Users Currently Browsing This Topic:
0 Members

Author Topic: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2  (Read 295872 times)

Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4592 on: January 25, 2022, 01:58:33 AM »
Advertisement
'Clearly forgery': Watergate lawyer says Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn badly incriminated himself on live TV



Former Watergate attorney Jill Wine-Banks explained to MSNBC's Ari Melber that Republicans who signed onto a false document claiming to be an elector when they weren't and then submitted to the government is a crime.

While discussing the fake electors scheme on Monday, Melber played a clip of former President Donald Trump's campaign adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who effectively admitted to being part of the 2020 elector conspiracy on live television.

"Yes, I was part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors for when, as we hoped, the challenges to the seated electors would be heard and be successful," he confessed.

Reacting to this, Wine-Banks said she certainly would love to be the lawyer on the other side of his case, implying that it would be an easy win. Responding to Epshteyn, she said that he didn't do it legally because you can't create a fake slate of electors. It's fraud, she explained, and a conspiracy to interfere with the election, conspiracy to interfere with an official congressional proceeding, and conspiracy to commit forgery within the federal laws and state laws.

"You noted that two of the states caveated their forgeries by saying 'this is only good in the event that the legitimate slate of Democratic electors fails,'" she reclled. "Then we become the electors. But the other states all said we are the dually elected electors. That is clearly forgery. And there is a forgery statute not for forging money, which is normally how you think of forgery, but for other government-related documents."

Melber then played a clip of Epshteyn on Steve Bannon's show, trying to clean up the MSNBC interview.

"All I did was very calmly, methodically walk through the law," he claimed. "As the legal team, it was our job to make sure every constituency was covered. So, hence the process that was undertaken. It was loud and clear on MSNBC that, one, President Trump won the election. Two, that it was stolen. Three, a legal case was laid out."

Wine-Banks shot down every point he tried to make.

"There was no contingency in existence," she said to Epshteyn's claims. "It was clear who won the votes in that state. We have a rule where we count the votes of the people. Not the people who wanted it to be somebody else. But if you vote, your vote gets counted. You vote for an elector and only that elector can represent you and cast the ballot at the Electoral College. We should amend the Electoral College Act. We should eliminate the Electoral College. We have ways of communicating that do not require the Electoral College as it was set up in a time there weren't the official communication methods that we now have. But even under the laws now, there was nothing legal about what they did. And the elector slates were certified or ascertained, is the official word, were ascertained by each state, signed off by the governor, and sent officially to the Congress to be counted."

Wine-Banks closed by explaining specifics of how this case is somewhat similar to the plots in the Watergate scandal.

See the discussion below:


JFK Assassination Forum

Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4592 on: January 25, 2022, 01:58:33 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4593 on: January 25, 2022, 02:23:32 PM »
'As corrupt as it comes': Damning evidence puts Trump at risk in quickly moving criminal investigation



MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski said the audio from Donald Trump's call to Georgia election officials never loses its power to shock.

In fact, the "Morning Joe" co-host said, the recording -- which is now a key piece of evidence that will be heard by a grand jury -- has only gotten worse with time.

"The investigation into whether or not President Trump tried to overturn his defeat in that state -- spoiler alert, he did, so I think we got that," said panelist Jonathan Lemire. "That phone call obviously is going to be the center of this. He hits the specific vote total that he needed to overturn the result, he's leaning on a fellow Republican, secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, there. A lot of legal experts have suggested that this case poses more legal peril to him than some of the others circulating, those in New York, there's an indication Washington, D.C. might investigate his words leading up to the insurrection."

"This is something to watch carefully," he added. "The next step will be subpoenas, whether or not Trump himself or those around him, some of the aides in the White House that day, including Mark Meadows, maybe they will get them, will they be forced to testify? That we will find out in the spring."

The evidence shows Trump tried to get losing results overturned in a number of states, but Brzezinski said nothing has emerged that's quite as egregious as the Georgia call.

"You know, that phone call gets worse with time, if it's possible," she said. "I mean, it was bad when we first heard it, but hearing him say, you know, you can simply say that you recalculated -- I mean, my God, as corrupt as it comes."


Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4594 on: January 25, 2022, 02:47:16 PM »
New York Attorney General Letitia James says Trump Organization misled banks, tax officials



The New York attorney general’s office told a court late Tuesday that its investigators had uncovered evidence that former President Donald Trump’s company used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits.

The court filing said that state authorities haven’t yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations but that investigators need to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of the inquiry.

Trump and his lawyers say the investigation is politically motivated.

In the court documents, Attorney General Letitia James’ office gave its most detailed accounting yet of a long-running investigation of allegations that Trump's company exaggerated the value of assets to get favorable loan terms or misstated what land was worth to slash its tax burden.

The Trump Organization, it said, had overstated the value of land donations made in New York and California on paperwork submitted to the IRS to justify several million dollars in tax deductions.

