Find the Votes
The red hot story of the day just got hotter. First here is the background.
‘There is nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you recalculated,’ the president told Brad Raffensperger.
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump Pressured Georgia Secretary of State to ‘Find’ Votes
President Trump in a Saturday telephone call urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the November election results that delivered the state to President-elect Joe Biden.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” he told Mr. Raffensperger on the call, adding later, “It’s not a problem that is going away.” Mr. Biden won the state by 11,779 votes out of about 5 million cast.
Transcript and Audio
Kudos to Brad Raffensperger for recording the call and disclosing it. You can Listen to the Audio and Read a Full Transcript at the WSJ.
At the Phone Meeting
- President Trump
- Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State, State of Georgia
- Ryan Germany, General Counsel and Assistant Commissioner of Securities, State of Georgia
- Cleta Mitchell, partner, Foley & Lardner
- Jordan Fuchs, Deputy Secretary of State, State of Georgia
- Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff
Kurt R. Hilbert, managing member and founder, the Hilbert Law Firm
Partial Transcript With My Comments
Mish Comment: In the transcript Trump rambled on and on about various fraud allegations, all long ago disproved. Following the lengthy rambling, Meadows chimed in.
MR. MEADOWS: What I’m hopeful for is, is there some way that we can – we can find some kind of an agreement to look at this a little bit more fully?
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, I’ve listened to what the president has just said. 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 and we don’t – I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you mentioned. But I could go through that point by point. …. we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots and compared that to what the machine said, and it came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we could probably take that off the table. I don’t think there’s an issue about that.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, Brad – Brad, not that there’s not an issue, but – because I – we have a big issue with Dominion in other states and perhaps in yours, but we haven’t felt we needed to go there. … If you took – these are the most minimal numbers, the numbers that I gave you. Those are numbers that are certified: your absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses; your out-of-state voters, 4,925. You know, when you add them up, it’s many more – it’s many times the 11,779 number. … And the people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that – you know, that you’ve recalculated because the 2,236 on absentee ballots, I mean, they’re all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, et cetera. And even if you cut them in half, cut them in half, and cut them in half again, it’s more votes than we need.
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen and they were surprised, but they – I guess there was a person named Mr. Braynard 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.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, Cleta, how do you respond to that? …. I mean, you tell me. we’re so far ahead of these numbers, even the phony ballots of Ruby Freeman – known scammer. You know the internet? You know what was trending on the internet? “Where’s Ruby,” because they thought she would be in jail. “Where’s Ruby.” It’s crazy. It’s crazy. That was – the minimum number is 18,000 for Ruby, but they think it’s probably about 56,000. But the minimum number is 18,000 on the Ruby Freeman night where she ran back in there when everybody was gone and stuffed – she stuffed the ballot boxes. Let’s face it, Brad. I mean, they did it in slow-motion replay magnified, right? She stuffed the ballot boxes. They were stuffed like nobody’s ever seen them stuffed before. …And by the way, that one event – that one event is much more than the 11,000 votes that we’re talking about. It’s – you know, that one event was a disaster. It just – you know, but it was – it was something that – it can’t be disputed. And again, we have a version that you haven’t seen, but it’s magnified.
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: You’re talking about the State Farm video. And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. So the next day we brought in WSB-TV and we let them show – see the full run of tape. I mean, what you’ll see, the events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by, you know –
PRESIDENT TRUMP: But where were the poll watchers, Brad? There were no poll watchers there. There were no Democrats or Republicans. There was no security there. It was late in the evening or late in the – early in the morning, and there was nobody else in the room. Where were the poll watchers? …. And, you know, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but that was – and, Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put them in three times.
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, they did not put that – we did an audit of that, and we’ve proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.
MR. GERMANY: We had our – this is Ryan Germany. We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was – who was there after that event came to light. They GBI was with them, as well as FBI agents.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, there’s no way they could – then they’re incompetent. They’re either dishonest or incompetent, OK? There’s only two answers: dishonesty or incompetence.
MR. GERMANY: We’ve been going through each of those as well. And those numbers that we got, that Ms. Mitchell was just saying, they’re not accurate. Everyone we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in – and in many cases – (inaudible 38:45) – so far.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Really? How many people do that? You mean they moved out and then they said, ah, all the hell with it, I’ll move back in? You know, it doesn’t sound like a very normal – like you mean they moved out, and, what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? You know, it’s like – (laughs) – it’s crazy.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: And what about – what about the – what about the ballots, the shredding of the ballots? Have they been shredding ballots?
