{"id":21299,"date":"2026-01-30T05:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T05:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=21299"},"modified":"2026-01-30T05:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T05:04:20","slug":"fbi-raid-in-georgia-highlights-trumps-2020-election-obsession-and-hints-at-possible-future-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=21299","title":{"rendered":"FBI raid in Georgia highlights Trump&#8217;s 2020 election obsession and hints at possible future actions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;Trump&#8217;s use of the FBI to pursue his obsession with the 2020 election is part of a pattern of the president transforming the federal government into his&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-retribution-columbia-paul-weiss-law-firms-40c8cbafaa3592a6b2cc5858770d3731\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">personal tool of vengeance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Georgia has been at the heart of Trump&#8217;s 2020 obsession. He infamously called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, asking that Raffensperger&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-raffensperger-phone-call-georgia-d503c8b4e58f7cd648fbf9a746131ec9\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cfind\u201d 11,780 more votes<\/a>&nbsp;for Trump so he could be declared the winner of the state. Raffensperger refused, noting that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-elections-4eeea3b24f10de886bcdeab6c26b680a\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">repeated reviews<\/a>&nbsp;confirmed Democrat Joe Biden had narrowly won Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those were part of a series of reviews in battleground states, often led by Republicans, that affirmed Biden&#8217;s win, including in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/donald-trump-joe-biden-election-2020-elections-government-and-politics-4b6643aa699480dc63cbce8555aac946\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michigan<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/joe-biden-wisconsin-presidential-elections-state-elections-madison-9a2f172dd8074668ded26bd5b0b41fbb\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wisconsin<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/elections-government-and-politics-nevada-ed4d5296d9fd7fd9afd83a3fe845c205\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nevada<\/a>. Trump also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/donald-trump-courts-election-results-e1297d874f45d2b14bc99c403abd0457\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lost dozens of court cases<\/a>&nbsp;challenging the election results and his own attorney general at the time said there was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">no evidence<\/a>&nbsp;of widespread fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His allies who repeated his lies have been successfully&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mike-lindell-mypillow-smartmatic-defamation-voting-machines-d12b6d7f2cac0a77fb3feb9a80570b68\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sued for defamation<\/a>. That includes former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/giuliani-georgia-election-defamation-24a5b799fc7edadab9a82020c55c2bfb\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">settled with two Georgia election workers<\/a>&nbsp;after a court ruled he owed them $148 million for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/giuliani-2020-election-georgia-defamation-moss-freeman-6f6446c4f5224f521db8ff7763fb12d1\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defaming them after the 2020 election<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Voting machine companies also have brought defamation cases against some conservative-leaning news sites that aired unsubstantiated claims about their equipment being linked to fraud in 2020. Fox News&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trial-trump-2020-0ac71f75acfacc52ea80b3e747fb0afe?utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=TopNews&amp;utm_campaign=position_01\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">settled one such case<\/a>&nbsp;by agreeing to pay $787 million after the judge ruled it was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fox-news-dominion-trump-election-lies-voting-42cae434c4cfadbbafe73d1f2bca8e4d?utm_source=homepage&amp;utm_medium=TopNews&amp;utm_campaign=position_05\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cCRYSTAL clear\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;that none of the allegations were true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of his campaign of retribution, Trump also has spoken about wanting to criminally charge lawmakers who sat on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/jan-6-committee-final-report-trump-bcfea6162fe9cfa0d120e86d069af0e4\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the House committee<\/a>&nbsp;investigating the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/projects\/january-6-cases\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jan. 6 attack<\/a>, suggesting protective pardons of them from Biden are legally invalid. He&#8217;s targeted&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-retaliation-miles-taylor-chris-krebs-efb1416926df9d1086fa21349a18f90b\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a former cybersecurity appointee<\/a>&nbsp;who assured the public in 2020 that the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/top-officials-elections-most-secure-66f9361084ccbc461e3bbf42861057a5\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">election was secure<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo much this administration has done is to make claims in social media rather than go to court,\u201d Becker said. \u201cI suspect this is more about poisoning the well for 2026.\u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/fbi-raid-georgia-highlights-trumps-050231456.html\">https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/fbi-raid-georgia-highlights-trumps-050231456.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Trump&#8217;s use of the FBI to pursue his obsession with the 2020 election is part of a pattern of the president transforming the federal government into his personal tool of vengeance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Georgia has been at the heart of Trump&#8217;s 2020 obsession. He infamously called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, asking that Raffensperger \u201cfind\u201d 11,780 more votes for Trump so he could be declared the winner of the state. Raffensperger refused, noting that repeated reviews confirmed Democrat Joe Biden had narrowly won Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>Those were part of a series of reviews in battleground states, often led by Republicans, that affirmed Biden&#8217;s win, including in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Trump also lost dozens of court cases challenging the election results and his own attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.<\/p>\n<p>His allies who repeated his lies have been successfully sued for defamation. That includes former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who settled with two Georgia election workers after a court ruled he owed them $148 million for defaming them after the 2020 election.<\/p>\n<p>Voting machine companies also have brought defamation cases against some conservative-leaning news sites that aired unsubstantiated claims about their equipment being linked to fraud in 2020. Fox News settled one such case by agreeing to pay $787 million after the judge ruled it was \u201cCRYSTAL clear\u201d that none of the allegations were true.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As part of his campaign of retribution, Trump also has spoken about wanting to criminally charge lawmakers who sat on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, suggesting protective pardons of them from Biden are legally invalid. He&#8217;s targeted a former cybersecurity appointee who assured the public in 2020 that the election was secure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo much this administration has done is to make claims in social media rather than go to court,\u201d Becker said. \u201cI suspect this is more about poisoning the well for 2026.\u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/fbi-raid-georgia-highlights-trumps-050231456.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[336,1104,864,1143,1138,431,660,221,372,198,33,815,1135,1134,170],"class_list":["post-21299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-attack","tag-authoritarianism","tag-autocracy","tag-capitol","tag-capitol-building","tag-democracy","tag-dictatorship","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-fbi","tag-georgia","tag-insurrection","tag-riot","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21300,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299\/revisions\/21300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}