One of the things I was curious about the recording being released of Trump pleading with Georgia officials to find ways of overturning the election result in the state was who recorded it and why was it released. It turns out that the Georgia secretary of state recorded it because he had been burned earlier by Lindsey Graham denying what he had said in a phone call and because of Trump’s reputation for lying. He then held the recording in reserve until Trump lied about the call, which of course he did.
It started on Saturday when Trump and his team reached out to talk to Raffensperger, who, according to an adviser, felt he would be unethically pressured by the president. Raffensperger had been here before: In November he accused Trump ally and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham of improperly exhorting him to meddle in the election to help Trump win Georgia. Graham later denied it.
So why not record the call with the president, Raffensperger’s advisers thought, if nothing else for fact-checking purposes. “This is a man who has a history of reinventing history as it occurs,” one of them told Playbook. “So if he’s going to try to dispute anything on the call, it’s nice to have something like this, hard evidence, to dispute whatever he’s claiming about the secretary. Lindsey Graham asked us to throw out legally cast ballots. So yeah, after that call, we decided maybe we should do this.”
The call took place Saturday afternoon. “Mr. President,” announced Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, at the top of the call, “everyone is on the line.” Little did he know. Trump made his ask and did most of the talking for the next hour, trafficking in the same conspiracy theories about election fraud that no court or criminal investigator has found credible. At the end of the call, Trump complains, “What a schmuck I was.”
Raffensperger’s team kept quiet about the call and the recording and waited. The president made the next move, claiming on Sunday morning via Twitter that Raffensperger was “unwilling, or unable, to answer” questions about his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true,” Raffensperger replied at 10:27 a.m. “The truth will come out.” It wasn’t an empty promise.
You can listen to the full one hour call here and read the transcript here.
At one point in the call, he claims that he won Georgia by half a million votes! The man is out of his mind.
The head of the Georgia GOP is angry with the secretary of state for releasing the recording.
Hahahahaha. Id be angry too if I was in his position as the head trump toadie in georgia. We already know trump is a liar, a grifter, a con man, a traitor. None of this is new and nothing will come of it. Lots of huffing and puffing and threats of blowing houses down, but nothing will come of it. If it does I will be a blue eyed sloan.
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/georgia-recording-law#:~:text=Georgia's%20wiretapping%20law%20is%20a,party%20to%20the%20conversation%20consents.
So, as long as one party of the conversation consents to the recording, it is legal to record. And since Raffensperger was one of the members of the phone conversation, it was legal to do so.
Recording the call to protect yourself because you know the other party will lie his ass off? That sounds like the kind of argument a conservative would make. Stand Your Ground!
@2: Yes, it is legal. In Georgia. Recording laws vary from state to state though, so anyone considering following suit should check their local situation.
re Reginald Selkirk @4: Since the post was about Raffensperger and the state of Georgia, I quoted the law as it stands in Georgia. Of course anyone who plans to record a conversation should check the laws in which they plan to make the recording. I did not mean to imply that it was a universal law, so if you read it that way, I apologize for being unclear.
re @5: should check the laws in the state in which they plan to make the recording.
At the end of the call, Trump complains, “What a schmuck I was.”
Sounds way out of character.
Has anybody checked to see whether it was really Borat on the line with Raffensperger?
I just realized that if Trump hadn’t lied then this tape would not have been published.
Else said Raffensperger is OK with Trump trying to steal the election but not OK with his named being dragged through the mud.