The company misreported the size of Trump's Manhattan penthouse, saying it was nearly three times its actual size – a difference in value of about $200 million, James' office said, citing deposition testimony from Trump's longtime financial chief Allen Weisselberg, who was charged last year with tax fraud in a parallel criminal investigation.

AG wants court to compel Trumps to testify

James’ office detailed its findings in a court motion seeking to force Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. to comply with subpoenas seeking their testimony.

Investigators, the court papers said, had “developed significant additional evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions."

Messages seeking comment were left with lawyers for the Trumps.

Trump's legal team has sought to block the subpoenas, calling them “an unprecedented and unconstitutional maneuver." They say James is improperly attempting to obtain testimony that could be used in the parallel criminal investigation, which is being overseen by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump sued James in federal court last month, seeking to put an end to her investigation. In the suit, his lawyers claimed the attorney general, a Democrat, had violated the Republican’s constitutional rights in a “thinly-veiled effort to publicly malign Trump and his associates.”

In the past, the former president has decried James’ investigation and Bragg's inquiry as part of a “witch hunt."

Significant evidence' of 'fraudulently valued assets'

In a statement late Tuesday, James' office said it hasn't decided whether to pursue legal action, but it said the evidence gathered so far shows the investigation should proceed unimpeded.

“For more than two years, the Trump Organization has used delay tactics and litigation in an attempt to thwart a legitimate investigation into its financial dealings,” James said. “Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit."

Although James’ civil investigation is separate from the criminal investigation, her office has been involved in both, dispatching several lawyers to work side-by-side with prosecutors from the Manhattan D.A.’s office.

James’ office said that under state law, it could seek ”a broad range of remedies” against companies found to have committed commercial fraud, “including revoking a license to conduct business within the state, moving to have an officer or director removed from board of directors, and restitution and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.”

What the court papers detail

In the court papers, James’ office said evidence shows Trump’s company:

Listed his Seven Springs estate north of New York City as being worth $291 million, based on the dubious assumption that it could reap $161 million from building nine luxury homes.

Added a “brand premium” of 15% to 30% to the value of some properties because they carried the Trump name, despite financial statements explicitly stating they didn't incorporate brand value.

Inflated the value of a suburban New York golf club by millions of dollars by counting fees for memberships that weren’t sold or were never paid.

Valued a Park Avenue condominium tower at $350 million based on proceeds it could reap from unsold units, even though many of those apartments were likely to sell for less because they were covered by rent stabilization laws.
Valued an apartment being rented to Ivanka Trump as high as $25 million, even though she had an option to buy it for $8.5 million.

Said in documents that its stake in an office building, 40 Wall Street, was worth $525 million to $602 million – two to three times the estimate reached by appraisers working for the lender Capital One.


One judge has sided with James on an earlier request to question another Trump son, Trump Organization executive Eric Trump, who ultimately sat for a deposition but declined to answer some questions.

Last year, the Manhattan district attorney brought tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and Weisselberg, its longtime chief financial officer.

Weisselberg pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he and the company evaded taxes on lucrative fringe benefits paid to executives.

Both investigations are at least partly related to allegations in news reports and by Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, that Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets.

The disclosures about the attorney general's investigation came the same day as Trump ally Rudy Giuliani and other members of the legal team that had sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election were subpoenaed by a House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/19/new-york-ag-says-trumps-company-misled-banks-tax-officials/6575841001/

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4594 on: January 25, 2022, 02:47:16 PM »


Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4595 on: January 25, 2022, 11:53:53 PM »
DOJ confirms probe of fake Trump electoral certificates: 'Our prosecutors are looking' at referrals



The Department of Justice confirmed for the first time Tuesday that federal prosecutors are investigating fake pro-Trump electoral certificates submitted by Republicans in several states in December 2020.
The certificates were submitted to the National Archives by GOP electors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico.

Trump campaign officials, led by the former president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, reportedly oversaw efforts to put forward the fake electors. Last week, a former Trump aide appeared on national TV and admitted to his role in organizing the fake electoral certificates.

At least two state attorneys general have said they referred investigations into the fake electoral certificates to the Department of Justice. Michigan AG Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has said she believes those responsible for the fake electoral certificates violated multiple state and federal laws.

On Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told CNN: "We've received those referrals. Our prosecutors are looking at those and I can't say anything more on ongoing investigations."

"Monaco did not go into detail about what else prosecutors are looking at from the partisan attempt to subvert the 2020 vote count," CNN reported. "She said that, more broadly, the Justice Department was 'going to follow the facts and the law, wherever they lead, to address conduct of any kind and at any level that is part of an assault on our democracy.' This is the first time that the Justice Department has commented on requests from lawmakers and state officials that the it investigate the fake certifications."

