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      Georgia prosecutors launch criminal investigation into Trump election phone call

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      Prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, are investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the southern state’s 2020 presidential election results, according to a letter, in the second criminal investigation faced by the former president.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has sent a letter asking state government officials to preserve documents, including those related to the then president’s call to the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, pressuring him to “find” more votes.“This matter is of high priority, and I am confident that as fellow law enforcement officers sworn to uphold the constitutions of the United States and Georgia, our acquisition of information and evidence of potential crimes via interviews, documents, videos and electronic records will be cooperative,” said the letter dated 10 February.“This letter is notification that all records potentially related to the administration of the 2020 general election must be preserved, with particular care being given to set aside and preserve those that may be evidence of attempts to influence the actions of persons who were administering that election.“Representatives for the county prosecutor’s office and for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.On Monday, Raffensperger’s office opened its own investigation into Trump’s 2 January phone call pressuring him to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 3 November victory in the state, based on unfounded voter fraud claims by the Trump team. Raffensperger said any further legal efforts would be up to the state’s attorney general.The New York Times first reported the investigation.Trump also faces criminal and civil fraud investigations in New York, with an ongoing crime inquiry into his finances by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, and a civil investigation by New York attorney general, Letitia James.The announcement of the Georgia investigation is important for Willis, who is new to the post.She is the first African American woman to hold the job in Georgia’s most populous county, the New York Times further reported, and has promised reforms.Willis is tackling high homicide numbers in Atlanta as well as a review of the handling of the police killing of Rayshard Brooks, last June. More

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      Georgia opens investigation into Trump effort to overturn election results

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      The Georgia secretary of state’s office opened an investigation on Monday into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, according to a new report.The office of Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, had faced calls to open an investigation after Trump was recorded in a 2 January phone call pressuring Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results based on unfounded voter fraud claims.“The secretary of state’s office investigates complaints it receives,” said Walter Jones, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, describing the investigation as “fact-finding and administrative”, Reuters reported.“Any further legal efforts will be left to the attorney general,” he said.Legal experts said Trump’s phone calls might have violated at least three state criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, and intentional interference with performance of election duties.The felony and misdemeanor violations are punishable by fines or imprisonment.In the 2 January phone call, Trump urged Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn his Georgia loss to Joe Biden.The transcript quotes Trump telling Raffensperger: “All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” which is the number Trump needed to win.Trump made another phone call in December to Georgia’s chief elections investigator, Raffensperger’s office told Reuters.Additionally, two Democratic members of Congress – Kathleen Rice, of New York, and Ted Lieu, of California – have asked in a 4 January letter to the FBI for a criminal investigation into Trump’s call to Raffensperger.On 6 January – the day of the US Capitol riots – Trump bragged about the call in a speech to supporters: “People love that conversation because it says what’s going on,* he said. “These people are crooked.”The push for investigations is one illustration of the legal perils facing Trump since he lost the constitutional protections that shield sitting presidents from prosecution.Trump now faces nearly a dozen legal battles, including a criminal inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, into his business dealings, and several civil lawsuits.Trump has described the investigations into his family business as politically motivated.David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s state election board, had planned to introduce a motion at Wednesday’s board meeting urging the state attorney general, Chris Carr, and Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, to open a criminal investigation into Trump’s phone calls with election officials.He said such a move would be unnecessary if the secretary of state’s office had opened an investigation. “If they’ve done this, I won’t need to make my motion,” Worley said.“This is the normal thing that should happen when a complaint is filed. If a complaint is filed, an investigation is started. That’s how it works.” More

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      Georgia Officials Review Trump's Phone Call to Raffensperger

