By now, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or just checked in from an overnight trip to Mars, you’ve heard the news that the soon-to-be-former President suborned conspiracy and fraud from the Georgia Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger.
The Washington Post, in conjunction with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, first published the story, which was quickly picked up by other news reporting outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, New York Times, NPR, and many others, including international news outlets.
• AJC – Trump demands Georgia elections official overturn his defeat in hourlong call
January 3, 2021 at 9:40:50 PM CST
https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/trump-demands-georgia-elections-official-overturn-his-defeat-in-hourlong-call/6MRGK445JNAGHBL2HXLZ3FIVZU/
• WaPo – ‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor.
January 3, 2021 at 8:59 p.m. CST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html
Full transcript and audio – https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html
• NPR – “This Was A Scam”: In Recorded Call, Trump Pushed Official To Overturn Georgia Vote
January 3, 2021 2:51 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/03/953012128/this-was-a-scam-in-recorded-call-trump-pushed-official-to-overturn-georgia-vote
• NYT – Trump, in Taped Call, Pressured Georgia Official to ‘Find’ Votes to Overturn Election
January 3, 2021 Updated 10:06 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia.html
• Reuters – In recorded call, Trump pressures Georgia official to ‘find’ votes to overturn election
January 3, 2021 1:40 PM
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump/in-recorded-call-trump-pressures-georgia-official-to-find-votes-to-overturn-election-idUSKBN2980MG
• Associated Press – Trump, on tape, presses Ga. official to ‘find’ him votes
January 3, 2021 at 9:17:20 PM CST
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-elections-a7b4aa4d8ce3bf52301ddbe620c6bff6
• Voice Of America – Trump, in Phone Call, Pleaded with Georgia Officials to Overturn His Election Loss
January 03, 2021 07:10 PM
https://www.voanews.com/2020-usa-votes/trump-phone-call-pleaded-georgia-officials-overturn-his-election-loss
• DW – Donald Trump heard on tape telling state official to ‘find’ him votes
03.01.2021
https://www.dw.com/en/donald-trump-heard-on-tape-telling-state-official-to-find-him-votes/a-56121196
• France 24 – Trump presses top Georgia election official to ‘find’ votes for him in recorded phone call
03/01/2021 – 22:53
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20210103-trump-presses-top-georgia-election-official-to-find-votes-for-him-in-recorded-phone-call
• Guardian – “I just want 11,780 votes”: Trump pressed Georgia to overturn Biden victory
Sunday 3 January 2021 14.10 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/03/trump-georgia-raffensperger-call-biden-washington-post
• Business Insider – Trump pleaded with Georgia’s secretary of state to ‘find’ additional votes to win the state in an hour-long phone call, according to new audio
January 3, 2021 at 2:01:12 PM CST
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-brad-raffensperger-phone-call-georgia-votes-presidential-election-2021-01
The Loser in Chief and POS45 LEFT, and Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger RIGHT
Throughout the entire call, The Lying Sack of Shit in Chief, aka the Loser in Chief and Criminal in Chief, was consistently inconsistent in asserting his “the Earth is flat” debunked fraudulent election claims.
And even though his figures throughout the hour-long recorded phone call were inconsistent, there was one thing he consistently stated, in many ways, that he wanted : For the GA SOS to invalidate enough votes from the already-certified election results which would cause the election to be thrown to him.
If that’s not corrupt – to blatantly ask (numerous times) for a criminal act to be performed (to suborn fraud and conspiracy, “suborn” being defined by Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th ed. 2004, as “to induce (a person) to commit an unlawful or wrongful act, esp. in a secret or underhanded manner”) – I don’t know what is.
And, as it turns out, it is illegal, at the State -and- Federal levels.
Republicans should rejoice that laws exist which regulate behavior involving elections and voting, and not just at the ballot box, either.
Georgia Code
Title 21 – Elections
Chapter 2 – Elections and Primaries Generally
Article 15 – Miscellaneous OffensesSection § 21-2-604. Criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; penalties
(a) (1) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
(2) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the second degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a misdemeanor under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
(b) (1) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than three years.
(2) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the second degree shall be punished as for a misdemeanor.
(c) It is no defense to a prosecution for criminal solicitation to commit election fraud that the person solicited could not be guilty of the crime solicited.
(d) The provisions of subsections (a) through (c) of this Code section are cumulative and shall not supersede any other penal law of this state.
Code 1981, § 21-2-604, enacted by Ga. L. 2011, p. 683, § 21/SB 82.
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2010 Georgia Code
TITLE 16 – CRIMES AND OFFENSES
CHAPTER 4 – CRIMINAL ATTEMPT, CONSPIRACY, AND SOLICITATION
§ 16-4-7 – Criminal solicitation
O.C.G.A. 16-4-7 (2010)
16-4-7. Criminal solicitation
(a) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
(b) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit a felony shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than three years. A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit a crime punishable by death or by life imprisonment shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years.
(c) It is no defense to a prosecution for criminal solicitation that the person solicited could not be guilty of the crime solicited.
(d) The provisions of subsections (a) through (c) of this Code section are cumulative and shall not supersede any other penal law of this state.
