FULTON 2 BAK

3 26

this will be two --> GENERIC FOR VOTER SUPPRESS RE 2026? NOPE? VOTER SUPPPRESS 6 SAVE

MERRI OK

SEE ONLY CITS CLETA BS ELECTION INTEGRITY

SEE GOP STEAL ELECTION 5 26

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SEE WOD4

merri ok

see rule of law ~ fascism

SEE BANNON MARTIN MIZZ AG SCHMITT

SEE BIG LIE 6 ~ 2026 MIDTERMS GABBARD HUGO GHOST BS

see jordan weaponization/ retaliation/ hypocrisy

fake elector scheme and trump call plot

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mizzou AG network fuckery bailey albus

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/eric-schmitt}:

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AN 7 26

GA RECORDER

Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has its sights fixed on Georgia, its election system and those who run it.

Should our state and local election officials be nervous? No, because they’ve done nothing wrong.

But yes, because this isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about power.

Just this week, Trump officials sent letters to elections officials here in Georgia and other states, threatening them with criminal prosecution if they knowingly allow noncitizens to vote. The letters are pure bluster that shouldn’t be taken seriously, mainly because safeguards against noncitizen voting are already so strict that it almost never happens.

Other actions are more serious.

Back in January, you may remember, FBI agents swooped in to seize hundreds of boxes of ballots cast in Fulton County during the 2020 elections. Presumably, they’ve spent the last six months sifting through those boxes in search of something, anything, and so far we have no indication that their search has been successful.

The Trump administration has also demanded names and contact information for thousands of Fulton County employees and volunteers who had worked on the 2020 election, without really explaining why they needed such data. Earlier this week, a federal judge quashed that request, calling it “staggering … unreasonable.” It “would not be a legitimate use of the grand jury and its subpoena power,” he wrote, warning that it “threatens to chill participation in future elections.”

The judge, William Ray, was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2017.

In addition, according to an internal FBI memo leaked last week, some 260 FBI analysts from all around the country have been yanked from their normal crime-fighting duties for additional intense scrutiny of Fulton County’s 2020 election, with agents and analysts told to work overtime and on weekends to complete whatever task they’ve been given.

I make two predictions:

They’ll find nothing.
They won’t admit they found nothing.

They won’t admit they found nothing because they can’t admit they found nothing. That outcome is simply not acceptable to Trump. It is not acceptable to his ego, and it is not acceptable to his plans to disrupt the 2026 midterms. Admitting they found nothing, after six years of whining from Trump, would undermine the last remaining structural support from an administration that may already be teetering on collapse.

Most likely, I suspect they will claim to have found thousands of mail-in ballots in which signatures don’t match, because you can always claim that signatures don’t match. From day to day, my own signature doesn’t match exactly, and the same is true of most people. For that and other reasons, claims of unmatched signatures won’t hold up in a court of law, but to Trump that won’t matter. He intends to make his claim in the court of public opinion, which operates under a different, far less rigorous standard.

Since he can’t produce proof of criminality and fraud, he wants to create the public illusion of it, particularly involving voting by mail. Armed with that illusion, he can create a whirlwind of controversy to try to justify seizing control of elections not just in Fulton County or Georgia but nationwide, allowing him to decide which votes to count and which to discard.

In ordinary times that charge might sound hyperbolic, but it’s hard to reach a different conclusion given the many unprecedented, previously unimagined ways in which Trump is seeking to undermine faith in fair elections and seize control. To cite yet another example, his administration is now withholding terrorism-prevention funds from states that refuse to give him control over their elections.

These are not separate actions. These are not just things that are happening. These are actions carried out with one particular goal in mind, which is to dictate who wins and loses this November and in Novembers yet to come.

And we in Georgia just happen to be at Ground Zero in that struggle.

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AN 7 26

A letter from Harmeet Dhillon, who heads President Donald Trump’s DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, is demanding that Georgia officials explain within five days how they are preventing illegal voting in the state — despite the fact that illegal voting is not a legitimate problem in U.S. elections.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports the U.S. Department of Justice has also warned officials in the increasingly swingy Peach State that they could face criminal prosecution if noncitizens cast ballots, something that is already illegal.

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has a bumpy relationship with Trump, pointed out that his office has already cracked down on cases of noncitizen voting, which studies show is exceedingly rare, reports AJC. Raffensperger’s spokesperson, Robert Sinners, said the SOS conducted the first statewide citizenship audit of Georgia’s voter rolls, improved a federal election database and even pressed Congress to enshrine citizen-only voting in the Constitution.

The AJC reports Trump’s threat arrived the same day a federal judge in Atlanta “sharply questioned the Justice Department’s attempt to revive Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in Georgia’s 2020 election.”

Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Billy Ray II threw out a sweeping subpoena seeking information on thousands of Fulton County election workers and found that the five-year statute of limitations for crimes linked to the election had “long expired.” However, Trump’s DOJ issued the threat after a devastating Fox News poll revealed Democrats are destroying Republicans in most of the former red state’s most contentious races.

“In the Georgia governor’s race, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms has a 5-point edge, with 52 percent support compared to 47 percent for Republican Rick Jackson,” reported AJC, citing the Fox poll. Additionally, Lance Bottoms' supporters are more certain of their vote than Jackson's by 80 percent vs. 75 percent

That same poll revealed Republicans in this swing state, which Trump lost to Biden years ago but reclaimed in 2023, also have a more favorable view of incumbent Democratic candidate John Ossoff, who Republicans will need to unseat in order to easily maintain their Senate majority.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters have a favorable opinion of Ossoff, which is much higher than the 4 in 10 for Republican Collins, or even Trump — who only gets 42 percent favorability — down 5 points in the 2024 Georgia Fox News Voter Analysis.

Worse, Georgians are six points more likely to say they are “extremely or very concerned” that Collins is too close to Trump than the Democratic incumbent is “too liberal.”

:{---

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5 26

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports the TrumpifiedmpifiedGeorgia ElectionBoard has quietly hired an election denier to be the board’s official state investigator, even as Trump’s grip on the state becomes less guaranteed.

Jason Frazier is a MAGA activist who has challenged the registrations of thousands of Fulton County voters and who cheered as Trump’s politicized FBI raided a county ballot warehouse in January, reports AJC writer Caleb Groves.

Critics were quick to ridicule the new hire.

“It’s shocking that an allegedly nonpartisan board would hire a political operative with a years-long record of baselessly accusing counties of wrongdoing to then turn around and ‘investigate’ these same counties,” said Sara Tindall Ghazal, the board’s only Democrat. “The majority members of the State Election Board appear determined to double-down on their MAGA credentials, foment public distrust in our elections and further marginalize themselves into irrelevance.”

Frazier is now in a position to officially investigate the same election processes he has spent years criticizing as a private citizen, said AJC, but the board “was quiet about his hiring.”

Board executive director James Mills announced that the agency has hired part-time investigators during a May 14 meeting but never mentioned the new hires by name. The AJC reports Frazier’s name later appeared on a list of taxpayer-funded agency staffers on the board website.

“The hiring was apparently so sensitive that Vice Chair Janice Johnston suggested the board could file a complaint against The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after being made aware the AJC was seeking records related to Frazier’s hiring,” reports Groves.

“Should we file an ethics complaint? But I don’t know who to file it against, other than the, I don’t know, the AJC or an unknown leaker,” Johnston said.

Mills did not respond to an emailed request to identify the agency’s new hires. Rather than answer, Johnston responded to the AJC’s questions by demanding who had given the info to the press.

Georgia First Amendment Foundation board member Richard T. Griffiths said the election board’s reluctance to make public the details of Frazier’s hiring is concerning.

“At a time when the public is concerned about transparency of the elections and the integrity of the elections process, the total activity of the elections board should be available to the public and that includes hirings,” said Griffiths. “If the elections board is not providing the basics that all state agencies are required to provide, what does that say to the public about whether they can trust the board to make sensitive decisions about the elections process?”

The hiring comes at a time when President Donald Trump’s grip on many states is in question. The last time Trump lost the state of Georgia in 2020 his approval average was 46.4 percent, with Biden’s approval a modest 47 percent.

Trump’s aggregate approval in Georgia recently clicked in at a low of 37 percent.

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AN 5 26

The FBI is revisiting President Donald Trump's 2020 election conspiracy theory as part of his ongoing effort to change the results of the election after he lost. The new focus is on Wisconsin.

So far, Trump's FBI has seized 2020 election ballots from Georgia and copies of voting data in Arizona from a review Republican lawmakers conducted. *The Washington Post*reported Friday that current and former election officials in Milwaukee have been interviewed by FBI agents in their own homes. The question will be whether the FBI demands the ballots as they did in Fulton County, Georgia.

The move would "set off alarms because Milwaukee maintains its absentee ballots in a way that could allow agents to determine who voters selected — undermining the secrecy of their ballots," the report said. One's vote is supposed to be a secret, but Trump would then have access to information on whether his allies supported him in 2020.

One question has been about an incident involving an official grabbing all of the flash drives and missing one of them. Another election worker then gave the flash drive to a police officer, who delivered it to the local official. It was never unattended, the report said. At the time, it became a huge conspiracy theory spread by MAGA supporters.

A man then filed a lawsuit claiming he saw a "secret room" in the election office and drew a floor plan showing where it was and indicated he heard someone snoring behind the door. The election denier has his own criminal history. The FBI demanded to know if there were ballots "printed" in the secret room.

Trump's agents went from the state’s deputy elections director to the former officials' homes, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. They next intend to interview police who were responsible for protecting election officials who delivered the results, reported WISN-TV.

The ballots haven't been seized yet, but there is a larger fear that things are headed in a worrisome direction.

"Ordinarily, election officials by now would have destroyed ballots from an election that was held nearly six years ago. But Milwaukee County officials have hung on to the 2020 ballots because of litigation," the Post explained.

One concern in Fulton County is that no copies were made of the ballots taken by the FBI. So, there would be no record to compare it to if the DOJ asserted that the count was "wrong." What's different in Milwaukee, however, is that numbers are assigned to a voter's absentee ballot, which can be traced back to the person. In other states, the ballots are simply thrown together.

Officials said that they are desperately trying to guard the ballots and said those numbers are redacted when copies are released to the public. In theory, the FBI wouldn't be able to match the numbers to the logbooks without them.

“Our secret ballot is secret for a reason,” declared elections chair Ann Jacobs. “It’s sacrosanct. It is at the heart of our American democracy. And those people who demand to know how everyone voted are violating those core tenets of what it means to vote as an American.”

“You’re going to see things like, ‘Here are the Biden voters in your neighborhood,’” said former Wisconsin chief election official Kevin Kennedy. “The bottom line is the potential for mischief is there, and we have seen in this age of social media that it will happen.”

---

The FBI is revisiting President Donald Trump's 2020 election conspiracy theory as part of his ongoing effort to change the results of the election after he lost. The new focus is on Wisconsin.

Trump's agents went from the state’s deputy elections director to the former officials' homes, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. They next intend to interview police who were responsible for protecting election officials who delivered the results, reported WISN-TV.

The ballots haven't been seized yet, but there is a larger fear that things are headed in a worrisome direction.

---

OCT 2024 2X?

The New Republic

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GGL 5 26

[### How community leaders and officials in two states took on ...

Southern Poverty Law Center

https://www.splcenter.org › Hatewatch](https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/how-community-leaders-and-officials-two-states-took-election-deniers/)

Nov 5, 2024 — Luckily, it's not working because voters continue to push back.” By 2024, The Guardian reported that the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition, ...Read more

[### using unfounded election fraud claims from citizen activists ...

Facebook · Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law

40+ reactions · 2 weeks ago](https://www.facebook.com/BrennanCenter/posts/we-dig-into-examples-from-georgia-california-and-arizona-that-illustrate-a-new-p/1449639897194470/)

... Georgia Election Integrity Coalition. Their goal? To use their power to cast doubt on the election results and refuse to certify votes when ...Read more

[### The Shadowy Right-Wing Group That's Suppressing ...

The New Republic

https://newrepublic.com › article › cleta-mitchell-voter-...](https://newrepublic.com/article/187181/cleta-mitchell-voter-suppression-2024)

Oct 16, 2024 — ... Georgia Election Integrity Coalition. The coalition's goal is a rehash of the 2020 attempt to discredit the voice of Georgians with the ...Read more

[### Georgia's election integrity law was followed by strong ...

Facebook · Committee on House Administration

20+ reactions · 3 months ago](https://www.facebook.com/CommitteeonHouseAdministration/posts/georgias-election-integrity-law-was-followed-by-strong-participation-and-high-vo/1234812615459851/)

Julie Adams is the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition Director and the State Liaison with the Election Integrity Network. Anyone ...Read more

[### Network of Georgia election officials strategizing to ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › sep › trump-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/18/trump-election-georgia)

Sep 18, 2024 — Emails reveal Georgia Election Integrity Coalition, a group of officials and election deniers, coordinating in swing state.