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Officials Review Trump Phone Call as Scrutiny IntensifiesThe office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has initiated a fact-finding inquiry into Donald Trump’s January phone call to Mr. Raffensperger pressuring him to “find” votes.Former President Donald J. Trump boarding Air Force One on Jan. 12. He made several attempts to pressure top Republican officials in Georgia to help reverse the outcome of the election.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesRichard Fausset and Feb. 8, 2021Updated 5:33 p.m. ETATLANTA — The office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Monday started an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s election results, including a phone call he made to Mr. Raffensperger in which Mr. Trump pressured him to “find” enough votes to reverse his loss.Such inquiries are “fact-finding and administrative in nature,” the secretary’s office said, and are a routine step when complaints are received about electoral matters. Findings are typically brought before the Republican-controlled state board of elections, which decides whether to refer them for prosecution to the state attorney general or another agency.The move comes as Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, is weighing whether to begin a criminal inquiry of her own. A spokesman for Ms. Willis declined to comment on Monday.The January call was one of several attempts Mr. Trump made to try to persuade top Republican officials in the state to uncover instances of voting fraud that might change the outcome, despite the insistence of voting officials that there was no widespread fraud to be found. He also called Gov. Brian Kemp in early December and pressured him to call a special legislative session to overturn his election loss. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and pressed the official to “find the fraud,” according to those with knowledge of the call.“The Secretary of State’s office investigates complaints it receives,” Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office, said in a statement on Monday. “The investigations are fact-finding and administrative in nature. Any further legal efforts will be left to the Attorney General.” David Worley, the sole Democrat on the state elections board, said Monday that administrative inquiries by the secretary of state’s office could result in criminal charges. “Any investigation of a statutory violation is a potential criminal investigation depending on the statute involved,” he said, adding that in the case of Mr. Trump, “The complaint that was received involved a criminal violation.” Mr. Worley said that now that an inquiry had been started by the secretary of state’s office, he would not introduce a motion at Wednesday’s state board of election meeting, as he had originally planned to do, in an effort to refer the case to the Fulton County district attorney’s office.Not long after the call to Mr. Raffensperger became public, several complaints were filed. One came from John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University law professor. Former prosecutors said Mr. Trump’s calls might run afoul of at least three state laws. One is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, which can be either a felony or a misdemeanor; as a felony, it is punishable by at least a year in prison. There is also a related conspiracy charge, which can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony. A third law, a misdemeanor offense, bars “intentional interference” with another person’s “performance of election duties.”Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, said in a statement: “There was nothing improper or untoward about a scheduled call between President Trump, Secretary Raffensperger and lawyers on both sides. If Mr. Raffensperger didn’t want to receive calls about the election, he shouldn’t have run for secretary of state.” Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia was reaffirmed after election officials recertified the state’s presidential election results in three separate counts of the ballots: the initial election tally; a hand recount ordered by the state; and another recount, which was requested by Mr. Trump’s campaign and completed by machines. The results of the machine recount show Mr. Biden won with a lead of about 12,000 votes.Mr. Biden was the first Democrat to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger, both Republicans, of not doing enough to help him overturn the result in the weeks after the election. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger had each resisted numerous attacks from Mr. Trump, who called the governor “hapless” and called on the secretary of state to resign.Maggie Haberman More

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      Republican leaders to meet with Marjorie Taylor Greene amid calls for removal

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      Republican party leaders will meet with extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene next week as an ongoing crisis over her racist and bizarre political views continues to roil American politics.Meanwhile, Greene tweeted on Saturday that she had had a phone call with Donald Trump which she described as “great” and that she was “so grateful for his support” – probably cementing her position as a champion of the far-right Trumpist wing of the party.Greene, who has in the past expressed support for the racist QAnon conspiracy movement, has been the subject of a number of media reports revealing her past posts on social media that support or promote a range of fringe, violent and bigoted ideas.Some important outside groups have demanded the Republican party condemn her and Democrats are pushing for Greene’s removal from Congress or at the very least that she be taken off the important committees that she’s been given positions on.Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader, will now sit down for a conversation with Greene next week, his office said. But Republican leaders have so far offered no meaningful condemnation of Greene or indication that they will take action against her.Greene herself has remained angrily defiant in the face of the criticism, though her Facebook profile has had many posts removed. “I will never back down. I will never give up,” she said in a statement on Friday.Since arriving in Congress Greene has become a symbol of how far to the right much of the Republican party moved under Donald Trump and the continued influence of extremists in its ranks, especially after the 6 January attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Democratic congresswoman Cori Bush said Friday she is moving her office away from Greene due to safety concerns after Greene and her staff berated her and refused to wear masks. Bush told MSNBC she is moving her office, “not because I’m scared” of Greene, “because I am here to do a job for the people of St​ Louis”.“What I cannot do is continue to look over my shoulder wondering if a white supremacist in Congress, by the name of Marjorie Taylor Greene … is conspiring against us,” she said.Calls for action against Greene have grown louder as more and more reports have emerged of her extreme views, In past social media posts uncovered by CNN, Greene indicated support for executing Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In a 2018 Facebook post reported by MediaMatters, she echoed conspiracy theories that the wildfires that ravaged California that year were caused by a laser from space triggered by a group of Democratic politicians and companies for financial gain.In a 2019 confrontation with survivors of the Parkland mass shooting documented on tape, she appeared to accost the students and later echoed conspiracy claims that mass shooting survivors and family members of victims are “crisis actors” and the attacks that killed their loved ones were staged as a plot to pass gun control laws.Some of her views embrace antisemitic tropes and that has prompted some Republican Jewish groups to speak out against her.The Republican Jewish Coalition said on Friday it is working with part leaders on “next steps” and noted that it opposed Greene’s 2020 election because “she repeatedly used offensive language in long online video diatribes” and “promoted bizarre political conspiracy theories”.Meanwhile the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations – which includes major conservative Jewish groups groups like AIPAC and American Friends of Likud among the 53 Jewish groups its represents – issued a strongly worded condemnation and call for action.The group said Greene was spreading “baseless hate against the Jewish people” and called for a “swift and commensurate” response from political leaders.Elsewhere the Human Rights Campaign has called for McCarthy to remove Greene from her committee assignments.“There must be consequences for her actions. The Human Rights Campaign calls on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to hold her accountable and remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from all her assigned Congressional committees at the very least,” said HRC President Alphonso David. More

