‘Find 11,780 votes’
Congressional action would rebuke president
Tonko supports censuring Trump after call to Georgia election official./
U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D - Amsterdam, backed a resolution Tuesday to censure President Donald J. Trump for his phone call over the weekend to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”
“President Trump has been making unfounded claims to undermine our elections for years, but it turns out the greatest threat to America’s election integrity has always been Trump himself,” Tonko said. “The recording of his conversation with Secretary Raffensperger is damning and shows a clear violation of America’s ethical and electoral standards.”
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D- Ga., is leading the House effort to censure Trump and introduced a resolution Monday afternoon condemning Trump’s call and demanding Trump acknowledge Joe Biden as the president-elect. It’s unclear if the resolution will get a vote in the House; it is not expected to be voted on this week, an aide to Johnson said.
Censure is the highest form of rebuke Congress can give short of adopting articles of impeachment. Only four presidents have been officially censured, according to the Congressional Research Service.
On Saturday, Trump asked Raffensperger to find enough votes for him to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia. He also insisted, without evidence, that he won the state, contrary to the findings of multiple recounts that uncovered no significant fraud or errors. Raffensperger, a Republican, rebutted Trump’s allegations and declined to change Georgia’s election results.
On Monday evening at a rally to support Georgia’s Republican senators participating in a runoff election Tuesday, Trump promised to return to Georgia to campaign against Raffensperger and Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, both of whom he panned during the rally. While in Georgia to promote Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Trump spent much of the rally decrying the presidential election as rigged and urging Republicans to object to its certification in Congress on Wednesday.
“We’ve had a lot of corrupt things happen,” Trump said. “One thing that I’ve learned about Republicans, they have some difficulties. But you know a difficulty that they don’t have? They never forget.”
Some Republicans have criticized Trump for his phone call to Raffensperger; others have defended his actions.
“The president’s always been concerned about the integrity of the election and the president believes that there are things that happened in Georgia, and he wants to see the accountability for it,” House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy, R-calif., said on Fox News Monday.
Some legal experts have concluded that Trump may have broken federal and Georgia election laws, which prohibit solicitation of election fraud and depriving residents of a fair election.