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by **admin** » Sun Jan 03, 2021 1:59 am

The Post says: Give it up, Mr. President — for your sake and the nation’s
by Post Editorial Board
December 27, 2020 9:02pm

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

Mr. President, it’s time to end this dark charade.

We’re one week away from an enormously important moment for the next four years of our country.

On Jan. 5, two runoff races in Georgia will determine which party will control the Senate — whether Joe Biden will have a rubber stamp or a much-needed check on his agenda.

Unfortunately, you’re obsessed with the next day, Jan. 6, when Congress will, in a pro forma action, certify the Electoral College vote. You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have “courage,” they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office.

In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.

You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing. To take just two examples: Your campaign paid $3 million for a recount in two Wisconsin counties, and you lost by 87 more votes. Georgia did two recounts of the state, each time affirming Biden’s win. These ballots were counted by hand, which alone debunks the claims of a Venezuelan vote-manipulating Kraken conspiracy.

Sidney Powell is a crazy person. Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.

We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost. But to continue down this road is ruinous. We offer this as a newspaper that endorsed you, that supported you: If you want to cement your influence, even set the stage for a future return, you must channel your fury into something more productive.

Stop thinking about Jan. 6. Start thinking about Jan. 5.

If Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler win, they will prevent Biden from rolling back what you have accomplished. A Republican Senate can pressure Biden against returning to the old, failed Iran deal, can stop him from throwing open our southern border, will prevent him from packing the Supreme Court.

Now imagine a government controlled by your nemeses — Nancy Pelosi in the House, Chuck Schumer in the Senate, Biden in the White House. How high will taxes go? How many of your initiatives will be strangled? And, on a personal note, do you think they won’t spend the next four years torturing you with baseless hearings and investigations?

Consider this. You came out of nowhere to win the presidency. Not an elected official, not a lawyer, not beholden to any particular faction of the swamp. You took on the elites and the media who had long lost touch with average working people. You changed politics, which is something few in American history can say.

If Georgia falls, all that is threatened. You will leave your party out of power, less likely to listen to what you have to say or to capitalize on your successes, such as expanding the Hispanic voting bloc for the GOP.

Democrats will try to write you off as a one-term aberration and, frankly, you’re helping them do it. The King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world.

Securing the Senate means securing your legacy. You should use your considerable charm and influence to support the Georgia candidates, mobilizing your voters for them. Focus on their success, not your own grievances, as we head into the final week.

If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match.

by **admin** » Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:48 am

Sportswriter: Trump cheats like a mafia accountant at golf
by John Berman
CNN
Apr 2, 2019

In an interview with CNN’s John Berman, longtime sportswriter and author of "Commander in Cheat" Rick Reilly details how President Donald Trump allegedly cheats his opponents at golf. #CNN #News

by **admin** » Mon Jan 04, 2021 1:29 am

‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor
by Amy Gardner
Washington Post
Jan. 3, 2021 at 4:12 p.m. PST

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

[x]
Audio: Trump berates Ga. secretary of state, urges him to ‘find’ votes

In a phone call on Saturday, President Trump insisted he won the state and threatened vague legal consequences. Here are excerpts from the call. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act.

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

Trump dismissed their arguments.

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

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

Read the full transcript of the Trump-Raffensperger call

At another point, 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.”

Audio: Trump’s full Jan. 2 call with Ga. secretary of state
Listen to the full Jan. 2 phone call. This audio has been edited to remove the name of an individual about whom the president makes unsubstantiated allegations. (Obtained by The Washington Post)
He later added: “So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.

“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

Several of his allies were on the line as he spoke, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent GOP attorney whose involvement with Trump’s efforts had not been previously known.

In a statement, Mitchell said Raffensperger’s office “has made many statements over the past two months that are simply not correct and everyone involved with the efforts on behalf of the President’s election challenge has said the same thing: show us your records on which you rely to make these statements that our numbers are wrong.”

The White House, the Trump campaign and Meadows did not respond to a request for comment.

Raffensperger’s office declined to comment.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted that he had spoken to Raffensperger, saying the secretary of state 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!”

Raffensperger responded with his own tweet: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”

The details of the call drew demands from congressional Democrats for criminal investigations. Biden’s top campaign lawyer, Bob Bauer, said the recording “captures the whole, disgraceful story about Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.”

Republicans, however, were largely silent. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), when asked about the call while campaigning in Georgia on Sunday for the two GOP senators who face a runoff Tuesday, dodged the question completely.

Trump’s pressure campaign on Raffensperger is the latest example of his attempt to subvert the outcome of the Nov. 3 election through personal outreach to state Republican officials. He previously invited Michigan Republican state leaders to the White House, pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a call to try to replace that state’s electors and asked the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to help reverse his loss in that state.

His call to Raffensperger came as scores of Republicans have pledged to challenge the electoral college’s vote for Biden when Congress convenes for a joint session on Wednesday. Republicans do not have the votes to successfully thwart Biden’s victory, but Trump has urged supporters to travel to Washington to protest the outcome, and state and federal officials are already bracing for clashes outside the Capitol.

Growing number of Trump loyalists in the Senate vow to challenge Biden’s victory

During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability.

“That’s a criminal offense,” he said. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”

Trump also told Raffensperger that failure to act by Tuesday would jeopardize the political fortunes of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Georgia’s two Republican senators whose fate in that day’s runoff elections will determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Trump said he plans to talk about the alleged fraud Monday, when he is scheduled to lead an election eve rally in Dalton, Ga. — a message that could further muddle the efforts of Republicans to draw their voters out.

“You have 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,” Trump said. “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. Okay? 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.”

Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger put him in legally questionable territory, legal scholars said. By exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” the president appeared to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia.

Additionally, Trump’s apparent threat of criminal consequences if Raffensperger failed to act could be seen as an attempt at extortion and a suggestion that he might deploy the Justice Department to launch an investigation, they said.

“The president is either knowingly attempting to coerce state officials into corrupting the integrity of the election or is so deluded that he believes what he’s saying,” said Richard H. Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University, who noted that Trump’s actions may have violated several federal statutes.

But Pildes said Trump’s clearer transgression is a moral one, and he emphasized that focusing on whether he committed a crime could deflect attention from the “simple, stark, horrific fact that we have a president trying to use the powers of his office to pressure state officials into committing election fraud to keep him in office.”

Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, said that the legal questions are murky, and it could be difficult to prove that Trump knew he was encouraging illegal behavior. But Foley also emphasized that the call was “inappropriate and contemptible” and should prompt outrage.

“He was already tripping the emergency meter,” Foley said. “So we were at 12 on a scale of 1 to 10, and now we’re at 15.”

Throughout the call, Trump detailed an exhaustive list of disinformation and conspiracy theories to support his position. He claimed without evidence that he had won Georgia by at least a half-million votes. He floated a barrage of assertions that have been investigated and disproved: that thousands of dead people voted; that an Atlanta election worker scanned 18,000 forged ballots three times each and “100 percent” were for Biden; that thousands more voters living out of state came back to Georgia illegally just to vote in the election.

“So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this,” Trump said. “And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people who don’t want to find answers.”

Election results under attack: Here are the facts

Trump did most of the talking. He was angry and impatient, calling Raffensperger a “child” and said law enforcement officials were “either dishonest or incompetent” for not believing there was widespread ballot fraud in Atlanta. He twice called himself a “schmuck” for endorsing Kemp, whom Trump holds in particular contempt for not embracing his claims.

“I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now,” he said of the governor.

He also took aim at Kemp’s 2018 opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, trying to shame Raffensperger with the idea that his refusal to embrace fraud has helped her and Democrats generally. “Stacey Abrams is laughing about you,” he said. “She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock.’ What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell ya.”

The secretary of state repeatedly sought to correct Trump, saying at one point, “Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.”

“Oh this isn’t social media,” Trump retorted. “This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not. It’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less.”

At another point, Trump claimed that votes were scanned three times: “Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.”

Raffensperger responded: “Mr. President, they did not. We did an audit of that and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.”

Trump sounded at turns confused and meandering. At one point, he referred to Kemp as “George.” He tossed out several different figures for Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia and referred to the Senate runoff, which is Tuesday, as happening “tomorrow” and “Monday.”

His desperation was perhaps most pronounced during an exchange with Germany, Raffensperger’s general counsel, in which he openly begged for validation.

Trump: “Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?”

Germany responded: “No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.”

Trump: “But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?”

Germany: “No.”

Trump: “Are you sure? Ryan?”

Germany: “I’m sure. I’m sure, Mr. President.”

Despite Trump’s intense hunt for voter fraud, officials in key states have so far identified just a small number of possible cases

It was clear from the call that Trump has surrounded himself with aides who have fed his false perceptions that the election was stolen. When he claimed that more than 5,000 ballots were cast in Georgia in the name of dead people, Raffensperger responded forcefully: “The actual number was two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted.”

But later, Meadows said, “I can promise you there are more than that.”

Another Trump lawyer on the call, Kurt Hilbert, accused Raffensperger’s office of refusing to turn over data to assess evidence of fraud, and also claimed awareness of at least 24,000 illegally cast ballots that would flip the result to Trump.

“It stands to reason that if the information is not forthcoming, there’s something to hide,” Hilbert said. “That’s the problem that we have.”

Reached by phone Sunday, Hilbert declined to comment.

For her part, Mitchell contradicted Trump on several occasions on the call, saying, “Well, I don’t know about that,” when the president alleged that a Fulton County election worker had triple-counted 18,000 ballots for Biden. She claimed that the extent of the fraud is unclear because Raffensperger’s office has not shared all the data Trump’s lawyers have sought.

“We never had the records that you have,” she said. Germany noted that the office is barred under law from sharing certain voter information.

In the end, Trump asked Germany to sit down with one of his attorneys to go over the allegations. Germany agreed.

Yet Trump also recognized that he was failing to persuade Raffensperger or Germany of anything, saying toward the end, “I know this phone call is going nowhere.”