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      No action taken against Republican who indicated support for executing Pelosi

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      Republican leadership in the House of Representatives took no immediate action against Marjorie Taylor Greene after the Georgia congresswoman was revealed to have indicated support for executing Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.On Wednesday morning, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, had said only that he “planned to have a conversation” with Greene.The congresswoman’s committee assignments have not yet been announced. Greene has said she will sit on the education panel.On Tuesday, CNN reported actions by Greene on social media in 2018 and 2019. In one, she “liked” a comment on a discussion of how to remove Pelosi, the House Speaker, which said “a bullet to the head would be quicker”.Greene also liked comments about executing FBI agents for being part of the “Deep State”. That conspiracy theory holds that bureaucrats and intelligence agents worked to thwart Donald Trump. A key propagator, the former White House strategist Steve Bannon, has said the theory is for “nut cases”.CNN also reported that in 2018, in an answer to a commenter on her own post about the Iran nuclear deal who asked “now do we get to hang” Obama and Clinton, Greene wrote: “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”On Wednesday, Clinton said: “This woman should be on a watch list. Not in Congress.”Greene replied: “Actually, you should be in jail.”Among other comments made by Greene before she was elected unopposed in Georgia’s 14th district last year include: the 9/11 attacks were a US government operation; the Parkland school shooting was staged; and Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulted and murdered a child, drank their blood, cut their face off and wore it as a mask.CNN also reported previous comments by Greene accusing Pelosi of treason and implying she should be executed for opposing Trump immigration policies.In a statement, Greene did not deny the actions or comments but said CNN was trying “to cancel me and silence my voice”.“Cancel culture” or “silencing”, the supposed negation of rightwing voices in mainstream media and academia, is a new shibboleth of post-Trump conservatism.Senior House Republicans including McCarthy condemned Greene before she won her seat. Leadership has taken action against members who expressed extreme views. Steve King of Iowa, repeatedly reprimanded for racist remarks, was stripped of committee assignments and lost a primary.King predicted McCarthy would use him as an example to keep Greene in line. But Greene has entered Congress in a party beholden to Trump, even after he stoked the 6 January attack on the Capitol in which five people died, one a police officer struck with a fire extinguisher, and lawmakers hid from rioters hoping to kidnap or kill them.In November, McCarthy said the press should give new members like Greene “an opportunity before you claim what you believe they have done and what they will do”. Greene has defended Trump over the Capitol attack, which she said she condemned, though she also falsely sought to apportion blame to Democrats and “Antifa/BLM terrorism”, referring to anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter protesters.The attack resulted in Trump’s second impeachment, though on Tuesday 45 Republican senators voted against even holding a trial.Amid fallout from the CNN report, a spokesman for McCarthy told Axios: “These comments are deeply disturbing and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the congresswoman about them.”On Wednesday, footage resurfaced of Greene harassing David Hogg, a Parkland survivor who campaigns for gun control reform, on a Washington DC street. Greene posted the video to YouTube on 21 January 2020.Hogg wrote: “It’s so frustrating that we have people like Greene in Congress that would rather spread conspiracies about mass shootings than confront the reality people are dying every day from gun violence.”At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if the Biden administration had any response or thought Greene should be subject to disciplinary action.“We don’t [have comment],” Psaki said. “And I’m not gonna speak further about her, I think, in this briefing room.” More

