Trump crossed line in pressuring Georgia official to ‘find’ votes
Fighting election results to the bitter end is one thing — something the country went through 20 years ago when the political shoe was on the other foot. Propagating disinformation about alleged voter fraud weeks after a presidential election is another thing — particularly when members of your own political party and judges you’ve nominated have summarily dismissed your repeated claims, as has your former attorney general. It sows doubt about our democratic process and creates chaos during the important transition process of an incoming president.
But pressuring a state election official to “find” votes — and a specific number, at that, in order to overturn the results — is an even more serious transgression no president of the United States should ever cross. Unfortunately for himself and the nation, President Donald Trump did just that Saturday.
Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who has certified that Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes, is more damning than his July 2019 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that led to Trump’s impeachment — albeit a highly partisan impeachment.
Even several Republicans condemned Trump’s actions, including GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who said Saturday’s call was “deeply troubling.”
A full audio recording of Saturday’s phone call shows Trump adamant that he won Georgia, that “it’s just not possible to have lost Georgia. It’s just not possible.”
Trump insists that there were “300,000 fake ballots” or more due to forged signatures, out-of-state voters, dead people voting, vacant addresses, stuffed ballot boxes and more. Yet he urges Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Georgia. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we wonthestate.”
Raffensperger, to his credit, repeatedly told Trump he had, in fact, lost Georgia. “President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the
lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won.”
He also tells the president: “Well Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is wrong.”
And on Monday, Raffensperger said: “It was pretty obvious pretty early on that we’d debunked every one of those theories early on, but President Trump continues to believe them.”
To make matters worse, Trump also issued veiled threats to Raffensperger and his legal counsel whenhewarnsthey could be criminally liable if they fail to find thousands of ballots that Trump alleges were destroyed illegally. “That’s a criminal offense, and you can’t let that happen,” Trumpsays.
The call was the first time Raffensperger and Trump spoke, although the White House had tried 18 previous times to set up a conversation.
Congress will met in a joint session Wednesday to certify the election results from the various states before being suspended after pro-trumprioters breached the Capitol building. The process could be delayed by 10 days with multiple Republicans calling for
an audit of voting machines and a last-ditch investigation of election fraud allegations in battleground states. Another 10 days without an “official, official” presidential ticket won’t delay the Jan. 20 inauguration, but it’s a rare action that is a direct result of Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud that continue to resonate with many of his supporters and rend the Republican Party and the nation as a whole.
One of the top things Trump did wrong last year was to lose a winnable election and then refuse to accept defeat or responsibility for that loss. “He alienated millions who approved of his policies but were tired of chaos,” Albuquerque Journal columnist Marctheissen wrote recently.
The Trump presidency has been defined by chaos, and the president insists on ending on that note — regardless of the damage it is causing our country.
But a president pressuring a state election official to find enough votes to sway an election is more than creating chaos. It’s breaching a boundary that should never be crossed and is an unprecedented assault on our election process.