FBI Opening Criminal Probe into Trump Call

MSNBC: Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) are calling for FBI Director Christopher Wray to open a criminal probe into President Trump’s Saturday call to Georgia’s Secretary of State. Rep. Lieu explains why he’s asking Wray to act quickly.

.Guardian: “As members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” they wrote to FBI director Christopher Wray. “We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the president.”

Under US law, it is a crime to “knowingly and willfully” deprive voters of a free or fair election. Eric Holder, a former attorney general, tweeted: “As you listen to the tape consider this federal criminal statute.”

During the hour-long call on Saturday, Trump asserted disproven claims of fraud and raised the vague prospect of a “criminal offence” if the Georgia secretary of state and other officials did not change the certified vote count.

“All I want to do is this,” the president said. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

Raffensperger, a Republican, pointed out that Georgia counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s win by 11,779 votes. “President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions,” he said. “We don’t agree that you have won.”

Trump insisted: “I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There’s no way I lost Georgia.” He pushed conspiracy theories circulating in rightwing media, including that hundreds of thousands of ballots mysteriously appeared in Fulton county, which includes Atlanta. Officials have said there is no evidence of this.