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: No.
MR. 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, you know, office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this is stuff from, you know, past elections. And that’s – and that’s what it turned out to be.
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I – no, you don’t. No. No, you don’t. You don’t have – you don’t have – not even close. You got – you’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes. And just on the small numbers, you’re off on these numbers. … OK, so you send us into Cobb County for signature verification, right? You send us into Cobb County, which we didn’t want to go into, and you said it would be open to the public and we could have our – so we had our experts there. They weren’t allowed into the room. But we didn’t want Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County, and you wouldn’t give it to us.
MR. GERMANY: We chose Cobb County because that was the only county where there’s been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not properly done –
PRESIDENT TRUMP: …Fulton County – look, Stacey – in my opinion, Stacey is as dishonest as they come. She has outplayed you at every – at everything. She got you to sign a totally unconstitutional agreement which is a disastrous agreement. You can’t check signatures, you can’t do – I can’t imagine – you’re allowed to do harvesting, I guess, in that – that agreement is a disaster for this country.
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Ballot harvesting is still illegal in the state of Georgia, and that settlement agreement did not change that one iota.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it’s not a settlement agreement; it’s a consent decree. It even says consent decree on it, doesn’t it? It uses the term consent decree. It doesn’t say settlement agreement; it’s a consent decree. It’s a disaster. … We could go through signature verification, and we’ll find hundreds of signatures – if you let us do it – and the only way you can do it, as you know, is to go to the past. … And you will find – you will be at 11,779 within minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt and so is she totally corrupt. And they’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad. Whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you. And you’ve taken a state that’s a Republican state and you’ve made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating, because they cheated like nobody has ever cheated before. … 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 fines, and you can’t let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you are letting it happen.
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, we’re –
PRESIDENT TRUMP: – 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, and flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, there’s just – it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake – or whatever you want to call it – if it was a mistake. I don’t know. …. In my opinion it’s never too late. In my opinion it’s never too late. So – oh, a little double – a little double sound there. … So that’s the story, fellows. Look, we need only 11,000 votes. We have far more than that as it stands now. We’ll have more and more, and – do you have provisional ballots at all, Brad? Provisional ballots?
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Provisional ballots are allowed, you know, by state law.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: – you guys are so wrong and you’ve treated this – you’ve treated the population of Georgia so badly, between you and your governor, who wouldn’t – who was down at 21 – he was down 21 points and, like a schmuck, I endorsed him and he got elected. But I will tell you, he’s a disaster and he’ll never – I can’t imagine. The people are so angry in Georgia I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now. But why wouldn’t you want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of keep saying that the numbers are right? Because those numbers are so wrong and –
MR. RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, please –
PRESIDENT TRUMP: … all we have to do, Cleta, is find 11,000-plus votes. So we don’t need that. I’m not looking to shake up the whole world. We won Georgia easily. We won it by hundreds of thousands of votes. But if you go by basic simple numbers we won it easily. Easily. So we’re not giving Dominion a pass, on the record. I will say that. …. But let the truth come out, and the truth – the real truth is I won by 400,000 votes at least. That’s the real truth. But we don’t need 400,000 votes. We need less than 2,000 votes. And, you know, are you guys able to meet tomorrow, Ryan?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: OK. Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.
MR. MEADOWS: Thank you.
MS. MITCHELL: Thank you.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Bye.
MR. GERMANY: Mr. President.
(END OF CALL)
Wow – Just Wow.
There is much more in the complete transcript.
Trump Files Suit
The audio published by @TheWashingtonPost is heavily edited and omits the stipulation that all discussions were for the purpose of settling litigation and confidential under federal and state law.
— David Shafer (@DavidShafer) January 3, 2021
Here’s the Entire Call
Here’s the whole call. The only thing we edited out was the name of the falsely-accused elections worker.https://t.co/EWbAgOD3qM
— Brendan Keefe – Atlanta News First (@BrendanKeefe) January 4, 2021
Who Broke the Law?
I suspect @GaSecofState has broken multiple laws here.
I hope he has lots of shekels and a good lawyer, because he will lose his defense–just a question of how much he will lose.@realDonaldTrump @RudyGiuliani @NetworksManager
— Tarot Kat (@TarotKat) January 3, 2021
Trump Proves He is Delusional
In case you were wondering if Trump was just playing his fans or if he truly was delusional, you have your answer.