“Why don’t you want to find this, Ryan?” he asked of Germany. “What’s wrong with you? I heard your lawyer is very difficult, actually, but I’m sure you’re a good lawyer. You have a nice last name.”

But he continued to make his case in repetitive fashion, until finally, after roughly an hour, Raffensperger put an end to the conversation: “Thank you, President Trump, for your time.”

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

by **admin** » Mon Jan 04, 2021 1:34 am

Full Phone Call: Trump Pressures Georgia Secretary of State To Recount Election Votes
by NBC News
Jan 3, 2021

During an hourlong phone call, President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”

***

Meadows: Mr. President, everyone is on the line. And just so -- this is Mark Meadows, the chief of staff. Just so we all are aware, on the line is the secretary of state, and two other individuals: Jordan and Mr. Germany with him. You also have the attorneys that represent the president, Kurt and Alex and Cleta Mitchell — who is not the attorney of record but has been involved — myself and then the president. So Mr. President, I'll turn it over to you.

Trump: OK, thank you very much. Hello Brad and Ryan and everybody. We appreciate the time and the call. So we've spent a lot of time on this, and if we could just go over some of the numbers I think it's pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We'd be getting 25-30,000 people a rally, and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense.

But we have a number of things. We have at least 2 or 3 — anywhere from 250-300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls. Much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn't been checked. We think that if you check the signatures — a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County, you'll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures, of people who have been forged. And we are quite sure that's going to happen.

Another tremendous number. We're going to have an accurate number over the next two days with certified accountants. But an accurate number will be given, but its in the 50s of thousands— and that's people that went to vote and they were told they can't vote because they've already been voted for. And it's a very sad thing. They walked out complaining. But the number's large. We'll have it for you. But it's much more than the number of 11,779 that's — The current margin is only 11,779. Brad, I think you agree with that, right? That's something I think everyone — at least that's a number that everyone agrees on.

But that's the difference in the votes. But we've had hundreds of thousands of ballots that we're able to actually — we'll get you a pretty accurate number. You don't need much of a number because the number that in theory I lost by, the margin would be 11,779. But you also have substantial numbers of people, thousands and thousands who went to the voting place on November 3, were told they couldn't vote, were told they couldn't vote because a ballot had been put in on their name. And you know that's very, very, very, very sad.

We had, I believe it's about 4,502 voters who voted but who weren't on the voter registration list. So it's 4,502 who voted, but they were not on the voter registration roll which they had to be. You had 18,325 vacant address voters. The address was vacant, and they're not allowed to be counted. That's 18,325.

A smaller number — you had 904 who only voted where they had just a P.O. — a post office box number — and they had a post office box number, and that's not allowed. We had at least 18,000 — that's on tape, we had them counted very painstakingly — 18,000 voters having to do with Ruby Freeman. She's a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler. Ruby Freeman. That was the tape that's been shown all over the world that makes everybody look bad, you, me, and everybody else.

Where they got — number one they said very clearly, and it's been reported, that they said there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back, Ruby Freeman and her daughter and a few people. There were no Republican poll watchers. Actually, there were no Democrat poll watchers, I guess they were them. But there were no Democrats either, and there was no law enforcement. Late in the morning, they went early in the morning, they went to the table with the black robe, the black shield, and they pulled out the votes. Those votes were put there a number of hours before the table was put there. I think it was -- Brad you would know -- it was probably eight hours or seven hours before, and then it was stuffed with votes.

They weren't in an official voter box, they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases, but they weren't in voter boxes. The minimum number it could be, because we watched it, and they watched it certified in slow motion instant replay if you can believe it, but slow motion, and it was magnified many times over, and the minimum it was 18,000 ballots, all for Biden.

You had out-of-state voters -- they voted in Georgia, but they were from out of state -- of 4,925. You had absentee ballots sent to vacant, they were absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses. They had nothing on them about addresses, that's 2,326.

And you had drop boxes, which is very bad. You had drop boxes that were picked up. We have photographs, and we have affidavits from many people.

I don't know if you saw the hearings, but you have drop boxes where the box was picked up and not delivered for three days. So all sorts of things could have happened to that box including, you know, putting in the votes that you wanted. So there are many infractions, and the bottom line is, many, many times the 11,779 margin that they said we lost by. We had vast -- I mean the state is in turmoil over this.

And I know you would like to get to the bottom of it, although I saw you on television today, and you said that you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know, and I didn't lose the state, Brad. People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way. A lot of the political people said that there's no way they beat me. And they beat me. They beat me in the, as you know, every single state, we won every state, we one every statehouse in the country. We held the Senate, which is shocking to people, although we'll see what happens tomorrow or in a few days.

And we won the House. But we won every single statehouse, and we won Congress, which was supposed to lose 15 seats, and they gained, I think 16 or 17 or something. I think there's now a difference of five. There was supposed to be a difference substantially more. But politicians in every state, but politicians in Georgia, have given affidavits, and are going to say that, that there was no way that they beat me in the election, that the people came out, in fact, they were expecting to lose, and then they ended up winning by a lot because of the coattails. And they said there's no way, that they've done many polls prior to the election. There was no way that they won.

Ballots were dropped in massive numbers. And we're trying to get to those numbers, and we will have them. They'll take a period of time. Certified. But, but, they're massive numbers. And far greater than the 11,779.

The other thing, dead people. So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.

The bottom line is when you add it all up, and then you start adding, you know, 300,000 fake ballots -- Then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other areas. And this may or may not, because this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots, that they are shredding, shredding ballots, and removing equipment. They're changing the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that's not legal.

And they supposedly shredded, I think they said 300 pounds of, 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that just came to us as a report today. And yeah, it is a very sad situation.

But Brad, if you took the minimum numbers, we're many, many times above the 11,779. And many of those numbers are certified, or they will be certified, but they are certified. And those are numbers that are there, and that exist. And that beat the margin of loss, they beat it, I mean by a lot, and people should be happy to have an accurate count instead of an election where there's turmoil.

I mean, there's turmoil in Georgia and other places. You're not the only one, I mean we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly. But this is something that — You know, as an example, I think in Detroit, and I think there's a section, a good section of your state actually, which we're not sure, so we're not going to report it yet. But in Detroit we had, I think it was 139% of the people voted. That's not too good.

In Pennsylvania, they had well over 200,000 more votes than they had people voting. And uh, that doesn't play too well, and the legislature there is, which is Republican, is extremely activist and angry. But, I mean, there were other things also that were almost as bad as that. But, uh, they had as an example, in Michigan, a tremendous number of dead people that voted. I think it was, I think, Mark, it was 18,000. Some unbelievably high number, much higher than yours -- you were in the 4-5,000 category.

And that was checked out laboriously by going through, by going through the obituary columns in the newspapers.

So I guess with all of it being said, Brad, the bottom line -- and provisional ballots, again, you know, you'll have to tell me about the provisional ballots, but we have a lot of people that were complaining that they weren't able to vote because they were already voted for. And these are great people.

And, you know, they were shellshocked. I don't know if you call that provisional ballots. In some states we had a lot of provisional ballot situations where people were given a provisional ballot, because when they walked in on November 3, they were already voted for.

So that's it. I mean, we have many many times the number of votes necessary to win the state. And we won the state, and we won it very substantially, and easily, and we're getting, we have, much of this is a very, you know they're certified, far more certified than we need. But we're getting additional numbers certified, too. And we're getting pictures of dropboxes being delivered, and delivered late. And delivered three days later, in some cases. Plus we have many affidavits to that effect.

Meadows: So Mr. President, if I might be able to jump in, and I'll give Brad a chance. Mr. Secretary, obviously there is, there are allegations where we believe that not every vote, or fair vote, and legal vote, was counted, and that's at odds with the representation from the secretary of state's office. What I'm hopeful for is there some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully? You know, the president mentioned Fulton County.

But in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead, and so Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise, is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations, to find a path forward that's less litigious?

Raffensperger: Well, I listened to what the President has just said. President Trump, we've had several lawsuits, and we've had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. Um, we don't agree that you have won. I didn't agree about the 200,000 number that you'd mentioned. And I can go through that point by point.

What we have done is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time going through the election issue by issue, and then on the state House, the government affairs committee, we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of contention. And then just a few days ago, we met with our U.S. congressmen, Republican congressmen, and we gave them about two hours of our time talking about this past election. Going back, primarily what you've talked about here, focused in on primarily, I believe, is the absentee ballot process. I don't believe that you're really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand retally, a 100% retally of all the ballots, and compared that to what the machines said, and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table. I don't think there's an issue about that.

I think what you--

Trump: Well, Brad, not that there's not an issue, because we have a big issue with Dominion in other states, and perhaps in yours. But we haven't felt we needed to go there. And just to, you know, maybe put a little different spin on what Mark is saying, Mark Meadows, uh, yeah, we'd like to go further, but we don't really need to. We have all the votes we need.

You know, we won the state. If you took, these are the most minimal numbers, the numbers that I gave you, those are numbers that are certified, your absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses, your out of state voters 4,925. You know, when you add them up, it's many, more times, it's many times the 11,779 number. So we could go through, we have not gone through your Dominion, so we can't give them blessing. I mean, in other states, we think we found tremendous corruption with Dominion machines, but we'll have to see.

But we only lost the state by that number, 11,000 votes, and 779. So with that being said, with just what we have, with just what we have, we're giving you minimal, minimal numbers. We're doing the most conservative numbers possible, we're many times, many, many times above the margin. And so we don't really have to, Mark, I don't think we have to go through ...

Meadows: Right, right.

Trump: Because, what's the difference between winning the election by two votes, and winning it by half a million votes? I think I probably did win it by half a million.

Meadows: Right.

Trump: You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama, and from South Carolina, and from other states, and they're saying it's impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it's not possible to have lost Georgia.

