Leaked audio offers fresh evidence that Trump is a criminal: Impeach him again

Today, the Wash­ing­ton Post, Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion, and oth­er media out­lets obtained and pub­lished audio which demon­strates neo­fas­cist Don­ald Trump is not sur­pris­ing­ly break­ing the law in his attempts to sub­vert Amer­i­can democracy.

In the record­ing — a repro­duc­tion of a tele­phone call between Trump’s White House and the Sec­re­tary of State’s office in Geor­gia — Trump can be heard demand­ing that Geor­gia elec­tions offi­cials tam­per with already-cer­ti­fied results of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Geor­gia to change the out­come in his favor:

Don­ald Trump bad­gered and berat­ed Sec­re­tary of State Brad Raf­fensperg­er in a call Sat­ur­day, demand­ing that he “find” votes to reverse his elec­tion defeat in Geor­gia — the lat­est exam­ple of the extra­or­di­nary pres­sure he’s exert­ed on state Repub­li­can offi­cials ahead of crit­i­cal runoffs for con­trol of the U.S. Senate.

Raf­fensperg­er refused demands from Trump to over­turn the elec­tion results, telling him that the “data you have is wrong” as he pushed back on Trump’s sham the­o­ries of “stuffed bal­lot box­es” that the pres­i­dent said would reverse Joe Biden’s rough­ly 12,000-vote vic­to­ry in Georgia.

“Fel­las, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. We have that in spades already,” Trump said, sug­gest­ing more legal action. “Or we can keep it going. But that’s not fair to the vot­ers of Georgia.”

Over the course of the hour­long con­ver­sa­tion, Trump vac­il­lat­ed between issu­ing threats and beg­ging Raf­fensperg­er to help him. A few quotes:

TRUMP IN DISBELIEF: 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.

TRUMP SPOUTING ABSURD CONSPIRACY THEORIES: You know the Inter­net? You know what was trend­ing on the Inter­net? “Where’s [name]?” Because they thought she’d be in jail. “Where’s [name]?” It’s crazy, it’s crazy. That was. The min­i­mum num­ber is 18,000 for [name] , but they think it’s prob­a­bly about 56,000, but the min­i­mum num­ber is 18,000 on the [name] 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.

TRUMP REPEATING DEBUNKED CLAIMS: 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?

TRUMP’S RESPONSE AFTER RAFFENSPERGER POINTS OUT THAT THE PROBLEM WITH SOCIAL MEDIA IS THAT “PEOPLE CAN SAY ANYTHING”: Oh 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, you know. I don’t even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accu­rate elec­tion. And you’re a Republican.

TRUMP ON STACEY ABRAMS: 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. 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.

TRUMP ISSUES THREATS: That’s a crim­i­nal, that’s a crim­i­nal offense. And 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 finds. 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.

TRUMP DEMANDS THAT THE ELECTION BE RIGGED: 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.

TRUMP DEMANDS THE ELECTION BE RIGGED FAST:  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.

TRUMP SETS FORTH HIS EXPECTATIONS (JUST FIND ME ENOUGH VOTES TO CHANGE THE RESULT): Brad, we just want the truth. It’s sim­ple. And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out. It’s okay. 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?

Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris denounced Trump’s crim­i­nal con­duct at a ral­ly in Savan­nah, Geor­gia. “It was a bald-faced, bold abuse of pow­er by the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States,” she told ral­ly attendees.

After hear­ing the record­ing, U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez (D‑New York) said: “I absolute­ly think it’s an impeach­able offense and if it was up to me, there would be arti­cles on the floor, quite quickly.”

We agree. Arti­cles of impeach­ment should be prompt­ly bought against Don­ald Trump. This tape alone pro­vides ample evi­dence that Trump is engaged in crim­i­nal behav­ior and is vio­lat­ing the oath of office he took to pro­tect and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion. Mem­bers of the House all just swore or affirmed an oath today to defend that very same Con­sti­tu­tion. And it needs defend­ing, against all ene­mies, both for­eign and domes­tic. Ene­mies like Don­ald Trump.

Impeach Don­ald Trump again. If the Sen­ate runs out of time to con­sid­er Trump’s removal before Jan­u­ary 20th, so be it. The House, at least, can con­sid­er and act on Arti­cles of Impeach­ment, and take a fresh stand for our democracy.