‘I just want 11,780 votes’: Trump pressed Georgia to overturn Biden victory

The Washington Post obtained a tape of the “extraordinary hour-long call”, which Trump acknowledged on Twitter.

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

Raffensperger, a Republican who has become a bête noire among Trump supporters for repeatedly saying Biden’s win in his state was fair, said: “Well, Mr President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”

Trump said: “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.”

He also insisted: “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

Trump did not win Georgia, which went Democratic for the first time since 1992. Its result has been certified and will stand. Attempts to pressure Republican officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania, other battleground states, have failed, as have the vast majority of challenges to results in court.

Despite promised objections from at least 12 Republican senators and a majority of the GOP in the House, Biden’s electoral college victory will be ratified by Congress on Wednesday and will be inaugurated as the 46th president on 20 January. Trump will then leave the White House – where he remained, tweeting angrily, all weekend.

News of the call prompted widespread outrage.

Speaking to the Post, Edward B Foley, an Ohio State law professor, said the call was “‘inappropriate and contemptible’ and should prompt moral outrage”.

Trump’s behaviour was “already tripping the emergency meter,” Foley added. “So we were at 12 on a scale of one to 10, and now we’re at 15.”

In an email to the Guardian, University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said: “The conduct that the press has reported might place Trump in legal jeopardy after Biden is inaugurated.

“For example, if the justice department or US attorneys believe that Trump violated federal law or if local prosecutors in states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump may have engaged in similar behaviour with state or local election officials, believe that Trump violated state election laws, the federal or state prosecutors could file suit against Trump.”

Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, went further, calling for Trump to be impeached a second time, even though he has little more than two weeks left in office.

“The president of the United States has been caught on tape trying to rig a presidential election,” Bookbinder said. “This is a low point in American history and unquestionably impeachable conduct. It is incontrovertible and devastating.

“When the Senate acquitted President Trump for abusing his powers to try to get himself re-elected [in February last year, regarding approaches to Ukraine seeking dirt on Biden], we worried that he would grow more brazen in his attempts to wrongly and illegally keep himself in power. He has … Congress must act immediately.”

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Cleta Mitchell, a Republican lawyer, were also on the call, during which the president ran through a laundry list of debunked claims regarding supposed electoral fraud and called Raffensperger a “child”, “either dishonest or incompetent” and a “schmuck”.

Characteristically, Trump also threatened legal action.

“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,” he said. “You know, that’s a criminal offence. And you know, you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan [Germany], your lawyer. That’s a big risk.”

Referring to Senate runoffs on Tuesday that will decide control of that chamber, Trump said Georgia had “a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president – you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam.

“Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. OK? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”

Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, seeking to beat Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, have ranged themselves behind Trump. But Georgia Republican officials fear his attacks could suppress his own party’s turnout as Democrats including former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams work hard to boost their own.

Early voting has reached unprecedented levels and on Sunday, Abrams told ABC’s This Week: “What we’re so excited about is that we haven’t stopped reaching those voters. Millions of contacts have been made, thousands of new registrations have been held. We know that at least 100,000 people who did not vote in the general election are now voting in this election.”

Trump told Raffensperger: “Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock.’ What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you.”

Trump also said he knew the call wasn’t “going anywhere”. Raffensperger ended the conversation.

On Twitter on Sunday, Trump said Raffensperger “was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”

Twitter duly marked the president’s message with its standard disclaimer: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”

Raffensperger also responded: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”

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