And I could tell you by our rallies. I could tell you by the rally I'm having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It's just not possible to have lost Georgia. It's not possible. When I heard it was close, I said there's no way. But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night. You know that, Brad. And that's what we are working on very, very stringently. But regardless of those votes, with all of it being said, we lost by essentially 11,000 votes, and we have many more votes already calculated and certified, too.

And so I just don't know, you know, Mark, I don't know what's the purpose. I won't give Dominion a pass because we found too many bad things. But we don't need Dominion, or anything else. We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know I mean, having the correct — the people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that we're going to have by that time which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated. Because the 2,236 in absentee ballots, I mean, they're all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc., and even if you cut 'em in half, cut 'em in half, and cut 'em in half, again, it's more votes than we need.

Raffensperger: Well Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised.

But they — I guess there was a person Mr. Braynard that came to these meetings, and presented data, and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so that's wrong. That was two.

Trump: Well Cleta, how do you respond to that? I mean, you tell me.

Mitchell: Well, I would say Mr. Secretary, one of the things that we have requested, and what we said was, and if you look at this, if you read our petition, it said that we took the names and birth years, and we had certain information available to us. We have asked from your office for records that only you have, and so we said there is a universe of people who have the same name and same birth year and died.

But we don't have the records that you have. And one of the things that we have been suggesting, formally and informally for weeks now, is for you to make available to us the records that would be necessary —

Trump: But Cleta, even before you do that, and not even including that, that's why I hardly even included that number, although in one state we have a tremendous amount of dead people. So I don't know — I'm sure we do in Georgia, too. I'm sure we do in Georgia too.

But, um, we're so far ahead. We're so far ahead of these numbers, even the phony ballots of Ruby Freeman, known scammer. You know the Internet? You know what was trending on the Internet? "Where's Ruby?" Because they thought she'd be in jail. "Where's Ruby?" It's crazy, it's crazy. That was. The minimum number is 18,000 for Ruby, but they think it's probably about 56,000. But the minimum number is 18,000 on the Ruby Freeman night where she ran back in there when everybody was gone and stuffed, she stuffed the ballot boxes. Let's face it, Brad, I mean. They did it in slow motion replay magnified, right? She stuffed the ballot boxes. They were stuffed like nobody has ever seen them stuffed before.

So there's a term for it when it's a machine instead of a ballot box, but she stuffed the machine. She stuffed the ballot — each ballot went three times. They were showing: Here's ballot No 1, here it is a second time, a third time, next ballot.

I mean, look. Brad. We have a new tape that we're going to release. It's devastating. And by the way, that one event, that one event is much more than the 11,000 votes that we're talking about. It's uh, you know, that one event was a disaster. And it's just, you know, but it was, it was something that it can't be disputed. And again, we have a version that you haven't seen but it's magnified. It's magnified, and you can see everything. And she put, for some reason they put it in three times, each ballot, and I don't know why. I don't know why three times. Why not five times, right? Yeah, go ahead.

Raffensperger: You're talking about the State Farm video. And I think it's extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. The next day we brought in WSB-TV and we let them show, see the full run of tape, and what you'll see, the events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by, you know —

Trump: But where were the poll watchers, Brad? There were no poll watchers there. There were no Democrats or Republicans. There was no security there. It was late in the evening, late in the, early in the morning, and there was nobody else in the room. Where were the poll watchers, and why did they say a water main broke, which they did, and which is reported in the newspapers? They said they left. They ran out because of a water main break. And there was no water main. There was nothing. There was no break. There was no water main break. But we're, if you take out everything, where were the Republican poll watchers? Even where were the Democrat poll watchers, because there were none?

And then you say, well, they left their station, you know, if you look at the tape, and this was, this was reviewed by professional police, and detectives, and other people, when they left in a rush, everybody left in a rush because of the water main, but everybody left in a rush. These people left their station.

When they came back, they didn't go to their station. They went to the apron, wrapped around the table, under which were thousands and thousands of ballots in a box that was not an official or a sealed box. And then they took those and they went back to a different station. So if they would have come back, they would have walked to their station, and they would have continued to work. But they couldn't do even that because that's illegal, because they had no Republican poll watchers. And remember, her reputation is devas... — she's known all over the Internet, Brad. She's known all over.

I'm telling you, "Where's Ruby?" was one of the hot items. Ruby -- they knew her. "Where's Ruby?" So Brad, you know, there can be no justification for that. And I you know, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But that was — and Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put 'em in three times.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, they did not do that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

Trump: Well, where was everybody else at that late time in the morning? Where was everybody? Where were the Republicans? Where were the security guards? Where were the people that were there just a little while before when everyone ran out of the room? How come we had no security in the room? Why did they run to the bottom of the table? Why did they run there, and just open the skirt and rip out the votes? I mean, Brad. And they were sitting there, I think for five hours or something like that, the votes. But they just all happened to run back and go, you know, Brad...

Raffensperger: Mr. President, we'll send you the link from WSB that --

Trump: I don't care about a link. I don't need it, Brad. I have a much better link —

Mitchell: I will tell you, I've seen the tape. The full tape. So has Alex. We've watched it. And what we saw, and what we've confirmed in the timing, is that they made everybody leave, we have sworn affidavits saying that. And then they began to process ballots. And our estimate is that there were roughly 18,000 ballots. We don't know that. If you know that ...

Trump: It was 18,000 ballots, but they used each one three times.

Mitchell: Well, I don't know about that, but what I do know --

Trump: I do think because we had ours magnified out. Each one magnified out is 18 times three --

Mitchell: I watched the entire tape.

Trump: But nobody can make a case for that, Brad. Nobody. I mean, look, you'd have to be a child to think anything other than that. Just a child. I mean, you have your never Trumper U.S. attorney there.

Mitchell: How many ballots, Mr. Secretary, are you saying that were processed then?

Raffensperger: We had GBI thoroughly investigate that.

Germany: We had our — this is Ryan Germany. We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was who was there after that event came to light. GBI was with them, as well as FBI agents.

Trump: Well, there's no way they could — then they're incompetent. They're either dishonest or incompetent, okay?

Mitchell: Well, what did they find?

Trump: There's only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence. There's just no way. Look, there's no way. And on the other thing, I said too, there is no way. I mean, there's no way that these things could have been, you know, you have all these different people that voted, but they don't live in Georgia anymore. What was that number, Cleta? That was a pretty good number too.

Mitchell: Well, the number who had registered out of state after they moved from Georgia, and so they had a date when they moved from Georgia, they registered to vote out of state, and then it's like 4,500, I don't have that right in front of me.

Trump: And then they came back in and they voted.

Mitchell: And voted. Yeah.

Trump: That was a large number, though. It was in the 20s. And, you know, the point is...

Germany: We've been going through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, that Ms. Mitchell was just saying, they're not accurate. Every one we've been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in many cases --

Trump: How many people do that? You mean, they moved out, and then they said, "Ah, to hell with it, I'll move back in." You know, it doesn't sound like a very normal ... you mean, they moved out, and what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? [Laughter] It's crazy.

Germany: This is -- they moved back in years ago. This was not like something just before the election. So there's something about that data that it's just not accurate.

Trump: Well, I don't know, all I know is that it is certified. And they moved out of Georgia and they voted. It didn't say they moved back in Cleta, did it?

Mitchell: No, but I mean, we're looking at the voter registration. Again, if you have additional records, we've been asking for that, but you haven't shared any of that with us. You just keep saying you investigated the allegations.

Trump: But, Cleta, a lot of it you don't need to be shared. I mean, to be honest, they should share it. They should share it, because you want to get to an honest election.

I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There's no way I lost Georgia. There's no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes. I'm just going by small numbers, when you add them up they're many times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes.

Now, do you think it's possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County, because that's what the rumor is? And also that Dominion took out machines? That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery? Do you know anything about that? Because that's illegal, right?

Germany: This is Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.

Trump: But have they moved the inner parts of the machines, and replaced them with other parts?

Germany: No.

Trump: Are you sure, Ryan?

Germany: I'm sure. I'm sure, Mr. President.

Trump: What about, what about the ballots? The shredding of the ballots? Have they been shredding ballots?

Germany: No. The only investigation that we have into that — they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this is stuff from, you know, from you know past elections.

Trump: I don't know. It doesn't pass the smell test though, because we hear they're shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what they're saying, "Oh, we're just cleaning up the office." [Laughter] So I don't think they're cleaning.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.

Trump: No, this isn't social media. This is Trump media. It's not social media. It's really not, it's not social media. I don't care about social media. I couldn't care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side. I don't even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election. And you're a Republican.

Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an accurate election.

Trump: No, no you don't. No, no you don't. You don't have. You don't have. Not even close. You're off by hundreds of thousands of votes. And just on the small numbers, you're off on these numbers, and these numbers can't be just — well, why wont? — Okay.

So you sent us into Cobb County for signature verification, right? You sent us into Cobb County, which we didn't want to go into. And you said it would be open to the public. And we could have our -- So we had our experts there; they weren't allowed into the room. But we didn't want Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County. And you wouldn't give it to us. Now, why aren't we doing signature — and why can't it be open to the public? And why can't we have professionals do it instead of rank amateurs who will never find anything, and don't want to find anything? They don't want to find, you know, they don't want to find anything. Someday you'll tell me the reason why, because I don't understand your reasoning, but someday you'll tell me the reason why. But why don't you want to find?

Germany: Mr. President, we chose Cobb County —

Trump: Why don't you want to find ... What?

Germany: Sorry, go ahead.

Trump: So why did you do Cobb County? We didn't even request — we requested Fulton County, not Cobb County. Yeah, go ahead please. Go ahead.

Germany: We chose Cobb County because that was the only county where there's been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not properly done.

Trump: No, but I told you. We're not, we're not saying that.

Mitchell: We did say that. We did say that.

Trump: Fulton County. Look. Stacey, in my opinion, Stacey is as dishonest as they come. She has outplayed you at everything. She got you to sign a totally unconstitutional agreement, which is a disastrous agreement. You can't check signatures. You can't do -- I can't imagine, you're allowed to do harvesting, I guess, in that agreement. That agreement is a disaster for this country. But she got you somehow to sign that thing, and she has outsmarted you at every step.

