Nearly 100 Democratic members of the House have signaled their support for censuring President Trump for his phone call with the Georgia secretary of state, in which the president pressured him to find additional votes to change the election outcome.
Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia introduced the resolution to censure the president on Monday, and 91 other Democrats have signed onto it, according to his office. Johnson has called for the president to resign over the phone call.
In the text of the censuring resolution, the members of Congress accused Trump of having “misused the power of his office by threatening an elected official with vague criminal consequences if he failed to pursue the president’s false claims.” They alleged that the president’s actions were “an attempt to willfully deprive the citizens of Georgia of a fair and impartial election process.”
Its resolution affirms that Biden won the election and called on Trump to “retract and disavow this unlawful and unconstitutional behavior.”
In an hourlong phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, among others on the call with both politicians, the president did most of the talking and offered theories that have not been substantiated to support his demands for the Georgia official to “find” more than 11,000 additional votes for him to overturn the result.
The president also mentioned a vague threat of possible criminal liability if they don’t follow through with the president’s request.
Ted Lieu, one of the House Democrats who signed onto the censure resolution, wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray urging him to launch a criminal investigation into the phone call. He, along with Rep. Kathleen Rice, wrote, “The evidence of election fraud by Mr. Trump is now in broad daylight.”
Raffensperger noted on Monday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis might launch her own investigation into whether the president broke any laws. Willis, in response, said that if the secretary’s Election Division investigates the call and refers the case to her office, she will look into it.
