The only Democrat on Georgia’s state election board on Sunday called on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, R, to investigate possible civil and criminal violations committed by President Donald Trump during a phone call over the weekend in which the president pressured Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat.
David J. Worley, an Atlanta lawyer, said a transcript of the hour-long call, a recording of which was obtained by The Washington Post, amounted to “probable cause” to believe that Trump had violated Georgia election code.
“It’s a crime to solicit election fraud, and asking the secretary to change the votes is a textbook definition of election fraud,” he said in an interview with The Post on Sunday.
In his letter to Raffensperger, Worley said that “such an incident, splashed as it is across every local and national news outlet, cannot be ignored or brushed aside.”
Worley cited Georgia state code 21-2-604, which makes it a crime to solicit someone else to commit election fraud. Such a violation can be punished by up to three years in prison.
Worley said that a complaint citing the same statute had previously been filed by Michael Moore, a former U.S. attorney in Georgia, against Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Raffensperger told The Washington Post in November that Graham, among other Republicans, had been pressuring him to exclude ballots in the state’s presidential election recount. The senator had questioned the validity of legally cast absentee ballots, Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger’s office has the power to open probes into possible violations of state elections law. His office then submits a report to the elections board, Worley said, which decides whether there is probable cause to refer the case for prosecution.
Raffensperger’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment late on Sunday.
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