And I hate to imagine what's going to happen on Monday or Tuesday, but it's very scary to people. You know, where the ballots flow in out of nowhere. It's very scary to people. That consent decree is a disaster. It's a disaster. A very good lawyer who examined it said they've never seen anything like it.

Raffensperger: Harvesting is still illegal in the state of Georgia. And that settlement agreement did not change that one iota.

Trump: It's not a settlement agreement, it's a consent decree. It even says consent decree on it, doesn't it? It uses the term consent decree. It doesn't say settlement agree. It's a consent decree. It's a disaster.

Raffensperger: It's a settlement agreement.

Trump: What's written on top of it?

Raffensperger: Ryan?

Germany: I don't have it in front of me, but it was not entered by the court, it's not a court order.

Trump: But Ryan, it's called a consent decree, is that right? On the paper. Is that right?

Germany: I don't, I don't, I don't believe so, but I don't have it in front of me.

Trump: OK, whatever, it's a disaster. It's a disaster. Look. Here's the problem. We can go through signature verification, and we'll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you let us do it. And the only way you can do it, as you know, is to go to the past. But you didn't do that in Cobb County. You just looked at one page compared to another. The only way you can do a signature verification is go from the one that signed it on November whatever -- recently -- and compare it to two years ago, four years ago, six years ago, you know, or even one. And you'll find that you have many different signatures. But in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have many that aren't even signed, and you have many that are forgeries.

OK, you know that. You know that. You have no doubt about that. And you will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes, because Fulton County is totally corrupt, and so is she, totally corrupt.

And they're going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they're laughing at you, and you've taken a state that's a Republican state, and you've made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating, because they cheated like nobody's ever cheated before. And I don't care how long it takes me, you know, we're going to have other states coming forward — pretty good.

But I won't -- this is never given -- this is -- We have some incredible talent said they've never seen anything -- Now the problem is they need more time for the big numbers. But they're very substantial numbers. But I think you're going to find that they — by the way, a little information, I think you're going to find that they are shredding ballots, because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are unsigned. The ballots are corrupt, and they're brand new, and they don't have seals, and there's the whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt.

And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did, and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that's a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I've heard. And they are removing machinery, and they're moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal fines. And you can't let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I'm notifying you that you're letting it happen.

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. And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, cause you know, this is — it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake, or whatever you want to call it. If it was a mistake, I don't know. A lot of people think it wasn't a mistake; it was much more criminal than that. But it's a big problem in Georgia, and it's not a problem that's going away. I mean, you know, it's not a problem that's going away.

Germany: M.r President, this is Ryan. We're looking into every one of those things that you mentioned. And our investigators --

Trump: Good. But if you find it, you've got to say it, Ryan. Look, let me, Ryan, Ryan -- Go ahead.

Germany: Let me tell you what we are seeing. What we're seeing is not at all what you're describing. These are investigators from our office, these are investigators from GBI, and they're looking and they're good. And that's not what they're seeing. And we'll keep looking, we'll keep looking at all these things.

Trump: Well, you better check on the ballot,s because they are shredding ballots, Ryan. I'm just telling you, Ryan. They're shredding ballots. And you should look at that very carefully. Because that's so illegal. You know, you may not even believe it because it's so bad. But they're shredding ballots because they think we're going to eventually get there, because we'll eventually get into Fulton. You know, in my opinion it's never too late --

So, that's the story, fellas. Look, we need only 11,000 votes. We have far more than that as it stands now. We'll have more and more. And do you have provisional ballots at all, Brad? Provisional ballots?

Raffensperger: Provisional ballots are allowed by state law.

Trump: Sure, but you have them, I mean, are they counted, or did you just hold them back because they, you know, in other words, how many provisional ballots do you have in the state?

Raffensperger: We'll get you that number.

Trump: Because most of them are made out to the name Trump. Because these are people that were scammed when they came in. And we have thousands of people that have testified, or that want to testify, when they came in they were proudly going to vote on November 3. And they were told, "I'm sorry, you've already been voted for, you've already voted." The women, men started screaming, "No. I proudly voted til November 3." They said, "I'm sorry, but you've already been voted for, and you have a ballot." And these people are beside themselves. So they went out and they filled in a provisional ballot, putting the name Trump on it.

And what about that batch of military ballots that came in? And even though I won the military by a lot, it was 100 percent Trump -- I mean 100 percent Biden. Do you know about that? A large group of ballots came in -- I think it was to Fulton County -- and they just happened to be 100 percent for Trump, even though — for Biden -- even though Trump won the military by a lot, you know, a tremendous amount. But these ballots were 100 percent for Biden. And do you know about that? A very substantial number came in, all for Biden. Does anybody know about it?

Mitchell: I know about it, but —

Trump: OK, Cleta, I'm not asking you Cleta, honestly. I'm asking Brad. Do you know about the military ballots that we have confirmed now? Do you know about the military ballots that came in that were 100 percent, I mean 100 percent for Biden? Do you know about that?

Germany: I don't know about that. I do know that we have when military ballots come in, it's not just military, it's also military and overseas citizens. The military part of that does generally go Republican. The overseas citizen part of it generally goes very Democrat. This was a mix of 'em.

Trump: No, but this was. That's OK. But I got like 78 percent in the military. These ballots were all for -- They didn't tell me overseas. Could be overseas too, but I get votes overseas too, Ryan, you know, in all fairness. No, they came in, a large batch came in, and it was, quote, 100 percent for Biden. And that is criminal. You know, that's criminal, OK? That's another criminal, that's another of the many criminal events, many criminal events here.

Oh, I don't know, look Brad. I got to get, I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state. That's before we go to the next step, which is in the process of right now. You know, and I watched you this morning and you said, uh, well, there was no criminality. But I mean, all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff. When you talk about no criminality, I think it's very dangerous for you to say that.

I just, I just don't know why you don't want to have the votes counted as they are. Like even you when you went and did that check. And I was surprised because, you know, the check, and we found a few thousand votes that were against me. I was actually surprised, because the way that check was done, all you're doing is, you know, recertifying existing votes and, you know, and you were given votes and you just counted them up, and you still found 3,000 that were bad. So that was sort of surprising that it came down to three or five, I don't know, still a lot of votes. But you have to go back to check from past years with respect to signatures. And if you check with Fulton County, you'll have hundreds of thousands, because they dumped ballots into Fulton County, and the other county next to it.

So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already. Or we can keep it going, but that's not fair to the voters of Georgia, because they're going to see what happened, and they're going to see what happened. I mean, I'll, I'll take on anybody you want with regard to Ruby Freeman and her lovely daughter, a very lovely young lady, I'm sure. But, but Ruby Freeman, I will take Freeman, I will take on anybody you want. And the minimum, there were 18,000 ballots, but they used them three times. So that's, you know, a lot of votes. And that one event, and they were all to Biden, by the way. That's the other thing we didn't say. You know, the Ruby Freeman, the one thing I forgot to say, which was the most important, you know that every single ballot she did went to Biden? You know that, right? Do you know that, by the way, Brad? Every single ballot that she did through the machine at early, early in the morning, went to Biden. Did you know that, Ryan?

Germany: That's not accurate, Mr. President.

Trump: Huh. What is accurate?

Germany: The numbers that we are showing are accurate.

Trump: No, about Ruby Freeman. About early in the morning, Ryan. When the woman took, you know, when the whole gang took the stuff out from under the table, right? Do you know, do you know who those ballots, who they were made out to? Do you know who they were voting for?

Germany: No, not specifically.

Trump: Did you ever check?

Germany: We did what I described to you earlier —

Trump: No no no — did you ever check the ballots that were scammed by Ruby Freeman, a known political operative balloteer? Did ever check who those votes were for?

Germany: We looked into that situation that you described.

Trump: No, they were 100 percent for Biden. 100 percent. There wasn't a Trump vote in the whole group. Why don't you want to find this, Ryan? What's wrong with you? I heard your lawyer is very difficult, actually, but I'm sure you're a good lawyer. You have a nice last name. But, but I'm just curious why wouldn't, why do you keep fighting this thing? It just doesn't make sense. We're way over the 17,779, right? We're way over that number. And just if you took just Ruby Freeman, we're over that number by five, five or six times when you multiply that times three.

And every single ballot went to Biden. And you didn't know that, but, now you know it. So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it's not fair to take it away from us like this. And it's going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you're going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don't want to find answers. For instance, I'm hearing Ryan, and he's probably I'm sure a great lawyer and everything. But he's making statements about those ballots that he doesn't know. But he's making them with such — he did make them with surety. But now I think he's less sure, because the answer is they all went to Biden, and that alone wins us the election by a lot. You know so.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, you have people that submit information, and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court, and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.

Trump: Why do you say that, though? I don't know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you say that? First of all they don't even assign us a judge. They don't even assign us a judge. But why wouldn't you — Hey Brad, why wouldn't you want to check out Ruby Freeman? And why wouldn't you want to say, "Hey, if in fact, President Trump is right about that, then he wins the state of Georgia, just that one incident alone without going through hundreds of thousands of dropped ballots." You just say, you stick by -- I mean, I've been watching you for, you know, you don't care about anything. "Your numbers are right." But your numbers aren't right. They're really wrong, and they're really wrong, Brad. And I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you know — Look ultimately, I win, okay?

Mitchell: Mr. Secretary...

Trump: Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this, you treated the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who was down at 21 -- he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him, and he got elected. But I will tell you, he is a disaster. And he'll never, I can't imagine the people are so angry in Georgia, I can't imagine he's ever getting elected again! I'll tell you that much right now. But why wouldn't you want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of keep saying that the numbers are right? Cause those numbers are so wrong.

