For all of his talk about imaginary election-rigging, it’s former President Donald Trump himself who perpetrated a scheme to attempt to overturn the will of the people. This scheme included pressure on Georgia officials to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state. Among other examples, Trump personally got on the phone with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, imploring the top Georgia elections official to “find” enough votes to undo Biden’s victory. A new report from the think tank known as the Brookings Institution outlines how Trump is facing real possibilities of criminal charges tied to an array of specific elements of his election meddling.
The Brookings Institution: Trump could be charged with multiple crimes over election interference in Georgia. https://t.co/dKS9buPmVa
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 27, 2021
As the report summarizes, Trump and certain allies of his sought to push Georgia leaders to “change the lawful outcome of the election.” Trump’s request for Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to deliver him the state was predicated on the belief that some kind of systematic election fraud had somehow denied Trump his rightful victory there, but no meaningful evidence of this supposed fraud has ever emerged. In Georgia alone, every vote in the presidential election has been counted three times, and a post-election audit of signatures submitted with mail-in ballots in Cobb County, which is around Atlanta, found no evidence of systematic fraud. No court, in Georgia or elsewhere, has ever accepted the notion that the presidential election was rife with fraud.
As summarized by Business Insider, Trump also “publicly pressured and personally contacted several other Republican officials in Georgia to ask for their help in overturning his electoral loss in the state, including Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr.” The report from the Brookings Institution reads, in part, as follows:
‘We conclude that Trump’s post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes. These charges potentially include criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations.’
Trump isn’t the only person within his circles who could face criminal charges in connection to post-election developments in Georgia. Longtime ally Rudy Giuliani is, for instance, also in jeopardy in connection to his appearances before state legislators in Georgia, to whom he pushed false notions that the election had been stolen. Within Georgia, Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating matters related to Trump’s meddling within Georgia, and recent reports have indicated that her investigation has been continuing to move forward via interviews with key figures.
