Dear Commons Community,

Just two days before the Georgia runoffs that will determine the leadership of the Senate, President Trump attempted to intimidate Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes to overturn the November presidential election vote according to the Washington Post, which published audio (hear the entire audio tape above) of their call yesterday.

“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump told Raffensperger, laying bare his overriding goal of overturning the November election results.

President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia on Nov. 3, the first time the state had gone for a Democratic candidate since 1992. Despite three vote recounts, Trump has continued to insist that the voting was tainted, casting a wide range of allegations without any credible evidence to back up his assertions.

Trump continued to attack Raffensperger while addressing their call hours before the Post published the audio.

“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!”

“Respectfully, President Trump,” Raffensperger replied on Twitter, “What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”

Yesterday, the truth did come out in the form of the Post publishing audio of the conversation. In the course of the call, Trump attempted on multiple occasions to induce Raffensperger to change the results of the election, one way or another.

“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.”

“Well, Mr. President,” Raffensperger responded, “the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”

In a CNN interview, investigative reporter Carl Bernstein said. “This is something far worse than Watergate. We have both a criminal president of the United States in Donald Trump, and a subversive president of the United States.”

“This is the ultimate smoking gun tape,” he continued. “It is the tape with the evidence of what this president is willing to do to undermine the electoral system and illegally, improperly and immorally try to instigate a coup.”

Bernstein believes the taped conversation is more than sufficient evidence to call for Trump’s immediate resignation. He urged all of the leaders in Washington D.C. to come together and condemn this threat to democracy.

“In any other presidency,” said Bernstein, “this tape would be evidence enough to result in the impeachment of the president of the United States, his conviction in the senate of the United States, and really an immediate call by the members of congress, including of his own party, that he resign immediately.”

We have sixteen more days before the disgraced loser, Donald Trump, leaves the White House!

Tony

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