Mitchell: Mr. Secretary, Mr. President, one of the things that we have been, Alex can talk about this, we talked about it, and I don't know whether the information has been conveyed to your office, but I think what the president is saying, and what we've been trying to do is to say, look, the court is not acting on our petition. They haven't even assigned a judge. But the people of Georgia, and the people of America, have a right to know the answers. And you have data and records that we don't have access to. And you keep telling us, and making public statements, that you investigated this, and you know, nothing to see here. But we don't know about that. All we know is what you tell us. What I don't understand is why wouldn't it be in everyone's best interest to try to get to the bottom, compare the numbers, you know, if you say, because -- to try to be able to get to the truth, because we don't have any way of confirming what you're telling us. You tell us that you've had an investigation at the State Farm Arena. I don't have any report. I've never seen a report of investigation. I don't know that is. I've been pretty involved in this, and I don't know. And that's just one of like 25 categories. And it doesn't even, and as I, as the president said, we haven't even gotten into the Dominion issue. That's not part of our case. It's not part of, we just didn't feel as though we had any way to be able to develop —

Trump: No, we do have a way, but I don't want to get into it. We found a way in other states -- excuse me, but we don't need it, because we're only down 11,000 votes, so we don't even need it. I personally think they're corrupt as hell. But we don't need that. Because all we have to do, Cleta, is find 11,000-plus votes. So we don't need that. I'm not looking to shake up the whole world. We won Georgia easily. We won it by hundreds of thousands of votes. But if you go by basic simple numbers, we won it easily, easily. So we're not giving Dominion a pass on the record.

Mitchell: Right, right, exactly.

[Trump] We just, we don't need Dominion, because we have so many other votes, that we don't need to prove it any more than we already have.

Hilbert: Mr. President and Cleta, this is Kurt Hilbert, if I might interject here for a moment. Um Ryan, I would like to suggest that just four categories that have already been mentioned by the president that have actually hard numbers of 24,149 votes that were counted illegally. That in and of itself is sufficient to change the results, or place the outcome in doubt. We would like to just sit down with your office, and we can do it through purposes of compromise and settlement just like this phone call, just to deal with that limited category of votes. And if you are able to establish that our numbers are not accurate, then fine. However, we believe that they are accurate. We've had now three to four separate experts look at these numbers. These numbers are based upon the US ---

Trump: And certified accountants looked at them.

Hilbert: Correct. And this is just based on USPS data and your own secretary of state data. So that's what we would entreat and ask you to do, to sit down with us in a compromise and settlement proceeding, and actually go through the registered voter IDs and registrations. And if you can convince us that that 24,149 is inaccurate, then fine. But we tend to believe that that is, you know, obviously more than 11,779. That's sufficient to change the results entirely in and of itself. So what would you say to that, Mr. Germany?

Germany: Kurt, um I'm happy to get with our lawyers, and we'll set that up. That number is not accurate. And I think we can show you, for all the ones we've looked at, why it's not. And so if that would be helpful, I'm happy to get with our lawyers and set that up with you guys.

Trump: Well, let me ask you, Kurt, you think that is an accurate number. That was based on the information given to you by the secretary of state's department, right?

Hilbert: That is correct. That information is the minimum most conservative data based upon the USPS data and the secretary of state's office data that has been made publicly available. We do not have the internal numbers from the secretary of state. Yet, we have asked for it six times. I sent a letter over to Mr... several times requesting this information, and it's been rebuffed every single time. So it stands to reason that if the information is not forthcoming, there's something to hide. That's the problem that we have.

Germany: Well, that's not the case sir. There's things that you guys are entitled to get, and there's things that under the law, we are not allowed to give out.

Trump: Well, you have to. Well, under law you're not allowed to give faulty election results, OK? You're not allowed to do that. And that's what you done. This is a faulty election result. And honestly, this should go very fast. You should meet tomorrow, because you have 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. And 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. Okay? They hate it. And they're going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election. You have a big election coming up on Tuesday, and therefore I think that it is really important that you meet tomorrow and work out on these numbers. Because I know Brad that if you think we're right, I think you're going to say, and I'm not looking to blame anybody. I'm just saying you know, and you know under new counts, and under uh, new views of the election results, we won the election. You know? It's very simple. We won the election. As the governors of major states and the surrounding states said, there is no way you lost Georgia. As the Georgia politicians say, there is no way, you lost Georgia. Nobody. Everyone knows I won it by hundreds of thousands of votes. But I'll tell you, it's going to have a big impact on Tuesday if you guys don't get this thing straightened out fast.

Meadows: Well, Mr. President, this is Mark. Let me just -- It sounds like we've got two different sides agreeing that we can look at those areas, and I assume that we can do that within the next 24 to 48 hours to go ahead and get that reconciled so that we can look at the two claims, and making sure that we get the access to the secretary of state's data to either validate or invalidate the claims that have been made. Is that correct?

Germany: No, that's not what I said. I'm happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to him, "Hey, here's, based on what we've looked at so far, here's how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong."

Meadows: So what you're saying, Ryan, hold on, let me, let me make sure -- so what you're saying is you really don't want to give access to the data? You just want to make another case on why the lawsuit is wrong?

Germany: I don't think we can give access to data that's protected by law. But we can sit down with them and say —

Trump: But you're allowed to have a phony election? You're allowed to have a phony election right?

Germany: No sir.

Trump: When are you going to do the signature counts? When are you going to do signature verification on Fulton County, which you said you were going to do, and now all of a sudden you're not doing it. When are you doing that?

Germany: We are going to do that. We've announced —

Hilbert: To get to this issue of the personal information and privacy issue, is it possible that the secretary of state could deputize the lawyers for the president, so that we could access that information and private information without you having any kind of violation?

Trump: Well, I don't want to know who it is. You guys can do it very confidentially. You can sign a confidentiality agreement. That's OK. I don't need to know names. But we got the information on this stuff that we're talking about. We got all that information from the secretary of state.

Meadows: Yeah. So let me, let me recommend, Ryan, if you and Kurt will get together, you know, when we get off of this phone call, if you could get together and work out a plan to address some of what we've got with your attorneys, where we can we can actually look at the data. For example, Mr. Secretary, I can tell you say there were only two dead people who would vote. I can promise you there were more than that. And that may be what your investigation shows, but I can promise you there were more than that. But at the same time, I think it's important that we go ahead and move expeditiously to try to do this, and resolve it as quickly as we possibly can. And if that's the good next step, hopefully we can, we can finish this phone call, and go ahead and agree that the two of you will get together immediately.

Trump: Well why don't my lawyers show you where you got the information. It will show the secretary of state, and you don't even have to look at any names. We don't want names. We don't care. But we got that information from you. And Stacey Abrams is laughing about -- you know she's going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock? What she's done to this party is unbelievable, I tell ya. And I only ran against her once. And that was with a guy named Brian Kemp. And I beat her. And if I didn't run, Brian wouldn't have had even a shot, either in the general or in the primary. He was dead, dead as a doornail. He never thought he had a shot at either one of them. What a schmuck I was. But that's the way it is. That's the way it is.

I would like you to, for the attorneys, I'd like you to perhaps meet with Ryan ideally tomorrow, because I think we should come to a resolution of this before the election. Otherwise you're going to have people just not voting. They don't want to vote. They hate the state; they hate the governor; and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. And the only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can't believe what they found. They want more people like you.

So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And Brad. We just want the truth. It's simple. And everyone's going to look very good if the truth comes out. It's OK. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real truth is I won by 400,000 votes at least. That's the real truth. But we don't need 400,000 votes. We need less than 2,000 votes. And are you guys able to meet tomorrow Ryan?

Germany: Um, I'll get with Chris, the lawyer who is representing us in the case, and see when he can get together with Kurt.

Raffensperger: Ryan will be in touch with the other attorney on this call, Mr. Meadows. Thank you President Trump for your time.

Trump: OK, thank you, Brad. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Bye.

by **admin** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:27 am

Sen. Sanders: President's Call 'Impeachable, A Criminal Offense'
by Andrea Mitchell
MSNBC
Jan 4, 2021

by **admin** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:30 am

Former US Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal: ‘Donald Trump Sounds Like A Mob Boss’
by Katie Couric
Jan 4, 2021

I chatted with Supreme Court lawyer and former US Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on Instagram Live about the leaked audio call between President Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “If I’m Donald Trump right now this is really very troubling,” Katyal said. “You could dismiss the Ukraine transcript, nobody got to listen to that phone call, but you hear these words and they are chilling. He sounds like a mob boss.”

We also discussed if Trump could still be impeached since he only has 16 days in office. “A former president can be impeached in order to disqualify him from further office holding,” Katyal said.

by **admin** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:45 am

All 10 living former defense secretaries declare election is over in forceful public letter
by Paul LeBlanc
CNN
Updated 9:29 PM ET, Sun January 3, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

(CNN)All 10 living former US defense secretaries declared that the US presidential election is over in a forceful public letter published in The Washington Post on Sunday as President Donald Trump continues to deny his election loss to Joe Biden.

The letter -- signed by Dick Cheney, James Mattis, Mark Esper, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld, William Cohen, Chuck Hagel, Robert Gates, William Perry and Ashton Carter -- amounts to a remarkable show of force against Trump's subversion efforts just days before Congress is set to count Electoral College votes.

"Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived," the group wrote.

Since Election Day, Trump has falsely claimed that a second term is being stolen, even as there have been no credible allegations of widespread voting issues as affirmed by dozens of judges, governors, and election officials, the Electoral College, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US Supreme Court.

Still, a wide swath of congressional Republicans are siding with the President and plan to object to Biden's win during Electoral College counting on Wednesday -- even though their efforts will only delay the inevitable affirmation of Biden's win.

The former Defense secretaries, who collectively represent decades of tenure in the position, wrote that presidential transitions "are a crucial part of the successful transfer of power."

"They often occur at times of international uncertainty about U.S. national security policy and posture. They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation."

The letter follows Trump's removal of Esper in November as part of a set of sweeping changes atop the Defense Department's civilian leadership structure that included the installation of perceived loyalists to the President.

