As Trump Hit with Fourth Indictment, Remember What He Really Said in Famous Georgia Phone Call
Context is everything. And the Democrats know it.
Just ask Bill Clinton what the meaning of “is” is.
But in the case of former President Donald Trump, the entire party appears to have adopted a level of literalness that makes Mr. Spock look like Cliff Clavin.
On Monday, former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted by a Georgia grand jury of alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.
🚨BREAKING: Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis reads names of those indicted by Grand Jury including President Trump and 18 others pic.twitter.com/ldpzbIhDM2
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 15, 2023
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley says a conviction in Georgia would not be subject to a presidential pardon by a future Republican president (or Trump himself should he win.)
That power does not reach state convictions.
According to NPR, the 41-count indictment cited the controversial call with Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump allegedly pushed him to “find” votes and reverse his loss in the state.
Since the heart of the entire case revolves around one line in a Jan. 2, 2021, audio call with Raffensperger, it is important to go over what was said and, more importantly, the context in which it was said.
The entire crux of any potential indictment rests on one sentence spoken by Trump during that call, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
Democrats have interpreted this statement as a blatant call for manufacturing votes, but a cursory reading of the entire script of that call seems to indicate the very opposite.
Throughout the call, Trump explicitly conveyed his belief in election fraud, citing visual evidence and other materials he said he had seen or been told about.
Whether or not these beliefs were substantiated is irrelevant. The only pertinent factor is the contextual backdrop against which these words were spoken.
Was his intention to coerce the secretary into falsifying votes, as the Democrats contend, or was he genuinely convinced that well beyond 11,780 votes existed, and he was simply urging the secretary to unearth at least that many?
The best way to judge context is to look at the larger picture.
So, here are some other statements Trump made during the call which could help put things in context, taken from a transcript of the call provided by CNN.
“I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We’d be getting 25-30,000 people a rally and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense,” Trump said during the call, proving that he genuinely believed he would win.
A little later in the call, Trump talked about the mysterious ballots that dropped into the rolls at the last minute in Fulton County. According to him, at least 250,000 signatures were unlikely to match.
“We have at least 2 or 3 — anywhere from 250-300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls. Much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn’t been checked.”
“We think that if you check the signatures — a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County you’ll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures of people who have been forged. And we are quite sure that’s going to happen,” Trump said.
Could it not be possible that when Trump said he needed 11,780 votes, he was asking the secretary to go check these signatures and find at least 11,780 out of the 250,000 he believed were falsified for now-President Joe Biden?
Trump went on to list other inconsistencies his campaign had allegedly found.
Here are the quotes:
“Thousands who went to the voting place on November 3, were told they couldn’t vote, were told they couldn’t vote because a ballot had been put on their name.”
“4,502 voters who voted but who weren’t on the voter registration list, so it’s 4,502 who voted but they weren’t on the voter registration roll which they had to be.”
“You had 18,325 vacant address voters. The address was vacant and they’re not allowed to be counted. That’s 18,325.”
“You had 904 who only voted where they had just a P.O. — a post office box number — and they had a post office box number and that’s not allowed.”
“We had at least 18,000 — that’s on tape we had them counted very painstakingly — 18,000 voters having to do with [name]. She’s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler.”
“You had out-of-state voters. They voted in Georgia but they were from out of state, of 4,925.”
“So dead people voted and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.”
“Ballots were dropped in massive numbers,” the then-president said. “And we’re trying to get to those numbers, and we will have them. They’ll take a period of time. Certified. But they’re massive numbers.”
“And far greater than the 11,779.”
There is speculation from the Trump team that a 4th indictment, this one from Georgia, could be on the way within a few weeks. @RogerJStoneJr addresses the phone call in question saying “this is another fabricated indictment … because Donald Trump is leading in the polls,”… pic.twitter.com/YgfGVhlc1W
— Stella Escobedo (@StellaEscoTV) August 8, 2023
“The bottom line is when you add it all up and then you start adding, you know, 300,000 fake ballots,” Trump said.
A friend of mine was going through her very messy jewelry box the other day, and she said to me, “You know, I have dozens of earrings for every occasion. But right now, all I want is to find a pair that match.”
Trump believed there were at least 300,000 fake ballots.
Taken in context, it doesn’t sound like he was asking anyone to fabricate votes. He didn’t think he needed to. He believed he had them. He still believes he had them.
🚨 Trump responds to the Georgia Indictment pic.twitter.com/hLVyQPSNs0
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 15, 2023
According to Turley, “It is important for campaigns to seek judicial review of election challenges without fear of prosecution. Some Democratic lawyers after 2020 made their own controversial (and unsuccessful) allegations of machines flipping or altering election outcomes. No one suggested that they should be criminally charged or disbarred.”
“However, another anemic filing like the one in New York will only fuel the deep political divisions and unrest in the country. It needs to be clearly based on a desire for justice, rather than ‘just deserts,’ Turley said.
Unfortunately, the Trump-deranged Democrats can’t tell one from the other.
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