Read the full story:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/politics/fake-trump-electoral-certificates-justice-department/index.html


Lies about the 2020 election propel Arizona bills aimed at combating non-existent fraud



Cheered on by an enthusiastic crowd that espoused conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 presidential vote and touted the largely debunked findings of the so-called Maricopa County “audit,” the Senate Government Committee on Monday advanced a slew of bills aimed at curbing or alleviating concerns about election fraud in Arizona, despite little evidence of such incidents.

The committee passed seven bills that proponents described as measures that would prevent fraud in future elections. The legislation included laws mandating counter-fraud security measures, probes into people who can’t prove their citizenship when they register to vote, reviews of election equipment, prohibiting all-mail balloting, changing mandatory recount rules and requiring images of all ballots to be posted online.

All seven of the bills passed on party-line votes, with the committee’s four Republicans voting in favor and its Democratic members in opposition.

Dozens of advocates of the proposed laws packed the committee hearing room at the Senate, many of them making wild, baseless claims about the 2020 election or espousing conspiracy theories about the vote, such as that the count included many counterfeit ballots or illegally cast votes, throughout the four-hour hearing.

One woman, for example, claimed that county election officials didn’t send her an early ballot in 2020 because she’d voted for Trump four years earlier. Several people cited the thoroughly debunked “Sharpiegate” allegations, which held that election officials intentionally gave Trump supporters markers that bled through the paper on their ballots in order to invalidate their votes. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich investigated the claims and found them to be without merit.

Many of the speakers said they’d worked on the “audit” that Senate President Karen Fann ordered for the 2020 election in Maricopa County. The findings of the review, which was led by unqualified companies and individuals who had been heavily involved in the effort to falsely portray the election as rigged against former President Donald Trump, have been largely debunked and discredited.

Among the speakers who falsely claimed the 2020 election was marred by fraud was Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake, who has made bogus claims about the last election a centerpiece of her campaign.

“I’m worried about what happened to President Trump happening to me,” Lake told the committee. “This last election was shady, it was shoddy, it was corrupt, and our vote was taken from us.”

The overwhelming majority of the speakers supported the bills, though some questioned the motivation behind them.

“Conspiracy theories do not take away from the fact that our election processes are already safe and secure. The passage of this bill will sow the seeds of distrust in our democratic processes,” said Dana Allmond, an Oro Valley woman who is running for the state House of Representatives as an independent, of a bill that would require counties to post digital images of voted ballots online.

Sen. Martin Quezada, a Glendale Democrat, noted that more than a half dozen lawsuits alleging fraud or misconduct in the 2020 election were filed, and all were thrown out for a lack of evidence. Even Fann’s “audit” concluded that Biden had more votes than Trump, he said.

“Saying that the election was stolen — I mean that’s great for a campaign speech, but that’s not reality,” Quezada said.

Several of the bills included measures that were part of last year’s state budget but were later thrown out by the Arizona Supreme Court on the grounds that they violated the single-subject provision of the state constitution.

One of those was Senate Bill 1120. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, would require that if counties opt to use anti-fraud security measures on their ballots, they must use ballots that have specific types of features, such as watermarks, holographic foil, special inks, microprinting or others.

Conspiracy theorists claimed without a shred of evidence that counterfeit ballots were inserted into Maricopa County’s count in 2020, and the audit at one point inspected ballots for bamboo fibers and secret watermarks. Some claimed that ballots were printed on different types of paper, potentially signifying fraud, though no evidence of such problems has actually emerged.

“Any illegal ballot that gets injected into the system suppresses a legal vote,” Borrelli said.

Jennifer Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, said county election officials had concerns about implementation and logistics. She said counties would need a way to ensure that ballots complied with the 17 approved counter-fraud measures, and that they would need money to ensure their machines could read the new ballots. She also said it was concerning that the paper is only available from one vendor, an issue that Quezada raised as well.

Two of the bills, both sponsored by committee chairwoman Kelly Townsend, R-Apache Junction, dealt with the issue of “federal-only” voters. State law requires people to prove their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. But that requirement does not exist in federal law. As a result, people who can’t provide proof of citizenship can register to vote only in federal races, but not in state-level or other elections in Arizona. There are roughly 23,000 federal-only voters in Arizona.

Townsend’s Senate Bill 1012 would require the Secretary of State’s Office to provide the Attorney General’s Office and a legislative designee with access to the state’s voter registration database so they can investigate federal-only voters, and would require each county to submit an annual report to the legislature regarding those voters. Anyone who is found to have knowingly registered to vote despite not being eligible would be referred to the attorney general and the county attorney. Doing so is already a crime under state law.

Senate Bill 1013, also sponsored by Townsend, would attempt to eliminate the requirement that Arizona register federal-only voters by mandating that the secretary of state ask the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to include Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement on federal voter registration forms for the state.

Just because federal-only voters don’t prove their citizenship doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not U.S. citizens; it only means that they haven’t provided the proof of citizenship needed to vote in state-level elections. Election officials also check driver’s license records, jury duty questionnaires, Social Security records, foreign identifications and other records to determine citizenship for voters who submit federal-only registration forms. Like other voters, federal-only voters need identification in order to vote in person or request an early ballot.

