House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) insists that President Donald Trump is concerned about election integrity, after he was heard in leaked audio of a phone call pressuring election officials to “find” votes for him in Georgia.
McCarthy was asked during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” what he made of the call. He said, “The president’s always been concerned about the integrity of the election, and the president believes that there are things that happened in Georgia, and he wants to see the accountability for it.”
“Does anybody in America think the last election was done well?” he asked.
He continued to note that there are two House elections that are yet to be called, more than two months after the November 3 general election.
“What has happened here in this last election because of COVID, people just sending ballots out to anyone who’s on the rolls. These rolls have not been cleaned up,” McCarthy argued.
Watch the video below:
The Washington Post released audio of a call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Sunday where the president could be heard asking the state’s election officials to “find 11,780” votes for him so he could win the state.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state,” Trump said.
He also claimed, “There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
Throughout the duration of the call, Trump noted a series of debunked allegations of widespread fraud — which Raffensperger denied. Despite the president’s allegations, there has been no evidence to support his claim of widespread election malfeasance.
The release of the audio of the call has led to calls for an investigation.
Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to “open an investigation into Mr. Trump.”
“As Members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes. We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the President,” the lawmakers wrote.
