Former President Donald Trump is still trying to overturn the 2020 election results, more than nine months after his defeat – and the day before a planned rally in support of the various people responsible for the deadly January 6 uprising in the U.S. Capitol are indicted.
On Friday, the former president sent a letter to Georgia’s Foreign Secretary Brad Raffensperger alleging further allegations of electoral fraud – although thorough efforts to uncover suspected electoral fraud in the state and across the country have been unsuccessful. Republican officials who oversaw the elections have repeatedly said that Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in Georgia are false.
In Friday’s cable, Trump quoted a post on Georgia Star News, a pro-Trump website launched in the days after the November election and part of a wider network of pro-Trump websites. Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, described the site as “very populist,” “very nationalist,” and “very MAGA,” NPR reported.
The website claims that it received documents in response to an open request showing that more than 43,000 ballots were improperly processed by DeKalb County.
“That’s an absurd claim,” Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science at Emory University, told HuffPost.
“The results in DeKalb were completely in line with the results in other districts in Georgia and with the results of previous elections in DeKalb,” Abramowitz wrote in an email. “A disparity of this magnitude would be very obvious.”
Nonetheless, Trump urged the Secretary of State to look into the claim, writing that Raffensperger and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) are “doing a tremendous disservice to the great state of Georgia and our nation, which is being systematically destroyed.” by an illegitimate president. “
Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After the 2020 elections, Trump repeatedly attacked Raffensperger and Kemp while trying to hold onto the presidency. He went so far as to harass Raffensperger to tilt the election results in his favor, and said in a telephone conversation with Raffensperger and other officials on Jan.[ed] 11,780 votes to be found. “
The story goes on
Raffensperger did not give in to Trump’s demands and told the president at the time: “We don’t think you won.” Just days later, Trump held a rally in front of the White House that frenzied his supporters and sparked the massive uprising on Capitol Hill that killed several people.
A rally in support of the hundreds of people charged with various crimes in connection with the riot is scheduled for Saturday in Washington, DC, where law enforcement is already stepping up security as a precaution.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.