“Americans Republicans will always do the right thing - after exhausting all the alternatives.” – Winston Churchill or somebody
Thank you for that. I suspected that the recording did indeed come from Raffensperger simply on the basis that he was getting completely fed up with Trump and his antics. It didn’t occur to me that Raffensperger recorded it for possible release to protect himself because he knew Trump would likely lie about what was said in the call!
I just went through the transcript. Just for fun – and it IS fun – here are a few highlights of the Orange Genius’s highly persuasive, cogent arguments: 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.
And then there’s this, which appears to be English but is basically incomprehensible word salad about “stuffing machines” or something:
- “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 had 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.
I would hope that ANY election official taking a phone call from Donald Trump these days is recording it on three separate devices and ensuring that they have a priest, a rabbi and Tom Hanks on the line to testify to what was said.
I’m worried the Biden administration won’t prosecute. I hope I’m wrong.
As far as state crimes, Georgia has a gop AG and governor. they won’t prosecute and even if they did the governor would pardon.
Trump isn’t useful to the gop anymore so I’m expecting more anonymous leaks designed to expose trumps crimes to prosecution
The governor whose resignation Trump is demanding? About whom he just said (in this very phone call with Raffensperger) “like a schmuck, I endorsed him and he got elected, but I will tell you, he is a disaster”?
Of course, since Republicans have no principles whatsoever, you may be right – they may not prosecute if they find it politically expedient. But I think that as Trump becomes increasingly unhinged, he’s becoming increasingly toxic.
I just listened to the full audio recording of the call and I can only think of one appropriate response.
This is true. On the other hand, what is it when a president violates his oath of office? Trump swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Of course, he did also swear to do so “to the best of [his] ability…” That may be his saving grace.
This is my concern as well. I think Biden is of the old school “let’s focus on moving forward” school of thought. That might be the appropriate approach if we were dealing with someone like Nixon, who clearly was leaving politics and had no influence left, even among his own party. In this situation, though, it’s not the last remnants of the old guard who are causing the problems. It’s the up and comers / young hotshots who are the issue. Letting them get away with it is a recipe for disaster. If Biden does nothing, I fear that we’ve only postponed the inevitable until 2024 or 2028 at the latest.
This maybe a stupid question, but does it have to be prosecuted at the state level? Could someone like the Fulton County DA bring those charges?
I’m glad they recorded and released it.
There’s the truth and there’s this statement. They’re not in the same neighborhood. Prior to the election he was continuing the Kemp effort to disenfranchise the shit out of as many left-leaning voters as possible and he’s still continuing the process leading up to the runoff. The same efforts that were the only reason that Kemp won the governorship in the first place.
Also not a lot of democracy, honor, or dignity to be had with this one.
Look, if compared to the carrot or the turtle, they might have a somewhat higher bar, but that just means they don’t win the limbo contest, not that they’re not any good at it.
So where was Giuliani? Why not include your best and brightest on the call? Did Donnie and Rudy have a falling out?
Apparently last seen at the mask-free New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump was a no-show.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/01/politics/mar-a-lago-new-years-eve/index.html
Here ya go; I already typed it all up:
I don’t know, my concern is can the Georgia AG overrule a county DA who tries to bring charges?
Trump called Ted Cruz’s wife ugly and Ted Cruz responded by making phone calls for him.
Donald trump has a stranglehold on the GOP voters because he reflects their true values and beliefs. As long as that is the case, GOP politicians will go along with him even if it is degrading, bad for the nation or humiliating.
If Trump loses his power over the GOP base, then yeah the georgia AG and governor may not interfere. But they don’t want to go out like Jeff Flake or Bob Corker and lose their career if they get on Trumps bad side.
I just got done listening to the whole dang recording, and it’s jaw-dropping. My jaw is dropped. Most of the insane stuff has been posted here and elsewhere, but the one thing that struck me is how much listening to Trump go on and on is like listening to a really drunk person. Just utter nonsense, tinged with things that he’s heard from other people recently. It’s like listening to a drunk try to tell a story.
This part especially reminds me of a drunk: he’s talking about people who were turned away from polls on Election Day and he keeps saying “The weren’t able to vote because they were already voted for.” He says this over and over, even in different parts of the call. He just can’t get the right words strung together, even after multiple tries. In fact, he doesn’t even try to correct it, he just keeps saying that these people were “already voted for.”
To sum up: Trump sounds like the girl you wish you hadn’t started a conversation with at a party.
I’ve long thought that his unscripted speech patterns may be a sign of Alzheimer’s, having had family members go through it.