Donald Trump Heard On Tape Telling State Official To 'Find' Him Votes

Donald Trump

In recorded comments, US President Donald Trump urged Georgia's secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to find enough votes from the US presidential election to deny the state to Joe Biden.

The conversation, published by the Washington Post on Sunday, was the latest in Trump's two-month effort to claim that his loss to Biden in the November 3 election was the result of voter fraud.

According to the Washington Post, Trump alternately berated Raffensperger and other officials, tried to flatter him, pleaded with him to act, and appeared to threaten "vague criminal consequences."

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his lawyer explain to Trump that his arguments are based on debunked conspiracy theories. They tell him the 11,779 margin of victory for Biden was fair and accurate, but Trump is not satisfied.

"The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry," the president says. "And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated."

"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."

The claims of ballot rigging have been widely rejected by state and federal election officials and by courts in numerous cases.

The Associated Press cited Biden senior adviser Bob Bauer as saying the recording was "irrefutable proof'' of Trump pressuring and threatening an official in his own party to "rescind a state's lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.''