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Donald Trump had a phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. The POTUS told the latter to “find” him votes to overturn the state’s election results and make him the winner instead of Joe Biden. Their phone conversation was recorded and made its way to the media that in turn released it to the public.
The alleged attempt of Trump to inflate his Georgia votes
NBC News reported that Donald Trump asked Raffensperger to add more votes on his ballot counts through an hour-long phone call. The publication described the president to have “begged” Georgia's secretary of state to increase the number of his votes.
This is sort of surprising as the president never stopped claiming that there was voter fraud, which was why he got lesser votes against Biden. He repeatedly declared that his rival won due to cheating and mentioned the adding of more ballots in the official count as an example. Then again, Donald Trump has not provided any solid proof about his claims.
In any case, parts of the president’s conversation with Raffensperger was posted online. In the audio snippets that were originally released online by The Washington Post, Trump could be heard telling the secretary of state, "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."
"The people of Georgia are angry,” Trump went on to say in the leaked tape. “The people in the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated."
A full recording of the call was said to have been obtained by The Associated Press later. The said news agency was said to have received it from the individual who was on the call but did not exactly state the name.
Donald Trump’s phone call to Raffensperger came just days before he is scheduled to vacate the White House. He requested for Georgia’s secretary of state to alter the number of votes to make him the winner in the mentioned state.
It was alleged that the POTUS also sort of threatened Raffensperger by telling him he could face criminal consequences if he does not do work to fulfill Donald Trump’s request.
Trump’s response to the leaked phone conversation
After the tape was released, Donald Trump admitted via social media that he has indeed spoken with Brad Raffensperger. However, he denied the claims that he asked for his votes to be altered in his favor.
“I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia,” Trump tweeted. “He 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!”
In response to the president’s tweet, Raffensperger said that the truth will eventually come out. He also said that what Donald Trump has been saying is not true at all. Meanwhile, Raffensperger and his office's general counsel, Ryan Germany, certified election results and maintained that Joe Biden won by more than 12,700 votes.
