Georgia’s Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan (R) maintains that President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the state’s top elections officials to “find” votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory are improper.
During an appearance on CNN’s “New Day” Monday, Duncan described Trump’s recent call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) as “inappropriate” and a “misuse of energy towards trying to get” the state’s two Republican incumbent senators reelected.
He was also asked if he believes Trump’s phone call with the Georgia secretary of state should be referred to Georgia’s attorney general for investigation.
“I’m not an attorney, Alisyn, and so I’ll let the attorneys figure that out,” Duncan said. “I am 100% certified to tell you that it was inappropriate, and it certainly did not help the situation.”
He continued, “It was based on misinformation. It was based on all types of theories that have been debunked and disproved over the course of the last 10 weeks.”
Watch the video below:
Trump’s audio call with Georgia secretary of state “was inappropriate,” Georgia Lt. Gov. @GeoffDuncanGA says. “It was based on misinformation. It was based on … theories that have been debunked and disproved over the course of the last 10 weeks.”https://t.co/rk9DWBOtzY pic.twitter.com/Nt778GEPuj
— New Day (@NewDay) January 4, 2021
While Duncan did not explicitly say whether he believes the call should be investigated, Raffensperger suggested that it could be investigated.
During Monday’s appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Raffensperger said his office would not investigate the call due to potential conflicts of interest.
However, he said, “I understand that the Fulton County District Attorney wants to look at it. Maybe that’s the appropriate venue for it to go.”
In an audio clip of Trump’s phone call with Raffensperger, published by The Washington Post on Sunday, the president can be heard asking the secretary of state to “find” enough votes for him to change the state’s election results.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump said.
He later added, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”
Biden won the state by 11,779, one less than the number of votes Trump asked Raffensperger to “find,” and became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in more than 20 years.
During the phone call with Trump, Raffensperger can be heard firmly defending the state’s election integrity against Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud.