1/3/21: The Washington Post and other media outlets reveal a call made by President Trump, the day before. That call, lasting a little more than an hour, goes to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
You’d have to be blind, deaf and
dumb, with a red MAGA hat, two sizes too small screwed to your head, and
cutting off blood to your brain, to miss the meaning of this call.
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“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….I mean, they’re all exact numbers [the litany of claims Trump has just piled up] that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc. And even if you cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half and cut ’em in half again, it’s more votes than we need.”
President Trump
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We now learn that the president called Georgia election officials and pleaded with them to “find” just enough votes to eliminate Biden’s Peach State margin of victory.
We already know that you can’t indict
a sitting president; but the plan the president is floating would guarantee a
felony charge for anyone else.
*
If you can bear to listen to the entire 62-minute recording, you’ll hear Trump saying, in essence, he’s not asking for much. Just 11,780 votes, one more than needed to take the state’s 16 electoral votes away from his opponent and put them in his win column. Really, just one little felony was all he needed!
In the recorded call, he repeatedly claims to have won the state by “hundreds of thousands” of votes. At one point, he says he won by “400,000 votes.” At another: “500,000.” All he’s asking for is a little help. You know, maybe Georgia officials could “recalculate” their totals.
If they could just “find” 12,000
votes, a nice, round number, well, then, who could possibly complain?
In an effort to spare you as much time and effort as I can, here are the key moments from the call. The first nineteen minutes consist of Trump rattling off huge numbers of votes, in multiple categories, that he claims were fraudulently cast or cast for him and then stolen for Mr. Biden. Dead people by the thousands voted. People who had moved out of Georgia still voted in Georgia. People who had moved out of Georgia and died came back (from heaven) to cast ballots. Some Democratic lady pulled 18,000 votes out of a “suitcase,” hidden under a table. Those votes were counted once … twice … three times. All those 54,000 votes went to … Joe Biden.
The Georgia officials on the
receiving end of the call – three Republicans – Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger, his deputy, Jordan Fuchs, and a state lawyer, Ryan Germany,
listened patiently. Only in the second half of the call did they have much
chance to try to talk sense.
*
Amoral on a good day, immoral on a bad.
THIS CALL captures the soul of Donald J. Trump. He’s amoral on a good day, immoral on a bad. He’s crude. He’s unethical. He’s ill-informed. He’s logic-impaired. Twice he insists there’s no way he could have lost the election in Georgia because his rallies drew bigger crowds than Biden’s.
(A total irrelevancy, of course.)
In Fulton County, the president says, the “rumor” is that thousands of ballots were “shredded.” In his mind a “rumor” equals proof.
At one point, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also participating in the call, interjects. “What I’m hopeful for is there some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully?”
Trump does most of the talking. He justifies his request by piling up massive numbers to show he was cheated out of a landslide win. He just needs a little nudge to get him over the line. During the call he cites “5,000” as the figure for the number of dead people who voted, and that’s at “minimum.” He pulls another number out of thin air, insisting there were “300,000 fake ballots.”
Next, we have a classic bit of Trumpian proof:
Then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other
areas. And this may or may not be true . . . this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots,
that they are shredding, shredding ballots and removing equipment. They’re changing
the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that’s not legal.
Trump injects another dose of Trump Math (also known as “making shit up”), saying that “they supposedly shredded I think they said 300 pounds of, 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that just came to us as a report today. And it is a very sad situation.”
Yes, “very sad.” Even though it might be 300 pounds. Or a ton-and-a-half. Just make some big number up.
Georgia officials tell him bluntly that the rumor is not true.
Naturally, Trump hammers away at one of his bugaboos. Dominion Voting Machines were rigged! He and most of his fans believe that software used in those machines was set to steal votes from one deserving orange hero and give them to one underserving socialist, “Sleepy Joe” Biden. Raffensperger says he can’t vouch for other states which used the machines, but notes,
I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion
machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the
ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with
virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the
same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table.
Trump tries again. He has heard that county officials are getting rid of the machines, or replacing the software parts, to hide their crimes.
All he needs is a little help. “What’s the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes,” he wonders. “I think I probably did win it by half a million.”
“The data you have is wrong.”
