House Democrats called FBI to investigate Trump’s call to Brad Faffensperger
2 Democrats in the House of Representatives have called the FBI to open a criminal investigation into President Trump’s explosive call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. They said that the President was involved in possible violations of federal and state election laws. On Monday, Congressman Ted Lieu of California and Congresswoman Kathleen Rice of New York made their request in a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray. The move came after Trump’s hour-long call with Raffensperger was obtained and published by several news outlets. President pressured the secretary of state in a call to find 11,780 votes to reverse his loss in Georgia’s presidential election. Democrats wrote in a letter and said, “The evidence of election fraud by Mr. Trump is now in broad daylight. The prima facie elements of the above crimes have been met”.
Point to be noted that Lieu and Rice are former prosecutors. They believe the president engaged in the solicitation of conspiracy to commit a number of election crimes. Both cited 2 federal laws they believe Trump violated, as well as one Georgia state law regarding solicitation of election fraud. Trump told Raffensperger in their conversation and said, “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. The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated”. Point to be noted that President-elect Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes, and ballots cast in the state have been counted a total of 3 times and Biden’s win affirmed each time.
President Trump repeatedly claimed in the call that he won the election in the Peach State and suggested ballots had been shredded in Fulton County. The president also claimed Dominion Voting Systems was removing or tampering with machinery. Raffensperger and his general counsel Ryan Germany was also on the call. They repeatedly pushed back against Trump’s claims. The secretary of state asserted that the state’s election results were accurate. Raffensperger told the President and said, “Mr. President, the challenge that you have is that the data you have is wrong”. The office of Raffensperger received 18 attempted phone calls from the White House since the 3rd November Presidential elections. The Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said that she found the call “disturbing” and cited news reports that the lone Democrat on the state election board requested the elections division investigate the call.