The shakeup put officials inside the Pentagon on edge and fueled a growing sense of alarm among military and civilian officials.

And while America's top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, told Congress in August that the military won't help settle any election disputes, the group of former Defense secretaries reiterated in their letter that such an effort "would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory."

"Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic," the letter states.

Cohen, a Republican who served as Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, told CNN's Ana Cabrera on "Newsroom" shortly after the letter was published that the "highly unusual" step was warranted given the "unconstitutional path" Trump has taken the country.

"It was really our attempt to call out to the American people. We believe all of them are patriotic. They've been led down a path by President Trump, which is an unconstitutional path. And so we felt it was incumbent on us as having served in the Defense Department to say: Please all of you in the Defense Department, you've taken an oath to serve this country, this Constitution, not any given individual," he said.

Perry, a Democrat who also served as secretary of defense under Clinton, said in a tweet Sunday evening that the idea for the statement came from Cheney, a Republican who was secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush before becoming vice president to President George W. Bush.

"Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution; that oath does not change according to party designation," Perry said.

The former Defense secretaries ended their letter urging the Defense Department to "refrain from any political actions" that could undermine the election results or harm the transition to a new administration.

"We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them," the letter states.

"This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country."

This story has been updated with additional details Sunday.

by **admin** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 2:24 am

Trump Demands Georgia Secretary of State Change Votes, Violating Both State and Federal Law
by Glenn Kirschner
Jan 4, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

Donald Trump is caught on a recorded phone call telling the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to change the election vote count so he can claim to have won. Here are the laws - state and federal - that Trump's corrupt ask seem to violate.

Also, here are some answers to frequently asked questions, like:

Can Trump claim as a defense that his conduct was not knowing and intentional (in other words, is it difficult to prove "corrupt intent")?

How can it be criminal if it is done overtly, expressly ad in the presence of others on the phone call?

Here's my take on all of the above as a former 30-year federal prosecutor who had to confront these and similar legal questions hundreds of times in criminal cases.

by **admin** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 3:38 am

Georgia official fires back at Trump's election conspiracies
by Gabriel Sterling
Jan 4, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

Gabriel Sterling, the Republican in charge of Georgia's voting system, pleaded with Georgians to go out and vote in the Senate run off while also debunking each of President Trump's and his supporters baseless election claims.

TRANSCRIPT:

[Gabriel Sterling] What we’ve seen also is a difference in the turnout models depending on congressional district and county in the state so far, in large part driven by the continuing misinformation and disinformation concerning the value of people’s votes in this state. The Secretary wants me to make clear that everybody’s vote is going to count; everybody’s vote DID count. I want to make that abundantly clear. If you care about the values and the direction of the nation you want to see, it is your OBLIGATION to turn out and vote tomorrow, whether you are Democrat or Republicans. However, given right now the nature of the President’s statements, and several other people who have been aligned with him previously, literally at a rally saying “Protest and Don’t Vote,” we are specifically asking you, and telling you, “Please turn out and vote tomorrow.”

One of the things specifically I’ve had to argue with people whom I’ve known for 20 years, they say, “Well, we believe our election was stolen; we feel like our votes don’t count,” and I said, “Okay, I’m not acknowledging that the election was stolen, because it wasn’t; I’m not acknowledging that there was massive voter fraud because there wasn’t,” but I said, “If you believe in your heart of hearts that there was, the best thing for you to do is to turn out and vote and make it harder for them to steal. If that’s what you genuinely in your heart of hearts believe, turn out and vote. There are people who fought and died and marched and prayed and voted to get the right to vote. Throwing it away because you have some FEELING that it may not matter, is self-destructive ultimately, and a self-fulfilling prophecy in the end. So everybody who cares about the future of this nation should turn out and vote. It’s vitally important. It’s absolutely important. ”

And the reason I’m having to stand here today is because there are people in positions of authority and respect who have said their votes didn’t count, and it’s not true. And I’m going to do it again, and I’m going to go through all of this Anti-Disinformation Monday. It’s whack a mole again, it is groundhog day again, I’m going to get to talk about things that I’ve talked about repeatedly for two months. But I’m going to do it again one last time, I’m hoping. Because at the end of the day, we want to be sure that people understand their votes count. Every person, every voice matters. And I know there are people who have fought for that for years about this.

So let’s start again, and yes, some of this is going to come out of the continuing statements from the President and some of his supporters.

1. State Farm. [Sigh] This has been one that has been conflated over several different things. We have (a) multiple scanned ballots; (b) we have Ruby Freeman; (c) we have the leak, they say “the water main break”, which wasn’t a water main break. So, in order to be fully transparent, one of the things we did, we had a local media organization, WSB, Justin over here, we went through it for hours and hours, walked through frame by frame, and showed what happened.

So let’s start. If you go to securevotega.com, we have posted all of the videos from State Farm for that day, that cover the relevant periods. 5:23 a.m. they walk in, and they discover what is essentially a pond on the floor, where you can see water coming out of the sky. So they say, “Okay, we can’t do our work here this morning.” They call in the State Farm people – it’s NOT Fulton County people, which is one of the other things they said, there is not Fulton County work order to fix the water leak because guess what? It wasn’t in a Fulton County facility, it was in State Farm. So they were the ones who fixed the leak. And it was a urinal that overflowed, because it was turned off, because guess what? No one is in State Farm because of COVID other than this particular usage. So they turned off all of these things, and it went over the edge of the relief valve, and that’s what caused the leak. So they come in.

Then you go to about 7:00 in the morning, or so where you have essentially the – I don’t know what to call it – “the drying zamboni” driving around on the carpet cleaning it all up.

Then about 8:23, you see a woman bringing in the “table in question” which has been the point of Mr. Giuliani’s 90-second clip. She’s pulling it with one hand, and she sets it down, and there is nothing underneath it. Okay?

Then you can fast-forward to later in the day, about 9:45 or so. Everybody there – there are two groups of people there, there are cutters and there are scanners. What happens is the cutters began putting their stuff away because everybody is under the impression that they were going to go home. We have discovered this. So they start putting covers over the cutting machines and everything. So then we see also, while the monitors and the press are still in the room, they bring out the carriers, which are NORMAL absentee ballot carriers, and I will admit, when I listened to the audio of the phone call, and the President brought it up again, and I heard it on the radio again today, I wanted to scream – well, I did scream to the computer, and I screamed in my car at the radio talking about this, because this has been thoroughly debunked. They bring out the normal absentee ballot carriers, there are monitors in the room, there is press in the room. They take the ballots that have been opened, put them in carrier trays, they put them in there, and then put them in the boxes, put the lid on, and the lid matches the box, and then you see at one point during the video, a woman crawling on the floor, putting the numbered seals on them so that can keep the chain of custody.

At approximately 10:25, 10:30, the Secretary in our office receives word that Fulton County is shutting down for the night ahead of the State Farm arena. So, as some of you who were there on election night recall, the Secretary got a little irritated with this, and made his feelings quite known. he said, “Some of us are working through the night, we’re glad to see that Fulton County sees the need to just go ahead and knock off for the evening.” So Chris Harvey, our Elections Director, then calls Rick Baron, the Election Director of Fulton County, who was at the other location, which was their [inaudible] warehouse, because he was doing election day activities. So Chris calls Rick. Rick ways, “We’re not shutting down.” Then Chris says, “Looks like you are.” So then you can go back to the video tape and see Ralph Jones take a phone call at approximately almost 11:00, and you can see his shoulders kind of shrug. He takes the phone call. He’s being told, at this point, by his boss Rick Baron, “You need to stay and continue to scan.” So he hangs up the phone, he goes over to some boxes, he puts some more seals on them because obviously, if you watch the videotape, many of the people who are there have been there since 7:00 in the morning, and now it’s already 11:00 at night. They are all under the impression they are going to get to go home. So you see him spend about 30 seconds going, “Heck, what am I going to say to these people?” So he walks back over to the corner of a desk and says, “I got the word we gotta keep on scanning.” So they go back to the boxes that you see them put under the table at the approximately 10:00 hour. There is videotape of this.

AND THIS IS WHAT IS REALLY FRUSTRATING. THE PRESIDENT’S LEGAL TEAM HAD THE ENTIRE TAPE, THEY WATCHED THE ENTIRE TAPE, AND THEN FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW, INTENTIONALLY MISLED THE STATE SENATE, THE VOTERS, AND THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES ABOUT THIS. IT WAS INTENTIONAL; IT WAS OBVIOUS; AND ANYBODY WATCHING THIS KNOWS THAT. ANYONE WATCHING IT KNOWS THAT. That’s why we released the entire tape for people to watch. So they pull those out and begin to scan.

Then the other claim comes about a woman named Ruby Freeman, and multiple scanning. One of the things you need to understand is that it is a normal ballot processing that if there is a problem with a ballot, what it does is it stops. But before that, four or five will get through. So they say, delete that last batch and rescan it so it scans properly. That is the NORMAL process that is done.

Secondarily to that, everybody might be familiar with the fact the President wanted us to do a hand-recount, a hand retally, which we ended up doing under our audit. That audit showed that there was NO PROBLEM WITH THE MACHINE SCANNING. If somebody took a stack of ballots and scanned them multiple times, you would have a lot of votes with no corresponding ballots. So let’s go over the numbers one more time. Statewide, for the sheer number of ballots, they were off by .1053%. For the margin they were off by .0099%. Which shows that the machine scanned properly, our counties did a great job of following these batches, and doing the hand-count properly, appropriately, with scrutiny and with observers. So let’s put that to bed right now.

And one of the other things we did as part of our transparency is we have put all of those tally sheets online, for every county, so you can go through them and look at them all. And again, it’s at securevotega.com.

