Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday called President Donald Trump’s call for his resignation a “distraction” and said he is focusing on addressing the pandemic and the U.S. Senate runoff elections.
Trump said on Twitter earlier on Dec. 30 that Kemp “should resign from office.”
“He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG! Also won the other Swing States,” the president said, calling on people to watch “hearings from Atlanta on the Georgia Election overturn now being broadcast.”
“All of these things are a distraction,” Kemp said. “I mean, I’ve supported the president. I’ve said that many times. I worked as hard as anybody in the state on his reelection up through Nov. 3.”
Kemp said the focus should be on the state’s Jan. 5 runoff elections for the U.S. Senate. The outcome will decide the balance of power in the Senate.
“All these other things, there is a constitutional and legal process that is playing out, and I’m very comfortable letting that process play out,” Kemp added.
Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks have called on Georgia’s state legislature to certify the GOP slate of electors, presenting evidence of voter fraud in a series of hearings.
Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, said on Tuesday that a “signature audit” of the single county of Cobb found there were no illegal absentee ballots cast in the voting district.
Kemp has said he will not call a General Assembly to allow the legislature to hold hearings on election fraud claims. State senators said they didn’t need his approval to do so.
“While we understand four members of the Georgia Senate are requesting the convening of a special session of the General Assembly, doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under state or federal law,” Kemp said in a joint statement with Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan earlier this month.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Georgia Senate Subcommittee on Elections heard from witnesses who alleged a wide range of election irregularities, vulnerabilities, and malfeasance.
Georgia’s certified election results show former Vice President Joe Biden narrowly winning the state by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast. Trump has challenged the outcome and Republican electors have cast competing Electoral College votes.