[### Republican Party efforts to disrupt the 2024 United States ...

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Republican_Party_effo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_disrupt_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election)

Georgia Election Integrity Coalition. edit · Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington obtained months of emails among elections officials in at ...Read more

[### How Election Deniers Took Over Georgia's Election System

Mother Jones

https://www.motherjones.com › politics › 2024/10 › ho...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/10/how-election-deniers-took-over-georgia-election-system-trump/)

Oct 31, 2024 — Finally, Adams is a member of a state network of activists and officials called the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition. The rule Adams ...Read more

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an 4 26

Dan Bishop has been lucky enough to score several jobs in President Donald Trump's administration after he failed to win in a primary race and it isn't the first time.

Writing for the Rachel Maddow Show blog, producer Steve Benen noted Bishop was first hired after he gave up his North Carolina House seat to run for attorney general in the state. He lost. So the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) hired him.

After less than a year, he left OMB for a prime spot at the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina. After five months, he was shifted to another job: Winning Trump's 2020 campaign, in 2026.

Trump has spent the first part of the year revisiting the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. In Fulton County, Georgia, the FBI seized ballots from the past election. In Maricopa County, Arizona, in early March, an FBI agent took more than three dozen hard drives and servers containing data from a partisan audit of the 2020 election from the state Senate building. The audit was done by the company "Cyber Ninjas" and lambasted by legal experts and watchdog groups as a "sham audit."

Benen cited the Wall Street Journal report, which cited Bishop's recent "quiet" appointment to the investigative team at the Justice Department.

"Attorney General Pam Bondi, last week, quietly authorized Dan Bishop, a U.S. attorney in North Carolina, to pursue election-related probes across the country, according to a copy of the order," the Journal cited. One DOJ official told the reporters that "Bishop, a former congressman who voted against certifying Biden’s 2020 win, will also examine voter-roll data the Justice Department has been collecting from states in an effort to determine whether noncitizens have illegally registered or cast ballots."

Benen wrote, "Given his record, it’s tough to be optimistic about Bishop overseeing these efforts in a detached and independent way."

The report indicated that "the lines have grown blurry," Benen said, when it comes to how the DOJ is being used to pursue 2020 election conspiracy theories. While Bishop is concerned, Benen, it's the combination of all of it that sent up the red flags.

"Making matters worse is the scope of the efforts. The Bishop news is important, but it dovetails with the president and his team seizing ballots and election records in Georgia and Arizona; seizing voting equipment in Puerto Rico; waging an aggressive campaign to acquire voter rolls from states where Democrats won; organizing an unnecessary FBI elections 'briefing' for state officials; and providing Kurt Olsen, one of Trump’s highly controversial former campaign lawyers, with classified information as he tried to advance election conspiracy theories," Benen explained.

While it's part of Trump's continued efforts to relitigate the 2020 election, it's also part of a larger campaign to restrict voting rights.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained it in 2020, “If Republicans don’t challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede. We’re down to less – 10,000 votes in Georgia. He’s going to win North Carolina. We have gone from 93,000 votes to less than 20,000 votes in Arizona, where more – more votes to be counted.”

Trump further commented in early March that passing voter restrictions “will guarantee the midterms."

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AN 3 28 26

Attorneys representing Fulton County faced off against the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court Friday, seeking the return of more than 650 boxes of 2020 election records that FBI agents seized from a county elections warehouse in January.

The hearing, which was held in a federal courthouse in Atlanta, was scheduled last week after the judge announced that attempts at mediation had been unsuccessful.

Justification for January’s raid, which was authorized by Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas, relied heavily on recycled claims of irregularities during the 2020 election, which critics say have already been adjudicated or debunked in the nearly six years since the election took place.

Fulton County, which is home to much of the city of Atlanta, was also at the center of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia and other swing states.

Abbe Lowell, who represented the county, argued Friday that an affidavit used to justify the raid relied on inaccurate testimony, with witnesses who “completely misstate each of the alleged problems.” He also argued that Salinas was given incomplete information about the significance of documents like ballot images and double-scanned ballots, and that she may have reached a different conclusion if she had been given more accurate information.

Expert witness Ryan Macias, an election technology expert who served as an advisor for Fulton County during the 2020 election, also testified that the events outlined in the affidavit include routine mistakes and were not indicative of any intentional misconduct.

But attorney Michael Weisbuch, who represented the federal government, argued that federal agents who drafted the affidavit did include opposing perspectives and that the raid didn’t amount to a “callous disregard” of the county’s rights.

He also argued that Fulton County has access to copies of the election records and that county officials have yet to produce a compelling reason why they need the original documents returned.

Judge J. P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, did not say when he would issue a ruling in the case.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts expressed concern about the Trump administration attempting to take control over elections, and said the federal government could use similar tactics to seize election documents in other states.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is a blueprint,” Pitts said. “If they’re successful here, in Fulton County, they will take this show on the road, and that’s why we’re going to fight fire with fire. We’re going to fight like hell to make sure that that does not happen.”

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AN 3 26

President Donald Trump's push to find evidence of fraud in the 2020 election is facing an early legal hurdle, according to the Washington Post, with the FBI headed to court over allegations it used "conspiracy theories" and long-debunked lies to dupe a judge into signing a warrant for the raid on a Georgia election center.

In late January, the FBI conducted a raid of an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing a large amount of ballots and materials from the 2020 presidential election. Trump has long insisted, without concrete evidence, that widespread fraud tipped that race to Joe Biden, and has pushed his subordinates to conduct new investigations to dig up proof. Experts also fear that the raid will be used to build a pretense to meddle in future elections.

Officials in Fulton County have since sued in an attempt to compel the Trump administration to return 650 boxes of materials seized in January, with the case set to go before U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee on Friday. At the heart of the county's argument is the accusation that the FBI presented dubious or outright false information to a magistrate in order to get them to sign off on the warrant for the highly controversial raid.

"Fulton County officials maintain that agents duped a federal court magistrate into approving the warrant by presenting conspiracy theories and previously debunked claims of election irregularities as evidence of possible crimes," the Washington Post's report explained."Lawyers for Fulton County have called the seizure of its 2020 election materials, and the warrant that authorized it, 'unprecedented in American history.' They have characterized the theories cited to obtain the warrant as little more than 'ill-informed… speculative assertions that, even if true, concern records of no consequence to the outcome of the election.'”

One of Fulton County's attorneys on the case, Y. Soo Jo, recently warned in a written filing that the federal government's conduct surrounding the raid might also act as voter suppression, arguing that, "knowing that the federal government can physically seize and rummage through election records long after the election has been certified will predictably chill voter participation and undermine voters’ confidence in the security and secrecy of their ballots."

Trump's Justice Department has already attempted to argue that U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas's approval of the warrant, in and of itself, means that the raid was justified. These arguments, however, have fallen flat, with Judge Boulee, a Trump appointee, shooting them down in court.

The affidavit requesting the warrant was originally submitted to Salinas by FBI Agent Hugh Raymond Evans. According to the Post, the arguments it put forward were heavily reliant "on accounts from 11 people — many of whom are prominent election deniers or members of Georgia’s Republican-controlled State Election Board," suggesting that "unknown persons" might have been trying to meddle with the 2020 election in the state.

"But the issues Evans cited, including claims of duplicate ballots and missing ballot images, have been addressed by previous audits and investigations that found no evidence of wrongdoing," the Post's report detailed. "County officials described many of them in a court filing as 'types of human errors that… occur in almost every election — without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever.'”

The report continued: "For instance, Evans cited the fact that Fulton County no longer has scanned images of all 528,777 ballots cast in the 2020 race as evidence of a possible tampering. But officials have dismissed that shortcoming as insignificant, given they still have original paper versions of those ballots. The affidavit also suggested that the county may have scanned more than 3,000 ballots twice during a recount of the 2020 vote. But previous state investigations have produced no evidence that those double scans meant the ballots were actually counted twice. Even if they were, those earlier probes concluded, the outcome would have benefited Trump."

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mma

### Laura Loomer lashes out at right-wing podcasters suggesting US followed Israel's lead on Iran war: “They're little Nazis is what they are. National Socialists.”

03/06/26 11:10 AM EST

### Laura Loomer lashes out at Megyn Kelly over Iran: “Shut up, you stupid bitch. ... You're not MAGA.”

03/04/26

### John Solomon suggests the FBI will do a similar ballot seizure in Arizona as the recent Fulton County operation

02/05/26

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an 3 26

U.S. District Court Judge J. P. Boulee, who is overseeing the Fulton County, Georgia, ballot case, has quashed the subpoena for FBI Agent Hugh Raymond Evans, who provided the one affidavit used to support the search warrant to seize the ballots from the 2020 election, reported Lawfare legal analyst Anna Bower.

It's a huge hit before the Friday evidentiary hearing over the raid on the elections office.

Fulton County officials believe that Evans deliberately misled the judge in the case by promoting 2020 election conspiracy theories from one of President Donald Trump's own allies to get the warrant for the ballots.

Boulee was appointed by the first Trump administration.

“In searching for evidence of a crime in Fulton County, President Trump has, in some sense, returned to the scene of his own…Now Trump is using the power of the federal government to seize the very ballots cast by voters whose will he once sought to subvert," Bower wrote in her piece, walking through the specifics of the case ahead of the hearing.

Marc Elias' Democracy Docket explained that the Justice Department has already made one mistake in revealing information about the probe when it unsealed the affidavit.

"Following the raid, the DOJ also initially told Fulton County officials that it wouldn’t oppose Evans testifying about the affidavit," the report explained. "Thomas Albus, a Missouri-based U.S. attorney overseeing the DOJ’s probe into the 2020 vote in Georgia, said in February that he couldn’t imagine Evan’s testimony 'will be an issue.'"

The DOJ then made a huge pivot three days later.

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AN 3 26

In Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco — a Donald Trump supporter and former Oath Keepers member who is running for governor of California as a Republican — recently announced that his department had seized 650,000 voting ballots cast in a 2025 election. Bianco, at a, told reporters, "This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported.""

MS NOW's Steve Benen, in an opinion column published on March 24, argues that Bianco is conducting an "investigation that appears entirely baseless" and could be used as a "template" for MAGA Republicans to challenge election results they don't like.

"For those inclined to be charitable," Benen explains, "there is a relatively benign interpretation of these developments. It's possible, for example, that Bianco is simply trying to generate attention for his longshot gubernatorial candidacy. Relatedly, the sheriff likely realizes that ballot seizures will please the White House, which in turn, may lead to greater institutional support from his party in the coming months. The move, in other words, may very well be little more than an elaborate campaign stunt that will have little practical impact and will be largely forgotten after Bianco loses. But then, there are the less benign interpretations of what transpired."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer notes that Bianco's investigation "comes on the heels of Trump sending the FBI to seize election materials in Georgia in response to other assorted conspiratorial complaints."

"The broader concern is that a template is taking shape, offering precedents for law enforcement to start making plans to seize ballots in areas nationwide — after or even during official counts," Benen warns. "What's more, the more frequently this happens, the more Americans may be led to believe it's normal and routine for law enforcement officials to seize and impound ballots — despite the fact that this is neither normal nor routine."

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AN 3 26

Georgia court blocks GOP's bid to seat election deniers on Fulton County board - Alternet.org

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an 3 26

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports a network of far-right actors are working with President Donald Trump to derail elections in Georgia and cast doubt on any vote that removes Republicans from power.

“The meeting and the call recounting it offer a glimpse at how activists, once on the fringe of the conservative movement, are now trying to overhaul elections in Georgia and across the country,” reports AJC. “Now several are in the Trump administration, and Fulton County is firmly in their sights ahead of the 2026 midterms.”

For years, the AJC reports a “network of activists has cast doubt on Georgia’s 2020 election, questioning the integrity of the state’s voting machines and the voter rolls that determine who can vote.”

Legitimate election officials dismissed their challenges and investigators debunked their fraud claims, said AJC. But now several are in the Trump administration, “and Fulton County is firmly in their sights ahead of the 2026 midterms.”

The AJC reports a recent Zoom call revealed conservative activists eagerly sharing tips and tricks for election engineering, which they learned at a February summit in Washington with several Trump administration officials, including Kurt Olsen, Trump’s director of election security and integrity, who played a key role in the FBI’s January raid on an election warehouse in Fulton County.

“Kurt is leading a team and leading a charge of great people that are working together,” said Holly Kesler, a Georgia conservative activist, during a recent “election integrity” meeting of the Georgia Constitution Party, audio of which was obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“It is a multiagency approach,” she said, reports AJC. “And there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes. I’ve been a part of some of that.”

“Others involved in the Election Integrity Summit included Brad Carver of the Georgia Republican Party; Marci McCarthy, a former DeKalb Republican official who now oversees public affairs at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Clay Parikh, a cybersecurity expert whose expertise was used by the U.S. Department of Justice to justify seizing troves of Fulton County’s 2020 election records,” said AJC.

The AJC adds that Carver currently leads the “Election Confidence Task Force” within the Georgia GOP and was one of the 16 Trump fake electors in 2020. More recently he called Georgia “the biggest topic” at the Washington summit and expressed frustration with people in the Trump administration who were not pursuing Trump’s attacks on elections with proper vigor.

“But some of those involved in efforts to overhaul elections have been careful about how much they reveal to the public,” reports AJC. “In the Zoom, Carver said meetings like the ones hosted by the Georgia Constitution Party and Signal group chats are helpful because they allow information to be shared without ending up ‘on the front page of liberal media.’”

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an 3 26

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to the Democratic nominee — former Vice President and ex-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) — his claim that the election was stolen from him was repeatedly debunked by numerous vote recounts. And some of the debunking came from conservative Republicans, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

But Trump, now 13 and one-half months into his second presidency, continues to double down on his false claim that he won the 2020 election. In January, FBI agents searched an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing 2020 election records.

In an article published on March 5, CNN reporters Tierney Sneed and Zachary Cohen describe ways in which the Georgia State Election Board helped pave the way for the FBI search.

"For most election administrators around the country," Sneed and Cohen explain, "the FBI's recent seizure of 2020 Atlanta-area ballots was shocking. But for some members of the Georgia State Election Board, the search was a welcome development. Led by the commission's vice chair, Janice Johnston — a retired obstetrician who, according to court filings, had no experience working elections prior to 2021 — the board's conservative majority has been relentlessly pursuing fraud theories about Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election."

The CNN journalists continue, "After subpoenaing some of the Fulton County election records themselves, the board invited the Justice Department's assistance last year, itself, resulting in a Trump Administration civil lawsuit in December that preceded the search warrant secured through a federal criminal probe. Johnston and another MAGA-aligned board member, former media personality Janelle King, were witnesses cited by the FBI in its application to justify seizing the records, as were other election deniers who have made frequent appearances before the board to allege a tainted 2020 result."

According to David Worley — a Democrat who formerly served on the Georgia State Election Board — Johnston objected when told she couldn't enter the Fulton County election center's inner storage room during the FBI search. Johnston didn't object to the search, but rather, wanted to get some credit for it and argued, "It's our subpoena."

Salleigh Grubbs, another Republican on the Georgia State Election Board, told CNN, "It's way past time for these matters to have been investigated." And she said it was "great" that the FBI search took place.

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an 2 26

Lawyers representing Fulton County, Georgia, in the ballot seizure case ripped into the U.S. Attorney appointed by the Trump administration, per a new filing released Wednesday evening, accusing him of an "abrupt flip-flop" and other shifts that have impeded the flow of the case.

The filing was submitted to the U.S. District Court of Northern Georgia's Atlanta division by Fulton County's legal team. Among other things, it accused U.S. Attorney Thomas Albus, a St. Louis-based prosecutor tipped to handle the case by Donald Trump's Justice Department, of reversing his promises about returning the original ballots seized and allowing an FBI agent to testify, as explained by Josh Gerstein, a senior legal reporter for Politico.

"Fulton County lawyers claim 'abrupt flip-flop[s]' by specially-designated prosecutor Tom Albus in 2020-ballot-seizure case, including whether FBI agent would testify and whether original ballots could be returned to local officials," Gerstein wrote in a post to X.

Fulton County is suing the federal government for the return of 2020 ballotsseized from an election center in Atlanta last month in an FBI raid. The Trump administration claimed that the seizures were part of an investigation into Trump's debunked claims of election fraud.

The filing primarily revolved around the Fulton County lawyers objecting to Albus's reversal on a promise to "expeditiously make copies of the seized election records, return the originals and a copy to Fulton County, and voluntarily stay its review of the copied records pending the Court’s final decision in this matter." Albus later "inexplicably withdrew that offer," which then required the court to "to set the matter down for an expedited hearing." He is now willing to turn over copies of the ballots, in exchange for Fulton County's case against the federal government getting dismissed.

"Respondent has since represented to the Court that returning the originals to [Fulton County]—and even allowing testimony in the very hearing it originally agreed to—would somehow compromise 'an ongoing criminal investigation,' despite its prior representations. Given [Albus's] prior stances, it is hard to make sense of its recent 'offer' to 'discuss' a 'copy.'"

This troublesome shift from Albus, the filing added, "came in the context of its abrupt flip-flop regarding the testimony of [FBI] Special Agent [Hugh] Evans." The Fulton County legal team had earlier this month asked Albus if Evans could give testimony at an evidentiary hearing, to which they claim Albus responded, "I can’t imagine that will be an issue and will give you a firm answer as soon as I can."

The lawyers claim they followed up multiple times about the matter over the course of days, but did not hear back. Albus then moved to quash Evans' giving testimony, "without conferring or notifying" them.

The lawyers suggested that Albus's move to go back on his previous offer about handing over the ballots is part of an effort to avoid a judicial review.

"To the extent that Respondent suggests it is now willing to 'discuss' giving Petitioners a copy of their own records (on the condition that they dismiss this action), it appears to be doing so in an effort to avoid judicial review of an unconstitutional seizure wholly lacking in probable cause," the filing explained. "If Respondent is willing to provide a copy to Petitioners (as it claims), it is evident that doing so will not compromise an ongoing investigation. Respondent’s remaining arguments are meritless..."

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MMA

February 16, 2026, edition of MS NOW's The Weeknight

SYMONE SANDERS (CO-HOST): Clean up on aisle nine, Angelo. Here's the thing. Who are the right people? These are the questions. Who are the right people? For whom do we want them voting for? And furthermore, where is the evidence of the widespread voter fraud? Even the Heritage Foundation has not determined there is widespread voter fraud. Their own data and research says there's not. So is this a case of if they just say it enough, people start to believe it?

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, so I think that's part of it, you know, in terms of their execution. But there's something to also consider, is that where's the evidence when you can actually find them? There are people now, there's not evidence, but the source of it is there's this constellation of right-wing influencers that have been pickled in these lies now for six years. And they're not just out there, you know, talking about it. They're working directly with the Trump administration to say, now it's time, now that you're in power, go back and find proof of the things and the conspiracies that we were pushing five or six years ago.

So if you look at what happened in Fulton County. Just a week before the raid in Fulton County, Patrick Byrne, who was in the Oval Office in 2020 with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, saying, seize the -- when Trump said to seize the voting machines, he had to leave a TV hit before it happened to do an emergency meeting at the White House, which apparently was about some upcoming thing related to election conspiracy.

So to me, where's the source? It's all of these influencers out there that they are now basically running the playbook around whatever false claim they have been holding on to for six or seven years. And they're everywhere. There's a bunch of people percolating in Maricopa County now in Arizona. And so that's the thing that's sort of giving it some fuel. Obviously, Trump's own narrative and all the externalities for it. But you can really zero in and that's what you'll find.

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AN 2 26

The Daily Beast reports Georgia officials are “shredding” the FBI’s justification for seizing Fulton County’s 2020 voter rolls, writing in a new filing that their evidence fell “woefully short” of showing probable cause.

“In a petition demanding the return of 2020 election ballots, officials accused the FBI of having ‘serious’ omissions in its … petition for a search warrant to raid the county’s election office near Atlanta,” the Beast reports.

“Instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the affidavit does nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election — without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever,” said the filing. The filing also argues that the federal government breached the Fourth Amendment protecting individuals against “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government.

“The Fourth Amendment demands ‘probable cause’ — not ‘possible cause,’” the filing argues.

A former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office had his own issues with the FBI’s rationalization for the seizure and was removed after he raised concerns. Prior probes for fraud had come up empty., and even conservative judges had shut down many of President Donald Trump’s arguments of fraud in 2020.

Fulton County officials told the courts in their Tuesday filing that the Trump administration dredging for evidence in Georgia’s most Democratic County was based on hypotheticals and conspiracy.

“Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the affidavit does not identify facts establishing probable cause that anyone committed a crime,” the filing said. “Instead, [the FBI] all but admits that the seizure will yield evidence of a crime only if certain hypotheticals are true.”

The Beast reports local officials also cited FBI witness statements alleging that the search was based on the hope of finding wrongdoing rather than on probable cause.

“It is woefully deficient for an affiant to say that if I develop additional evidence at some later point in time, the seized property would potentially be evidence of a crime,” the filing reads. “Probable cause requires more: a reasonable likelihood that a crime did, in fact, occur.”

“The newest filing … also poked holes in the FBI’s witnesses’ findings that supposedly prompted it to act,” reports the Beast. “’Witness 5’ claimed to have received data that may have shown proof of a crime ‘second hand,’ from an unidentified person, but not to the degree Trump has long alleged. In reality, Witness 5 said that the purported error added votes for Donald Trump—not the other way around.”

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judge

Catherine M. Salinas is a federal magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. She was appointed to this position on July 1, 2015. Her current term expired on June 30, 2023.^[1] ballotpedia

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https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-fulton-county-raid

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2 26 FBI raid of Fulton County, Georgia election office - Wikipedia

On January 28, 2026, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a raid at the Fulton County, Georgia election office in Union City. The FBI had obtained a warrant from Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas to seize all physical ballots, ballot images, tabulator tapes, and the voter rolls of Fulton County from the 2020 United States presidential election.^[8] Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, joined the raid and is running her own parallel investigation, which has prompted concerns from critics who have questioned why the intelligence chief--who has no domestic law enforcement powers--would be involved.^[9][10]

President Donald Trump has repeated false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.^[11] Trump faced prosecution alongside 18 other individuals in Fulton County over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and he was also brought up on charges in a federal case for election obstruction, before he was reelected in 2024. The raid was criticized by Georgia Democrats, with State Representative Saira Draper referring to it as an "attack on our democracy", and U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff calling it a "sore loser's crusade".^[12]

Background

Fulton County was one of the main points of contention in Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election on the false premise of election fraud, and is where Trump faced prosecution in these efforts over his Trump fake electors plot before the case was dropped after the dismissal of the prosecutor Fani Willis in 2025.^[13] Numerous failed legal challenges by Trump and his allies were brought forward against the results of the 2020 election, prior to this lawsuit and raid.^[14] Trump was also recorded in a conversation with then-Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, saying that he just wanted to "find the votes" needed for him to win the state of Georgia, with Raffensperger stating that the count was correct.^[15]

Speaking at the World Economic Forum one week prior to the raid, Trump said that "people will soon be prosecuted for what they did", regarding his failure to win the 2020 election.^[16]

Raid and lawsuit

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had sued Fulton County officials in December 2025, seeking materials relating to the 2020 election. In the lawsuit, the DOJ stated that they were seeking access to review "all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County". On January 28, 2026 FBI agents were seen entering and exiting the election office in Fulton County, Georgia multiple times with some agents appearing to be loading materials on a truck.^[17]

Aftermath

Robb Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, stated that the 2020 election ballots had been secure in the facility and said "I can no longer, as chair of this board, satisfy not only the citizens of Atlanta but the citizens of the world that those ballots are still secure." Pitts also said he did not know where the ballots were being taken.^[18]

On February 2, a Fulton County board commissioner announced that the county was planning to file a lawsuit challenging the seizure of the ballots and seeking their return;^[19][20] the lawsuit was filed on February 4.^[21]

On February 7, Northern Georgia U.S. District Court judge J. P. Boulee ordered that the docket for the lawsuit be unsealed, including both the motions filed by Fulton County and the search warrant affidavit and other documents presented to the federal magistrate judge to approve the seizure of the ballots.^[22][23]

Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, is scheduled to appear and offer public testimony about the raid at the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 18, 2026. Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Intelligence committee, has raised concerns related to the fact that Gabbard facilitated a phone call between President Trump and FBI agents who were on the ground and executed the search warrant. Warner claimed there was no justification for her actions, saying "Let’s be clear: It is inappropriate for a sitting president to personally involve himself in a criminal investigation tied to an election he lost".^[24][25]

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albus on it

warrent: 1-28-26 Fulton Warrant

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an 2 26

Fulton County, Georgia, has hit back against the Trump administration following the controversial election center raid last month, with Politico's Josh Gerstein reporting that a revised filing from the county accused the government of being "woefully short" on evidence of wrongdoing and violating the Constitution.

Near the end of January, FBI agents raided an election center in Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, and a major focal point for Donald Trump's false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election. Agents gathered various records from the building, including 2020 ballots, as part of an investigation into long-debunked allegations of fraud in the state, which went for Joe Biden by a slim margin in the 2020 race. Critics have also alleged that the raid is intended to fabricate a pretext to allow the federal government to interfere with Georgia elections.

The county has since taken the administration to court over the incident, demanding that they return the ballots seized last month and accusing it of pushing through with the operation despite having no evidence of wrongdoing. A revised filing from Tuesday afternoon made that argument clear, as Gerstein explained in a post to X.

"Revised Fulton County demand for return of 2020 ballots seized by FBI calls evidence 'woefully short' of showing probable cause that a crime was committed," Gerstein wrote. "County says actions would have to be willful to be crimes & no claim/proof of that."

Within the new filing, the county alleged that the sworn affidavits submitted by FBI agents claiming there to be probable cause for the raid were lacking actual evidence, despite a judge later signing off on a warrant for the operation. It also accused the government of violating Fourth Amendment rights against "unreasonable search and seizure."

"In seizing Petitioners’ property by relying on a warrant that was entirely devoid of probable cause, Respondent callously disregarded Petitioners’ rights underthe Fourth Amendment," the county's petition argued. "This flagrant constitutional violation compels immediate equitable relief from this Court—namely, an order requiring Respondent to return Fulton County’s original election records, as well as any copies."

In response to another X user, Gerstein noted that "probable cause to believe a crime was committed" is necessary to get a search and seizure warrant.

Legal experts have previously weighed in on these affidavits after they were unsealed, expressing befuddlement as to how a judge could have signed off on a warrant in response to them. David Becker, the founder and director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told CNN last week that there was "nothing" in them that showed probable cause.

"I have no idea how it was signed off on," Becker said. "When I heard they were unsealing the affidavit, I was actually expecting — even though we knew there would be no actual reality of a crime there, those ballots have been counted multiple times — but I was wondering what the administration would use that was new, that would justify these claims... There was no allegation of intent, which is a necessary element of the crime. In fact, they admit there's no intent that's evident at all."

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SEE STAFFER NETWORK

AN 2 26

The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.

Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed last year as U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, has had multiple meetings set up with top administration lawyers to discuss election integrity.

At those meetings was Ed Martin, a Justice Department lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described as the department’s “weaponization” against him and his allies, according to a source familiar with the meetings who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, also was directed to join at least one of the meetings, according to the source. Both Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims about the reliability of voting machines in Arizona.

The meetings reveal new details about the length of the preparations for, and people involved in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and legal experts told ProPublica was a significant escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide, even though his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t involve election law or election-related cases. The meetings with Martin, Olsen and other lawyers for the Justice Department were described by the source as being about “election integrity,” a term the Trump administration has used to describe investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged.

Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to answer questions about the meetings and other detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House and the Justice Department also did not respond to questions.

The meetings came at a particularly crucial time.

Martin’s efforts to obtain election materials from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding that a Fulton County judge allow him to access tens of thousands of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice,” but he had reportedly received no reply.

Martin explained to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired around the time of the meetings that although the White House had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a couple of others have been working also on the same topic” — including getting the Fulton County ballots. But Martin described progress as a “challenge.”

Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, asked why Martin didn’t just “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots.

Martin suggested it was easier said than done, but agreed: “Look, we’ve got to get” the ballots.

Before long, Albus and Olsen were interviewing witnesses for their case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, told ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a couple of times, both together and separately, around the turn of the year. He identified himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a judge to sign off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists believe may have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported. Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss.

Just a few weeks after those interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the government attorney on the search warrant that authorized the seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material in Georgia, far outside of Albus’ usual jurisdiction.

Former U.S. attorneys from both parties said it was rare for a federal prosecutor from one region to take on cases in other states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given.

Under Trump, senior roles across the White House, DOJ and FBI have increasingly been filled by a small, interconnected group of Missouri lawyers with longstanding ties to one another.

Another top federal official in the meetings was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Before joining the Justice Department, Osete worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, where he represented the state in at least five lawsuits against the Biden administration regarding vaccine mandates, immigration and other policies. Osete did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions.

When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election center, Andrew Bailey, another lawyer from the same political circles, was in charge. Before joining the FBI as deputy director, he had used his position as Missouri’s attorney general to pursue high-profile cases against prominent Democrats and said he supported all efforts to investigate Biden, his family and his administration.

A spokesperson for the FBI declined to answer detailed questions about Bailey.

Last year, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ office, was brought in to help prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the original career prosecutors on the case were replaced by political appointees. After a judge dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James again, and Keller returned to Missouri.

Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, previously served as Missouri’s solicitor general under state attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus brief supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution.

Albus’ connection to the other Missouri lawyers goes back decades. Unlike some of the others, though, he has never held elected office or had a high public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. Instead, he spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor and as a judge in a Missouri state circuit court.

Emails show Albus exchanging brief messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis and Martin was chief of staff to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails were part of records from the Blunt administration that became public after being released under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.

In the email exchange, Albus put in a good word for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court judgeship, and Blunt ultimately selected that candidate.

Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 until Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court judge vacancy in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of the finest prosecutors I have ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. attorney in December.

Lawyers who appeared in Albus’ court rated him as well prepared, professional and attentive, according to Missouri judicial performance reviews. They said he followed the evidence, applied the law correctly and gave clear reasons for his rulings.

Albus came under more critical scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney last summer. Much of that attention centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took office. Prosecutors alleged that developers in St. Louis falsely claimed to be using minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for city tax breaks, conduct the Justice Department has historically treated as wire fraud.

One of the defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi.

The developers’ lawyers argued that even if the government’s claims were true, they were legally irrelevant because the Trump administration had taken the position that tax breaks based on race or gender were unlawful. Albus accepted those arguments and dropped the case. As part of the resolution, Albus personally hand-delivered to City Hall a check of about $1 million from one of the developers’ companies as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his office wanted to drop charges and hand-delivered the check “to make sure they got it.”

In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats said the dismissal of the St. Louis case and other cases in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s clients raised “significant broader ethical concerns.” In the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving another Brad Bondi client whose charges were dropped, a Justice Department spokesperson said Pam Bondi’s relationship with her brother had “no bearing on the outcome.”

A spokesperson for the developers said their lawyers communicated only with the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis about the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He said the dismissal reflected “a recognition that this case should never have been brought in the first place.” Brad Bondi did not respond to a request for comment.

Weeks later, around the time of Albus’ meetings about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s office, flanked by a framed photo of Trump and a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters were being manipulated by party elites and the media.

Martin posted the photo on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?”

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RWW

02/10/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Oklahoma finally scraps Bible-heavy, conspiracy-laced Social Studies standards

After Ryan Walters’ failed ideological crusade, Oklahoma is restoring evidence-based history and bringing basic sanity back to public schools.

Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: A Conspiracy Fueled Report Preceded ‘Black Pill’ Tulsi Gabbard’s Fulton County Election Raid

Trump’s spymaster is a hero to the MAGA fringe after extraordinary ballot seizure that followed up on their longtime fixations.

On Jan. 6, 2026, a group of election conspiracy theorists released a report detailing allegations that the 2020 presidential results in Georgia’s Fulton County were “falsely padded” with questionable ballots. A little over three weeks later, FBI agents raided the county’s offices and seized 700 boxes of voting records.

This extraordinary raid has prompted widespread alarm amid a recent spate of comments from President Trump indicating that he might once again try to somehow disrupt the U.S. tradition of free and fair elections, including through attempts to “nationalize” or “take over” state-run votes. Democrats, noting the situation in Fulton County and ongoing federal occupations of blue cities, have warned Trump may attempt to meddle with vote counts or engage in widespread voter intimidation. Trump allies are also openly musing about the possibility of having ICE agents “surround the polls.”

Even with all of Trump’s other threats to the election system, the raid in Fulton County stands out as an extreme escalation. And there are multiple indications that this push from the White House is taking cues from the fixations of hardcore election conspiracy theorists. Even after Trump’s return to office, these diehards refuse to accept his loss in the 2020 election as legitimate and want the voting system overhauled to prevent any similar outcome in the future. And, in the wake of the raid, some of those extreme elements of the Trump base are rejoicing and predicting there is much more to come.

The “Fulton County Report of Investigation of the 2020 General Election” was billed as coming from the “Election Oversight Group” and dated Jan. 6, 2026. EOG is a supposed watchdog group that has repeatedly filed complaints against election officials in Georgia and produced research documents based on thoroughly debunked allegations. Some of the group’s past work was cited by Trump and his attorneys in 2024 as he defended himself against Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and pressed his ultimately successful case for presidential immunity. There are indications this more recent EOG report also made its way to Trump’s team and even that it may have influenced the mysterious investigation that led to the Fulton County raid.

Alleged fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia has been an obsession of various Trump allies who worked to contest his loss that year as he sought re-election following his first term. Despite the flood of wild theories about what may have happened, the Georgia election result was affirmed in three separate counts overseen by officials from Trump’s own party. Judges have also consistently rejected efforts to challenge the result in court due to a lack of real evidence. Nevertheless, members of the fringe continue to question the outcome, and those conspiracy theories now seem to be part of the Trump administration’s official justification as it tries to overhaul election infrastructure and reinvestigate past outcomes ahead of the coming campaigns.

On Jan. 22, 2026, several days before the FBI raid, President Trump made a post on his Truth Social platform screengrabbing a tweet from Liz Harrington, who worked as a spokeswoman for his 2024 campaign. In her tweet, Harrington promoted a claim about “unsigned” voting records in Fulton County that had appeared in the EOG report. Harrington suggested this proved the 2020 election there was “all a fraud.”

Harrington, whose belief in 2020 election conspiracy theories long made her a controversial figure in Trump’s orbit, reportedly helped author the documents related to EOG research that were shared by Trump during the 2024 campaign. One EOG executive confirmed to TPM that Harrington had engaged with the group. Harrington did not respond to requests for comment from TPM about this latest EOG report, any role it might have played in the raid, and whether her tweet, later reposted by Trump on Truth Social, was the only way she brought the report to the president’s attention.

Kevin Moncla, who, TPM previously reported, has been associated with EOG in corporate records and was listed as an author of the 2026 Fulton County report, claims to have brought that research to the attention of DOJ officials. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, Moncla said he spoke with a U.S. attorney about some of the allegations in the EOG report prior to the raid. Moncla, who did not respond to a request for comment from TPM, also told the newspaper that another person who worked on the report was in touch with officials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly tasked Thomas Albus, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri to investigate so-called “election integrity” cases. Albus oversaw the search warrant used to execute the Fulton County raid. His office did not immediately respond to questions from TPM about whether he engaged with Moncla or anyone else from EOG.

The White House has said the raid is part of a broader inquiry being led by Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and FBI Director Kash Patel. In a statement to TPM, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle rejected the idea that questions about the 2020 race are baseless conspiracy theories.

“President Trump pledged to secure America’s elections, and he has tasked the most talented team of patriots to do just that. Efforts by the failing legacy media to sow internal division are a desperate distraction that will not work,” Ingle said. “President Trump has full confidence in his entire team. DNI Gabbard and FBI Director Patel are working together to implement the President’s election integrity priorities, and their work continues to serve him and the entire country well.”

The White House did not directly respond to questions about whether any administration officials were in touch with the EOG or aware of its report. The FBI declined to comment.

Gabbard has said she was dispatched to the scene of the ballot seizure by the president and Bondi. She was also on the phone with Trump in its aftermath. In response to questions from TPM about the ballot seizure, Gabbard’s office pointed to a letter she wrote following questions from Congress about her participation in the raid. In that letter, Gabbard noted her “presence was requested by the president” and argued she had “broad statutory authority” to be involved in “election security” matters. The press secretary for the office of the director of national intelligence also provided a statement.

“President Trump’s directive to secure our elections was clear, and DNI Gabbard has and will proudly continue to take actions within her authorities, alongside our interagency partners, including the FBI, to support ensuring the integrity of our elections,” the press secretary said.

Gabbard’s office did not respond to questions about whether she was in contact with EOG or aware of their report.

Out on the fringe, election deniers certainly seem pleased by Gabbard’s involvement. They’re also hopeful the Fulton County raid is the beginning of something much bigger.

On Sunday, conspiracy streamer Alex Jones, host of “InfoWars,” took the day off. Some of the crew who filled in for him said Jones needed to rest his gravelly voice. One of the understudies who stepped up in Jones’ absence was Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right militant group, the Oath Keepers. Rhodes spent hours on different streaming shows associated with Jones; “InfoWars” operation on Sunday talking about Fulton County and praising Gabbard.

As he expressed optimism about the raid, Rhodes said he lacked faith in many elements of the administration due to the incomplete disclosure of files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which he called “kabuki theater.” However, Rhodes repeatedly described Gabbard as an exception.

“I don’t trust anything out of the DOJ or the FBI at all. The only person I trust … in the intelligence agencies is Tulsi Gabbard,” Rhodes said. “That’s it. And her team. That’s it. Nobody else.”

