The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CALL
Read excerpts from Saturday’s call,
In a leaked telephone conversation, President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Saturday to overturn the election results in his state, reciting debunked claims of election fraud. Here are some notable excerpts from the recording.
TRUMP: And I could tell you by our rallies, I could tell you by the rally I’m having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It’s just not possible to have lost Georgia. It’s not possible. When I heard it was close, I said there’s no way. But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night, you know that, Brad. And that’s what we are working on very, very stringently. But regardless of those votes, with all of it being said, we lost by 11 to — essentially 11,000 votes. And we have many more votes already calculated and certified, too.
TRUMP: We have, we have, we have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s, there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having the, having a correct — the people of Georgia are angry and these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that we’re going to have by that time, which are much more substantial, even. And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.
RAFFENSPERGER: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We, we talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised. But they — I guess, there’s a person named Mr. Brainard that came to these meetings and presented data and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so, that’s wrong, that was two.
MARK MEADOWS, Whi t e House chief of staff: What I’m
hopeful for is there are some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to, to, to look at this a little bit more fully. As you know, the president mentioned Fulton County, but in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead. And so, Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise, is there, there’s something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that’s less litigious.
TRUMP: Now, do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery.
Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?
RYAN GERMANY, lawyer for Georgia secretary of state’s of f i ce: This i s Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.
TRUMP: But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?
GERMANY: No.
TRUMP: Are you sure, Ryan?
GERMANY: I ’m sure. I’m sure,
Mr. President.
TRUMP: What about, what about the, what about the ballots? The shredding of the ballots. Have they been shredding ballots?
GERMANY: The only investigation that we have into that — they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this stuff from, you know, from, you know, past elections.
TRUMP: It doesn’t pass the smell test because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.” Yeah.
RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.
TRUMP: Oh, this isn’t social media. This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not, it’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I don’t even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.
RAFFENSPERGER: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
TRUMP: No, no, you don’t. No, no, you don’t. You don’t have, you don’t have. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes.
TRUMP: But the ballots are corrupt. And you’re going to find that they are — which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal — that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I’ve heard. And they are removing machinery and they’re moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal finds. And you can’t let it happen and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. 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: So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.
TRUMP: Why don’t you want to find this, Ryan? What’s wrong with you? I heard your lawyer is very difficult, actually, but I’m sure you’re a good lawyer. You have a nice last name.
But, but I’m just curious, why wouldn’t, why do you keep fighting this thing? It just doesn’t make sense.
TRUMP: So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this. And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it , but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don’t want to find answers.
RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, you have people that submit information and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.