Georgia’s chief election official on Monday systematically dismissed and dismantled President Trump and his allies’ imprecise claims about the election, calling it “anti-disinformation Monday.” Gabriel Sterling’s press conference came just hours after two House Democrats called on the FBI to open a criminal investigation into President Trump’s explosive appeal to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over possible violations of federal and state electoral laws.
All of this is easy, arguably incorrect. Still, the president insists, ”Sterling said, one by one reviewing the various baseless and false claims about Dominion voting systems and un-counted ballots.
California Congressman Ted Lieu and New York Congressman Kathleen Rice made their request in a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray on Monday after audio of Mr. Trump’s hour-long appeal with Raffensperger was obtained and published by several Sunday news outlets, including CBS News. In the call, the president pressured the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” to undo his loss in the presidential election in Georgia.
“Evidence of Mr Trump’s electoral fraud is now in broad daylight,” the two Democrats wrote. “The prima facie elements of the above crimes have been met.”
Lieu and Rice, both former prosecutors, believe the president “was involved in instigating or conspiring to commit a number of election crimes.” The couple cited two federal laws they believe have been violated by Trump, as well as a Georgia state law regarding soliciting electoral fraud.
In the course of their conversation, Mr. Trump said to Raffensperger, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, that’s one more than us. Because we won the state.”
“The people in Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” said the president. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know you’ve recalculated it.”
President-elect Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes, and the ballots cast in the state were counted a total of three times, confirming Mr. Biden’s victory each time.
The president repeatedly claimed in the call that he had won the election in Peach state and suggested that the ballots in Fulton County were shredded. The president also alleged that Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology provider, was removing or tampering with machines.
Raffensperger and his general adviser Ryan Germany, who was also on the line, repeatedly objected to Mr Trump’s allegations, with the Secretary of State claiming the state election results were “correct.”
“Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is incorrect,” Raffensperger told the president.
Since November 3, election day, Raffensperger’s office has received 18 calls from the White House. However, the Saturday phone call was the first phone call the Secretary of State has made to Mr Trump since election day.
Mr Trump’s comments have raised questions about whether he could come under legal scrutiny.
Raffensperger told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that his office would not open an investigation because it could be a conflict of interest, but he believes the Fulton County District Attorney “wants to look into it.”
“Maybe that’s the right place to go,” he said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a statement that she found the call to be “ disturbing ” and quoted news reports that the only Democrat on the state election commission asked the election department to investigate the call, after which the board could refer the matter to Willis’s office. and the Attorney General.
“As I promised Fulton County voters last year, as a prosecutor I will uphold the law without fear or favor. Anyone who commits a crime against Georgian law in my jurisdiction will be held accountable,” she said. “Once the investigation is completed, this matter, like all cases, will be dealt with by our office on the basis of the facts and the law.”
Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, said it “is entirely possible” that the president violated federal law and likely violated Georgia state law.
“It’s all about what the president honestly believes right now, and the only choices aren’t great,” he told CBS News. So either he understands reality and knows that there aren’t 11,800 ballots somewhere that are Trump votes that weren’t counted in recounts and audits, in which case he committed a crime. If he really understands the true nature of the world, if he can tell fact from fiction, he’s probably committed a crime. “
But “if he doesn’t, then we have a chief executive in power for 16.5 days who cannot reliably distinguish between fact and fiction based on the information he receives,” Levitt continued.
“That is not a great consolation prize,” he said, adding that there is “enough” in Mr. Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger “that is alarmingly indicative that the president cannot distinguish fact from fiction, that he has in his own conspiracy theories. purchased. “
Levitt suggested that the President and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was on the line, may also have violated an 1871 law on criminal conspiracies to undermine civil rights if they agreed that the purpose of the call was ‘to see if we can convince him. to invent a false count. “
“If Meadows knows, if he can tell the difference between fact and fiction, and he has the same goal as the president, that’s all conspiracy needs,” he said.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who led the Justice Department under President Obama, tweeted on Sunday that those listening to the audio of Mr. Trump’s call should “ consider this federal criminal law, ” adding an image of a law that states that any person in a federal election who “knowingly and intentionally deprives, cheats, or attempts to rob or defrauds the residents of a state from a fair and impartial election process, by … obtaining, issuing or charting bringing ballots known to the person to be materially counterfeit, fictitious or fraudulent under the laws of the state where the elections are being held “would incur a fine or imprisonment of up to five years.
Adam Brewster contributed to this report