Back in November, shortly after he lost the 2020 election for the first of many times, we learned that Donald Trump had reportedly been asking aides if he could pardon himself and that he was particularly fascinated with the concept of issuing “pardons preemptively for things people could be charged with in the future.” While wildly unprecedented, the idea that Trump would be interested in basically giving himself a blanket get-out-of-jail-free card was far from surprising, given the numerous investigations into his financial dealings, including possible tax fraud, and his presumed desire to stay out of prison. And while it’s not clear at this time if Trump actually can issue a “self-pardon,” the question took on increased urgency this weekend, when tapes of him demanding Georgia’s Secretary of State “find” him enough votes to overturn the election or suffer the consequences were revealed.
During an hour-long conversation first reported by The Washington Post, Trump berated, begged, and threatened Brad Raffensperger, citing insane, fully debunked conspiracy theories in an astonishingly pathetic—even for him!—attempt to get the Georgia official to come up with 11,780 votes to put him ahead of Joe Biden‘s 11,779-vote margin. “The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry,” Trump said, explaining to Raffensperger and others on the call that “there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.” Except for the fact that, as the Secretary of State pointed out as though he was speaking to a small child, “Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.” Undeterred, Trump explained that what he was asking for—that is, for Raffensperger to commit fraud—wasn’t a big deal. “All I want to do is this,” he said. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.” He later added: “So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” When simply begging and pleading failed, Trump unsurprisingly turned to threats and what sure sounded like extortion, telling Raffensperger and the Secretary of State’s general counsel, Ryan Germany, that not coming up with the votes would be “a criminal offense,“ warning the two men, one of whom is an actual lawyer, “You can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you.”
Of course, of all the people on the call who should be worried about having committed “a criminal offense,” the Georgia official and his attorney are not among them. Rather, it’s Donald Trump who should probably be getting legal representation on the phone here, and if he can help it, he might want to get in touch with a real lawyer and not, say, Rudy Giuliani. Per the Post:
“The president is either knowingly attempting to coerce state officials into corrupting the integrity of the election or is so deluded that he believes what he’s saying,” constitutional law professor Richard Pildes told the Post. According to legal experts who spoke to Politico, Trump’s insistence that Raffensperger “find” an exact number of votes to put him ahead of Biden and the veiled threat of criminal liability could very well violate state and federal statutes. “I’ve charged extortion in mob cases with similar language,” said Daniel Goldman, the former prosecutor who worked on the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry in 2019.