For starters, there was no way Raffensperger was going to partake in this mad scheme. He had already turned down Trump’s overtures several times.
Even if Raffensperger agreed to look for votes, and managed to find them, Georgia would not swing the election.
Besides, Raffensperger already investigated all of Trump’s false claims.
Actually, Mr. President a complete transcript shows he addressed all of your nonsensical claims.
You just won’t accept the TRUTH for an answer. https://t.co/okiWRoiTBv https://t.co/MSW9v54QhB
— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) January 4, 2021
If anyone broke the law it’s Trump and his team for election tampering. Violating state law in a federal election is a federal crime.
Once again, kudos to Brad Raffensperger for recording the call and disclosing it.
Georgia Senate Elections
Earlier today I noted Democrats are In the Lead in Both Georgia Senate Races
It would not surprise me in the least if this reckless move by Trump ultimately is the deciding factor in both races.
Mish
Clearly, Trump was truth-seeking rather than manipulating. He had 11,799 votes, so he wasn’t asking for 11,799. He was asking Raffensperger to instead re-check the 11,799 and identify at least one fraudulent vote in question that would push his numbers to a legitimate win (i.e., 11,780) he believed her rightfully won. k
Clearly, Trump was truth seeking. He had the number of votes in question (i.e., 170K-plus) and was asking Raffensperger to revisit potentially fraudulent votes that might have pushed his numbers down to a loss. So he wasn’t asking for 170K votes, he was asking whether he would have otherwise have had more than that if not for potential voter fraud.
First shoe to drop.
Cleta Mitchell is out at Foley Lardner. Foley Lardner had made the decision not to represent any candidates in post election litigation and was not aware Cleta Mitchell was representing Trump. They were caught completely flat footed. She has now resigned.
Wrong. Georgia’s wiretapping law is a “one-party consent” law for purposes of making audio recordings of conversations. Georgia makes it a crime to secretly record a phone call or in-person conversation “originat[ing] in any private place” unless one party to the conversation consents. See Ga. Code §§ 16-11-62(1), 16-11-66 Trmpie did not have to consent…BUZZZZZ next contestant
It is illegal to record a phone conversation without telling the person they are being recorded without a warrant to do so. Always thought it was strange you could videotape someone legally without their knowledge in certain situations, but you can’t audiotape them.
Every state has different laws.
Most allow a participant in the conversation to record it without notifying any other party (parties) on the call.
It’s possible that Raffensperger broke other laws by divulging the information from that conversation.
But Trump asserting that he Raffensperger broke a law isn’t enough to convince me. That would require somebody with more credibility than the President of the United States.
If you want to know what was REALLY said in the conversation, go online and find the entire hour phone call. He didn’t ask him to find anything. And i can say that because I listened to it. So if you only listened to the excerpts released by the media, don’t bother refuting this. They did what they always do.
You sirs are technically correct. I also listened twice to the hour long ear-fuk. He only asked Mark to find “The right answer” He mentioned in passing to Cleta we only need to find 11,000 or so votes. After all whats 11,000 + votes between friends. After all every one one knows it, he won its common knowledge on QAnon. He just won thats all it is too. Plain and simple why can people just see this. Theres a lot of angry people in Georgia on both sides like in Charlottesville. Stir up the crap and repeat it long enough some will even drink the poison Kool-aide.
Confirmation bias much ?
What did you say–I couldn’t hear you with you being so far up Trump’s gigantic butt…
You mean the taped conversation that proves Trump is abusing his position?
That’s just known as confirmation. Bias has nothing to do with concrete proof.
“I wouldn’t want to be a Russian leader. You’d never know when you were being taped.”
― Richard Nixon
I believe the quote is this
Richard Nixon : I wouldn’t want to be a Russian leader. They never know when they’re being taped.
The irony of course is that Nixon did the taping
its a movie quote too. not real
“If I had known that he [Nixon] was taping our conversations, I would have been a lot more profound.”
― William Ruckelshaus
Well this answers one of my open questions from Sunday
Cleta Mitchell’s law firm says it’s “concerned” she was on Trump’s call and “are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly.”
Exposure to colluding with illegal behavior? Good point!
What a really sad chapter in America history. Politicians always lie…..one has to expect that…..but no one has never lied this much, cheated this much, gotten away with so much….or left a bigger mess to have to be straightened out.
