According to a report from the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) admits in his tell-all book about the 2020 presidential election that his now-famous phone call with former president Donald Trump was full of bullying, threats and demands that he hand over information to Trump's lawyer on voters and poll workers.
Writing in the book, which has yet to be released, Raffensperger said the phone call -- which is currently part of a Georgia state criminal investigation into election tampering -- was, "The president was asking me to do something that I knew was wrong, and I was not going to do that."
"From the moment Georgia poll workers tallied mail-in votes to put Biden in the lead, Trump has excoriated Georgia elections officials whom he blamed for standing by election results: Governor Brian Kemp and the secretary of state, Raffensperger," Pagliery wrote before adding that an interview that Raffensperger did with Fox host Neil Cavuto where he stated, ""We did an audit of the race, President Trump still lost. Then we did a full recount. President Trump still lost," that set Trump off.
As Raffensperger writes in his book about the call, "Now President Trump is using what he believes is the power of his position to threaten [staff attorney] Ryan [Germany] and me with prosecution if we don't do what he tells us to do. It was nothing but an attempt at manipulation."
"President Trump is now turning to ridicule, perhaps thinking a shot at my ego will persuade me to do something that I knew wasn't right and had no power to do," he recalled.
"I needed to say, from the outset, that I disagreed with him. I could not give his lawyer the opportunity in a deposition or in court to say to me, 'You never disputed what he said.' I had to be very clear and precise that the facts did not support his statements," he continued before adding that Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell jumped in to demand "certain personal information on voters."
As the Beast's Pagliery wrote, "Raffesnberger makes it clear that his office rebuffed those advances as well. It seems Raffensperger was already well aware of how Team Trump had been using its power to expose the names of low-ranking poll workers across the country and unfairly accusing them of illegal behavior, sparking threats against them as well."
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