Trump and Meadows, and several lawyers on the White House end of the call may be careful not to come out and say, “Steal the goddam votes we need, Brad.” They’re close. Trump insists he won by hundreds of thousands; and now all he needs is a little boost.
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….I mean, they’re all exact numbers [the
litany of claims Trump has just piled up] that were done by accounting firms,
law firms, etc. And even if you cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half and cut ’em in
half again, it’s more votes than we need.
“Well, Mr. President,” Raffensperger replies, “the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong.”
He mentions a signature check done in Cobb County, involving 15,000 names. It turned out, only two were fraudulent.
The president insists he was robbed and that’s it. “I mean, look, you’d have to be a child to think anything other
than that. Just a child.”
He and his lawyers insist that they have video showing “suitcases” full of bogus votes for Biden being rolled out and counted in Fulton County. The Georgia officials tell them they’re wrong.
This exchange follows:
Trump:
For some reason, they put it in three times, each ballot, and I don’t
know why. I don’t know why three times. Why not five times, right? Go ahead.
Raffensperger: You’re talking about the
State Farm [Center] 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. The next day, we brought in WSB-TV, and we let them show, see the
full run of tape, and what you’ll see, the events that transpired are nowhere
near what was projected by, you know –
Trump: But that was – and Brad, why did
they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, they did
not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they
were not scanned three times.
Ryan Germany, the attorney for the Secretary of State’s office, identifies himself on the call. The story of the thrice-scanned votes is false. “We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was, who was there after that event came to light. GBI was with them as well as FBI agents.”
Facts are stumbling blocks for most people. Not Trump. “Well, there’s no way they could – then they’re incompetent. They’re either dishonest or incompetent, okay?” Investigators couldn’t be right. “There’s only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence. There’s just no way. Look. There’s no way.”
“People can say anything.”
Balked at one turn after another, the president shifts again. What about all the people who voted who didn’t live in Georgia? There were at least 4,500, possibly “in the 20s.” Or: 20,000 plus.
Germany: We’ve been going through each of those [claims] as well…Every
one we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different
state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in many cases –
Trump: How many people do that? They
moved out, and then they said, “Ah, to hell with it, I’ll move back.” You know,
it doesn’t sound like a very normal…you mean, they moved out, and what, they
missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? It’s crazy.
Germany: They moved back in years ago.
This was not like something just before the election. So there’s something
about that data [Trump’s] that, it’s just not accurate.
Trump’s lawyers complain at length about being denied information they need to prove their case: That billions of fraudulent votes were cast in Georgia. That the gates of Hell were sprung; and the dead poured out to vote.
The Georgians point out that information Trump and his lawyers are demanding is shielded by state privacy laws.
Once again, Trump makes it clear he won in a landslide and all he needs is a teeny-tiny bit of help.
I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s
no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of
votes. I’m just going by small numbers, when you add them up, they’re many
times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes.
Trump circles back to an earlier claim he made: That in Fulton
County, tons of bogus votes had been shredded.
Trump:
Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County?
Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out
machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh,
machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?
Germany: No, Dominion has not moved any
machinery out of Fulton County.
Trump: But have they moved the inner
parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?
Germany: No.
Trump: Are you sure, Ryan?
Germany: I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr.
President.
Trump: What about, what about the
ballots. The shredding of the ballots. Have they been shredding ballots?
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 office shredding, getting rid of
old stuff, and we investigated that. But this stuff from, you know, from you
know past elections.
Trump: It doesn’t pass the smell test
because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now
what they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.” You know.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, the problem you
have with social media, they – people can
say anything [emphasis added throughout, unless otherwise noted].
Trump: Oh this isn’t social media.
This is Trump media. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side,
you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have
an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.
Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an
accurate election.
Trump: No, no you don’t. No, no you
don’t. You don’t have. Not even close.
Flummoxed in regard to the imaginary shredding, the president and his team try a new tack. Since the signature check proved the votes were tallied accurately in Cobb, Trump wants to know, how come they didn’t investigate Fulton County?
“We chose Cobb
County,” Mr. Germany explains, “because that was the only county where there’s
been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not
properly done.”
Trump switches to an attack on Democratic leaders in Georgia who organized a turn-out-the-vote campaign. “Look. Stacey, in my opinion,” he grumbles, “Stacey is as dishonest as they come.” Stacey Abrams has “outplayed” and “outsmarted you at every step,” he tells the three Republicans.