Let’s go over the numbers that the President’s team is claiming. We have a little chart over here. They are claiming there were 2,056 felons that voted. Our research, and we have better data, because we are directly tied to the state government on this, the Department of Corrections, and the head of the department, and I can’t remember what it’s called right now, but basically it tracks when people are on probation. There we go. We know exactly how many people voted for this because we have an outward bound of 74 POTENTIAL people who are felons voted. What that means is, that’s the biggest number it could be. We will investigate and find that some of these people completed their sentences; some of these people have the same name and birth date, so there’s some cross-over there. So 74 is the outward bound. It’s going to be lower than that. So let’s be clear about that.

Then there is the claim that 66,248 people below the age of 18 voted. The actual number is ZERO. Let me be clear: 66,000 VS. ZERO. And the reason that we know that is because the dates are on the voter registration. There are four cases, FOUR, where people requested their absentee ballot before they turned 18, but they turned 18 by election day. That means that is a legally cast ballot. So again, 66,000, which is the biggest single number they have, versus zero.

They say there is 2,423 people who voted without being registered. Let’s just be clear about this: YOU CAN’T DO IT! There cannot be a ballot issued to you; there’s no way to tie back to you; there’s nowhere to have a name to correspond back to unless they are a registered voter. So that number is ZERO.

Then we’ve got 1,043 illegally voted using a P.O. box. Again, when we’re going through the investigation of this, so far, every one we’ve seen has been where there’s a mailbox, etcetera, something like that, in a multi-family building, like an apartment. So you’ll have what look like P.O. boxes listed in the system, but actually there are residential addresses of record for people who live in multi-family housing, like apartments. So that’s everything we’ve seen so far. We haven’t seen anybody actually registering to vote at a USPS P.O. box.

The next one is 4,926 voted past the legal registration deadline. Again, it’s ZERO. We have ZERO record of anyone doing that because the voter registration cutoff is the voter registration cutoff. So there’s no corresponding way to do that. They couldn’t be issued a ballot because they are not legally within the system of that to have ballots issued.

10,315 who died before the election. Again, our information from the Department of Auto records we go through, county by county, shows POTENTIALLY TWO. So far, two. It could change, it could go, but it’s not 10,000.

395 cast ballots in two states. We’re investigating that, but again, we got double voters, which we are investigating, but again we’re talking handfuls, not tens of thousands. Let’s remember, and we’re all very clear on the number now, that it was 11,779 – we’ve seen nothing in our investigations of any of these data claims that shows there’s near enough ballots to change the outcome. And the Secretary, and I at this podium, have said since November 3rd, “There is illegal voting in every single election in the history of mankind because there are human beings involved in the process. It’s going to happen. It’s a question of limiting it, and putting as many safeguards as you can in place to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Alright. Oh, yeah. We had part of the hand-tally be discussed in relation to the potential double-scanning. Let’s just go to the other ridiculous claims that Dominion Voting machines are somehow using fractional voting for flipping votes. Again, by doing the hand-tally, it shows that none of that is true. Not a whit.

And let’s go back to the overall claims about Dominion Voting Systems in general. If you look in Wisconsin they are claiming, that Wisconsin was stolen through Dominion Voting machines. In the 14 counties in which Dominion Voting machines were used in Wisconsin, the President got 59% of the vote. In the counties in Pennsylvania where Dominion Voting machines were used, he got 52-1/2% of the vote. He made a claim at one point that over 900,000 votes were deleted by Dominion Voting machines, and the 14 counties where that happened they had 1.3 million vote, that was 76% turnout, and in order for 900,00 to have been deleted, they would have had to have 130% turnout. That did not happen, because it CANNOT happen. Again, this is all EASILY PROVABLY FALSE. YET THE PRESIDENT PERSISTS! AND BY DOING SO, UNDERMINES GEORGIANS’ FAITH IN THE ELECTION SYSTEM. ESPECIALLY REPUBLICAN GEORGIANS IN THIS CASE, which is important, because we have a big election coming up tomorrow, and everybody deserves to have their vote counted if they want it to be, Republican and Democrat alike.

Now, let’s move on to signature matching. There were claims about signature matching not being done, and they were based on FEELINGS. “WE BELIEVE.” No specific evidence was ever brought up until in one of the Trump filings, there was a specific allegation that signature verification was not being done on the absentee ballot request form properly, in Cobb County during the June primary. So that’s the first time we had a specific actionable claim of signature match not being done. So with that in mind, the Governor graciously offered after the Secretary and he discussed potentially using GBI Resources. So we got GBI to come alongside Secretary of State investigators, multiple teams. Vic Reynolds stood here last week to announce the outcome of that. And of the 15,118 absentee ballot envelopes that they investigated, they found TWO with potential problems. TWO! 99.99% was properly done. And of those two, the actual voter who was intended to be marked as voting, was the actual voter. They could have been done through a cure period, which would have been a better way to do that.

Another thing that they want to talk about is the vast difference in rejection rates. Well, what we’ve seen is there was NOT a vast difference in rejection rates. What’s happening, in order to confuse people because they don’t understand the election systems, is they are conflating THE ENTIRETY OF ABSENTEE BALLOTS REJECTED VERSUS THOSE REJECTED FOR SIGNATURE MISMATCH OR MISSING SIGNATURE. Now, we’re also comparing apples to oranges. In 16 – I’ve done this so long I don’t want to screw up these numbers, but I’m going to give the general, I think it was .26%, in 18 it was .16%, and in 2020 so far .15%, and we’ve got some updated numbers on this now, and the difference is that in 2019 HB316 was passed which allowed there to be curing of ballots. So there are teams of Republicans and Democrats, young people running around the state, as we speak, finding people who have signature issues to cure their ballots. That’s going on right now, and the Democrats did a much better job of that during the general election. The Republicans were not prepared. The Democrats had their own forms set up; they had teams set up; they were ready to go. It was sort of a late entry on the Republican side to do some of those.

And about 5,000 total ballots were rejected for some purpose, and about 2,600 of those were cured. So that means the final rejection was around 2,400 ballots around the total of 5 million, or a percentage of 1.3 million that we saw that were voted absentee.

Let’s go into some of the more “new” things. There is no shredding of ballots going on. THAT’S NOT REAL. THAT’S NOT HAPPENING. There is shredding of envelopes, the non-used ones, or there is also shredding of the secrecy envelopes that came through, and we saw some of those in the Senate hearing, and it’s obvious that they are the secrecy envelopes which have NO EVIDENTIARY VALUE because there’s no signature on it, there’s no way to match it back. They are just basically trash. The law requires you keep the signature and oath envelopes, and the ballots themselves for two months. Those are all being kept!

This is one I don’t fully understand. “No one is changing parts or pieces out of Dominion Voting machines.” I don’t even know what that means. That’s not a real thing. That’s not happening. The President mentioned it on the call yesterday, or from two days ago, that’s again, NOT REAL. I don’t even know how exactly to explain that.

Secretary Raffesperger DOES NOT HAVE A BROTHER NAMED RON RAFFENSPERGER. That is also not real. The President tweeted out that as well.

Let’s see – it’s such a long list! Oh, yes. The other really fantastical thing we saw the other day was “a potential hacking of Dominion equipment during a Senate hearing last week.” THAT DID NOT HAPPEN EITHER. Let’s go over a couple of reasons why. First of all, ballot marking devices and scanners, neither one have modems! It’s very hard to hack things without modems. There is nothing to talk to. So let’s get that clear. The poll pads, which is a no-link device, does have the ability to connect to WIFI which we use for loading purposes and in case there is an issue on election day, but they are not hooked up live all the time, and if they saw anything, they could see traffic back and forth but it would be basically like watching a river go by; you couldn’t get in. It’s essentially IF THEY DID THIS, WHICH WE HAVE NO PROOF OF, we have claim after claim after claim with ZERO PROOF. ZERO! And signed affidavits are part of an evidentiary trail, but they have to be investigated, and let’s remember: everybody who came and gave “TESTIMONY” was public comment at the State Senate hearing. THIS OFFICE WAS NEVER ASKED TO COME AND DISCUSS THOSE ITEMS WITH THAT STATE SENATE HEARING, STATE SUBCOMMITTEE. THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN EITHER. Which I find interesting, because obviously they are making WILD CLAIMS THAT AGAIN UNDERMINE PEOPLE’S FAITH IN THE SYSTEM.

Oh yeah, this is another one that came over the weekend from the founder of Overstock.com, that they had found thousands and thousands of fake ballots in Fulton County warehouse. For any of y’all in the press who have been to the Fulton County warehouse, these are the emergency ballots that have been sitting in that warehouse since BEFORE THE NOVEMBER ELECTION VERY MUCH IN PLAIN VIEW OF EVERYBODY TO SEE. And what happened, the reason they had a high number – first of all, every county has to have those emergency ballots by rule. The State Election Board rule says you have to have 10% of the available ones for each polling location, and they have to be printed for that polling location, for the ballot style, so they can track it properly. In Fulton County’s case, you all may remember that there was a COVID outbreak in their warehouse not long before the Logic & Accuracy testing period was happening for the general election. In a very wild abundance of caution, they had what they referred to was not Plan A, not Plan B, but they referred to as Plan C which was if we can’t get people in to do the Logic & Accuracy testing on all of our equipment, we’re going to print up 100% of our ballots we need to let [inaudible] if we cannot get the machines done. They did that out of an abundance of caution given the unknowable unknowns surrounding COVID and their ability to get employees in to do that. They were thankfully able to get the employees in; Dominion staff came in to help and make sure they got a Logic & Accuracy test done. So they were able to deploy all of their BMDs and BMD carriers and scanners. So they didn’t have to use those ballots, but that’s why those ballots existed. THEY ARE NOT FAKE BALLOTS. THEY ARE REAL BALLOTS. THEY ARE UNUSED BALLOTS. And what I find really interesting about this is they were in shrink-wrapped items in boxes that are sealed. What can you do with these? They are sitting right there. Everyone saw them.

