Trump–Raffensperger phone call
On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, then-U.S. President Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change the state's election results from the 2020 presidential election. Trump had been defeated by Joe Biden in the election, but refused to accept the outcome,[1] and made a months-long effort to overturn the results. Prior to the call to Raffensperger, Trump and his campaign spoke repeatedly to state and local officials in at least three states in which he had lost, urging them to recount votes, throw out some ballots,[2][3] or replace the Democratic slate of electors with a Republican slate. Trump's call with Raffensperger was reported by The Washington Post and other media outlets the day after it took place.[4][5][6]
Date
January 2, 2021
1 hour
Pressuring Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" and overturn Trump's loss
Refusal by Raffensperger to alter vote counts.
Second impeachment of Donald Trump
Third indictment of Donald Trump
Fourth indictment of Donald Trump
Solicitation of public officer (within broader RICO)
According to the publicly released recording of the call and reports made by multiple news agencies, Trump attempted to pressure Raffensperger into reinvestigating the election results, despite being repeatedly told that there was no electoral error. Trump's repeated efforts to convince Raffensperger to find some basis to overturn the election results were perceived as pleading and threatening. At one point on the call, Trump told Raffensperger, "What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state."[7] During the call, Trump falsely suggested that Raffensperger could have committed a criminal offense by refusing to overturn the state's election results.[6] Legal experts have suggested that Trump's behavior and demands could have violated state and federal laws.[8][9][10]
On January 11, the phone call was cited in the article of impeachment in the second impeachment of Donald Trump introduced in the House of Representatives.[11] Raffensperger's office opened a fact-finding and administrative investigation of potential election interference regarding Trump's efforts to overturn the results in Georgia, and Fulton County prosecutors opened a criminal investigation in February of the same year.[12][13] On August 14, 2023, Trump, along with 18 co-defendants, was indicted in Fulton County on charges including racketeering and fraud. The phone call was a central element of the indictment.[14]
Reactions[edit]
The day after the Trump call was disclosed, Republican Georgia voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling sharply refuted Trump's claims of election fraud during a press conference with Raffensperger, listing and debunking several allegations made by Trump and his allies that thousands of teenagers, dead people, and unregistered citizens had voted, and a misleading video that had been distributed supposedly showing fake ballots being secretly retrieved from suitcases. Sterling said, "The president's legal team had the entire tape, they watched the entire tape, and from our point of view, intentionally misled the state's senate, voters and the people of the United States about this. It was intentional. It was obvious. And anybody watching this knows that."[87][88]
Carl Bernstein, one of the investigative journalists who revealed the Watergate scandal, said the allegations were "far worse than Watergate" and called the recording of the phone call "the ultimate smoking gun tape".[89] U.S. Representative Hank Johnson has called it "a violation of state and federal law", while Senator Dick Durbin has said it "merits nothing less than a criminal investigation."[90] House Democrats were reported to be drafting a censure resolution.[66] The Washington Post called it "extraordinary" that a sitting U.S. president would attempt to pressure a Secretary of a U.S. state into changing the votes of a state.[49] David Worley, the Democratic appointee to the State Elections Board and a former Democratic Party of Georgia chairman, called for a criminal probe into Trump's actions, stating that Trump had solicited election fraud, constituting a violation of state law.[91]
Democrats condemned Trump's conduct.[1] Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as well as Representative Adam Schiff (the chief prosecutor at Trump's first impeachment trial) said that Trump's attempt to pressure Raffensperger was an abuse of power.[1][59] Dick Durbin, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, called for a criminal investigation.[1] On January 4, 2021, Democratic U.S. Representatives Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to open a criminal investigation of the incident, writing that they believed Trump had solicited, or conspired to commit, "a number of election crimes."[65] More than 90 House Democrats support a formal censure resolution, introduced by Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia, to "censure and condemn" Trump for having "misused the power of his office by threatening an elected official with vague criminal consequences if he failed to pursue the president's false claims" and for attempting "to willfully deprive the citizens of Georgia of a fair and impartial election process in direct contravention" of state and federal law.[92][66] Some congressional Democrats called Trump's conduct an impeachable offense.[93]
Several House and Senate Republicans also condemned Trump's conduct,[1][94] although no Republican described the conduct as criminal or an impeachable offense.[94] Republican Senator Pat Toomey called it a "new low in this whole futile and sorry episode" and commended "Republican election officials across the country who have discharged their duties with integrity over the past two months while weathering relentless pressure, disinformation, and attacks from the president and his campaign."[94] Other congressional Republicans defended Trump's Georgia call, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy[66] and Georgia Senator David Perdue, who told Fox News in an interview that he thinks releasing the tape of the call was "disgusting."[95]
Raffensperger tweeted that "the truth will come out" regarding the incident.[96] On January 4, Raffensperger confirmed the phone conversation during an interview that aired on Good Morning America. He said, "I'm not a lawyer. All I know is that we're going to follow the law, follow the process. Truth matters. And we've been fighting these rumors for the last two months."[97]
Republican legislators within the Georgia State Senate attempted to interfere in the Fulton County District Attorney's investigation of the phone call by introducing a constitutional amendment which would have mandated the calling of a state-wide grand jury to investigate election crimes instead of a regular county-wide grand jury.[98] According to numerous reports, this would force the District Attorney to summon grand jurors from more conservative, rural counties as well as dilute the diversity of the members present. However, due to the Republicans lacking a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly, the resolution was considered unlikely to pass.[99] In April 2022, the legislative session ended without the resolution having been enacted.[100]
Full audio sources of the call
Official responses