He continues to adhere to the basic line: “I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won quite substantially.”
“Flipping the state.”
His frustration begins to show:
Trump: We can go through signature
verification, and we’ll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you
let us do it…in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have
many that aren’t even signed and you have many that are forgeries.
Okay, you know that. You know that. You
have no doubt about that. And you will find you will be at 11,779 within
minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt, and so is she [Abrams] 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’s ever cheated before. And I don’t care how long it
takes me, you know, we’re going to have other states coming forward – pretty
good.
I think you’re going to find that they are shredding ballots
because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are
unsigned.
The state officials have already explained that the machine count of votes, and the hand-count of votes and then a second machine count all substantially match. The ballots are still there. They weren’t “shredded.”
They weren’t basted or broiled.
They’re still there.
Finally, the president makes what most listeners on such a call would consider a threat. Bad enough, he says, that Abrams and the Democrats stuffed ballot boxes. Worse:
And you are going to find that they are – which is totally
illegal – it is more illegal
for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not
reporting it. 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. And
that’s a big risk.
Then you get the ask, in bluntest terms. Trump wants election officials to “flip the state.”
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.
And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, this is – it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it.
(As noted earlier, if most of us tried this, a jury would
call it a felony.)
I don’t know, look, Brad. I got to get . . . I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the
state.
So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000
votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in
spades already.
The answer he wants is clear: What the Georgia folks are expected to do is “find” enough votes for Trump to carry the state. Say whatever else you want about the president’s claims. He’s asking officials to cheat.
“We can play this game with the courts.”
Trump rehashes several of his claims, including the 18,000 fake ballots x’s 3. His frustration is mounting. His target is new – and his thinking increasingly dangerous:
Trump: And every single ballot went to Biden, and
you didn’t know that, but now you know it. So tell me, Brad, what are we going
to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this….And
I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can
reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers,
not people that don’t want to find answers.
Raffensperger: Mr. President, you have people
that submit information, and we have our people that submit information. And
then it comes before the court, and the court then has to make a determination.
We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.
Trump: Why do you say that, though? I
don’t know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you
say that? First of all, they don’t even assign us a judge.
Trump has made this clear before. He hates a three-branch form of government. If he had his way, there would be one. The president hints that he’ll make sure Raffensperger’s career in politics is over if he doesn’t cave.
Same for the governor of the state:
You just say, you stick by, I mean I’ve been watching you,
you know, you don’t care about anything. “Your numbers are right.” But your
numbers aren’t right. They’re really wrong, and they’re really wrong, Brad. And
I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you
know – Look, ultimately,
I win, okay? Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this. You treated
the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who is
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 is a disaster.
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? ‘Cause those numbers are so wrong?
Discussion follows about setting up a meeting to address some of the president’s concerns. He wants more. “I’m just saying, you know, and, you know, under new counts, and under new views, of the election results, we won the election. You know? It’s very simple. We won the election.
“This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong…”
Kurt Hilbert, a Georgia attorney working for Trump, suggests that lawyers from both sides sit down and look at just four categories, totaling 24,149 votes. Why not “compromise?”
Hilbert explains:
That [number] in and of itself is sufficient to change the
results or place the outcome in doubt….And if you can convince us that 24,149
is inaccurate, then fine. But we tend to believe that is, you know, obviously
more than 11,779. That’s sufficient to change the results entirely in and of
itself. So what would you say to that, Mr. Germany?
Meadows jumps in and says it sounds like they have an agreement to meet and discuss the numbers. “Is that correct?”
Germany: No, that’s not what I said. I’m
happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and
explain to him, hey, here’s, based on what we’ve looked at so far, here’s how
we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is
wrong.
Germany makes clear again, that some of the information Trump’s lawyers are demanding is shielded by law. He doesn’t intend to violate state law.
“But you’re allowed to have a phony election? You’re allowed to
have a phony election, right?” Trump complains.
“No, sir,” Germany responds.
Trump has the last word. He wants help. He deserves help. He expects help. And he has a warning, too. His supporters,
…They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the
secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like
you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They
like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They
want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad,
we just want the truth. It’s simple.
And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out.
It’s okay. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And 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.
He only needs one more than Joe Biden
received. That’s the truth as Lame Duck Donald sees it, with time running out.
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