Of the nearly 23,000 federal-only voters in Arizona, 7,628 cast ballots in the 2020 general election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican who has been a leading proponent of bogus election fraud claims, filled in on the committee in place of Sen. J.D. Mesnard, and was there to vote on one of her bills that the committee advanced.

Rogers’ Senate Bill 1133 would prohibit cities and school districts from conducting all-mail elections. State law has permitted mail-only balloting in off-year elections — the only elections in which the practice is permitted here — for nearly 30 years, though the issue attracted renewed attention from critics last year due to concerns over mail-in voting that were largely spurred by false allegations Trump made during his 2020 campa

Senate Bill 1008 would loosen the rules for when a full recount of a race must be conducted. Currently, state law only mandates a recount if the margin of victory is within either one-tenth of a percentage point, or within 10-200 votes, depending on what kind of race it is. The bill, sponsored by Sen Michelle Ugenti-Rita, would lower the threshold to a half percentage point.

Had the proposed threshold been in place in 2020, the state would have had to recount the presidential race, which President Joe Biden won by 10,457 votes.

Like the other bills the committee heard on Monday, SB1008 passed on a party-line vote, with the panel’s four Republican members voting in favor and the three Democrats voting against it.

Gov. Doug Ducey is supportive of expanding the recount threshold, his staff told reporters earlier this month. The governor rarely takes a position on legislation until he’s acted on it, and has repeatedly defended the security and integrity of Arizona’s election system, though he hasn’t closed the door to changes to the law.

Ugenti-Rita ran a similar bill last year, but that legislation died when Townsend, who’d initially supported the proposal, voted against it after Ugenti-Rita killed one of her election bills in committee. Townsend “killed it out of spite,” Ugenti-Rita told the Arizona Mirror.

Ugenti-Rita was optimistic about her bill’s chances this year.

“With the governor’s support and with the impact that bill can have on future elections that are very close, I think it’s going to garner the same level of support,” she said, adding, “I can’t guarantee.”

As to whether Ducey will support other election measures, chief of staff Daniel Ruiz told reporters that the governor will let that process play out in the legislature.

“The governor’s going to prioritize adjusting the recount threshold,” he said.

Senate Bill 1119 would require counties to make available to the public digital images of all ballots cast in an election. Those ballots would have to be searchable by precinct.

“We vote in private but we count in public,” said Borrelli, the bill’s sponsor, who emphasized that people would be unable to tie ballots to individual voters.

Townsend said the bill would reduce conspiracy theories by making the tally publicly available. She said Maricopa County’s ballot tabulation machines, which are provided by Dominion Voting Systems, already have the capability of creating digital images of the ballots.

Marson said the counties had some concerns they hoped to see addressed. One of their concerns was that they be released from any legal liabilities that may arise. She noted that some people sign their names or even write their names and addresses on ballots, which would eliminate the secrecy of their ballots. But the counties don’t want to redact anything, she said, which could give people the impression that they were hiding something.

“Redaction is tough. Redaction is a whole other ball of wax that’s not really contemplated right now. We don’t want to be in the business of redaction,” Marson said.

Sen. Teresa Hatathlie, D-Coal Mine Canyon, said the counties would have to engage in voter education if the bill passes into law to ensure that people know any personal information they write on their ballots will be made public.

That bill didn’t get any Democratic backing on the committee but had support from an unlikely source, former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes. Fontes, a Democrat who is now running for secretary of state, issued a statement earlier this month supporting an identical proposal sponsored in the House by Rep. Mark Finchem.

Fontes said that, although Finchem and other right-wing election conspiracy theorists believe the measure will “find their invisible smoking gun to prove election fraud,” it will actually do the opposite.

“To be able to have a visual record of a ballot, while still respecting the privacy of voters, is a great way to improve transparency and accountability in our state elections. This will make it harder not easier for right-wing conspiracy theorists to sow doubt about our elections,” he said in a written statement backing the bill.

Several committee members left before they’d finished with the day’s agenda, depriving the committee of a quorum and forcing Townsend to hold several bills for hearings next week. In addition to the committee’s regularly scheduled hearing on Monday, she said she hopes to hold an additional special hearing to help get through all the legislation she wants to hear.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence.

https://www.azmirror.com/2022/01/25/lies-about-the-2020-election-propel-bills-aimed-at-combating-non-existent-fraud/

Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4596 on: January 26, 2022, 01:29:31 PM »
Trump DOJ investigation statement contains two key revelations: former FBI official



Former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok explained two key revelations in an exclusive CNN interview with Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

"Major news this morning in a story that CNN broke overnight," CNN's John Berman reported. "For the first time, the Department of Justice is publicly acknowledging that it is looking into a specific aspect of the plot from high-level Donald Trump allies to overturn the 2020 election."

"We learned that federal prosecutors are reviewing the fake electoral college certifications from 2020 that falsely declared former President Trump the winner of seven states, states that he lost," he explained.

