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Georgia Call: Trump Pressured Secretary of State to 'Find' Votes to Overturn Election

Trump spent approximately an hour on the call with Raffensperger, his deputy, and Trump's attorneys, pressing Raffensperger to reverse Georgia's certified presidential election results. He made multiple false claims about fraud that Raffensperger repeatedly corrected in real time. Trump told Raffensperger 'there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you've recalculated' and that finding 11,780 votes would put Trump ahead in Georgia. Raffensperger refused. The call recording was published; Trump's Georgia indictment in August 2023 cited it as a central piece of evidence.

Record summary

Grade

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Systematic actions that undermine fundamental constitutional or international legal protections at the structural level. Scale and definitions

Status
Ongoing
Incident date
Record updated
Location
Atlanta, GA / Washington, D.C.
Category
Rule of Law
Legal posture
Active litigation
War-crime classification
Enabling conduct
Verification
Independently verified
ICC relevance
No
Sources
4 cited
Stable ID
trump-raffensperger-georgia-call-find-votes
Victims
Democratic processes; Georgia voters whose certified election results were subject to pressure to be reversed; election officials threatened with criminal liability for refusing to reverse results
Alleged responsible parties
  • Donald Trump, President; personally called Secretary of State to demand vote reversal— White House
  • Mark Meadows, Chief of Staff; participated in the call; later indicted— White House

Key points

  • Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and several Trump attorneys on the line; Raffensperger was accompanied by his deputy and legal counsel
  • Trump explicitly asked Raffensperger to 'find 11,780 votes' — the number needed to overcome Biden's certified margin of victory in Georgia; he told Raffensperger 'there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you've recalculated'
  • Trump made threats: he told Raffensperger he was taking a 'big risk' and suggested that Raffensperger and his attorney could face criminal liability for not finding the votes; Raffensperger corrected Trump's fraud claims point by point
  • The call was recorded; Raffensperger's office published a partial transcript and recording after Trump publicly mischaracterized the call on Twitter the next day; the Washington Post published the full audio
  • In August 2023, Fulton County DA Fani Willis indicted Trump and 18 others on 41 counts including violations of Georgia's RICO statute; the Raffensperger call was cited as central evidence; Trump faced 13 counts
  • The case has been significantly delayed by pretrial appeals and by the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling (July 2024), which required the trial court to determine which conduct was covered by official acts immunity

Overview

The phone call is approximately an hour long. There is a recording. Trump asks Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes — one more than Biden's margin. He makes threats. Raffensperger says no. This happened on January 2, 2021, 18 days before the end of Trump's first term.

The Exchange

The call is documented in full. Trump made claims about fraud — specific numbers of invalid votes, dead voters, ballot stuffing. Raffensperger and his team corrected each claim in real time. Trump continued making the same claims after they were corrected.

Trump told Raffensperger there was nothing wrong with saying he had "recalculated." Raffensperger said there was nothing to recalculate.

Trump told Raffensperger he was taking a "big risk." He suggested Raffensperger and his attorney could face criminal liability. Raffensperger still refused.

Why the Recording Matters

Trump, the next morning, tweeted that Raffensperger had refused to answer his questions and been unwilling to discuss fraud. This was false — the entire call had been a discussion of fraud claims that Raffensperger had answered and corrected.

Raffensperger's office published the recording. It demonstrated, in Trump's own words on audio, that his tweet was false and that the call's content was what Raffensperger described.

The Indictment

Fulton County DA Fani Willis used the call as central evidence in a RICO indictment that charged Trump and 18 co-conspirators with participating in a criminal enterprise to overturn Georgia's election. The call demonstrated both the goal (finding specific votes) and the method (pressure, threats, false claims).

Several co-defendants pleaded guilty. Trump's case remains in pretrial proceedings.

Update log

  1. Updated with case status and immunity appeal delays.

Sequence of events

  1. Trump calls Raffensperger — find 11,780 votes

    Trump calls Raffensperger and over approximately one hour asks him to find votes, make false fraud claims, and threatens him with criminal liability for refusing. Raffensperger refuses. The call is recorded.

  2. Trump tweets mischaracterizing the call; Raffensperger publishes recording

    Trump tweets that Raffensperger refused to discuss fraud and that he was 'unwilling' to answer questions. Raffensperger's office responds by publishing the recording and transcript, demonstrating Trump's characterization was false.

  3. Grand jury indicts Trump and 18 others on RICO charges

    Fulton County DA Fani Willis secures a 41-count indictment against Trump and 18 others for their efforts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results. Trump faces 13 counts including racketeering under Georgia RICO statute.

  4. Case delayed by immunity and disqualification appeals

    The case remains on hold as appellate courts consider: (1) whether Trump's conduct is covered by presidential immunity after the Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling, and (2) whether DA Fani Willis should be disqualified following revelations about her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

Sources

  1. Full Transcript: Trump's Jan. 2 Phone Call With Georgia Secretary of State — The New York Times
  2. Read the full transcript of Trump's phone call with Georgia Secretary of State — The Washington Post
  3. Trump indicted in Georgia over 2020 election interference — The Associated Press
  4. State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump et al. — Indictment — Fulton County Superior Court

How this record was published

Manually curated This entry was added directly and does not carry an automated audit trail.

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