Trump's infamous Raffensperger call should be the 'smoking gun' that leads to prosecution: legal experts

While former President Donald Trump has so far escaped legal charges for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, legal experts Norm Eisen and Fred Wertheimer say there is no way that Trump should be able to escape prosecution for his infamous call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Writing at NBC News, the two attorneys argue that the Raffensperger call should be the "smoking gun" that leads to criminal charges against the twice-impeached former president.

In particular, they zero in on Trump's declaration to Raffensperger that "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state."

"When Trump asked Raffensperger to 'find' a specified number of new votes, he was asking him to rig the result," they write. "He did this with no concern about the truth and in the face of an initial vote count and two recounts that had already taken place — with all three showing Biden the winner."

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They also note that Trump issued threats to Raffensperger by telling him he was potentially committing a "criminal offense" by not sounding the alarm on the purported fraud that cost Trump a win in Georgia.

"That's a big risk to you," Trump told Raffensperger.

Eisen and Wertheimer say that these actions could violate two state laws: "solicitation to commit election fraud (violating Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-604(a)) and intentional interference with performance of election duties (Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-597)."

"If the facts establish that Trump’s smoking-gun phone call to Raffensperger violated both state and federal criminal statutes — as we believe it did — private citizen Trump should be treated like any other lawbreaker: indicted and prosecuted to the full extent of the law by both the Justice Department and the Fulton County district attorney," they conclude.