"The fake electoral certifications were signed by Trump allies, who falsely claimed to be the rightful electors in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin."

For analysis, Berman and co-host Brianna Keilar interviewed Strzok.

Berman noted Monacco's "carefully chosen words."

"How do you read it?" Berman asked.

"Well, absolutely. You know, in my experience, any time the Department of Justice or FBI makes a comment on an ongoing investigation, particularly at a high level, those words are very carefully chosen and they're very closely scrutinized," Strzok replied. "Certainly, when you hear them coming from the deputy attorney general herself, I have no doubt that the intention and the plan to do that was probably — went up to the attorney general and certainly the office of the attorney general."

"And it's important when you're looking at a statement like that to read it very carefully and there are two things I see in there." he explained. "One, prosecutors are looking at it. What that means to me is they are examining the allegations, they're looking at federal law, they're seeing what the elements of the particular crimes that might be involved are and are looking where the evidence falls and doesn't fall."

"And the second thing, the last point is she says she can't comment anymore on ongoing investigations. That means exactly what it says, that means right now there are investigations — plural — that are open and ongoing within the Department of Justice about this matter," he explained. "So that's a very significant event and to me it indicates just how high the level of investigation is now going within DOJ."

Watch:


JFK Assassination Forum

Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4596 on: January 26, 2022, 01:29:31 PM »


Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4597 on: January 26, 2022, 01:32:27 PM »
'The brazenness is shocking': Former Trump security official stunned by new coup memo revelations



During an interview with CNN's Tom Foreman this week, Christopher Krebs, who served as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under former President Donald Trump, tore into the draft executive order that was meant to execute a coup and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"It reads like a fictional thriller," said Foreman. "The inauguration postponed, voting machines seized by the military and Donald Trump's time extended by weeks. The December 2020 draft executive order could have triggered all of that if it had been signed and enacted before Joe Biden's win was certified."

Foreman characterized it as "a patchwork of conspiracy theories and dubious legal arguments previously pushed by Team Trump."

"The sheer brazenness and illegality of it all is shocking," said Krebs. "This is a violation of a restriction on using federal troops for domestic law enforcement action."

"We don't know who wrote the draft executive order," said Foreman. "There are a lot of rumors. We don't know why it was never signed or if it was seriously considered. But it fits into the desperate maneuvers by Team Trump to deny the unequivocal loss at the polls, even if this paper was not worth the paper it was written on."

Watch below:


Offline Rick Plant

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8177
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4598 on: January 26, 2022, 02:41:35 PM »
Here’s the full transcript and audio of the call between Trump and Raffensperger (Part I)

About 3 p.m. Saturday, President Trump held an hour-long call with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which he repeatedly urged him to alter the outcome of the presidential vote in the state. He was joined on the call by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and several lawyers, including longtime conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell and Georgia-based attorney Kurt Hilbert. Raffensperger was joined by his office’s general counsel, Ryan Germany, and Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs.

The Washington Post obtained a copy of a recording of the call. This transcript has been edited to remove the name of an individual about whom Trump makes unsubstantiated claims.


Meadows: Okay. Alright. Mr. President, everyone is on the line. This is Mark Meadows, the chief of staff. Just so we all are aware. On the line is secretary of state and two other individuals. Jordan and Mr. Germany with him. You also have the attorneys that represent the president, Kurt and Alex and Cleta Mitchell — who is not the attorney of record but has been involved — myself and then the president. So Mr. President, I’ll turn it over to you.

Trump: Okay, thank you very much. Hello Brad and Ryan and everybody. We appreciate the time and the call. So we’ve spent a lot of time on this, and if we could just go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally, and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense.

But we have a number of things. We have at least 2 or 3 — anywhere from 250 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls. Much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn’t been checked. We think that if you check the signatures — a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County — you’ll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures of people who have been forged. And we are quite sure that’s going to happen.

Another tremendous number. We’re going to have an accurate number over the next two days with certified accountants. But an accurate number will be given, but it’s in the 50s of thousands — and that’s people that went to vote and they were told they can’t vote because they’ve already been voted for. And it’s a very sad thing. They walked out complaining. But the number’s large. We’ll have it for you. But it’s much more than the number of 11,779 that’s — the current margin is only 11,779. Brad, I think you agree with that, right? That’s something I think everyone — at least that’s a number that everyone agrees on.

But that’s the difference in the votes. But we’ve had hundreds of thousands of ballots that we’re able to actually — we’ll get you a pretty accurate number. You don’t need much of a number because the number that in theory I lost by, the margin would be 11,779. But you also have a substantial numbers of people, thousands and thousands, who went to the voting place on November 3, were told they couldn’t vote, were told they couldn’t vote because a ballot had been put on their name. And you know that’s very, very, very, very sad.

