US President Donald Trump urged Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to call a special legislative session aimed at subverting the presidential election results in the state.
Trump has requested Governor Brian Kemp to call a special legislative session, sources said
US President Donald Trump urged Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to call a special legislative session aimed at subverting the presidential election results in the state.
Trump and Governor Brian Kemp spoke via phone hours before Trump was to appear at a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, where Republicans hoped the president would dedicate his energy to imploring their supporters to vote in two runoff elections scheduled to be held on January 5.
During his telephonic conversation, Trump asked Kemp to order the legislative session and the governor refused, said a senior government official in Georgia with knowledge of the call who was not authorized to discuss the private conversation and spoke on condition of anonymity. A person close to the White House who was briefed on the matter verified this account of the call.
According to a tweet from the governor, Trump also asked him to order an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in his state, a step Kemp is not empowered to take because he has no authority to interfere in the electoral process on Trump's behalf.
Trump vented his frustrations on Twitter after the call. “Your people are refusing to do what you ask,” he complained, as if speaking with Kemp. “What are they hiding? At least immediately ask for a Special Session of the Legislature. That you can easily, and immediately, do,” Trump tweeted.
Trump's personal contact with the governor demonstrated he is intent on amplifying his conspiratorial and debunked theories of electoral fraud even as Georgia Republicans want him to turn his focus to the Jan. 5 runoff elections and encourage their supporters to get out and vote.
They're worried that Trump is stoking so much suspicion about Georgia elections that voters will think the system is rigged and decide to sit out the two races, where Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are trying to withstand Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively, and keep the Senate under Republican control.
In his tweet, Kemp said, “As I told the President this morning, I've publicly called for a signature audit three times (11/20, 11/24, 12/3) to restore confidence in our election process and to ensure that only legal votes are counted in Georgia.”
While the governor does not have the authority to order a signature audit, an audit was initiated by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and it triggered a full hand recount that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Georgia.
The race has been certified for Biden and affirmed by the state's Republican election officials as a fairly conducted and counted vote, with none of the systemic errors Trump alleges.
The president's aides publicly scoffed at the idea that Trump might do anything at the evening of Valdosta rally other than encourage Republicans to back Perdue and Loeffler.
"I believe it's the start of these two senators crossing the finish line,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on the eve of Trump's visit. McEnany credited Trump with being his party's biggest turnout driver, noting that Republicans narrowed House Democrats' majority while several vulnerable Republican senators survived challenges by comfortable margins.
But after two pro-Trump lawyers last week questioned whether voting again is even worth it — in echoes of the president's baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud — even Vice President Mike Pence betrayed concerns that the Republican coalition could crack under the force of Trump's grievances. “I know we've all got our doubts about the last election, and I hear some of you saying, 'Just don't vote’, but if you don’t vote, they win,” Pence said Friday while campaigning with Perdue in Savannah.
Republicans need one more seat for a Senate majority. Democrats need a Georgia sweep to force a 50-50 Senate and position Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking majority vote.
Few Republicans in Washington or Georgia believe wide swaths of the electorate in this newfound battleground would opt out of voting because of Trump's false claims or his denigration of the Georgia governor and secretary of state for certifying Biden's victory in the state.
The risk for the GOP is that it wouldn't take much of a drop-off to matter if the runoffs are as close as the presidential contest: Biden won Georgia by about 12,500 votes out of 5 million votes cast. There's enough noise to explain why Pence felt the need to confront the matter head on after two Trump loyalists floated the idea of the president's supporters bailing on Perdue and Loeffler.
“I would encourage all Georgians to make it known that you will not vote at all until your vote is secure — and I mean that regardless of party,” lawyer Sidney Powell said this past week at a suburban Atlanta rally.
Atlanta celebrity lawyer Lin Wood, who has thus-far filed unsuccessful court challenges to Biden's victory, insisted to Trump's supporters that the state's elections are “rigged.”
Trump's team has recently tried to dissociate itself from the pair but only after they were given a prominent platform in the flailing effort to overturn the presidential election results. Moreover, Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani returned Thursday to the Georgia Capitol for a marathon hearing that featured yet another airing of disproved claims.