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      How Alvin the Beagle Helped Usher In a Democratic Senate

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Alvin the Beagle Helped Usher In a Democratic SenateSenator Raphael Warnock was sworn in this week as Georgia’s first Black senator, and he arrived with a canny canine assist.Senator Raphael Warnock and Alvin the beagle during the production of his campaign ad.Credit…Warnock for GeorgiaPublished More

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      Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting AG

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney GeneralTrying to find another avenue to push his baseless election claims, Donald Trump considered installing a loyalist, and had the men make their cases to him.Jeffrey Clark, who led the Justice Department’s civil division, had been working with President Donald J. Trump to devise ways to cast doubt on the election results.Credit…Susan Walsh/Associated PressJan. 22, 2021Updated 8:50 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?The answer was unanimous. They would resign.Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.The previously unknown chapter was the culmination of the president’s long-running effort to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda. He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.This account of the department’s final days under Mr. Trump’s leadership is based on interviews with four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.Mr. Clark said that this account contained inaccuracies but did not specify, adding that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers. “Senior Justice Department lawyers, not uncommonly, provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he said. “All my official communications were consistent with law.”Mr. Clark also noted that he was the lead signatory on a Justice Department request last month asking a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the election.Mr. Trump declined to comment. An adviser said that Mr. Trump has consistently argued that the justice system should investigate “rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years.”The adviser added that “any assertion to the contrary is false and being driven by those who wish to keep the system broken.”A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Mr. Rosen. When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day. He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm.(Dominion has sued the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who inserted those accusations into four federal lawsuits about voter irregularities that were all dismissed.)Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.As Mr. Rosen and the deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, pushed back, they were unaware that Mr. Clark had been introduced to Mr. Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and had told the president that he agreed that fraud had affected the election results.Election workers performing a recount in Atlanta in November. Mr. Trump focused on Georgia’s election outcome after he lost the state.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Trump quickly embraced Mr. Clark, who had been appointed the acting head of the civil division in September and was also the head of the department’s environmental and natural resources division.As December wore on, Mr. Clark mentioned to Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue that he spent a lot of time reading on the internet — a comment that alarmed them because they inferred that he believed the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Clark also told them that he wanted the department to hold a news conference announcing that it was investigating serious accusations of election fraud. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue rejected the proposal.As Mr. Trump focused increasingly on Georgia, a state he lost narrowly to Mr. Biden, he complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was now fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it, according to two people familiar with the conversation.That conversation and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him votes compelled Mr. Pak to abruptly resign this month.Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators that wrongly said that the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win there.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue again rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal.On New Year’s Eve, the trio met to discuss Mr. Clark’s refusal to hew to the department’s conclusion that the election results were valid. Mr. Donoghue flatly told Mr. Clark that what he was doing was wrong. The next day, Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen — who had mentored him while they worked together at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis — that he was going to discuss his strategy with the president early the next week, just before Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.Unbeknown to the acting attorney general, Mr. Clark’s timeline moved up. He met with Mr. Trump over the weekend, then informed Mr. Rosen midday on Sunday that the president intended to replace him with Mr. Clark, who could then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He said that Mr. Rosen could stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Mr. Rosen speechless.Unwilling to step down without a fight, Mr. Rosen said that he needed to hear straight from Mr. Trump and worked with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, to convene a meeting for early that evening.Mr. Clark asked Mr. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting attorney general.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York TimesEven as Mr. Clark’s pronouncement was sinking in, stunning news broke out of Georgia: State officials had recorded an hourlong call, published by The Washington Post, during which Mr. Trump pressured them to manufacture enough votes to declare him the victor. As the fallout from the recording ricocheted through Washington, the president’s desperate bid to change the outcome in Georgia came into sharp focus.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue pressed ahead, informing Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, about Mr. Clark’s latest maneuver. Mr. Donoghue convened a late-afternoon call with the department’s remaining senior leaders, laying out Mr. Clark’s efforts to replace Mr. Rosen.Mr. Rosen planned to soon head to the White House to discuss his fate, Mr. Donoghue told the group. Should Mr. Rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. For some, the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.The Clark plan, the officials concluded, would seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law. For hours, they anxiously messaged and called one another as they awaited Mr. Rosen’s fate.Around 6 p.m., Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Clark met at the White House with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin and other lawyers. Mr. Trump had Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark present their arguments to him.Mr. Cipollone advised the president not to fire Mr. Rosen and he reiterated, as he had for days, that he did not recommend sending the letter to Georgia lawmakers. Mr. Engel advised Mr. Trump that he and the department’s remaining top officials would resign if he fired Mr. Rosen, leaving Mr. Clark alone at the department.Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay.Mr. Rosen and his deputies concluded they had weathered the turmoil. Once Congress certified Mr. Biden’s victory, there would be little for them to do until they left along with Mr. Trump in two weeks.They began to exhale days later as the Electoral College certification at the Capitol got underway. And then they received word: The building had been breached.Maggie Haberman More