Rhodes later suggested that Gabbard’s role in the raid made him believe it would seriously address the extreme Trump base’s grievances related to election infrastructure.

“I was glad to see Tulsi there, because otherwise, I would’ve been like a lot of other black pill MAGA people. Like, we don’t believe anything we see out of the DOJ or the, or the FBI — would think it’s this window dressing,” Rhodes said, adding, “But I think Tulsi being in there … sends a different message.”

Rhodes was a major figure in the efforts to fight and overturn Trump’s 2020 loss. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 attack before having that sentence commuted by Trump. Since getting out of prison, Rhodes has returned to pro-Trump activism.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes hosting “War Room” on InfoWars. (Photo: InfoWars/Rumble)

During his various appearances, Rhodes was joined by people he described as “2020 election fraud OGs.” The roster included Georgia activist Garland Favorito, who is listed as a contributor to the EOG Fulton County report. Favorito brought along a video clip which seemed to show an AI-generated woman praising the raid.

“We worked so hard for almost six years for our legal right to these election records,” the woman said. “Thank you, DOJ and FBI, for seizing Georgia election records, so we’ll have truth. Hopefully you’ll return to Georgia and pick up a few more truckloads.”

As he interviewed another right wing activist named Kristen Meghan Kelly, Rhodes said he wanted the raid to be “the wedge that blows open the deep state in this country.” He also claimed he had seen Gabbard at an event in August and suggested his interactions with her were another reason for his optimism.

“She was at Ron Paul’s 90th birthday party, we were both there and we saw her there,” Rhodes said to Kelly. “So yeah, I think she’s carrying a torch and her presence at the raid, the FBI raid in Georgia, is what gives me hope. … Her being involved lets me know that this is real.”

Kelly agreed.

“She’s a badass,” Kelly said of Gabbard. “She’s not risk averse. … This type of action is what is going to finally feed the hunger for accountability. And there’s a lot of accountability that is needed.”

Gabbard’s office did not respond to a question about whether she had been in contact with Rhodes.

The various InfoWars broadcasts were peppered with advertisements for “combat daggers,” “trench knives,” “folding knives,” and questionable supplements including “ultra methylene blue.” At one point, as another host, Rob Dew, plugged Jones’ signature blend of the controversial blue serum, Rhodes also boasted of having been in contact with another member of Trump’s Cabinet, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. Rhodes would go on to say he believed Gabbard should be “our number one pick for president in 2028” and that she and Kennedy would ultimately form a “fantastic ticket” together.

However, first there was InfoWars business to attend to.

“Did you take your methylene blue this morning?” Dew asked Rhodes.

“I have not,” Rhodes said. “Let’s get some done.”

“Basically, what it does is it helps your mitochondria, uh, process energy better,” Dew explained.

Medical experts don’t necessarily agree with that claim. However, as ever, Rhodes and the others on the fringe have their own set of beliefs.

“Robert Kennedy Jr. likes it, I like it,” Rhodes said of the supplement. “You know, I just saw him in D.C. It was at the MAHA event for his birthday.”

HHS did not respond to a request for comment about whether Kennedy had been in contact with Rhodes. Dew also didn’t press the question. He had another priority at the moment and called out to assistants offscreen.

“Bring in the liquid!”

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Hunter Walkeris an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo. He is an author and former White House correspondent whose work has appeared in a variety of publications including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and New York Magazine. He can be reached at hunter@talkingpointsmemo.com

Includes:

DOJ Election Conspiracies Election Integrity Featured Fulton County Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes...

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AN 2 26

One week after President Donald Trump sent FBI agents to seize Fulton County’s 2020 ballots as part of a criminal probe, a Georgia judge has apparently had it up to here with Trump-style election deniers.

“The 2020 election is over,” said Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, dismissing Trump-supporters’ lawsuit and effort to review ballots and materials they allege would prove Trump should have won Georgia.

On top of tossing the suit, the judge ordered the four plaintiffs — consisting of a treasure hunter and members of a Georgia affiliate of the Tea Party Patriots — to pay nearly $40,000 to Fulton County and the county Superior Court clerk’s office for filing the frivolous suit.

McBurney ruled the lawsuit “presented zero factual or legal questions” concerning the county’s liability for certain claims and gave the plaintiffs until Monday to pay the attorney fees.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) reports McBurney's ruling is the “latest twist” in a long-running legal battle that centers on allegations of voting fraud in the 2020 election. Lead plaintiff Garland Favorito has become an influential figure among a group of Georgians who are convinced that fraud cost Trump the election, despite countless state and federal investigations finding no evidence of significant fraud in 2020. Then-President Joe Biden’s victory was confirmed by two recounts, including a hand count of every ballot.

One of Favorito’s consultants reviewing ballot images was Jovan Pulitzer, an inventor and scavenger who the AJC reports as having once “searched for the Ark of the Covenant.” Another face behind the fight was Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who joined Pulitzer in spreading election fraud conspiracies during a state Senate hearing at the Georgia Capitol.

“An attorney for Favorito, Todd Harding, has been involved in at least three other lawsuits alleging fraud in Georgia’s November and January U.S. Senate elections,” AJC reported in 2021.

“This is nothing more than a circus that’s being put on by those who promote the ’big lie’ that Trump won the election,” Fulton Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said in 2021. “Where does it end? The votes have been counted. The elections have been certified. It’s over.”

But even today, it apparently is not over because Trump has sent his politicized FBI to investigate and count ballots on their own under the cover of a federal warehouse.

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AN 2 26 VID

President Donald Trump has called on the federal government to "nationalize the voting" across the United States, baselessly claiming that major cities in swing states are conducting fraudulent elections. But one expert who Trump once hired to find proof of voter fraud says it's almost nonexistent.

, data specialist Ken Block said Trump's rationale to have the federal government assume control of elections didn't hold water. He also said the Trump administration's recent raid of an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia harkened back to his prior work with the Trump 2020 campaign.

"The Trump campaign in 2020 hired me to look for evidence of voter fraud. And they asked me to review about 20 different claims of voter fraud that came into the campaign from everywhere around the world," Block said. "Apparently, every one of the 20 claims they asked me to evaluate, I was able to show that they were false. And we did find small amounts of voter fraud, but never did we find enough voter fraud to have been able to change the outcome of any of the swing state elections in 2020."

Block went on to say that despite Trump's insistence that there was election fraud in Georgia in 2020, no evidence has ever surfaced proving him correct. He reminded viewers that some Trump associates – like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — were never able to substantiate any of their claims in court when asked to prove supposed fraud in the Peach State.

"We've had individuals do data analytics claiming to have found fraud. And in legislative hearings, they were humiliated when legislators asked questions and were able to show that the analyses were false," he said. "There's been nothing but allegations that I've been able to see so far, and nothing that's borne any fruit. I wonder when we're going to move on from this."

CNN host Boris Sanchez noted that in Block's new book, "Disproven," he recounted that he reported his findings debunking Trump's election fraud claims to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Block said he was never able to confirm if Meadows actually told Trump that his claims were proven wrong by his own hired expert.

"I don't know if Meadows communicated my findings into the Oval Office. A second company was also hired at the same time. Mine was to look for evidence of voter fraud. They had the misfortune of going into the oval office to communicate their findings directly," he said. "And those findings were that they could not find any evidence of voter fraud."

===

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AN 2 26

After the United States' 2020 presidential election, President Donald Trump was furious when Joe Biden flipped five states that Trump had carried in 2016: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. And Trump claimed, without evidence, that all of those states were stolen from him through widespread voter fraud.

Trump, in 2026, continues to make that claim, which was repeatedly debunked by vote recounts. And FBI agents recently searched voter records at an election center in Georgia, inspiring some commentators to wonder why Trump targeted that state rather than one of the other four states that Biden flipped in 2020.

Slate's Shirin Ali, in an article published on February 3, lays out some reasons why the Peach State is a high priority for Trump and his allies.

"One big question looming over this entire episode…. is why — of all the states where Trump falsely claimed there was fraud in 2020 — has Georgia become Ground Zero for the president ahead of the 2026 midterms that election experts feel are potentially threatened by Trump's latest actions?," Ali reports. "We think we have a few answers. Those answers have to do as much with 2026 as they do with 2020. And, perhaps surprisingly, a big motivation for Trump's assault on Georgia's election infrastructure now has as much to do with the Republican primaries in the state as with November's general election."

Ali goes on to note that Georgia's gubernatorial race "is considered a toss-up, though Republicans have consistently held the job since 2002."

"Polling has shown the top Republican contenders are Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones," Ali explains. "Trump has endorsed Jones, who served as a fake elector in 2020 and was tied up in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference investigation, which charged Trump and several co-conspirators with a criminal conspiracy to steal Georgia's 2020 election. Jones has focused his campaign on attacking Raffensperger over that election."

The recent FBI search, according to Ali, is connected to the GOP infighting that occurred in Georgia after the 2020 election. Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both conservative Republicans, maintained that Biden won the Peach State fair and square — much to Trump's chagrin.

"As part of this vendetta," Ali writes, "Trump even made Kemp and Raffensperger prime targets during the 2022 elections, trying to inspire his MAGA base to vote them both out of office. At the time, he failed miserably. Now, though, it seems that Trump has found a new way to try to punish Raffensperger. The Trump Administration is undoubtedly going to use the baggage surrounding Georgia's voting system to cast doubt on its 2026 elections and possibly beyond, with the FBI's recent raid evidence that this is already underway."

Ali adds, "Georgia provides a three-for-one, from the Trump perspective: He gets to again question the legitimacy of the 2020 election; he gets to again cast blame on Raffensperger, his 2020 antagonist in the state; and he gets to potentially meddle with an election which he desperately wants Raffensperger to lose."

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AN 2 26

LAWSUIT TO PREVENT BAD USE OF BALLOTS

Police body cam video reveals how FBI 'screwed up' raid on Fulton County elections center

A body-worn camera from local police officers in Fulton County captured the FBI raid of the Georgia elections center. And professor James Sample, Hofstra University School of Law, told MS NOW that the arguments in the short 93-second bodycam video shows a debate over the process of the warrant.

Sample says it might be enough for a court challenge.

"Down the road, that could be a basis for a lawsuit, if, in fact, the government is seizing materialmaterial that is either not properly specified or the location is not properly specified," said Sample. "It's a little unclear. I think the real questions here will be about who's driving this. I mean, think about, you know, the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] ends up being part of this search. And then the phone call. I was thinking about an analogy today. Imagine a scenario where you were at Mar-a-Lago and Jack Smith or Merrick Garland had called President [Joe] Biden during the search for those documents."

He said that the outrage from the GOP would have exploded on Capitol Hill.

"That's essentially the equivalent of what we're talking about," he said about the Fulton County raid. "And it would have been outrageous had it occurred. This is being driven in a way that we talk about on a regular basis, and we may be a broken record, but the line between the White House and the Department of Justice is no longer blurry. It's just gone."

Host Ana Cabrera noted that Congress is supposed to be a check on that power.

"The hypocrisy is astounding," MS Now journalist Ken Dilanian said.

He also noted the raid came the week after the top FBI official in the Atlanta office was ousted. MS NOW later confirmed that it was due to his resistance to the raid.

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AN 1 26

Atlanta Journal Constitution Senior Political columnist Patricia Murphy said the Wednesday FBI raid at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center was not about prosecuting President Donald Trump’s disproven claims of a stolen election in 2020 for the millionth time.

“Although the records they took were from the election five years ago, it’s important to understand that the raid in Fulton County is not really about the 2020 elections at all, which have long since come and gone,” said Murphy. “Instead, the raid is about the next elections — who will control them in Fulton County in 2026 and who will run them in Georgia two years after that when the 2028 presidential election takes place.”

Trump may croon that “people will soon be prosecuted” but Georgia Election Commissioner Robb Pitts said the ballots that agents seized were the same ones “counted, recounted, hand-counted, debated, litigated and fought over” after Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.

“Despite every attempt by the president and his legal team to prove the election had been stolen from him at the time, every road led back to the same result — Trump lost and Joe Biden won,” said Murphy. “The … question at hand is who will oversee Fulton County elections in 2026.”

Currently, elections are run by the Fulton County Election Board. But Republicans in the General Assembly passed a massive new voting law that contained language giving the Georgia State Election Board the power to replace any so-called “underperforming” county election board, including Fulton County’s, with an interim leader of their choosing.

“Replacement could only happen after an audit or investigation, and the state board left Fulton’s elections in the hands of county officials in 2023 after it said the county had made “substantial improvements” to its processes during a performance review,” said Murphy.

