hadn’t found evidence of widespread voter fraud that could reverse Mr. Biden’s election victory. Dozens of state and federal court decisions have rejected efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the Nov. 3 election results.
The statement Saturday didn’t include any evidence of fraud, but it said that fraud claims were believed widely enough that they undermined trust in the system, and it said precedent had shown Congress has a role to play in settling those claims.
The Republicans said in their statement that their actions likely won’t change the outcome of the presidential election. They said they aren’t trying to “thwart the democratic process” but to restore Americans’ faith in it.
At numerous points in the Saturday telephone call, Mr. Trump berated Mr. Raffensperger.
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After the secretary of state questioned the accuracy of social media, Mr. Trump said, “No this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. This isn’t social media. It’s really not social media. I couldn’t care less about social media. Social media is big tech you know. Big tech is on your side. I don’t even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.”
“We believe that we do have an accurate election,” Mr. Raffensperger said.
“No you don’t. No. No,” the president replied.
He also suggested that Mr. Raffensperger’s refusal to review the November election result again could depress Republican turnout on Tuesday.
“You have a big election coming up and because of what you have done to the president, you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam and because of what you’ve done to the president a lot of people aren’t coming out to vote,” Mr. Trump said.
“It’s going to have a big impact on Tuesday, if you don’t get this thing straightened out fast,” he added.
Mr. Trump on Sunday acknowledged the call with Mr. Raffensperger, tweeting: “He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
Mr. Raffensperger tweeted back: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”
Write to Cameron McWhirter at [email protected] and Lindsay Wise at [email protected]