(NBC) – A pair of House Democrats are asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to open a criminal probe into President Donald Trump after a leaked phone call showed him pleading with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn his state’s election.
“As members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in the solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., wrote in a letter to Wray on Monday. “We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the president.”
During the call, a recording of which was obtained by NBC News, Trump asked Raffensperger “to find” enough votes for him to erase President-elect Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state. “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said.
“Because we won the state.” Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia actually stands at about 12,670 votes, according to Raffensperger’s office. The phone call, which went on for about an hour, featured Trump repeatedly pushing Raffensperger to alter the vote total while launching a barrage of discredited conspiracy theories at the Republican election official and his staff. The president went as far as suggesting that, should the secretary of state not act in accordance with Trump’s wishes, he could be criminally liable. READ MORE