Georgia law allows you to record a conversation if you are a party on the phone call. It can also be used as evidence in a trial.
The Trump cult nutcases are out in force today – banned two of them
Is this considered a news site?
No, it’s a blog that discusses news that might be relevant to global economics.
To me, Trump’s behavior is far, far, far worse than anything Nixon did in the Watergate gate. There is only one fair way to deal with this, and that is to go beyond impeaching him, and try him for Treason, and if found guilty, hang him.
…Hang him ? YES, after all he DID fuck Stormy Daniels, did he not ?
…She called her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, when he was already married to Melania Trump, “the worst 90 seconds of my life”….
Nixon conducted illegal spying, and a coverup. He did, however, accept the power of government over him, and respected the courts. The mere fact that he attempted to cheat to win the election shows that he believed he actually needed to win the election to be President. By contrast, Trump does not accept the election process, nor the courts, and does not feel any need to be bound by the results of the election. Why bother winning the election when all you need to do it to change the result?
Trying to remain President without respecting the courts, legal process, or the election process shows his intent to be Dictator, and that is Treason.
He is treasonous and I agree with the Nixon/dictator assessment. Do not agree with hanging. Can’t wait to get safely to the 20th.
I agree that he hasn’t done enough yet to earn hanging, but his time is not up. Tomorrow we have the vote in Georgia, then the Electoral College tall in Congress on Wednesday, followed by the riots, “wild protests” scheduled for Thursday. We are far from done. I hope we get safely to the 20th without more “events”, but I don’t expect that.
The ONLY fair way to deal with this dilemma : NEW ELECTIONS !
Nope, that is sedition.
Nope, we don’t have do-overs just because the loser cries loud enough.
This gut is a troll or bot none is that completely stupid
Trump is a criminal and enemy of American democracy as defined by the Constitution. This is no longer deniable or debatable.
This is smoking gun evidence.
A STORM IN A TEACUP, again, triggered by the corrupt, socialist biased media serving America’s polifuckntically correct establishment ! Trump, and anybody with half a non CNN washed braincell left just KNOWS that the election was stolen from Trump, a well organised foolproof racket I must admit, but fraudulent nevertheless !
This is smoking gun evidence with Trump on tape. You’ll have to spin harder.
Yeah , I ve been watching all kinds of desperate ‘smoking guns ‘, relentlessly so, on CNN, four consecutive years….
Is it possible that people got tired of Trump? Interesting of course that only areas that voted Democrat are being looked at. I wonder if the rest of the election would hold up to the scrutiny being given these few districts. The fact is there are always election errors but not likely enough to change a result. But if you are so concerned lets look at Texas, Missouri, Alabama, North Dakota.
“Is it possible that people got tired of Trump? ”
Are you asking rhetorically?
Another eff’n foreigner all invested in promoting Trump. Jumping in with both feet, endorsing every stupid conspiracy theory they find on line.
I wonder why?
Are your lives that pathetically eff’d up?
Yah everybody just KNOWS, and it was the most perfectest crime ever because nobody has come up with any, like, evidence.
Trump, to Raffensberger and his lawyer:
“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.”
Dissembling doesn’t work.
Trump saying the only choices are lying or incompetence. Trump! TRUMP!!!!!
Lawyer Mark Elias…Tweet
Trump and his allies have lost 60 post-election lawsuits, including several in GA. There are no cases that could have plausibly been the subject of settlement discussion.
Oh, and I represent parties in all of those cases, so I would have had to be on the phone as well. I wasn’t.
If you have to deal with liars, this is what you do (from Politico)…
…It started on Saturday when Trump and his team reached out to talk to Raffensperger, who, according to an adviser, felt he would be unethically pressured by the president. Raffensperger had been here before: In November he accused Trump ally and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham of improperly exhorting him to meddle in the election to help Trump win Georgia. Graham later denied it.
So why not record the call with the president, Raffensperger’s advisers thought, if nothing else for fact-checking purposes. “This is a man who has a history of reinventing history as it occurs,” one of them told Playbook. “So if he’s going to try to dispute anything on the call, it’s nice to have something like this, hard evidence, to dispute whatever he’s claiming about the secretary. Lindsey Graham asked us to throw out legally cast ballots. So yeah, after that call, we decided maybe we should do this.”…
“Settlement negotiations” in which the SOS would award the losing candidate votes?
It’s only fodder for the stupid..
