Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified on June 21 during a public hearing before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Raffensperger about a call he received from former President Donald Trump in which the president asked him to find 11,780 votes.
“Was the president here asking you for exactly what he wanted, one more vote than his opponent?” Schiff asked.
“What I knew is that we didn’t have any votes to find. We had continued to look. We investigated, like I just shared, the numbers with you. There were no votes to find. That was an accurate count that had been certified,” Raffensperger said.
Schiff continued playing the taped call, which Raffensperger said included what felt like a threat to him when Trump said, “I watched you this morning, and you said there was no criminality. All of this stuff is dangerous stuff when you talk about no criminality. I think it is dangerous for you to say that.”
Raffensperger said that after the election, his email and cellphone were doxed, his wife received “disgusting” texts from strangers and the home of his late son’s wife was broken into. When asked why he didn’t quit, Raffensperger said he “had to be faithful to the Constitution.”
Nevertheless, Trump continued the pressure. “The real truth is I won by 400,000 votes at least,” Trump said on a call. “I only need 11,000 votes, fellas, I need 11,000 votes, give me a break.”
The hearing was the fourth of several planned by the Jan. 6 committee to present its findings to the public. It focused on Trump’s efforts to pressure state legislators and local election officials to change the results of the 2020 presidential election. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.
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