However, Fulton County is a large, cosmopolitan and overwhelmingly blue region of an otherwise red state, so Republicans consider it a bad actor interfering with their plan for political dominance. It was just a few years ago that the county’s population singlehandedly handed Trump his nasty defeat, turning the Southern state of Georgia blue for President Joe Biden.

Trump was furious, and so were his Republican allies — who seized upon the county’s past record of long lines, late returns and slow bookkeeping, mostly due to its inordinately high population.

“On 2020, the president went further, claiming that Fulton County was a hotbed of so much nefarious activity and rampant fraud that it cost him the election, all accusations that his White House staff dismissed and multiple courts in Georgia threw out,” Murphy wrote.

She added that thanks to the work of the state’s majority Republican government the current majority on the State Election Board “now includes three Republican members whom Trump infamously singled out in 2024 as ‘pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.’”

Two of the so-called “pit bulls” were actually with the FBI in Union City during the Wednesday raid, Murphy said.

“If this week’s raid produces enough of a pretext for the board to act in the future, the 2026 elections in Fulton County could be overseen by someone picked by the pro-Trump State Board, not by elected Fulton commissioners themselves,” Murphy warned.

Read the AJC report at this link.

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CONTEXT AN 1 26

When Donald Trump won the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, two of the four criminal prosecutions he was facing at the time stemmed from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results: a federal indictment prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith, and a Georgia indictment prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Both of those election interference cases were doomed when Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024's general election, and the president continues to claim, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

One of Trump's most aggressive supporters after he lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was attorney Sidney Powell, who promoted a range of conspiracy theories on the election results in Georgia. And now, Powell is resurfacing after an FBI search in that state.

On Wednesday, January 28, FBI agents searched a Georgia election center, looking for records on the 2020 election. And the following day on X, formerly Twitter, Ed Martin (a Trump appointee to the U.S. Department of Justice) posted a photo of him with Powell — writing, "Good morning, America. How are ya?"

The Bulwark's Will Sommer, in response to Martin's tweet, posted, "After FBI raid on GA election office for 2020 ballots, top DOJ official posts a picture with leading election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell."

Attorney David Colapinto, responding to the Martin/Powell photo, tweeted, "Are these two in charge of recounting the ballots?"

Powell was among Trump's many co-defendants in Willis' election interference case. In October 2023, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges and avoided jail time but was sentenced to six months of probation.

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WOW AN 1 26

When Donald Trump was facing four criminal indictments, two of them stemmed from his efforts to overturn the United States' 2020 presidential election results: a federal case prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and a Georgia case prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Both of those cases were doomed when Trump narrowly defeated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

In 2020, Trump and his allies claimed, without evidence, that Democrats stole Georgia's electoral votes from him — a claim that two prominent Republicans in the Peach State, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, pushed backed against. Kemp and Raffensperger adamantly maintained that then-President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia fair and square.

Kemp and Raffensperger spoke publicly and on the record. But according to New York Times reporters Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, other Republicans spoke candidly about Georgia's 2020 election results in closed-door testimony from 2022.

In an article published on January 13, Fausset and Hakim explain, "Transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case against Mr. Trump and his allies, obtained this week by the New York Times, show just how alarmed and exasperated a number of senior Republicans felt about the president's efforts to overturn an American presidential election. The testimony, given in 2022, is emerging at a time when Mr. Trump is again raising complaints about his 2020 defeat and voicing regret that he did not order the National Guard to seize voting machines after the election."

Those transcripts, according to the Times reporters, "were part of the investigative file" in Willis' election interference/RICO case against Trump and others and were "conducted by a special purpose grand jury."

Republicans who testified included Kemp, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.

Describing the testimony, Fausset and Hakim report, "Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina found President Trump's claims of election fraud in 2020 'unnerving.' Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia described Mr. Trump's efforts to get his state's lawmakers to intervene a 'fruitless exercise.' David Ralston, a former speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, called the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states he had lost 'the craziest thing I’ve heard.'"

Graham, according to Fausset and Hakim, had no doubt that Biden won Georgia when he spoke to the grand jurors in 2022.

Graham testified, "I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short…. If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he'd be inclined to believe it."

Recalling a conversation with Trump after the 2020 election, Ralston testified that "right off the bat, I've got to tell him I disagree with him."

*Read Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim's full article for The New York Times at this link (subscription required).

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an 11 25

'Game over': Experts slam GA prosecutor’s 'official' dismissal of Trump election case

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nyt

no lnx

Veteran Georgia Prosecutor Appoints Himself to Oversee Trump Case

The official, Pete Skandalakis, had been tasked by law with finding a new prosecutor for the election interference case after Fani T. Willis was removed from it.

By Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim

Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim have been covering the Georgia election interference case and related inquiries since 2021. They welcome tips at nytimes.com/tips.

Nov. 14, 2025

The Georgia criminal election interference case against President Trump and a number of his allies entered a new phase on Friday, as the executive director of the state’s prosecutor council appointed himself to take over the case, replacing Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, who was disqualified from pursuing it.

What the change means for the future of the case was unclear. The new prosecutor, Pete Skandalakis, is a veteran Georgia lawyer who began his career as a Democrat and later switched to the Republican Party. As executive director of the nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, Mr. Skandalakis had been tasked by law with finding a new prosecutor to take on the complex Trump case after Ms. Willis was removed by the Georgia appellate court.

In a filing in Fulton County Superior Court on Friday, Mr. Skandalakis said he reached out to “several prosecutors” in the state, but that each of them declined the appointment. So he said he decided to take on the case himself.

In a statement, Mr. Skandalakis said that while it would have “been simple” to tell the court he could not find a replacement for Ms. Willis — a move that would have likely led to its prompt dismissal — he decided that would not be “the right course of action.”

“The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case,” Mr. Skandalakis said. “Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.”

As the new prosecutor, Mr. Skandalakis now has the authority to steer the case in a number of directions, including taking it to trial as it is, striking plea deals, dropping some charges, or striking the case altogether.

The new prosecutor, Pete Skandalakis, is a veteran Georgia lawyer who began his career as a Democrat and later switched to the Republican Party.Credit...Tyler H. Jones/The Daily News, via Associated Press

“He would have the same prosecutorial discretion afforded to any sitting prosecutor,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. “He does have the obligation under Georgia law to review every individual case for which probable cause for prosecution exists, and to make a determination based on an analysis of the facts whether to proceed. And he has an ethical obligation to not pursue charges where he doesn’t believe he could secure a conviction.”

In a statement on Friday morning, Steve Sadow, Mr. Trump’s lead defense lawyer in Georgia, said, “This politically charged prosecution has to come to an end. We remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case against President Trump.”

Norm Eisen, a critic of Mr. Trump and executive chairman of the Democracy Defenders Fund, said in an interview that Mr. Skandalakis’ decision to appoint himself was “a welcome development for our democracy.

“If we don’t have accountability for what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election,” Mr. Eisen said, “we’re at risk of it happening again.”

The Georgia criminal charges leveled against the president and an eclectic group of his supporters — including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and lawyer for Mr. Trump, and Trevian Kutti, a onetime publicist for Kanye West — lie beyond the federal pardon power of presidents.

The case had been moving toward trial when late last year, Ms. Willis was disqualified from prosecuting it. Months earlier, defense lawyers exposed that Ms. Willis and Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer whom she hired to manage the prosecution, had been romantic partners. The defense accused Ms. Willis of “self-dealing” by going on vacations with Mr. Wade that he had paid for, at least in part.

Ms. Willis fought her removal, but in September, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to intervene, ending the appeals process.

The indictment, handed up in August 2023, accused Mr. Trump and 18 of his allies of organizing a criminal racketeering enterprise to reverse the 2020 election results in the state, which Mr. Trump narrowly lost that year. Part of the basis for the indictment was a phone call Mr. Trump made in January 2021 to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state. During the call, Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the election results.

The call was part of a multistate strategy by the Trump campaign to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election, resulting in criminal charges in five states. Mr. Trump faces state election interference charges only in Georgia, but some of those involved in efforts to keep him in office were charged in other states as well.

A Michigan case against fake electors acting on his behalf was dismissed this year. Similar cases in Nevada and Arizona are mired in legal challenges.

A federal criminal elections case against him, parallel to the Georgia case, was dropped after he won the 2024 election, and a separate federal criminal case related to Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents when he left office in 2021 was dismissed last year.

In a fourth criminal case against Mr. Trump, related to payments to cover up a sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign, a jury in New York found him guilty on 34 felony counts last year. The president has appealed that conviction.

Mr. Skandalakis is a well-known figure in Georgia legal and political circles. In 2022, he stepped in when a judge disqualified Ms. Willis from developing an election interference case against the state’s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, a Trump ally who was recruited by Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign to serve as a bogus elector.

Defense lawyers had exposed that Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney who brought an election interference case Mr. Trump, and Nathan Wade, right, an outside lawyer whom she hired to manage the prosecution, had been romantic partners.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Mr. Jones had been told he was a target of the broader Trump investigation by Ms. Willis’s office. But Ms. Willis was ultimately prohibited from pursuing charges against Mr. Jones because she had hosted a fund-raiser for one of his political rivals. As with the current case, Mr. Skandalakis, because of his position on the state prosecutors’ council, was required by law to find a replacement prosecutor to determine whether Mr. Jones should be charged.

Mr. Skandalakis took nearly two years to do so, and ended up deciding that he would be the best person for the job. He took another five months to conclude that Mr. Jones should not be prosecuted, concluding that Mr. Jones “did not act with criminal intent.”

In another high-profile matter in 2022, the Georgia attorney general chose Mr. Skandalakis to determine whether criminal charges were warranted against two Atlanta police officers after one of them fatally shot a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, during an arrest attempt in 2020. Mr. Skandalakis eventually determined that charges against the officers were not warranted.

Since Mr. Trump took office this year, the Justice Department has embarked on a retribution campaign against those who prosecuted him and Democrats he perceives as enemies, shattering norms that had long kept a symbolic wall between presidents and federal prosecutors. In September, Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post that Ms. Willis was among those who “are now CRIMINALS who will hopefully pay serious consequences for their illegal actions.”

The Times reported in September that federal prosecutors had issued a subpoena for records related to Ms. Willis’s travel history, and reported last month that the prosecutors were scrutinizing a trip that she had taken to the Bahamas.

A private firm that develops management seminars for prosecutors has said that Ms. Willis attended one of its training sessions during the trip. The full scope of the Willis inquiry, which is being led by the Justice Department’s Atlanta office, is unclear.

The Justice Department has already brought charges against Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, over the objection of career prosecutors who found insufficient evidence. Mr. Trump has also called for charges against an array of others, including Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal criminal indictments against him.

Ms. Willis became a hero to some on the left as she investigated, and then began prosecuting, Mr. Trump. A succession of Trump allies were subpoenaed to testify in Atlanta ahead of the indictment, including Senator Lindsey Graham and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff.

But the case was quickly swamped by legal challenges from a brigade of defense lawyers, including the disqualification effort. Ms. Willis pushed back in fiery testimony during a February 2024 court hearing, saying, “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”

Richard Fausset, a Times reporter based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice.

Danny Hakim is a reporter on the Investigations team at The Times, focused primarily on politics.

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 15, 2025, Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Veteran Georgia Lawyer To Oversee Election Case. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper |

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kos 11 25

In breaking news Georgia's sprawling RICO and election interference case against Donald Trump and many of his allies has been resurrected and is once again active. The case was put on hold when Fani Willis was disqualified as the prosecutor. Today, Peter Skandalakis, Director of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia took over the case.

Whether the state case against sitting president can proceed remains to be seen. I have my doubts, but the resolution may be that Trump's prosecution is simply delayed until he leaves office. In addition, questions of Trump's immunity created by the Supreme Court's abominable decision in that regards must be resolved.

However, the criminal cases against against the others charged in the criminal enterprise should be able to proceed. The case has already secured four convictionss with plea agreements and guilty pleas from Sideny Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro and Scott Hall. Pending trial against 15 more, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Mark Meadows may now proceed.

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AN 9 25

'Self-inflicted': Willis loses appeal in quest to lead Fulton County case against Trump

Alander Rocha, Alabama Reflector

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yikes an 12 24

'Totally unfounded': Legal experts blast GA appeals court’s disqualification of Fani Willis

fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is now officially disqualified from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump in his Georgia election interference criminal case, following a Thursday decision by the Georgia Court of Appeals (COA).

As NPR reported, the three-judge panel — all of whom were appointed by Republican governors — ruled that Willis' relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade amounted to a conflict of interest that required her being removed from the case. Assuming she doesn't accept the court's decision, the matter will now go to the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia (PACGA), according to Georgia criminal defense attorney Andrew Fleischman. However, Fleischman said this likely means' Willis case is "100% dead," as the PACGA "declined to prosecute the one recused case it already got."