“Settlement negotiations” in which the lawyer representing the President in the litigation didn’t say one word.
can’t find a major news organization reporting that trump has sued Georgia over the call. I’m suspicious. Perhaps he just mae the threat. He has no case
Does anyone else get concerned about this nut job having the nuclear football??@_ @
Not really because Obama punted to “Crooked Hillary” who fumbled on 4th down to The Sith Lord Trumpty-Ben-Dumpty. He only recovered a placebo he mistook for a suppository resulting in an “On The Throne Tweet” of covfefe. Now its under the watch and safe keep of The Illuminati aka Deep State for #46 Uncle “Stuttering Joe” Biden and his hand-picked #2, Vanilla Kamala.
Amen
The most important elections of 2020 were fought for control of the House and the Senate–NOT THE WHITE HOUSE. Here we are with the GOP needing desperately to hang onto control of the Senate with Donald Trump making the focus on him with some crazy conspiracy theory that he continues to deliver with no evidence. If the GOP loses control of the Senate tomorrow, Trump will be clearly to blame with things like pushing for more socialist free stuff than what the GOP was willing to give along with actions such like this of a mobster.
There was a time in the GOP they handed out “Character Matters” bumper stickers. The Georgia Gov and Sec of State could get away with pasting one on their car, but most of the GOP would be laughed out of the room with their silly worship of Donald Trump.
“Character matters” is so Clinton era…
“Character matters” doesn’t so much when you have Trump
The GOP would be laughed out of the room today if they tied those bumper stickers to Trump; however, this Georgia republican is proof Clinton era Republicans still exist.
Do they still exist? I assumed they went extinct after The Ass-teroid Impact of Comet Trump2016 along with the Reagan Democrats and Dixie-crats post WWII.
Neoliberal Champion Larry Summers Opens Mouth, Inserts Both Feet
The former Harvard President and Treasury Secretary offers important thoughts on the negative consequences of aid to the less fortunate link to taibbi.substack.com
From the asshat who believes in bailing out the wealthy. Never been a fan
Sechel: you don’t think that they were trying to lay the foundation to claim some work product privilege? i didn’t even think that they settlement negiotations at all. seeing as the trump team filed all their suits, they won’t be settling anything lol. that leaves work product bc they couldn’t use atty/client priv bc so many 3rd parties on the call.
I think Trump hot caught and now he’s reacting and reaching at straws
Got caught
No one ever got cancelled for saying bad things about Trump.
Really????? In what circles? Why do you think 140 House members are kiss his ass? Why are Cruz and the others kissing his ass?
This is NOT how anything works. There’s no confidentiality for settlement discussions absent some specific agreement – they just can’t be used as evidence in court.
Also, settlement negotiations are “confidential” in the sense that settlement offers aren’t admissible in court if the case proceeds to trial after the parties fail to reach a settlement. So, not really relevant to what happened here.
that’s exactly correct. Broad confidentiality of any communication can only be achieved after settlement has taken place by contractual agreement. Raffensperger didn’t sign any contract and recorded it legally. This does bring into focus, however, the importance of decriminalizing recording of conversations to which you are a party. There are a number of States, including Washington State, where it is illegal to record without permission. I don’t see any purpose this serves other than to protect criminal conspiracies. Blackmail is already illegal. It would indeed have been sad if Raffensperger had been chilled from making his recording by a stupid criminal law.
I have to wonder if Trump’s aides begged him not to make the call (it wouldn’t be unprecedented). But, mob boss gotta boss. Trump’s problem is he thinks he’s more intimidating than he actually is.
not to mention he’s too fucking lazy to bring his fat ass down there and do his intimidation in person. In-person intimidation, preferably with weapons aimed at the party to be threatened and threats to their family’s safety, and a strip search to make sure he’s not carrying a recording device, would surely work a lot better. Being a tyrant is hard work. He has too much golf to play to actually do the job of a tyrant.
Intimidating to say the least. i found it much more than intimidating just listening to the entire hour long attempted phone-fuk and brow beat down. Hope I never ever hear Rudy Freeman or 11,779 votes again. Maybe Russia can find those along with HRC’s missing emails. Days we are living in. Even Bill Maher predicted you would have pry Trump cold dead ass out of the chair in the Oval Office but with Mike Flynn close by nothing, would surprise me. I just hope he goes kicking and screamer like the Man-Baby he is and Relegated to The Dust Bin of One Termers and Impeachment Trivial
Find me 11780 votes. No the role of the Georgia secretary of state is to count and certify the votes which he did. Trump most certainly broke Federal and Georgia state law and he should be prosecuted. The odds of a self pardon just went up. But a self pardon would certainly get challenged in the Supreme court and don’t factor in any state level prosecutions. Ironic since the Georgia call is in many ways similar to Trump’s Ukraine call that got him impeached
Same politico article, state law, can’t pardon.
“Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said: “The Georgia code says that anybody who solicits, requests or commands or otherwise attempts to encourage somebody to commit election fraud is guilty of solicitation of election fraud. ‘Soliciting or requesting’ is the key language. The president asked, in no uncertain terms, the secretary of state to invent votes, to create votes that were not there. Not only did he ask for that in terms of just overturning the specific margin that Joe Biden won by, but then said we needed one additional vote to secure victory in Georgia.”
“There’s just no way that if you read the code and the way the code is structured, and then you look at what the president of the United states requested, that he has not violated this law — the spirit of it for sure,” Kreis continued.”
At least take away the legal licenses of his lawyers. Would make it a little harder to find a lawyer.
I’m betting that Cleta Mitchell gets fired. Her law firm has no idea why she was there
While I agree the Georgia call is an impeachable offense I think its a false equivalency to compare this to the Ukraine deal. The matter of how the Ukraine deal was done was the issue, the influence peddling by the Bidens is still a high probability.
Why do so many people feel the need to record and memorialize their conversations with Donald Trump? And as a one party consent state Raffensperger was within his legal rights to record the call. I do appreciate the honesty of those calling out the Georgia secretary of state who make it abundantly clear loyalty to the party and the leader is above the law or duty to country. Fuhrerprinzip in action
Fuhrer? So when does he go all Hitler? And actually do anything even resembling a coup or power grab or fomenting street violence? This is such an insanely disproportionate comparison…
Fuhrerprinzip not fuhrer
Google the term all will make sense.
“anything even resembling a coup or power grab or fomenting street violence?”
Now? Are you even paying attention?
He did not call for a “peaceful protest” of the election results. He called for a “wild protest”, which I interpret to be the opposite of peaceful.
The only difference between the current republican party and the NSDP that I can see in terms of willingness to take power by any means is that our system is more robust and has kept them from carrying out their plans. The Weimar constitution had “Article 48,” which essentially allowed for presidial law at the will of the president in “extraordinary circumstances,” such that the german judiciary had no choice but to admit that resorting to presidial law was constitutional at the time. The last few years of the Weimar republic were run more or less constantly in this “state of emergency” under President Hindenburg, which made it easy for the Nazis to remove all vestiges of republican government at their whim by illegal means once they took LEGAL possession of enough of the levers of power. Under our system, all it would take is a sufficiently corrupt supreme court to reach the same end, and that was the only thing that stopped the republicans this time from overturning a free and fair election. A sufficiently corrupt Supreme Court willing to do the bidding of Republicans is exactly what the republican party has been openly trying to achieve for the last 40 years. The survival of our republic is in the hands of the Barretts and Kavanaughs and Gorsuches of the world now. Nonlawyers may find it ironic that not only lawyers, but the most biased and corrruptible lawyers the republican party could possibly find are the ones that we trust to keep our republic standing, but many lawyers like myself find it appropriate and touching that this is so. I would never have believed that so many conservative judges would have unanimously beaten down a coup attempt, but that is exactly what happened. However, with each passing year, as detachment from reality becomes more and more the norm for republicans, the same result cannot be expected. I am a litigator in Oregon, Utah and Washington, and in Utah there are at least a couple judges on the federal bench in Utah that would easily fit the bill if they were sat on the supreme court. This is reason enough IMO to “pack the court.” The fewer justices there are, the easier it is to obtain a majority corrupted enough to assent to a coup, although the opposite argument can be made unless there is a system robust enough to keep the republicans from “cherry picking” the judges they want in the judge selection process that would be necessitated if there was a pool of supreme court justices.
I think you’ve got it right , pretty much. So far the Supreme Court hasn’t been subverted…although I won’t pretend I’m a fan of Barrett. It would be a shame if the Republic failed over the Pro-Lifer’s attempts to overthrow Roe.
The really scary one was Scalia, and he fortunately remains dead so far.
I can’t see packing the court….its an old idea that should be retired, in my view. I don’t see the impetus for it to happen now, anyway.
