How far will President Donald Trump go to hold onto his seat? Newly released audio shows him pushing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to recalculate the votes for the presidential election in that state.
“The people of Georgia are angry,” POTUS said in audio obtained by The Washington Post. “The people in the country are angry, And there’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated.”
The publication of this audio follows just hours after Trump and Raffensperger had a bit of a back and forth on Twitter.
“I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia,” Trump wrote Sunday morning. “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!”
Raffensperger answered back: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”
Well, here you go.
“All I want to do is this,” Trump said on the audio. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
He repeated baseless conspiracy theories that ballots were shredded in Fulton County, and that Dominion Voting Systems–long the target of debunked assertions–got “rid” of their machines, and replaced certain parts.
“No,” said Raffensperger’s general counsel Ryan Germany. “Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.” He also denied the claims about the replacement of Dominion machine parts.
In the audio, Trump maintained that he actually won the 2020 presidential election–which he lost to Democratic challenger Joe Biden–and that Raffensperger presented “faulty” election results.
“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,” Trump said. “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.”
[Screengrab via CBS]