We had, I believe it’s about 4,502 voters who voted but who weren’t on the voter registration list, so it’s 4,502 who voted, but they weren’t on the voter registration roll, which they had to be. You had 18,325 vacant address voters. The address was vacant, and they’re not allowed to be counted. That’s 18,325.

Smaller number — you had 904 who only voted where they had just a P.O. — a post office box number — and they had a post office box number, and that’s not allowed. We had at least 18,000 — that’s on tape, we had them counted very painstakingly — 18,000 voters having to do with [name]. She’s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler [name]. That was the tape that’s been shown all over the world that makes everybody look bad, you, me and everybody else.

Where they got — number one they said very clearly and it’s been reported that they said there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back, [name] and her daughter and a few people. There were no Republican poll watchers. Actually, there were no Democrat poll watchers, I guess they were them. But there were no Democrats, either, and there was no law enforcement. Late in the morning, early in the morning, they went to the table with the black robe and the black shield, and they pulled out the votes. Those votes were put there a number of hours before — the table was put there — I think it was, Brad, you would know, it was probably eight hours or seven hours before, and then it was stuffed with votes.

They weren’t in an official voter box; they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases, but they weren’t in voter boxes. The minimum number it could be because we watched it, and they watched it certified in slow motion instant replay if you can believe it, but slow motion, and it was magnified many times over, and the minimum it was 18,000 ballots, all for Biden.

You had out-of-state voters. They voted in Georgia, but they were from out of state, of 4,925. You had absentee ballots sent to vacant, they were absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses. They had nothing on them about addresses, that’s 2,326.

And you had dropboxes, which is very bad. You had dropboxes that were picked up. We have photographs, and we have affidavits from many people.

I don’t know if you saw the hearings, but you have dropboxes where the box was picked up but not delivered for three days. So all sorts of things could have happened to that box, including, you know, putting in the votes that you wanted. So there were many infractions, and the bottom line is, many, many times the 11,779 margin that they said we lost by — we had vast, I mean the state is in turmoil over this.

And I know you would like to get to the bottom of it, although I saw you on television today, and you said that you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know, and I didn’t lose the state, Brad. People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way. A lot of the political people said that there’s no way they beat me. And they beat me. They beat me in the . . . As you know, every single state, we won every state. We won every statehouse in the country. We held the Senate, which is shocking to people, although we’ll see what happens tomorrow or in a few days.

And we won the House, but we won every single statehouse, and we won Congress, which was supposed to lose 15 seats, and they gained, I think 16 or 17 or something. I think there’s a now difference of five. There was supposed to be a difference substantially more. But politicians in every state, but politicians in Georgia have given affidavits and are going to that, that there was no way that they beat me in the election, that the people came out, in fact, they were expecting to lose, and then they ended up winning by a lot because of the coattails. And they said there’s no way, that they’ve done many polls prior to the election, that there was no way that they won.

Ballots were dropped in massive numbers. And we’re trying to get to those numbers and we will have them.

They’ll take a period of time. Certified. But but they’re massive numbers. And far greater than the 11,779.

The other thing, dead people. So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.

The bottom line is, when you add it all up and then you start adding, you know, 300,000 fake ballots. Then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other areas. And this may or may not be true . . . this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots, that they are shredding, shredding ballots and removing equipment. They’re changing the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that’s not legal.

And they supposedly shredded I think they said 300 pounds of, 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that just came to us as a report today. And it is a very sad situation.

But Brad, if you took the minimum numbers where many, many times above the 11,779, and many of those numbers are certified, or they will be certified, but they are certified. And those are numbers that are there, that exist. And that beat the margin of loss, they beat it, I mean, by a lot, and people should be happy to have an accurate count instead of an election where there’s turmoil.

I mean there’s turmoil in Georgia and other places. You’re not the only one, I mean, we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly. And this is something that — you know, as an example, I think it in Detroit, I think there’s a section, a good section of your state actually, which we’re not sure so we’re not going to report it yet. But in Detroit, we had, I think it was, 139 percent of the people voted. That’s not too good.

In Pennsylvania, they had well over 200,000 more votes than they had people voting. And that doesn’t play too well, and the legislature there is, which is Republican, is extremely activist and angry. I mean, there were other things also that were almost as bad as that. But they had as an example, in Michigan, a tremendous number of dead people that voted. I think it was, I think, Mark, it was 18,000. Some unbelievably high number, much higher than yours, you were in the 4-5,000 category.

And that was checked out laboriously by going through, by going through the obituary columns in the newspapers.

So I guess with all of it being said, Brad, the bottom line, and provisional ballots, again, you know, you’ll have to tell me about the provisional ballots, but we have a lot of people that were complaining that they weren’t able to vote because they were already voted for. These are great people.

And, you know, they were shellshocked. I don’t know if you call that provisional ballots. In some states, we had a lot of provisional ballot situations where people were given a provisional ballot because when they walked in on November 3 and they were already voted for.