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52 USC 20511: Criminal penalties Text contains those laws in effect on January 3, 2021
From Title 52-VOTING AND ELECTIONS Subtitle II-Voting Assistance and Election Administration CHAPTER 205-NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION
§20511. Criminal penalties
A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office-
(1) knowingly and willfully intimidates, threatens, or coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person for-
(A) registering to vote, or voting, or attempting to register or vote;
(B) urging or aiding any person to register to vote, to vote, or to attempt to register or vote; or
(C) exercising any right under this chapter; or
(2) 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-
(A) the procurement or submission of voter registration applications 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; or
(B) 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,
shall be fined in accordance with title 18 (which fines shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury, miscellaneous receipts (pursuant to section 3302 of title 31), notwithstanding any other law), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
( Pub. L. 103–31, §12, May 20, 1993, 107 Stat. 88 .)
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18 USC 241: Conspiracy against rights
Text contains those laws in effect on January 3, 2021
From Title 18-CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I-CRIMES
CHAPTER 13-CIVIL RIGHTS
§241. Conspiracy against rights
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured-
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 696 ; Pub. L. 90–284, title I, §103(a), Apr. 11, 1968, 82 Stat. 75 ; Pub. L. 100–690, title VII, §7018(a), (b)(1), Nov. 18, 1988, 102 Stat. 4396 ; Pub. L. 103–322, title VI, §60006(a), title XXXII, §§320103(a), 320201(a), title XXXIII, §330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 1970 , 2109, 2113, 2147; Pub. L. 104–294, title VI, §§604(b)(14)(A), 607(a), Oct. 11, 1996, 110 Stat. 3507, 3511.)
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2 USC 10307: Prohibited acts
Text contains those laws in effect on January 3, 2021
From Title 52-VOTING AND ELECTIONS Subtitle I-Voting Rights
CHAPTER 103-ENFORCEMENT OF VOTING RIGHTS
§10307. Prohibited acts
(a) Failure or refusal to permit casting or tabulation of vote
No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote under any provision of chapters 103 to 107 of this title or is otherwise qualified to vote, or willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person’s vote.
(b) Intimidation, threats, or coercion
No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for exercising any powers or duties under section 10302(a), 10305, 10306, or 10308(e) of this title or section 1973d or 1973g of title 42.1
(c) False information in registering or voting; penalties
Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
(d) Falsification or concealment of material facts or giving of false statements in matters within jurisdiction of examiners or hearing officers; penalties
Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of an examiner or hearing officer knowingly and willfully falsifies or conceals a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(e) Voting more than once
(1) Whoever votes more than once in an election referred to in paragraph (2) shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(2) The prohibition of this subsection applies with respect to any general, special, or primary election held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
(3) As used in this subsection, the term “votes more than once” does not include the casting of an additional ballot if all prior ballots of that voter were invalidated, nor does it include the voting in two jurisdictions under section 10502 of this title, to the extent two ballots are not cast for an election to the same candidacy or office.
(Pub. L. 89–110, title I, §11, Aug. 6, 1965, 79 Stat. 443 ; renumbered title I, Pub. L. 91–285, §2, June 22, 1970, 84 Stat. 314 ; amended Pub. L. 91–405, title II, §204(e), Sept. 22, 1970, 84 Stat. 853 ; Pub. L. 94–73, title IV, §§404, 409, Aug. 6, 1975, 89 Stat. 404 , 405.)
And yet, as of this writing, there has been only ONE reporting outlet with the gumption to tell it like it is.
POLITICO, which headlined their story “Trump’s pressure on Georgia election officials raises legal questions: In audio from a Saturday phone call, the president is heard urging the officials to reverse his loss,” they wrote in part that, “President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure Georgia officials to “find” enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory could run afoul of federal and state criminal statutes, according to legal experts and lawmakers, who expressed alarm at Trump’s effort to subvert democracy with less than three weeks left in his term.”
They wrote further that,
“Georgia state law includes two provisions that criminalize “solicitation of election fraud” and “conspiracy to commit election fraud.” Trump’s detractors also pointed to a federal statute that criminalizes “the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”
“Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said: “The Georgia code says that anybody who solicits, requests or commands or otherwise attempts to encourage somebody to commit election fraud is guilty of solicitation of election fraud. ‘Soliciting or requesting’ is the key language. The president asked, in no uncertain terms, the secretary of state to invent votes, to create votes that were not there. Not only did he ask for that in terms of just overturning the specific margin that Joe Biden won by, but then said we needed one additional vote to secure victory in Georgia.”
““There’s just no way that if you read the code and the way the code is structured, and then you look at what the president of the United states requested, that he has not violated this law — the spirit of it for sure,” Kreis continued.
“Kreis added that the phone call could not be divorced from recent episodes in which Trump amplified a false conspiracy theory about Raffensperger’s family and his vows to end the political careers of people like the secretary of state and Kemp for upholding Biden’s victory in the election. He also said Trump’s request for a specific number of votes — just enough to prevail by one — undercut the notion that he was simply asking for the truth.
““If I’m the president of the United States and my pardon power is not — does not extend to state acts, I don’t think that in the last few days of my term that I would want to be engaging in activities that even remotely subject me to the possibility of state criminal prosecution,” Kreis said. “That’s what makes this even more bewildering to me, is because if he had sensible advisers they would just keep him off the phone.”“
Regarding the claims of inaccurate, or otherwise invalid absentee, and mail-in ballots, which require signatures, the Liar in Chief claimed that there were “thousands and thousands” of ballots illegally cast which did not properly have signatures authenticated properly.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State:
“President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. Um, 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. And I can 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% 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.
“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 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. There were two.”
The GBI (GA Bureau of Investigation) examined signatures (which change over time) on ballots and found no problems.
The entire state’s ballots was recounted at least three times – and once manually – and no problems were found which would have affected the outcome of the race.
The Associated Press reported on Saturday, November 21, 2020 that, Read the rest of this entry »
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