Georgia secretary of state says Trump threw him under bus despite his support

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday lambasted President Donald Trump, saying that the commander in chief threw him under the bus although he voted for him.

“By all accounts, Georgia had a wildly successful and smooth election. We finally defeated voting lines and put behind us Fulton County’s now notorious reputation for disastrous elections,” Raffensperger wrote in a USA Today op-ed. “This should be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost — my family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him.”

The Republican, who has maintained there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state’s election, was attacked by Trump and GOP allies in the days leading up to Georgia’s certification of election results last week. Georgia Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue called for him to resign, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp pressured him to investigate baseless charges of election fraud.

President-elect Joe Biden was certified the winner in the Peach State, as Trump, who filed a lawsuit to block the certification, has continued his refusal to concede the election.

Raffensperger pointed out the Trump campaign’s refusal to accept the election defeat and wrote they were following “a playbook written by a failed gubernatorial candidate two years before,” taking a swipe at Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost the gubernatorial race to Kemp in 2018. He also went after Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican who led the recount effort for the Trump campaign in the state, calling him “a failed senate candidate with nothing to do who tried to undermine the integrity of Georgia’s elections.”

“Even as Georgia embarked on its first statewide audit, a process that was only possible because of the state’s new printed paper-ballot system, those who requested the full hand recount triggered by the audit of such a close race lined up to undermine its credibility,” he wrote. “Those who had so long been beneficiaries of the electoral process sought to tear it apart at its very foundations. But still, integrity matters.”