In a subsequent skeet (the term used for Bluesky posts), Fleischman opined that there was a "total lack of analysis" in the COA's decision, saying there was "no rule or explanation here that any other criminal defendant could possibly use in their own case" and that "in such an important case, the court should explain itself."

Rolling Stone reporter Nikki McCann Ramirez posted excerpts of **the dissent authored by Judge Ben Land (appointed by Governor Brian Kemp). He argued that attorneys representing Trump "failed to show that the district attorney had an actual conflict of interest, failed to show that she received any material financial benefit as a result of her relationship with Nathan Wade, failed to show that she had a personal stake in the conviction of any defendant, failed to show that her relationship with Wade involved any impropriety on her part, and failed to show that their relationship, including their financial arrangements, had any actual impact on the case."

"Because there was some evidence presented to the trial court that supported these findings, we are bound to accept them," Land continued. "The majority does not dispute these findings. Rather, it holds, with the citation of no supporting authority and apparently for the first time in the history of our state, that the mere existence of an appearance of impropriety, in and of itself, is sufficient to reverse the trial court's refusal to disqualify the district attorney and her entire office."

Brookings Institution senior fellow Norm Eisen wrote that the COA's ruling was "totally unfounded," and noted that "bipartisan experts agree" that Willis' relationship with Wade wasn't disqualifying on its own. But he added that despite Willis' removal from the case, "the indictment stands" and should be pursued "vigorously." Eisen reminded his followers that —just as in the New York hush money cover-up case — the Georgia indictment is not subject to the Supreme Court's immunity protections for official presidential acts.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance pointed out that the decision means "a new DA will be selected to take over the case," adding that this would likely amount to "a slow death knell if not an outright death for the case." In his own response to the ruling, Federation of American Scientists director of global risk Jon B. Wolfsthal lamented: "The entire American system of justice is broken." Attorney Bradley P. Moss, however, wrote that Willis "has no one to blame but herself" for her disqualification.

READ MORE:[Fani Willis in testy exchange: I'm not the one 'on trial for trying to steal an election'

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AN 11 24

HUH?

Court cancels pivotal hearing to consider if Fulton DA can remain on Trump RICO case

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alternet-lno lnx

Supreme Court delivers massive blow to Mark Meadows

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' mugshot (Photo: Fulton County Sheriff's Office)

:{:{Carl Gibson}:

November 12, 2024}:

Despite the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows isn't catching a break from Republican-appointed justices in his own criminal case.

CNN reported Tuesday that Meadows' request to have his Fulton County, Georgia election interference case moved to federal court in Washington, D.C. has been officially denied, meaning the door has closed on his last-ditch effort to move his case out of the Peach State. Meadows had hoped to have his state-level case moved to the federal court, with his attorneys arguing that Meadows' acting on orders from then-President Donald Trump's were part of his official duties as chief of staff.

“This court reiterated that the threat posed by prosecutions against federal officers for actions relating to their federal functions does not evaporate once they leave federal office,” Meadows’ legal team stated in a filing to the Supreme Court this summer. “A White House Chief of Staff facing criminal charges based on actions relating to his work for the president of the United States should not be a close call.”

READ MORE: US appeals court shuts down Mark Meadows' attempt to move GA election interference case

Meadows' argument already fell flat in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, with a three-judge panel denying his petition for an en banc hearing by the full circuit earlier this year. Chief Judge William Pryor previously ruled that Meadows' case should remain in the Georgia state court system, saying "the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related Meadows’ official duties."

Now, Meadows' fate will depend on an Atlanta jury after the Georgia Court of Appeals rules on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue prosecuting the case. Willis — who won her own reelection last week — has previously survived Trump's attempt to have her removed from the case, as his lawyers argued that her romantic relationship with then-special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted a conflict of interest.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee previously ruled that either Wade or Willis had to step down from their role this summer, prompting Wade to submit his resignation almost immediately following McAfee's decision. But Trump's lawyers successfully appealed that decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which is expected to issue its own ruling on whether Willis can remain on the case next spring.

With Trump preparing to enter the White House again in January, Meadows was likely angling for a presidential pardon if his case was moved from state to federal court. But because Trump cannot end state-level investigations with a pardon, both the president-elect and his former chief of staff still have to contend with the Fulton County case regardless of whether Willis remains on the case or a new prosecutor is assigned.

READ MORE: 'No trial until 2025': Political scientist hedges bet on 'untested constitutional theory' in GA case

Trump's attorneys in Georgia had previously argued that his criminal trial should be put on hold until January of 2029 if he were to win the election, saying that the duties of the presidency take precedent over an individual state's prosecution. Judge McAfee has yet to officially reschedule the trial, though it's expected his lawyers will be successful in preventing the case from moving forward until Trump leaves office.

CNN reported that Meadows has already struck out in his attempts to move his Arizona criminal case to federal court, with a judge ruling against him in September. Meadows is facing multiple felony charges in the Grand Canyon State for his alleged attempts to interfere with the 2020 election in the state President Joe Biden narrowly won four years ago.

Click here to read CNN's report in full.

READ MORE: GA reporter: Here's what happens with Trump's Fulton County trial after Fani Willis decision

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her status hung up? 11 24

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// msg pimp handler

Rudy Giuliani calls Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, “Fani the ho”

11/01/24 mma

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mma 6 24

the widely debunked documentary was mentioned in dozens of articles on The Gateway Pundit and pushed by conservative media figures including Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk

WRITTEN BY AUDREY MCCABE

PUBLISHED 06/05/24 10:51 AM EDT

Right-wing media conglomerate Salem Media has retracted and apologized for Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote’s conspiracy theory-laden “documentary” 2000 Mules after settling a lawsuit with a Georgia voter falsely accused by the film of committing fraud in the 2020 election.

Before halting distribution of the film and removing it from its platforms, Salem Media provided a platform to widely circulate its election integrity misinformation throughout the right-wing media ecosystem. Salem Media’s Charlie Kirk was featured in the documentary, and a search for the film name on The Gateway Pundit’s website yielded dozens of articles.

In May 2022, filmmaker D’Souza released 2000 Mules in partnership with “election integrity” group True the Vote and Salem Media. The film relies heavily on the use of cellphone geotracking, a faulty approach that reportedly fails to prove claims of ballot trafficking. (D’Souza also published a book version of 2000 Mules, which was recalled by the publisher soon after it hit bookstores and altered to retract certain allegations before its re-release. True the Vote claimed to have “had no participation in” the book.)

The documentary has been repeatedly debunked by law enforcement and the media, but right-wing media heavily promoted the film as supposed evidence of widespread voter fraud aimed at stopping former President Donald Trump from winning the 2020 presidential election.

Mark Andrews, a Georgia man falsely depicted as committing voter fraud in the film, sued D’Souza and his company, Salem Media, True the Vote and its founders Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips, and the book publisher. In a separate legal proceeding, a Fulton County Superior Court judge ordered True the Vote to provide evidence of voter fraud in Georgia, which the film asserted. True the Vote admitted in court that it did not have evidence substantiating its claims.

Salem Media recently settled in the suit, paying Andrews an undisclosed “significant” amount and issuing a formal apology. The outlet also claimed that it “relied on representations made to us by Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote.” Engelbrecht claimed in a livestream that Salem retracted 2000 Mules only because of pressure from shareholders and advertisers, and True the Vote posted on X that it “stands by its processes and methodologies” and Salem’s settlement “does not change our [True the Vote’s] position.” D’Souza reposted the statement.

IFrame Content

Right-wing media figures and outlets have pushed the film, using it to fuel claims that the 2020 election was stolen

One America News regularly promoted the film around the 2022 midterm elections, devoting 58 hours of airtime to the film between October 15 and November 1. One America News figures also attended the Mar-a-Lago premiere, bizarrely weaved the film into unrelated segments about crime, and called it the “film of the century.” Host Dan Ball stated, “After watching this movie, I will say this: There’s not one doubt in my mind that this election was rigged, period.” Media Matters, [11/3/22, 5/11/22]
The Daily Signal, The Published Reporter, and several GOP politicians ran ads on Meta promoting 2000 Mules, further spreading the film’s false claims.The Daily Signal’s ad features a quote from Phillips claiming that there was an “organized effort to subvert” the 2020 election. Meta prohibits ads that have been debunked by third-party fact-checkers, but Media Matters found 36 ads promoting the film. Media Matters, [5/6/22]
Right-wing podcaster and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon invited Engelbrecht and Phillips onto War Room to promote the film, even after the group failed to provide evidence before the court. Bannon claimed that True the Vote was being targeted in an “organized media hit.” Media Matters, [2/20/24]
Salem Media host and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk appeared in 2000 Mules and brought D’Souza, Engelbrecht, and Phillips on his show to promote the film. Kirk also partnered with D’Souza to host exclusive showings of the documentary. Media Matters, [5/4/22; CharlieKirk.com, 4/9/22]
A search for “2000 Mules” on The Gateway Pundit’s website returned dozens of articles.The outlet claimed that the film “irrefutably confirms the widespread belief that Democrats stole the election in 2020.” The Gateway Pundit, [6/2/22]
Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump attempted to make attorney general, has repeatedly praised 2000 Mules on X (formerly known as Twitter) and claimed that it revealed a “massive multi-State operation.” He promoted a Gateway Pundit article on Kirk’s interview with Engelbrecht and Phillips. Media Matters, [6/23/22]

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mma

trump legal cases' judges, prosecutors have been attacked by right-wing media and threatened by the public

WRITTEN BY JACK WINSTANLEY & GIDEON TAAFFE

PUBLISHED 05/30/24

In addition to death threats, swatting attempts, and envelopes full of white powder, many of the judges and prosecutors involved in former President Donald Trump's various legal battles have also faced abuse from right-wing media figures. These public servants have been demonized as politically motivated, corrupt, and unethical, and in several cases right-wing media have attacked judges' families as well.

## Threats against public officials are increasing amid Trump's attacks on his political and legal opponents

- The New York Times recently reported that political violence and threats against public officials have been on the rise since 2020. The Times noted Trump's role in this trend, writing, “The former president has long used personal attacks as a strategy to intimidate his adversaries. He has turned that tactic on the judges and prosecutors involved in his various legal cases, all of whom have subsequently been threatened.” The New York Times, [5/19/24]

## Special counsel Jack Smith

Special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed to oversee two investigations into Trump — one related to his retention of classified documents, and another into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — was subjected to an attempted swatting raid alongside other threats since his appointment. Smith has been repeatedly targeted by both Trump and his right-wing media sympathizers. They hit Smith with personal attacks and made misleading claims about the cases he is presenting against the former president.

- In August, Fox News’ Mark Levin attacked Smith, saying, “This guy is sleazy, he's destroying our republic, he's destroyed our electoral system.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [8/3/23]

- On Newsmax, Trump official Peter Navarro said Trump must order a future attorney general to prosecute Jack Smith for “seditious conspiracy.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [8/1/23]

- While ranting against Trump’s various indictments, Levin stated that “Jack the Ripper Smith, his ass should be dragged in front of a committee in Congress whether he likes it or not.” Additionally, he stated that Smith’s “family is bloated with Obama Democrats.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [3/30/23]

- Fox host Laura Ingraham said, “AG Garland and his prosecutorial hitman Jack Smith are doing more damage to America than any group of Capitol rioters ever could.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [8/7/23]

## District Attorney Fani Willis

At least two people have been charged with making threats against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis while she has been prosecuting Trump for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Trump and right-wing media figures have frequently targeted Willis, saying that she is “corrupt” and that her case against Trump is politically motivated.

- While discussing Trump’s indictment in Georgia, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich stated on Hannity, “I think what you're seeing tonight is one tree in a forest and I think we are drifting towards the greatest constitutional crisis since the 1850s and the rise of secession and the Civil War.” He suggested that the indictments against Trump are “a desperate last-ditch effort by a corrupt machine to destroy their most dangerous opponent, in a way which … breaks the Constitution, destroys the rule of law.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [8/14/23].

- Right-wing podcaster Tim Pool responded to a post claiming that the “Fulton County DA went insane” with the comment “Civil war.” He later posted, “The only path forward is escalation. Either Trump is a cult leader trying to overthrow the US Or Democrats are engaged in seditious conspiracy to steal power.” Twitter/X, [8/15/23, 8/15/23]

- Fox host Mark Levin said of the indictment brought forward by Willis: “Stalin would be proud. I'm sure Putin’s proud." He called the indictment “the motions of justice,” compared it to the actions of “autocratic regimes,” and said Willis has “been doing a number of outrageous things.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [8/14/23]

## District Attorney Alvin Bragg

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who is currently prosecuting Trump for allegedly making hush money payments to a porn star in an effort to influence the 2016 election — has been repeatedly targeted with death threats. Bragg’s office has been “inundated with racist emails” and letters since he indicted Trump, including one death threat that was mailed to his office along with a white powder. Both Trump and right-wing media figures have lobbed extreme attacks against Bragg, who they have repeatedly claimed is a “Soros-backed” district attorney.