The language of Georgia’s wiretapping law explains that it is a one-party consent law when it comes to recording other people’s audio conversations. It is against the law in Georgia to secretly record conversations that happen in private places unless at least one of the parties gives his or her consent.
Absolutely every single communication via phone or computer that the president has is legally recorded. It is required. Assumption of awareness is a given.
In a one-party consent state like Georgia it makes no difference whatsoever if Trump knew he was being recorded or not. As long as one party to the conversation consented, which they did, then recording the call is perfectly legal.
and the argument that because it was a settlement discussion which is laughable on the face doesn’t really change anything . in this context privileged just means can’t be used in court
The issue is access and release of the recordings…if they still exist. As we are all aware of, despite the outcry about Clinton’s emails on a private server, much of this administration’s dealings have been through private emails.
On January 19th, Trump will flee the country and head to either Russia or Saudi Arabia, which have no extradition, and live out whatever life is left him. If he stays here, and Biden puts a muzzle on the DOJ, the state of New York will eat him and his family alive. He really has no other option and supposedly can afford it. What else is he gonna do? Stay here and wait for his 80 million supporters to shut down the country and spring him?
My view also. I think Saudi.
I don’t see that happening. I mean, he may WANT to do that, but neither country is going to be all that interested in saving his butt now. He’s of no use to them anymore.
What a flight of fancy. Russia has no interest in putting him up, quite the contrary. Saudi Arabia is not a stable country to take your Jewish progeny. Saudi is an anachronism that will fall apart one day due to internal and external pressures … there is no consent to be governed and the people are only kept at bay by oil money coming their way.
I’m thinking he has already paid his savior country.
Trumps not going anywhere and Biden won’t do anything in regards to whatever all this is.
Seriously, if Trump leaves, it will be for other reasons.
Maybe Trump, Don Jr, Eric, Rudy Nosferatu, and Dennis-THE ROD-man can “rocket” over to Pyongyang and take on “ The Only Fat Man in North Korea” and The Four Goose-Steepers in a pick-up game of H-O-R-S-E.
“Impeachable offense”: Democrats react to Trump’s Georgia call
Rebecca Falconer
3 Jan 2020
Leading Democrats slammed President Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State pushing him to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s election win as “corrupt” an “abuse of power” and an “impeachable offense.”
….
ttps://www.axios.com/trump-georgia-georgia-call-democrats-f400259f-9267-4d9a-bcf9-ea9fba890fb0.html
They could impeach him to prevent him ever running again but considering the gang of 11 is contesting the election in a sign of loyalty I highly doubt the votes are there once again
tRump likely has done similar things to several other states: let’s watch what will happen with those states.
Hat to Brad Raffensperger for his courage and integrity.
Courage and integrity because he voted for Trump. Sure. Yeah.
A lot of people voted for Trump – 74M at last look. For many of them it was about policy and not personality. But that does not mean those people do not have personal integrity, though I disagree with their choice given Trump’s many personal and public failings (as well as those of the Republicans who followed him blindly).
Glad it’s near over… Trump will leave office without conceding to Biden. He will leave that “chad” hanging because at this point he has a significant portion of the population, his supporters, pissed off at the entire system, and the Democrats. Let’s just wait and to see how he baits this whole thing with a final speech. More people will watch that speech than will ever see Biden’s inauguration… but it’s never going to be over: Because he is going to play the news media until he dies.
He is taking his idiot supporters for the biggest ride of their lives. Most of them will end up bankrupt.
At this point, who is going to televise any such speech? I’m not even sure Fox is down for something like that anymore.
I don’t know anyone that watches MSM anymore… except to see what “they” are saying these days. I saw CNN by accident last year when I went to the airport to pick someone up. I see Tucker every once in a while and wonder if he will ever wear that bow tie again.
There’s a story out there that Raffensperger’s office wasn’t going to release the recording unless Trump denigrated him or misrepresented the conversation. Trump opened the door by insulting Raffensperger in a tweet.
I would go further than insulting, Trump was lying in his tweets
tRump’s conducts are criminal, and must be prosecuted!
Who is surprised anymore? I’m more concerned that Russia has infiltrated the defense department and that is the reason the transition isnt occurring. Putin is still winning imo.
Delusional
RIDICULOUS ! That fckn bee in your fckn bonnet….let it go! ..
Too many bees in your bonnet…
Raffensperger should have said to Trump – GFY and hung up. That’s what I would have done.
