Trump phone call: Democrats ask FBI for ‘immediate criminal investigation’ in new letter

A pair of House Democrats has asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to open a criminal probe into Donald Trump regarding his phone call over the weekend with the Georgia official in charge of running the state’s elections.

“As Members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes. We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the President,” Congressman Ted Lieu of California and Congresswoman Kathleen Rice of New York wrote to Mr Wray on Monday.

In an hour-long conversation on Saturday, an audio tape of which was obtained and published by the Washington Post on Sunday, the outgoing president asked Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him find votes to overturn his loss there to President-elect Joe Biden.

“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,” Mr Trump said.

He insisted: “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

Mr Trump’s comments are a self-deluding fantasy. An initial tally, as well as two recounts, confirmed Mr Biden won Georgia and its 16 Electoral College votes by more than 11,000 votes.

Mr Raffensperger and his general counsel, Ryan Germany, told Mr Trump as much: that they could not help him, as Mr Biden’s win had been fair and accurate.

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That did not faze Mr Trump, who warned Mr Raffensperger and Mr Germany that they could be held criminally liable if they couldn’t find a way to prevent Mr Biden’s victory in the state by proving election fraud.

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

In their letter to the FBI on Monday, Mr Lieu and Ms Rice accused the president of violating both state and federal criminal codes by demanding that Mr Raffensperger “find” more votes for him.

Part of the US criminal code states that it is a crime if “a person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office … knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by … the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”

Mr Trump did just that, Mr Lieu and Ms Rice maintain.

“In this case Mr. Trump, for purposes of a federal election, solicited Secretary of State Raffensperger to procure ballots that are known to be false by threatening him to ‘find 11,780 votes,’” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.

They also accused Mr Trump of making “a number of other statements soliciting election fraud” in addition to asking Mr Raffensperger to “find” him the requisite number of votes to reverse the election outcome.

At one point, Mr Trump told Mr Raffensperger: “There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

In Mr Lieu and Ms Rice’s interpretation, that comment also violates the US criminal code, part of which states that “[no] person acting under color of law shall … willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person’s vote.”

The Democratic lawmakers’ letter also highlights a Georgia election statute that holds a person criminally liable for election fraud if he or she “solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause [another] person to engage in” such fraud.

They urged Mr Wray to refer a case to Georgia’s attorney general if the FBI finds the contents of Mr Trump’s call violate that statute.