Christstollen. Lordy there still are tapes. Tuesday’s Select Committee hearing will resemble that Alexander Butterfield moment in Watergate, where the recording system in the White House was revealed. This time we hear Trump soliciting election fraud in Georgia. Will the committee also ask about Lindsey Graham’s involvement and are there tapes of that conversation. The promise of Trump’s fore-knowledge of the alternate, “fake” electors scheme is a tantalizing tease from members of the Select Committee.
We likely will not hear the entire hour of Trump haranguing Brad Raffensperger to manufacture a win. Trump calls it a “perfect call” not unlike the First Impeachment’s shakedown of Ukrainian president Zelensky. Because the 2020 election was apparently a pastry resembling fruitcake.
CNN has obtained the full January 2 audio call between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump is joined on the call by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and several lawyers.
CNN obtained the audio from a source who was on the call and had direct knowledge of the conversation. CNN has redacted the name of one individual about whom Trump made unsubstantiated claims.
Here is the full transcript and audio of the hour-long call.
Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
Trump: No, no you don't. No, no you don't. You don't have. Not even close. You're off by hundreds of thousands of votes. And just on the small numbers, you're off on these numbers and these numbers can't be just — well, why wont? — Okay. So you sent us into Cobb County for signature verification, right? You sent us into Cobb County, which we didn't want to go into. And you said it would be open to the public. And we could have our - So we had our experts there they weren't allowed into the room. But we didn't want Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County. And you wouldn't give it to us. Now, why aren't we doing signature — and why can't it be open to the public?
And why can't we have professionals do it instead of rank amateurs who will never find anything and don't want to find anything? They don't want to find, you know, they don't want to find anything. Someday you'll tell me the reason why, because I don't understand your reasoning, but someday you'll tell me the reason why. But why don't you want to find?
Raffensperger: Mr. President, you have people that submit information and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.
Trump: Why do you say that? I don't know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you say that? First of all they don't even assign us a judge. They don't even assign us a judge. But why wouldn't you — Hey Brad, why wouldn't you want to check out [name] ? And why wouldn't you want to say, hey, if in fact, President Trump is right about that, then he wins the state of Georgia, just that one incident alone without going through hundreds of thousands of dropped ballots. You just say, you stick by, I mean I've been watching you, you know, you don't care about anything. "Your numbers are right." But your numbers aren't right. They're really wrong and they're really wrong, Brad. And I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you know — Look ultimately, I win, okay?