House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said President Trump likely broke the law when he asked Georgia officials to find votes for him, and he said that the House is considering a censure of the president.
“This president is out of control,” Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters Tuesday. “This president has no respect for democracy. This president is acting in a way that no other president has acted, period.”
Hoyer said Trump’s Saturday phone call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find votes in his favor “may well be a violation of criminal law, both from a state and a federal perspective,” that authorities and Congress should consider.
“I think it will be subject to discussion,” Hoyer said when asked about how Congress would respond. “I haven’t seen it, but I believe that there are members talking about some type of censure resolution.”
Dozens of House Democrats have signed on to a censure resolution drafted by Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia.
Democratic leaders have not scheduled a vote on the measure.
The resolution states Trump’s call to Raffensperger was an attempt to overturn the election results and that the president “misused the power of his office” by vaguely threatening Raffensperger if he did not follow through.
Hoyer told reporters that the House does not plan to ignore Trump’s actions but declined to say specifically how or when it might respond.
“If that is found to have been a criminal attempt to entice, encourage, or threaten somebody to take actions, which are illegal themselves, then I think that there may well be liability on behalf of the president of the United States, which from my standpoint is not surprising,” Hoyer said. “So that I think both from Congress’s standpoint and from a legal perspective, the authorities ought to be looking at this very seriously, both federal and state authorities.”
Some Republicans have defended Trump’s call, arguing the president was raising legitimate questions about voting irregularities in the state, while others said the president’s actions were wrong.
Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican of Wyoming who serves as the party conference leader, said the president’s actions on the call were “deeply troubling.”
The House and Senate will convene a joint session Wednesday to count the election results from each state. Republicans in both chambers are expected to protest the results in six states, which could drag out the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory until Thursday.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn into office on Jan. 20.