So that’s it. I mean, we have many, many times the number of votes necessary to win the state. And we won the state, and we won it very substantially and easily, and we’re getting, we have, much of this is a very certified, far more certified than we need. But we’re getting additional numbers certified, too. And we’re getting pictures of dropboxes being delivered and delivered late. Delivered three days later, in some cases, plus we have many affidavits to that effect.

Meadows: So, Mr. President, if I might be able to jump in, and I’ll give Brad a chance. Mr. Secretary, obviously there is, there are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted, and that’s at odds with the representation from the secretary of state’s office.

What I’m hopeful for is there some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully? You know the president mentioned Fulton County.

But in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead, and so Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in the spirit of cooperation and compromise, is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that’s less litigious?

Raffensperger: Well, I listened to what the president has just said. President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won. And we don’t — I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you’d mentioned. I’ll go through that point by point.

What we have done is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time going through the election issue by issue and then on the state House, the government affairs committee, we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of contention. And then just a few days ago, we met with our U.S. congressmen, Republican congressmen, and we gave them about two hours of our time talking about this past election. Going back, primarily what you’ve talked about here focused in on primarily, I believe, is the absentee ballot process. I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots, and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table.

I don’t think there’s an issue about that.

Trump: Well, Brad. Not that there’s not an issue, because we have a big issue with Dominion in other states and perhaps in yours. But we haven’t felt we needed to go there. And just to, you know, maybe put a little different spin on what Mark is saying, Mark Meadows, yeah we’d like to go further, but we don’t really need to. We have all the votes we need.

You know, we won the state. If you took, these are the most minimal numbers, the numbers that I gave you, those are numbers that are certified, your absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses, your out-of-state voters, 4,925. You know when you add them up, it’s many more times, it’s many times the 11,779 number. So we could go through, we have not gone through your Dominion. So we can’t give them blessing. I mean, in other states, we think we found tremendous corruption with Dominion machines, but we’ll have to see.

But we only lost the state by that number, 11,000 votes, and 779. So with that being said, with just what we have, with just what we have, we’re giving you minimal, minimal numbers. We’re doing the most conservative numbers possible; we’re many times, many, many times above the margin. And so we don’t really have to, Mark, I don’t think we have to go through . . .

Meadows: Right

Trump: Because what’s the difference between winning the election by two votes and winning it by half a million votes. I think I probably did win it by half a million. You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama and from South Carolina and from other states, and they’re saying it’s impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it’s not possible to have lost Georgia.

And 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. When I heard it was close, I said there’s no way. But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night. You know that, Brad. And that’s what we are working on very, very stringently. But regardless of those votes, with all of it being said, we lost by essentially 11,000 votes, and we have many more votes already calculated and certified, too.

And so I just don’t know, you know, Mark, I don’t know what’s the purpose. I won’t give Dominion a pass because we found too many bad things. But we don’t need Dominion or anything else. We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having the correct — the people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night. Along with others that we’re going to have by that time, which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated. Because the 2,236 in absentee ballots. I mean, they’re all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc. And even if you cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half and cut ’em in half again, it’s more votes than we need.

Raffensperger: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised.

But they — I guess there was a person named Mr. Braynard who came to these meetings and presented data, and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong.

Trump: Well, Cleta, how do you respond to that? Maybe you tell me?

Mitchell: Well, I would say, Mr. Secretary, one of the things that we have requested and what we said was, if you look, if you read our petition, it said that we took the names and birth years, and we had certain information available to us. We have asked from your office for records that only you have, and so we said there is a universe of people who have the same name and same birth year and died.

But we don’t have the records that you have. And one of the things that we have been suggesting formally and informally for weeks now is for you to make available to us the records that would be necessary —

Trump: But, Cleta, even before you do that, and not even including that, that’s why I hardly even included that number, although in one state, we have a tremendous amount of dead people. So I don’t know — I’m sure we do in Georgia, too. I’m sure we do in Georgia, too.

But we’re so far ahead. We’re so far ahead of these numbers, even the phony ballots of [name] , known scammer. 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.

So there’s a term for it when it’s a machine instead of a ballot box, but she stuffed the machine. She stuffed the ballot. Each ballot went three times, they were showing: Here’s ballot No 1. Here it is a second time, third time, next ballot.

I mean, look. Brad. We have a new tape that we’re going to release. It’s devastating. And by the way, that one event, that one event is much more than the 11,000 votes that we’re talking about. It’s, you know, that one event was a disaster. And it’s just, you know, but it was, it was something, it can’t be disputed. And again, we have a version that you haven’t seen, but it’s magnified. It’s magnified, and you can see everything. For some reason, they put it in three times, each ballot, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why three times. Why not five times, right? Go ahead.

Raffensperger: You’re talking about the State Farm video. And I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. The next day, we brought in WSB-TV, and we let them show, see the full run of tape, and what you’ll see, the events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by, you know —

Trump: But where were the poll watchers, Brad? There were no poll watchers there. There were no Democrats or Republicans. There was no security there.

