Democrats call for criminal investigation into Trump’s ‘bold abuse of power’ during Georgia call

The US president was recorded asking Georgia's secretary of state to 'find' more votes

Credit:  AFP

Democrats have called for a criminal investigation into Donald Trump after the US president was recorded pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to tamper with the outcome of the election.  

In a leaked recording of the call, Mr Trump urged Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s top election official, to “find” the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the state.

“There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Mr Trump said, according to a recording of the call that was leaked to The Washington Post.

"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."

The phone call has raised the prospect that Mr Trump may have breached federal or state laws that prohibit interference in elections.

Senator Dick Durbin, the leading Democrat on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, said the comments merited a criminal investigation into the president.

“The President is unhinged and dangerous,” he said. "His disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation.”

Kamala Harris, the US vice president-elect, called Mr Trump’s actions a “baldfaced, bold abuse of power”. 

Some Democrats, including the liberal congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have gone a step further, suggesting Mr Trump’s comments constituted an "impeachable offence". 

However, with just days left until Mr Trump leaves office it is unlikely that he will face impeachment proceedings over the leaked call. 

What is less certain is whether the president could face criminal repercussions at a federal or state level. 

Leigh Ann Webster, a criminal defence lawyer in Atlanta, told the New York Times she believed Mr Trump had "clearly" violated Georgia’s state law.  Ms Webster cited a state law that states anyone who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage” in election fraud is committing an offence.

The only Democrat on Georgia’s election board, David Worley, has called for an investigation into whether Mr Trump violated state law. "To say that I am troubled by President Trump’s attempt to manipulate the votes of Georgians would be an understatement," Mr Worley said. 

During the hour-long phone call on Saturday, Mr Trump also appeared to threaten Mr Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s legal counsel, by suggesting they could face criminal proceedings if they failed to find the "thousands" of ballots he claimed had been illegally destroyed.

There is no evidence to support Mr Trump’s claim. "

That’s a criminal offence," Mr Trump told Mr Raffensperger. "And you can’t let that happen."

Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed since November’s presidential election that he was robbed of victory by widespread election fraud. Multiple legal challenges to the result by the Trump campaign have been rejected in courts. 

In another blow to Mr Trump, two of his top allies in the US Senate have criticised a long-shot campaign by nearly a dozen other Republican senators to object to the confirmation of Mr Biden’s election win when it comes before Congress on Wednesday.

Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, said the move by his fellow Republicans was outside of Congress’ power and would "establish unwise precedents." Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina senator who regularly golfs with the president, dismissed the move as a “political dodge” that "has zero chance of becoming a reality.”

Meanwhile in an extraordinary rebuke to Mr Trump, all 10 surviving former US defence secretaries publicly cautioned against any move to involve the military in pursuing claims of election fraud, arguing that it would take the country into "dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory."

The 10 former defence chiefs, both Democrats and Republicans, co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post stating: "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."