FnA Jojo, we agree on something.
Trump would have lied about the call
48 hours… could he not have waited 48 hours on that?
Who gives a fuck?
About Trump? Neither you nor me.
About a single Party holding both houses of Congress and the White House when that party has signaled its intent to eliminate the filibuster, expand SCOTUS, make a state of DC, push “Medicare for All,” give amnesty to 10-20MM, write vague gun laws that won’t improve safety, enact that ridiculous “Green New Deal…” etc…
Me.
It’s gonna be a long 2 years.
I’m at a loss as to which of those things is supposed to be bad?
“If I’m the president of the United States and my pardon power is not — does not extend to state acts, I don’t think that in the last few days of my term that I would want to be engaging in activities that even remotely subject me to the possibility of state criminal prosecution,” Kreis said. “That’s what makes this even more bewildering to me, is because if he had sensible advisers they would just keep him off the phone.”
“I’m at a loss as to which of those things is supposed to be bad?”
expanding SCOTUS: intent matters, and how it’s done matters. If a Party gifts itself 8 picks overnight to pack the Court, bad (and that starts a multi-decade escalation). I’m OK with something like, “scale it up by 8, 2 justices per 4 years over the next 16 years, starting 4 years from being signed into law, to account for the increased litigation volume since the size was set at 9.”
amnesty for 10+ million people: if you’re “open borders” or believe in the cyclic blanket amnesty to those who cut the line without dealing with the structural issues and causes — yeah, we’ll never see eye-to-eye on that.
Medicare for all: from the perspective “it’s better than the ACA,” we’d be in agreement. however, my perspective is that each time .gov gets more involved with health care, the care gets more expensive and lower quality.
Green New Deal: the policies are economically crushing and aren’t aligned with the science. There’s no sanity in the cost/benefit analysis. it’s become religion instead of science and politics.
DC: the whole point of DC is to not be state. If the residents want statehood, maybe it’s time we cede that property to Virginia and Maryland. Or cede back Alexandria (which would have the impact of turning Virginia red as we created the new bluest state).
Puerto Rico: I’d be OK with it if the intent weren’t to add 2 Dem Senators. So again, intent matters (to me… more annoying than anything). Other than that, I think it’d be a good thing.
Filibuster: partial raison d’etre for the Senate is to slow down changes until they’re vetted and well-considered. The filibuster is part of that. As are the 6yr terms with only 1/3 the Senate turned over each 2 years (and originally not be directly elected). I think this emergency break + the insulation from the pressures of the day was prudent.
Gun laws: there’s just too much ignorance on both extremes. If you’re for stricter
gun laws, so be it, but do yourself and your cause a favor and define “assault weapon” before you cry for their ban. Don’t cringe in fear at the term “semi-automatic” until you realize that almost all of them are… it’s just 1 trigger pull to discharge 1 round (with no barrier to discharging a 2nd round by a 2nd trigger pull, other than potentially needing to reload). The proposed laws make it clear that those proposing changes are neither educated nor logical. I’d welcome some incremental improvements by folks with 1/2 a brain.
I’m sure you’re set in your ways… always spilled enough electrons.
ajc1970. Like it’s gone so well during the last 20 years when for the most part there’s been a split of powers!!!!
“Like it’s gone so well during the last 20 years when for the most part there’s been a split of powers!!!!”
It’s gone poorly… no argument there. But have you considered that it could have been worse if the powers weren’t split?
When I think of the worst major legislation of the last 2 decades, I think of the “Affordable Care Act” and the “Patriot Act.” So bad that I think their names were chosen mostly to mock the People. The former passed with Democrats in control, the latter with the GOP running the show (granted… few Dems had the courage to stand against the Patriot because of the sentiment at the time… it likely would have been written differently if the Dems had a bit more leverage).
He was a witness to a crime. The correct thing is to disclose it immediately.
If he thought he was a witness to a crime, he wouldn’t have leaked it publicly, he would have taken the matter to authorities to investigate.
He waited to leak it, dependent on Trump’s after-meeting comments.
His actions have nothing to do with a belief that Trump committed a crime.
I’m wondering if his aides were begging him not to make the call. “Mr. President, this might not be a good idea”
Trump isn’t going to damage Raffensperger’s career.
“Kudos to Brad Raffensperger for recording the call and disclosing it. “
Doing that before polls closed on Tuesday has closed every door that would ever have been open for him.