The FBI should open a criminal investigation into President Donald Trump for solicitation of election fraud, House Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) said Monday.

The lawmakers sent a congressional letter to the FBI in response to an audio recording that showed Trump threatening Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) with criminal prosecution unless he could find 11,780 votes one more vote than President-elect Joe Biden s margin of victory in the state.

So look, Trump said on the recording, first released to The Washington Post . All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.

Later in the call, Trump reiterated his demand for Raffensperger to manufacture votes for him. So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.

The letter alleges Trump violated two federal statutes and one Georgia statute forbidding the solicitation of election fraud when he pressed Raffensperger to alter the vote total in order to declare Trump the winner of the states 16 electoral votes.

As Members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes, Lieu and Rice wrote. We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the President.

In America, no one is above the law not the president and not any former presidents, Lieu told HuffPost.

The call for a criminal investigation is among the strong reactions lawmakers and watchdog groups have expressed about the phone call. But Democrats and outside groups differ on how to hold Trump accountable for his misdeeds.

Trumps effort to pressure Raffensperger merits nothing less than a criminal investigation, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) tweeted Sunday night.

Theres no question there is grounds for an investigation at the federal level and at the state level, said Stephen Spaulding, special counsel for public policy at the nonpartisan nonprofit Common Cause.

A potential problem for prosecuting Trumps actions is that the person soliciting the crime must know that they are requesting election fraud to be committed. If Trump legitimately believes the falsehoods that he won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes, that thousands of dead people voted and that electronic voting machines invented votes for Biden, among other outlandish conspiracies, then it may not be possible to criminally prosecute him.

As with so many things in this presidency and president, the question is whether Trump is drinking his own Kool-Aid, election law expert Rick Hasen wrote on Slate Monday. Reading the entire one-hour rambling call transcript, it is hard to know if Trump actually believes the fever swamp of debunked conspiracy theories about the election or whether hes just using the false claims as a cover to get the political results he wants.