In a shocking development, an audiotape released on Sunday in US media shows Donald Trump pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to find enough votes to overturn his defeat in the recently concluded presidential election.
A series of events such as the release of the tape, decision of scores of Republicans to challenge Joe Biden's victory, a pair of runoff elections in Georgia to decide control of the US Senate, and pro-Trump protests that are likely to be held in Washington, is going to set thestage for a fiery week ahead in the US politics.
After the audio recording was released, the Democrats and a few Republicans criticized Trump who has been tweeting unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the presidential elections that were held in November 2020.
Here's the leaked audio tape:
The tape of a conversation between Trump and fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger was firstly obtained by The Washington Post. The conversation includes threats by Trump that Raffensperger and another official could face a big risk if they fail to act towards overturning Biden's victory.
"There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated" the vote tally, Trump is heard saying on the tape. "You're off by hundreds of thousands of votes," said Trump.
Raffensperger is heard responding: "Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong."
"The current margin is only 11,779. Brad, I think you agree with that, right?" Trump says. "So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes."
Biden won the presidential elections with the margin of 306 to 232, while even a hypothetical reversal in Georgia which has 16 Electoral College votes, will not be sufficient to overturn his victory. This makes Trump's call more surprising.
