Dems seek censure of Trump for Georgia call
WASHINGTON — Citing what they call an impeachable offense, Democrats in Congress plan to censure President Donald Trump after he asked Georgia’s top election official to find enough votes to win the state, days before Congress is set to certify the results of the 2020 election.
On Monday, Connecticut’s entire House delegation, along with over 90 House Democrats, signed onto a resolution to censure Trump for his call to
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the weekend.
Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” — enough for him to overturn Presidentelect Joe Biden’s win in the state. 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.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes,
D-4, called Trump’s call “impeachable conduct” and said he supports efforts to censure the president, the highest form of rebuke Congress can give short of adopting articles of impeachment.
“Given the fact that we’re 16 days away from a new inauguration, given the fact that impeachment is a terribly serious thing, we’re just, as a logistical matter, not going to be able to impeach,” he said Monday.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, accused Trump of trying to get state election officials to try to commit fraud.
“It would appear that the president doesn’t know any bounds when it comes to overturning the results of the election,” DeLauro said.
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D- 1, called Trump’s actions “shameful, criminal, and un-American.”
Trump continued his allegations of election fraud on Twitter Monday, again without citing any evidence. He did not address the call for a censure nor did the White House make any statements. Trump was scheduled to speak at a rally in Georgia Monday night.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D- Georgia, is leading the House effort to censure Trump and planned to formally introduce a resolution Monday afternoon. It’s unclear if or when the House might vote on the resolution. Only four presidents have been officially censured.
Democrats also held a call Monday morning to craft their strategy to oppose the efforts of some Republicans to prevent certification of the 2020 election results by Congress on Wednesday.
Individual lawmakers can object to Congress's approval of the vote. The decision by some GOP members to do so has divided the Republican party on the eve of two Georgia run- off elections Tuesday that will decide control of the U. S. Senate.
Over 140 House Republicans and at least 13 GOP senators have said they plan to object Wednesday to certifying the Nov. 3 election results.
A vocal Trump ally, U. S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said she would
object because she believes there are serious questions about how the 2020 election was conducted.
“Tens of millions of Americans are rightly concerned that the 2020 election featured unprecedented voting irregularities, unconstitutional overreach by unelected state officials and judges ignoring state election laws, and a fundamental lack of ballot integrity and security,” she said.
In a joint statement, 11 senators said they want to establish a commission to conduct an audit of election results in disputed states and will object to certification unless an audit is conducted beforehand. Vice President Mike Pence has also supported the objecting lawmakers.
But other Republicans rebuked their colleagues saying they were undermining faith in American elections.
U. S. Rep. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., called it “bad for the country and bad for the party.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said, “The courts and state legislatures have all honored their duty to hear legal allegations and have found nothing to warrant overturning the results.”
GOP objections are not
expected to alter Trump’s impending exit from the White House this month. The Democratic-majority House plans to vote down the GOP objections and Democratic lawmakers from the states in question plan to make speeches in defense of their states’ election integrity, Himes said.
In the Saturday call, Trump indirectly threatened Raffensperger with criminal consequences if he did not comply. He also continued unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voter fraud.
“There is no question that the president’s call with the Georgia officials is impeachable conduct. It’s like the Ukraine phone call, but much worse because it’s not aid to Ukraine that’s at stake, it’s our very democracy that’s at stake,” Himes said.
Trump was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of justice by the House, but the Senate voted to acquit him of those charges. The charges stemmed from a phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine in which Trump appeared to threaten to withhold military aid to the country in order to secure an investigation into the family
of President- elect Joe Biden, among other actions.
Joe Lieberman, Connecticut’s former U. S. senator whom Trump once considered appointing as his FBI director, called Trump’s call to Georgia “reckless,” “irresponsible” and possibly “illegal” on CNN.
“If President Trump was in the middle of his term, I have no doubt that this call and a tape of it would be the basis of another attempt to impeach him, for conducting, carrying out behavior that is not worthy of our American presidency,” he said.
Trump sounded “exactly like a mob boss and potentially committing crimes,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said on Twitter.
Gov. Ned Lamont said the call was “shocking” and ““Unlike anything — I’m a student of history — I’ve seen in 200 plus years of presidential history.”
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.