An official with the Georgia Board of Elections has asked the Secretary of State’s Office to investigate a phone call from over the weekend between President Donald Trump and Secretary Brad Raffensperger, local news outlet WTOC reported Tuesday.
In the recorded call, Trump pressed Raffensperger to “find” votes in the President’s favor to help him overturn his election defeat.
“I commend the Secretary and Ryan Germany on the way they handled themselves on the call. The language of ‘margin plus one’ searching for illegal votes is the common language of an election contest. The language of ‘recalculating’ which is what the president said to find margin plus one to flip the results is definitely not,” board member Matthew Mashburn said in a statement regarding his reason for the request.
He added: “The facts that the Secretary and Ryan related on the phone of which I have personal knowledge were all correct. The president’s rendition, on the other hand, as to the matter of which I have personal knowledge, was replete with conspiracy theories, flat out inaccuracies and misstatements of fact.”
Mashburn says an investigator with the Secretary of State’s Office will now go through the case and present the elections board with a recommendation.
“The Board’s duty is to determine whether probable cause exists to refer this matter to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis for criminal prosecution or civil remedies.
Of course, Attorney General Carr or District Attorney Willis may choose to open their own investigations regardless of whether the Board takes any action.” the request states.
Willis released a statement Monday saying that she will “enforce the law without fear of favor” if a case is referred to her office regarding President Trump’s “disturbing” phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