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      Georgia Certifies Senate Victories of Warnock and Ossoff

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Certifies Senate Victories of Warnock and OssoffThe certification by the secretary of state paves the way for Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock to be sworn in as senators.The Rev. Raphael Warnock, left, and Jon Ossoff thanked the crowd at a rally last month in Columbus, Ga.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesJan. 19, 2021Updated 6:07 p.m. ETATLANTA — Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Tuesday certified the runoff election victories of Senators-elect Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, setting in motion the formal legal process that will seat the two Democrats and give their party control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 2015.The swearing-in of Mr. Ossoff, Mr. Warnock and Alex Padilla, who will fill the California Senate seat left vacant by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, will create a 50-50 tie in the Senate, giving Democrats de facto control of the chamber because the tiebreaking vote will be held by Ms. Harris. She will be sworn in as vice president on Wednesday, and the three new Democratic senators are expected to be sworn in on Wednesday afternoon.Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who like Mr. Raffensperger is a Republican, also signed off on the certification of the races. Gabriel Sterling, a top official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, noted on Twitter last week that a representative of Georgia state government must then go to Washington to hand the certification documents over to the secretary of the Senate.Despite a flurry of recent drama and unfounded allegations of voter fraud in Georgia, there was little doubt that Mr. Raffensperger would eventually certify the results of the Jan. 5 contests in which Mr. Ossoff defeated David Perdue, a one-term Republican senator, and Mr. Warnock beat Kelly Loeffler, a Republican who was appointed to the Senate seat by Mr. Kemp in December 2019.The margins in both races were outside the half-percentage point threshold that allows the trailing candidate to demand a statewide recount under Georgia law. With about 4.4 million ballots cast, Mr. Ossoff won his race by about 55,000 votes, giving him a 1.22 percent lead, and Mr. Warnock won by about 93,000 votes, giving him a 2.08 percent lead, according to the secretary of state’s website.Those results stood in contrast to those of the Nov. 3 presidential election, in which Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump by a narrower margin that was well within the threshold, allowing Mr. Trump to demand a recount.The recount in the presidential race showed that Mr. Trump had indeed lost by about 12,000 votes. But that did not stop the president and his allies from continuing to vigorously press the unfounded allegation that he was the victim of a rigged election.That false narrative, which Mr. Trump pursued in failed court cases and in campaign appearances, quite likely ended up helping the two Democratic Senate candidates by depressing turnout in Georgia among those supporters of the president who saw no reason to vote in an electoral system that he was constantly maligning as untrustworthy.The two Senate races presented a rare and remarkable drama in American politics, given Mr. Trump’s recalcitrance, Mr. Biden’s triumph and the effect that control of the Senate would most likely have on Mr. Biden’s initial policy agenda. Outside money poured into Georgia, making for the most expensive Senate races in U.S. history. Mr. Trump flew to the state and held big, well-attended rallies for Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler. But his message of support was often overtaken by his compulsion to air grievances about his own election.The two Democrats vowed to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, support police reform and overhaul the national response to the coronavirus pandemic. The two Republicans darkly warned that Democratic victories would hasten a dangerous national slide into radical socialism.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More