Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Monday that a phone call from President Donald Trump to put political pressure on the secretary of state of Georgia was “not a helpful call.”
“One of the things I think that everyone has said is that this call was not a helpful call,” Blackburn told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
President Donald Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to find” sufficient votes for Trump to win the state in a recount, a phone conversation obtained by the Washington Post relates. (RELATED: Ted Cruz On Election Audit: Dismissing Election Fraud Claims ‘Does Real Violence To Our Democratic System’)
“I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump can be heard telling told Raffensperger during the Jan. 2 conversation, according to WaPo.
Blackburn is part of a coalition of Republican senators who want a special commission to audit the 2020 election for potential voter fraud. She and 10 other Republican senators announced Saturday that they would oppose the Electoral College certification of President-elect Joe Biden when a new Congress first meets on Jan. 6.
The senators’ announcement comes after Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Dec. 30 that he planned to oppose certification.
Trump’s words have not deterred Blackburn from supporting an audit of the election.
“One of the things you have heard us talk about with our coalition that is looking at election integrity is sending this issue back to the states. The states are the ones who are going to resolve this issue,” Blackburn said.
The senator said it was imperative for the states to do so because “we do not have federalized elections in the country. We do not want federalized elections in this country.”
Blackburn noted that the potential job of assessing election integrity would “be up to these state legislatures and these elected officials” and not to unelected or appointed officials. She called that task a “Constitutional responsibility.” (RELATED: Here’s What Happens When Congress Votes To Certify The Election On Jan. 6)
President Donald Trump walks to the Oval Office while arriving back at the White House on December 31, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Federal election officials have continued to deny allegations of widespread voter fraud raised by President Donald Trump’s campaign after issuing a Nov. 12 statement that called the 2020 election the “most secure in American history.”
The Trump campaign and Republican surrogates have filed around 40 lawsuits trying to overturn the election results since Nov. 3 without winning a single one for lack of evidence. The Washington Post reported that 86 judges going all the way from state courts to the U.S. Supreme Court have thrown out legal challenges from the Trump campaign.