Let’s see. I’m trying to think what other – here’s part of the problem, y’all. I sit down and try to write down every thing that we see that comes over the Internet as a potential disinformation. It gets exploded. We all look at these things. We know there’s lots of bots that are doing it; we have foreign powers that are pushing some of these things at the same time. So here’s the take-away from all this. This office has been open and transparent. We are continuing investigation. There are questions about “pristine” ballots. That’s one last thing. The “pristine” ballot thing. There are three reasons you can have the “pristine” ballot, which is essentially the absentee/emergency/ provisional ballot. First one: military and overseas voters oftentimes will get what they call an “electronic ballot.” What happens is, once we get the ballot built, starting from the 49th to the 45th day, we will send emails out to those people who want to have an electronic ballot delivery, which is many of our military servicemen and women. So they take that and print it, and they bubble-in their choice. Now obviously that’s on 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper, or 11 x 14, or whatever they can print it on, so it’s not sized properly to go through a scanner, so when that comes back to the county, they will duplicate that on a flat, unfolded piece of paper on the absentee ballot/emergency ballot. That’s a normal process for many of the military and overseas voters that are electronically delivered. The other situation you might see that in is an emergency ballot situation. If a ballot-marking device goes down, or wasn’t used, which is the case we saw in the morning in Spalding County on election day, they will use the emergency ballots as backup. And those will be scanned directly into the machine and not folded. And the final place you would see that is on a damaged, or adjudicated ballot that was not adjudicated through the electronic system, or in Fulton’s case, we just saw was they were putting so many of the absentee ballots through their cutters, that occasionally would catch the ballot itself and slice it. In Fulton County’s case, they did the vast majority – I think 100% of their duplication – on a BMD. In Cobb County location, I think they did all of those on hand-marked paper ballots. So there’s a difference of use and process within each of the counties. So that’s why you would see “pristine” ballots.

Uh, Wednesday. We’ve all heard the reports there is going to be several senators and congressmen who will be objecting to the electors being seated. We anticipate that each time they do that, they’ll separate out, they’ll have their debate for two hours, the State of Georgia’s electors will get seated; they will look at this evidence as best they can in such a way, and it will be voted on by the House and Senate. We anticipate that, and that will prove our certification was proper by the end of the day, and that we followed the process properly. And I give you back to Senator Tom Cotton’s statement of earlier today, that this is the process that we follow. This is the appropriate step under the Constitution, under the laws of the State of Georgia and the laws of the United States.

So [sigh] with that, I want to say if you’re a Georgia voter, if you want your values reflected by your elected officials, I strongly beg and encourage you, GO VOTE TOMORROW. Do not let anybody discourage you. Do not self-suppress your own vote. Do not make a self-fulfilling prophecy out of doing this. Don’t let anybody steal your vote that way. And that’s what’s happening. If you self-suppress, you are taking away your important voice from this election.

So with that, I’ll go ahead and take any questions y’all got.

Q: Yeah, is the Secretary of State, or the State Election Board, considering asking for the Fulton D.A., or the Georgia Attorney General, to investigate the call with the President over the weekend?

A: I do not know that.

Q: Any discussions of that?

A: Not that I am aware of.

Q: From all that you said there, do you believe, as some have said, that what happened in that phone call was an attack on democracy?

A: I’ll leave other people to make the decision on that. I personally found that to be something that was not normal, out-of-place, and nobody I know who would be President would do something like that to a Secretary of State.

Q: Have you heard about any threats or security problems or anything that could interfere with people voting? And also, what do you expect turnout to be like tomorrow?

A: Well, I anticipate there will be a high turnout, and there’s a large bucket of voters in many, many congressional districts that could potentially show up. We anticipate there could be any number of potential threats out there that could be attempting to encourage or discourage turnout. We encourage everybody to please turn out and be safe, be smart, and don’t let anybody get in the way of you casting your vote.

Q: And have you heard about any threats? Will there be extra security?

A: We’ve discussed with GBI, FBI and Sheriff’s Departments potentially there being threats, and we’ve seen some of that nature potentially out there that are under investigation.

Q: Following up very quickly on Justin’s question, two members of the State Board of Elections have called upon the Secretary of State office to investigate that phone call. How is the Secretary’s office responding? Is there any plan to investigate, or will they block that investigation in any way?

A: I’m not aware of any discussion specifically on that yet, but I’m sure it will be taken under advisement.

Q: I’ll ask you very quickly about the Secretary’s desire to have that phone call recorded. Why did he want to that phone call recorded? Was he concerned about anything improper being said, or that he may need to release it later?

A: I think given the environment we’re in right now, and the political situation we’re in, and the history of the President, knowing that he sometimes doesn’t necessarily characterize things as they might actually have occurred. It was out of an abundance of caution. And I’m sure even the President’s side recorded it too, so they might have been the ones that leaked part of that as well.

Q: How do you interpret the President asking the Secretary of State to “find votes” on that phone call? Is it fair to say the President was asking the Secretary of State to fraudulently “find” or “flip” votes?

A: I don’t know if he was asking to fraudulently “find” the votes, but things we have certified this election say there are no more votes to find. We’ll continue investigations, and he has an election challenge. And one of the things they were discussing on that phone call was they have sued the State of Georgia and Secretary of State. There are rules of evidence to follow once you do that. Trying to go outside of that is an issue. And I believe our lawyers have sent their lawyers a letter saying “If you want to dismiss your challenge, we’re more than happy to share this data with you to show that your data is incorrect, and you have in fact lost the State of Georgia.

Q: The Bureau of Investigation says there is an unprecedented number of threats that have come in state-wide regarding the election. We’re not sure the nature of those threats. Are you aware of what type of threats you guys might face?

A: We’re aware of some, but we’re trying to not discuss in too much detail about that while we try to investigate and find out what the actual nature of those threats may be.

Q: This is now the second sort of conversation that the Secretary of State that has been reported out on this topic. First it was Lindsay Graham earlier in November, and now the President. Has the Secretary of State’s office been contacted by any other members of the Trump administration or GOP officials?

A: Our office is contacted by Democrats, Republicans pretty consistently discussing election issues. So yes. That has occurred. Specifically, it’s a little bit of a broad question I think. But we get contacted by members of the Administration; we get contacted by Democrats and Republicans.

Q: Have you been contacted on the topic of some of these conspiracy theories that you’ve outlined today?

A: No more than my normal of having to explain the ridiculousness of many of these pieces of disinformation. Thank you very much.

by **admin** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:09 am

Congress should impeach Trump again and bar him from holding any future public office: Trump’s flattery, enticements, misrepresentations and badgering threats may be criminal violations. They're certainly an impeachable political crime.
by Austin Sarat
Opinion contributor
USA Today
Jan. 4, 2021

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

President Donald Trump seems to have trouble with telephone calls. As his infamous conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed, Trump uses the phone to violate his oath of office, abuse his power and commit impeachable offenses.

The president did it again Saturday. He called Georgia’s besieged Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, from the Oval Office and pressured him to “find 11,780 votes.” Not coincidentally, President-elect Joe Biden carried Georgia by a margin of 11,779 votes, certified after three vote counts.

Congress should now muster its courage and launch a new impeachment inquiry. The president has abused his office again, a “high crime and misdemeanor” for which he was previously impeached. This time, he used the trappings of his office and his presidential power to try to coerce a state’s highest election official to violate his oath and defraud his state’s voters for the personal benefit of Donald Trump.

Why bother to impeach a president on his way out the door? This time, impeachment would not be about removing him from office, but rather about disqualifying him from running again.

Impeaching Trump on his way out

The Constitution’s Article I, Section 3 provides for “disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States” as a penalty for an impeachable offense. And critically, while removal from office requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, disqualification is different.

Per the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute: "Unlike removal, disqualification from office is a discretionary judgment, and there is no explicit constitutional linkage to the two-thirds vote on conviction. Although an argument can be made that disqualification should nonetheless require a two-thirds vote, the Senate has determined that disqualification may be accomplished by a simple majority vote."

Such a judgment has never been an issue in the nation’s three presidential impeachments since none of those impeached — Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — were convicted by the Senate.

Disqualification has been imposed as a penalty in three impeachment cases involving judges. The first occurred in 1862 when a Tennessee federal judge, West H. Humphreys, swore allegiance to the Confederacy and pronounced himself a judge of the Confederate District Court. The Senate voted unanimously to remove him, but took a separate vote to disqualify him from future office. Since the Humphreys case, the Senate rules have required a simple majority vote on disqualification.

In 1913, an associate judge of the U.S. Commerce Court, Robert Archbald, was impeached and found guilty of bribery and engaging in business dealings with people appearing before his court. The Senate found that he “willfully, unlawfully, and corruptly took advantage of his official position.” It forever barred him from holding office by a 39-35 vote.

During the 1936 trial of Judge Halsted Ritter, the Senate did not disqualify him but did answer the question of “whether a two-thirds vote or a simple majority vote was required for disqualification ... by reference to the simple majority vote in the Archbald trial.”

In the third instance of disqualification, Louisiana Judge G. Thomas Porteous was convicted in 2010 for taking cash from lawyers who appeared before him and barred from future office by a vote of 94-2.

These cases lay the basis for impeaching Trump to make sure that he never again holds public office. While no one is eager to put the country through another impeachment drama, we cannot afford to ignore the president’s latest effort to subvert American democracy.

Oath of office means little to Trump

Saturday’s phone call left little to imagination. Trump’s flattery, enticements, misrepresentations and badgering threats have no place among those who hold office in the United States, let alone among those who occupy the highest office in the land.

Some legal experts are already calling for criminal prosecution for his acts, and he could well have committed both federal and state violations. But Trump’s latest offenses are political, so it is appropriate he suffer the Constitution’s political penalty for a crime against the country. And the pardon power is unavailable to protect him from the penalty for impeachment crimes.

Because the president has repeatedly shown that his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States means little to him, he must never be allowed to hold office again.

The Congress should use the Constitution’s disqualify provision to register its rejection of the president’s conduct and apply the penalty that Alexander Hamilton described as an "ostracism from the esteem and confidence and honors and emoluments of (this) country.”

Austin Sarat is associate provost and associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. Follow him on Twitter: @ljstprof

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