Two Democratic representatives have filed a criminal referral to the FBI to investigate a call between President Donald Trump and Georgia’s Secretary of State.
Audio from the hour-long Saturday call was shared first by the Washington Post on Sunday afternoon. During the call, the president is heard asking Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
The president also repeated unfounded claims of voter fraud that have been disproven, as Raffensperger and his counsel point out on the call.
On Monday, Ted Lieu of California and Kathleen Rice of New York made a criminal referralto FBI Director Christopher Wray and called for an investigation into the president. They claim the details of the call show the president violated both federal and state election laws.
“As Members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” their letter states.
During the call, the president states it is impossible he lost Georgia.
"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,” Trump is heard saying.
"The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry," the president tells Raffensperger on the call. "And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you've recalculated."
Raffensperger told ABC News Monday morning his office would not be opening an investigation into the call, as it could be a conflict of interest. However, he believes Fulton County “wants to look at it.”
