On Thursday, former president Donald Trump was formally arrested for numerous crimes spelled out in a detailed indictment from a Fulton County grand jury. The alleged crimes all relate to attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Unlike Trump’s other three indictments and arrests, this one has special significance to me, because mine was one of the 2,473,633 votes that Trump tried to invalidate. For that reason, I was especially glad to see Donald Trump processed like any other person who commits serious crimes in our state.
And regardless of whether he is eventually convicted of any of the charges against him, I have no doubts that the indictments and his arrest were completely justified. I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears more than ample evidence of his attempts to invalidate my vote and the votes of more than 2 million other Georgians.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
As usual, Trump has responded to the Georgia charges by attacking the prosecutors and the legal system. He can’t help himself. His narcissism won’t permit acknowledgment of wrongdoing, or even worse, of losing. That is just who he is, and because I never expect him to get better, he never disappoints.
I cannot say the same, however, for those Georgians who are still defending the former president, claiming that the Georgia indictment is just another witch hunt. They very much disappoint me, because their support of Trump means that people who I likely know well – friends, neighbors and even family members - believe it was perfectly okay for a sitting president of the United States to attempt to take away the votes of millions of Georgians, including mine.
It is one thing to excuse friends and neighbors for believing their political hero when he makes general claims of “widespread voter fraud.” It is another thing, entirely, to excuse them for claiming to believe the unbelievable. All Georgians have seen and heard the same overwhelming evidence as I — evidence that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that there was no election fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia. And no honest person with eyes and ears could ever ignore the clear evidence of Trump’s own attempts to commit fraud after the election.
On December 3, 2020, his attorney, Rudy Giuliani made false statements to a State Senate committee about election fraud and told the committee that the Georgia legislature had the authority to ignore the votes of Georgia citizens and choose to send a slate of electors pledged to Donald Trump, rather than the actual winner, Joe Biden.
On December 14, 2020, 16 “fake” Republican electors met in the state capitol in yet another attempt to change the results of the election. This attempted election fraud has also been televised for all to see.
On January 3rd, Donald Trump made his infamous call to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State, and asked him to “find” 11,780 votes – “one more than we have (need).” Is there anyone in Georgia who has not heard this call replayed numerous times?
And finally, on January 6, after all other attempts to fraudulently take away the votes of more than 2 million Georgians, Trump tried one last ploy – an attack on the U.S. Capitol building to delay the counting of the Electoral College votes. All Georgians have probably seen that video dozens of times.
All of these attempts at fraud were made well after November 19, 2020, when Raffensperger certified Joe Biden as the winner of Georgia’s popular vote and therefore entitled to Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes. And, let me remind my fellow Georgia Trump supporters that the votes in Georgia were counted three separate times, including once by hand.
After the three counts, the Secretary of State, the Georgia Attorney General, the Lt. Governor and the Governor – all Republicans — agreed that there was no meaningful election fraud, and that Joe Biden was the winner.
I don’t understand how any Georgia Republican could continue to support Donald Trump after what he tried to do in our state. They have seen the attempts to put up fake electors. They heard the plea for 11,780 votes. And they witnessed the chaos and violence that Trump did nothing to prevent on January 6.
To those Georgians who persist in claiming that Donald Trump did not deserve to be indicted, because he did nothing wrong, let me be clear. He did one of the worse things any president of the United States could do. He tried to invalidate the votes of many of your friends, family and neighbors. That should bother you.
After teaching high school American history and government for 11 years, Lee Raudonis worked with Republican Paul Coverdell in the Georgia Senate and later with a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served as the executive director of the Georgia Republican Party in 1988.
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