Donald Trump Pressured Michigan Election Officials Not to Certify the 2020 Election — and It Was Caught on Tape: Report

Mar. 15, 2025

Donald Trump.Photo:Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The outlet published a story on Thursday with echoes of a similar situation in Fulton County, Ga. — where Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in Jan. 2021 to demand he “find 11,780 votes” to change the electoral outcome in his favor after Joe Biden was determined to have won the state.

The outlet reports that the phone call also included Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who said on the call, “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”

Trump, the outlet reports, added: “We’ll take care of that.”

The two canvassers — Monica Palmer and William Hartmann — ultimately refused that night to certify the votes cast in Wayne County, which is Michigan’s largest. The move made it impossible for the county to officially declare the winner of the election that night. Later, the two relented after increasing pressure.

The recorded call is likely to figure into the federal investigation of Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The indictment alleges that Trump, after losing the 2020 presidential election, “was determined to remain in power.” The indictment also lists several unnamed co-conspirators, including four attorneys, a Justice Department official, and a political consultant who “helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification” of votes.

“So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” it reads.

The Georgia investigation also hinges on Trump and his allies' behavior following hisloss of the popular vote inthe state, and on the call he made to Raffensperger to demand he “find 11,780 votes” to change the outcome.

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Thetwice-impeachedformer president has been indicted four times over the past year — the first one making him the only U.S. president to face criminal charges, and the next two further distinguishing him as the only president to face federal charges.

source: people.com