It was late in the evening, late in the, early in the morning, and there was nobody else in the room. Where were the poll watchers, and why did they say a water main broke, which they did and which was reported in the newspapers? They said they left. They ran out because of a water main break, and there was no water main. There was nothing. There was no break. There was no water main break. But we’re, if you take out everything, where were the Republican poll watchers, even where were the Democrat pollwatchers, because there were none.

And then you say, well, they left their station, you know, if you look at the tape, and this was, this was reviewed by professional police and detectives and other people, when they left in a rush, everybody left in a rush because of the water main, but everybody left in a rush. These people left their station.

When they came back, they didn’t go to their station. They went to the apron, wrapped around the table, under which were thousands and thousands of ballots in a box that was not an official or a sealed box. And then they took those. They went back to a different station. So if they would have come back, they would have walked to their station, and they would have continued to work. But they couldn’t do even that because that’s illegal, because they had no Republican pollwatchers. And remember, her reputation is — she’s known all over the Internet, Brad. She’s known all over.

I’m telling you, “Where’s [name] ” was one of the hot items . . . [name] They knew her. “Where’s [name]?” So Brad, there can be no justification for that. And I, you know, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But that was — and Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, they did not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

Trump: Where was everybody else at that late time in the morning? Where was everybody? Where were the Republicans? Where were the security guards? Were the people that were there just a little while before when everyone ran out of the room. How come we had no security in the room. Why did they run to the bottom of the table? Why do they run there and just open the skirt and rip out the votes. I mean, Brad. And they were sitting there, I think for five hours or something like that, the votes.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, we’ll send you the link from WSB.

Trump: I don’t care about the link. I don’t need it. Brad, I have a much better —

Mitchell: I will tell you. I’ve seen the tape. The full tape. So has Alex. We’ve watched it. And what we saw and what we’ve confirmed in the timing is that they made everybody leave — we have sworn affidavits saying that. And then they began to process ballots. And our estimate is that there were roughly 18,000 ballots. We don’t know that. If you know that —

Trump: — it was 18,000 ballots, but they used each one three times.

Mitchell: Well, I don’t know about that, but I know —

Trump: — well, I do, because we had ours magnified out —

Mitchell: I’ve watched the entire tape.

Trump: — but nobody can make a case for that, Brad. Nobody. I mean, look, that’s, you’d have to be a child to think anything other than that. Just a child. I mean you have your never-Trumper U.S. attorney there —

Mitchell: — how many ballots, Mr. Secretary, are you saying were processed then?

Raffensperger: We had GBI . . . investigate that.

Germany: We had our — this is Ryan Germany. We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was, who was there after that event came to light. GBI was with them as well as FBI agents.

Trump: Well, there’s no way they could — then they’re incompetent. They’re either dishonest or incompetent, okay?

Mitchell: Well, what did they find?

Trump: There’s only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence. There’s just no way. Look. There’s no way. And on the other thing, I said too, there is no way. I mean, there’s no way that these things could have been, you know, you have all these different people that voted, but they don’t live in Georgia anymore. What was that number, Cleta? That was a pretty good number, too.

Mitchell: The number who have registered out of state after they moved from Georgia. And so they had a date when they moved from Georgia, they registered to vote out of state, and then it’s like 4,500, I don’t have that number right in front of me.

Trump: And then they came back in, and they voted.

Mitchell: And voted. Yeah.

Trump: I thought that was a large number, though. It was in the 20s.

Germany: We’ve been going through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, that Ms. Mitchell was just saying, they’re not accurate. Every one we’ve been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in many cases —

Trump: How may people do that? They moved out, and then they said, “Ah, to hell with it, I’ll move back.” You know, it doesn’t sound like a very normal . . . you mean, they moved out, and what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? It’s crazy.

Germany: They moved back in years ago. This was not like something just before the election. So there’s something about that data that, it’s just not accurate.

Trump: Well, I don’t know, all I know is that it is certified. And they moved out of Georgia, and they voted. It didn’t say they moved back in, Cleta, did it?

Mitchell: No, but I mean, we’re looking at the voter registration. Again, if you have additional records, we’ve been asking for that, but you haven’t shared any of that with us. You just keep saying you investigated the allegations.

Trump: Cleta, a lot of it you don’t need to be shared. I mean, to be honest, they should share it. They should share it because you want to get to an honest election.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4598 on: January 26, 2022, 02:41:35 PM »


Online Richard Smith

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5013
Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #4599 on: January 26, 2022, 03:01:52 PM »
"Minor incursion" Joe has greenlighted a Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Potentially adding WWIII to his growing list of disasters.  Are the press asking if he is engaged in "Russian collusion" due to his weakness in dealing with Putin?  Do the Russians have "something" on him to blackmail him?  I'm sure there will be an investigation.  Maybe Mueller can be retrieved from the nursing home to look into it for the next three years.