ATLANTA – President Donald Trump pleaded Saturday with Georgia’s election chief to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state, suggesting in a telephone call that the official “find” enough votes to hand Trump the victory.
The conversation was the latest step in an effort by the president to pressure a state official to reverse the outcome of an election. The renewed intervention and claims of fraud by the first president to lose reelection in almost 30 years come nearly two weeks before Trump leaves office and two days before twin runoffs in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate.
Trump confirmed in a tweet Sunday that he had spoken with Georgia’s secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, a day earlier.
Audio snippets of the conversation were posted online by The Washington Post. A recording of the call later was obtained by The Associated Press from a person who was on the call.
The president is heard telling Raffensperger at one point: “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.”