Despite the President’s desperate attempts to overturn the will of the American people and threaten our democracy by demanding state officials break the law for him, Congress will certify President-Elect Joe Biden’s decisive victory and he will be sworn into office on January 20th.
Read more about the phone call in this January 4th piece by POLITICO, posted below:
Raffensperger: Trump could face investigation over election call
January 4th, 2021
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that it was unlikely his office would open an investigation into his weekend phone call with President Donald Trump, but suggested a criminal probe could still be launched by an Atlanta-area district attorney.
Because Trump personally spoke with Raffensperger on Saturday and recently had a conversation with the chief investigator in the secretary of state’s office, Raffensperger told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview that “there may be a conflict of interest” that would inhibit any potential investigation.
But Raffensperger went on to say: “I understand that the Fulton County District Attorney wants to look at it. Maybe that’s the appropriate venue for it to go.”
In a statement, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said that the president’s interaction was “disturbing” and indicated a willingness to prosecute potential infractions pending further investigation.
“As district attorney, I will enforce the law without fear or favor. Anyone who commits a felony violation of Georgia law in my jurisdiction will be held accountable,“ said Willis, a Democrat.
Legal experts and lawmakers have expressed alarm at Trump’s Saturday phone call with Raffensperger, during which the president pressured the secretary to “find” enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
In particular, Trump asked that officials determine that ballots were shredded in Fulton County and that Dominion election machinery was removed or tampered with. He also suggested Raffensperger could be guilty of a “criminal offense” by knowing about alleged election interference and not reporting it.
In fact, it is the president who may have opened himself up to legal liability in the phone call, potentially violating federal and state statutes intended to guard against the solicitation of election fraud.
The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first obtained audio of the call on Sunday, and it was subsequently confirmed by POLITICO. On Monday, Raffensperger declined to say whether he personally found Trump’s requests in their conversation to be lawful.
“I’m not a lawyer. All I know is that we’re going to follow the law, follow the process,” he said. “Truth matters. And we’ve been fighting these rumors for the last two months.”
During the morning interview, Raffensperger also did not explicitly confirm reporting by The New York Times that it was staffers within his office who recorded audio of the call, and that he had instructed advisers not to release its contents unless Trump attacked state officials or misrepresented the call’s contents.
The audio was eventually leaked after the president criticized the secretary in a tweet on Sunday morning.
Raffensperger said Monday afternoon that he did not know the call was being recorded, but repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether he authorized its release to media outlets once he learned of it.
“The information is out there. It is what it is,” he said on Fox News.
Despite the Times’ reporting that the White House switchboard had made 18 other calls to the secretary’s office over the past two months, Raffensperger maintained that he had never spoken to Trump prior to their conversation on Saturday.
“No, I never believed it was appropriate to speak to the president. But he pushed out — I guess he had his staff push us. They wanted to call,” Raffensperger said on “Good Morning America.”