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> Why are they not releasing them?

I believe that releasing that data would be in contravention of GA state law.

> It was a Settlement Call,

That is a lie. If it were a settlement call, there should have been lawyers from all parties involved. All of the live cases in Georgia regarding the election have Marc Elias present as co-intervenor, and that he was not on the call means that it cannot legally be a settlement call: https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1345887358101688320

It absolutely was a settlement call (starting at 54:49):

https://youtu.be/bnevIjvohvQ?t=3276

I don't know if this will persuade you, but there was a filing today in court outright saying that the call on Saturday was not a settlement call: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.285271...

> The participation of counsel for Plaintiff in that call appears to be in violation of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 4.2, as Plaintiff’s counsel neither notified litigation counsel for Defendant Raffensperger nor sought nor obtained consent to conduct or participate in a conversation with Defendant Raffensperger.

In my ranking of authorities to trust, I will trust a lawyer involved with the actual underlying litigation over a random internet person, even if the latter is also a lawyer.

Marc Elias says it can't be a settlement call because he would have to be on it, and as someone who is actually involved in the case, that is pretty strong evidence that requires more than a random youtube video by someone who I know absolutely nothing about.

Also, by the way, from the actual call, it appears that Trump is committing a crime on the call, by attempting to get a government official to break the law. (There is an active investigation in Georgia on this matter, I believe). I believe that doing so violates any claims to attorney-client privilege, which would remove any illegality from leaking this call even were it a settlement call (which I do not concede that it is).

This is Robert Barnes, a distinguished civil rights lawyer, who has taken on several Federal Cases, and is currently on the Trump legal team and in a Federal building with other Republican lawyers yesterday and has met with Trump personally. He's not some random lawyer. He's got a distinguished career and has earned my respect.

> Also, by the way, from the actual call, it appears that Trump is committing a crime on the call, by attempting to get a government official to break the law

I don't think you've listened to the full call. It's an hour long and I have. If you had, you would have noted Georgia officials said there was no issue with ballots of dead people cast (they said this was legal) and the context of the 4 minute clip is totally wrong.

You lie again...

Directly from the transcript of the call -

Brad Raffensperger: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen and they were surprised. But they -- I guess, there's a person named Mr. Brainard that came to these meetings and presented data and he said that there was dead people. I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual numbers were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so that's wrong. That was two.

You're right, but dial it back with the "you lie" stuff?

If he's discussing Matt Braynard's data, that data doesn't have strong indications of dead people voting being an issue.

It does present a compelling argument that really needs to be addressed sooner than later, however. The margins of the questionable statistics presented are well beyond the margin of victory.

Fine, but regardless of that ... it was still a confidential settlement call protected by attorney client privilege.

Once again, no: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25682225

Finally, that "leaked" call between Trump and the GA sectary of state everyone went ape shit over, did you know that was literally illegal. It was a Settlement Call, lawyers on both side were present (and named) and all of that was privileged. The GA Sec of State should be in jail right now. He won't be.

Calls between attorneys negotiating a settlement aren't privileged. The "confidentiality" of settlement negotiations isn't confidentiality in the normal sense; rather, it simply establishes that you can't take material from settlement discussions and introduce it as evidence in a subsequent civil trial: it frees the parties to discuss things without having to worry about answering for every word they say in a subsequent trial.

If you've ever been involved in a civil conflict, you've noticed: every single piece of paper exchanged is marked "confidential settlement communication". You can publish all of it if you want.

You don't have to take my word for it (though: I've been in civil disputes, noticed this, and asked about it); legal experts on Twitter were dunking on pundits for thinking these conversations were confidential in the normal sense.

Ah yes, the “pulled out box” controversy. That’s been addressed to hell and back:

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/georgia-election-officia...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/04/facebook-p...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/fact...

https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-reporter-debunks-georgia-e...

Is this really your strongest piece of evidence?

None of these sources seem to address the fact that this counting happened late at night/in the morning, timestamped on the video, after all the observers had been sent home. In fact, one of the sources said this:

> Media and observers left as employees packed up. But Fulton’s election director called a supervisor at State Farm a few minutes later, telling them to keep counting after the Secretary of State’s office called and said they shouldn’t stop counting for the night so early.

So the sources you listed literally confirm that they kept counting after they sent observers home. You seriously don't see that as a problem? I do. There are tons of volunteers who would gladly stay up all night to help observe. Over and over and over again, observers were sent home and counting continued.

All these articles that start with "debunked" go on to say this exact same thing happened, and then dismiss it as normal counting behavior. Do you understand why myself, and millions of Americans, have trouble with these stories? The headline frames the article, and then the article contracts the headline.

Did you ... did you actually read the stories, or just past random links based on the headlines?

Yes I have, thanks for your concern. I have a cache of these links from earlier when I cared enough to argue.

So you agree that the framing of “they pulled out a mysterious box from under the table” is completely false? That was the part being debunked. The story is “people started packing up for the day, then got asked to resume the work”. I fail to see what’s illegal about it. Where’s the fraud? Sure, if you’re already inclined to be suspicious you’ll find hints of problems in any little hiccup. That’s a little bit thin as far as proving a coordinated multi-state conspiracy goes.

How is continuing to count without observers present even remotely a good thing in one of the most controversial elections of our time? Why didn't they call the observers back in?

Why dismiss everyone and then tell some people to go back to work with the process half broken? It's bad optics and it's a blatant ethical problem.

We're at an impasse because we're literally seeing the same thing and also seeing two totally different things. It's kinda amazing, and tragic. I'm sure you feel the same.

Yes I understand where you’re coming from. To me, if these are the facts it just seems like your garden variety bureaucratic screw up. I agree it’s bad optics, and I’d like all of my government agencies to be supremely competent but we have what we have. It’s a pretty big leap for me to go full conspiracy mode based on this.

My hope is that years down the road when the dust settles we all should be able to see more clearly what happened.

When one person you meet in a day is an asshole - you met an asshole.

When every person you meet in a day is an asshole - you're the asshole.

Right now - you're the asshole. Every party involved, from the courts, to the (republican) GA government, to the media, to the pollworkers, to me, is telling you this was audited to hell and back, but you don't give a shit.

Instead you post a video that was actually discussed in the call you're so concerned about, where the Secretary of state clearly says the edited version you posted was designed to make it look fishy, and after review of the full footage by auditors and the media, there wasn't anything there.

You're not arguing in good faith. You're either ignorant or intentionally deceitful, and I want no more part of it.