- Fox host Greg Gutfeld claimed Alvin Bragg “has more blood on his hands than the Wuhan market.” Gutfeld also claimed that Bragg “is reinventing it [the justice system] as a prosecution arm for the hard left, which should be pretty chilling to everybody because no one is safe if he can do this.” Fox News, *The Five*, [3/22/23]

- Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller claimed that Bragg’s case showed that “we are now living in a post-Constitution, post-truth era where progressive, Soros-backed prosecutors will decide for themselves who is free and who is not.” While appearing on the now-defunct Tucker Carlson Tonight, Miller warned, “If we allow our legal system to become weaponized in this way, then all of our freedoms exist solely on the sufferance of whichever prosecutor is in charge wherever we live.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [3/23/23]

- On his radio show, Fox's Mark Levin stated, “Alvin Bragg should wind up in prison. He's interfering with this election.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [4/4/24]

## Judge Juan Merchan

Judge Juan Merchan is presiding over Trump’s hush money trial. Both Merchan and his family have been the target of threats, which has resulted in the judge taking measures to protect himself and his family. Conservative media have defended Trump’s smears against Merchan’s daughter and have amplified the former president’s attacks.

- Trump ally and far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer said Trump wouldn’t need to attack Merchan’s daughter if the judge’s family members “were ethical and they stopped posting about Trump going to jail.” She then downplayed the attacks, adding, “They're so overdramatic, these people.” Rumble, *Loomer Unleashed*, [3/28/24]

- Fox host Laura Ingraham claimed that it “sure looks like an apparent conflict of interest that the judge’s daughter has” while calling Trump’s trial a “fraud.” Her guest, former Trump impeachment defense lawyer David Schoen, added, “The appearance of impropriety is clear, so he should recuse himself for that reason.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [4/2/24]

- War Room co-host Natalie Winters accused Merchan of conspiring with progressive donor George Soros and the Brennan Center to wage “lawfare” against Trump, citing Merchan’s daughter’s company ties with Democrats and progressive organizations. Winters also claimed that the organization run by Merchan’s daughter worked for a “Chinese Communist Party influence group behind Confucius Institutes - hotbeds of propaganda and espionage banned by Trump.” Twitter/X, [5/14/24, 5/13/24]

- On Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, attorney Jonna Spilbor speculated about whether people had “filed complaints with the committee on judicial conduct complaining about the fact that he should have recused himself.” Spilbor also asserted that “people who are not fans of Donald Trump should be looking at this prosecution and saying to themselves, ‘This scares me, because if they can do it to him, they can do it to me, my husband, my wife, my brother, sister, anybody.’” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [5/13/24]

- :{:{Real America’s Voice host Wayne Allyn Root wrote that Merchan would “wind up in Guantanamo for life for TREASON.” He also called the trial a “rigged communist show trial run by [a] communist judge” and added, “I'll be the one clapping as they take him away in leg irons.” Twitter/X, [4/30/24]}:

Judge Tanya Chutkan}:

Judge Tanya Chutkan was appointed to oversee Trump’s election interference case and now has faced multiple instances of harassment. Chutkan has reportedly received threatening phone calls and was seemingly the victim of a swatting attempt. The justice has been a target of right-wing media’s vitriol, which has included calls for her to recuse herself from Trump’s case.

- Fox’s Mark Levin called Chutkan “a whack job.” He then asked his audience, “Do you think Trump will get a fair shot with her? Of course not.” He added, “The system is really truly rigged.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [8/2/23]

- On WABC’s now-discontinued Chat with the Mayor, host and alleged Trump co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani called Chutkan “the most inhumane sentencer on the court for January 6 people” and said she is “hardly … going to be balanced in this case.” He went on to claim, “This is the Soviet Union, Red China, or Nazi Germany. That judge should recuse herself if she has any ethics.” Rolling Stone, [8/1/23; WABC, Chat with the Mayor, 8/2/23; The New York Times, 5/10/24]

- On Newsmax, former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka said Trump’s case “is their attempt to steal 2024” and called Chutkan “the worst January 6 judge possible.” He cited Chutkan’s role in ruling to convict January 6 rioters, saying, “This is a political hit job, nothing else.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [8/1/23]

- On Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime, a graphic depicted Chutkan as “the Obama Punisher.” Host Jesse Watters described her as “an Obama donor, nicknamed ‘the Punisher’ for how harsh she’s been with January 6 defendants.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/2/23]

## Judge Arthur Engoron

While presiding over Trump’s civil fraud trial, Judge Arthur Engoron and his clerk, Allison Greenfield, reportedly were “bombarded” with death threats and antisemitic attacks. In one instance, an individual paid a website for private information about Engoron, which law enforcement said “confirmed intentions to follow through with the threats” if Engoron did not “cease action” against Trump. Trump himself had shared calls for a “citizens arrest” of Engoron and District Attorney Letitia James.

- On his War Room podcast, Steve Bannon called Engoron a “crazy Nazi judge.” Bannon also insinuated that Engoron would go after other Trump allies, stating to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, “They’re trying to bankrupt him [Trump], they’re trying to bankrupt you.” Media Matters, [1/30/24]

- Infowars' Alex Jones called Engoron a “virulent anti-free speech guy” and a “kook” and a “political operative.” Jones went on to claim that Engoron would be “rewarded as the Democrats continue to have dictatorship — they’ll make this guy a Supreme Court Justice.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*, [11/10/23]

- On her Rumble livestream, Laura Loomer justified the attacks against Engoron and his family, saying that “Trump wouldn't need to attack the members of these, the family members of these judges if they actually were ethical.” She singled out Engoron’s wife and added that the outrage over Trump’s repeated attacks against Engoron was “overdramatic.” Rumble, *Loomer Unleashed*, [3/28/24]

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an 2 24

on the eve of a major evidentiary hearing in Fulton County, Georgia, an attorney for one of former President Donald Trump's codefendants in the ongoing RICO case announced plans to call a witness, with the prosecution balking at the eleventh-hour announcement.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, attorney Ashleigh Merchant — who is representing Michael Roman — announced her intent to call attorney Terrence Bradley to the stand ahead of Thursday's scheduled hearing in Fulton County Superior Court. Bradley is the former law partner of special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who is in a personal relationship with District Attorney Fani Willis. The Journal-Constitution's Tamar Hallerman reported that the two have since had a "falling out."

Bradley is reportedly planning to dispute a sworn affidavit Wade submitted under penalty of perjury that his relationship with Willis didn't begin until after she hired him onto her team. Merchant stated that Bradley can prove that Willis and Wade were romantically involved prior to the case, and that the two began cohabitating sooner than Wade stated in his affidavit. Atlanta-based defense attorney Andrew Fleischman, who is not connected to the case, said if Wade committed perjury it would be "extremely serious misconduct" that would not only result in Willis and Wade being disqualified from the prosecution, but could refer them both to the state bar for disciplinary hearings.

READ MORE:[Fani Willis admits to relationship with Nathan Wade but dismisses 'irrelevant allegations'

Hallerman tweeted that prosecutors are now asking Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing proceedings, to "exclude all evidence and reference to that testimony" during tomorrow's scheduled hearing.

"[Notice of Bradley's testimony] is untimely, incomplete and in direct violation of this court's case management order," a Wednesday filing read. "Compounding the foregoing acts of flagrant bad faith, the Defense has prejudiced the State by foisting this alleged testimony on the eve of the February 15, 2024 motions hearing previously scheduled on January 18, 2024. Clearly, the defendants delayed revelation prevents and precludes the State from adequately preparing for this expert witness."

McAfee has stated that if Merchant can prove her claims, it could "result in a disqualification."

Tomorrow's hearing is scheduled for 9:30 AM ET, and will be televised to the public.

Critics slam Jim Jordan’s Fani Willis subpoena: 'Frivolous waste of time' - Alternet.org

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fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has lately been hounded by rumors that she is under investigation for a supposed improper relationship with one of her fellow prosecutors in her RICO case involving former President Donald Trump and a slew of alleged co-conspirators.

An attorney representing former Trump campaign staffer Michael Roman — one of Trump's co-defendants in the RICO case — alleged in a court filing that Willis "engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship" with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, and questioned whether Wade was qualified to be on Willis' team. Far-right influencer Jack Posobiec tweeted earlier this week that "GBI has allegedly launched an investigation into Fani Willis," citing an unnamed "GA staffer" and no further elaboration.

However, on Thursday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) poured cold water on those rumors, with a spokesperson telling Newsweek that "there is no GBI investigation" into Willis.

Wade, who is one of three special prosecutors working alongside Willis, has had his legal experience scrutinized after it was reported that when he was assigned to investigate jail deaths in neighboring Cobb County, he failed keep one single note despite months of conversations with deputies. He has also been paid more than $600,000 for his work on the case, much of which came from conducting special grand jury proceedings that are a rare occurrence in Georgia, though are more common in federal cases.

The allegations against Willis have spread from conservative circles to mainstream publications, with attorney Andrew Fleischman asserting in an essay for the Daily Beast that Willis' "scandal" should be taken seriously. He argued that should Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee find evidence of an improper relationship between Willis and Wade, it could throw the entire case against Trump in jeopardy.

"Judge McAfee has stated his intention to hold a hearing in February to look over the truth of these allegations. If they are true, the case will not be dismissed, but it is likely that he will disqualify Fani Willis, which, under Georgia law, will require disqualifying her entire office," Fleischman wrote. "The case will then go to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, which will decide who the case can go on to next."

Willis has countered that the scrutiny of Wade is racially motivated, pointing out that the qualifications of the other two special prosecutors — who are white — have not been called into question, and even suggested that her office was being heavily scrutinized because it was led by a woman of color.

===

mma 12 23

Georgia election case co-defendant uses QAnon channel to attack prosecutor and fundraise for legal defense fund

Prosecutor had unsuccessfully asked for co-defendant Harrison Floyd's bail to be revoked for violating his terms

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

:{:{PUBLISHED 12/01/23}:

One of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election-tampering case appeared on a Rumble-based QAnon channel last month. Harrison Floyd used the appearance to criticize Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, comment on the guilty pleas by his co-defendants, and fundraise for legal expenses.

As noted by The Associated Press, Floyd was charged in August due to “allegations of harassment toward Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker who had been falsely accused of election fraud by Trump and his supporters,” allegedly taking part “in a Jan. 4, 2021, conversation in which Freeman was told she ‘needed protection’ and was pressured to lie and say she had participated in election fraud.”

The indictment accuses him and 18 others of taking part in a broader effort to overturn Trump’s loss in the state during the 2020 presidential election.

On November 15, Willis asked a judge to revoke Floyd’s bail and jail him for violating his bail conditions. Among the allegations of his violation of bail terms were “comments on a conservative podcast about” co-defendant and former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, “who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate.” Days later, a judge denied the request, instead modifying Floyd’s bail requirements.

The day before Willis filed her request, Floyd appeared on Why We Vote, a show on the QAnon-affiliated Rumble channel Badlands Media. During the interview, Floyd commented on Ellis’ guilty plea — along with that of fellow co-defendant and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell — saying, “They already pled guilty. They’re going to have to do their probation one way or the other. I’m not going to be on probation because I’m winning. I’m not going to jail because I’m winning.”

He also accused Willis of illegally leaking Ellis and Powell’s proffer footage regarding their guilty pleas in order to “sway the jury pool.” And he attacked Willis, accusing her of prosecuting him because he is Black.

Video

CitationFrom the November 14, 2023, edition of Badlands Media's Why We Vote, streamed on Rumble

ASHLEY EPP (CO-HOST): Well, I was going to say for, you know, the audience, can you — how did you — how’d you end up here in this lawsuit? How’d you end up, you know, as kind of the — I mean, I think you’re a hero. Brian thinks you’re a hero. The what if — my favorite quote of all time is, “What if we can prove Trump won?” So how did — how’d you end up in this?

…

HARRISON FLOYD: So after the election, when I was done with the campaign, I received a phone call to see if I could ask or I was asked to go down to Georgia to help out with the situation involving one of the election workers who they were having difficulty connecting with due to race issues in the South and couldn’t go down there personally but offered to help. And, you know, long story short, an article that painted a totally different story of what actually transpired. And District Attorney Willis picked up on it and looped me into this whole RICO mess because, you know, if you’re going to have a big RICO case, you’ve got to have at least one Black guy in there that you’re going to try and take down, right? So I guess I’m it.

Toward the end of the interview, the hosts asked Floyd to promote his legal defense fund. The show also featured a link on screen to his defense fund page, alongside text saying, “Help support Harrison!!” After the interview, the hosts urged viewers to donate to the defense fund.

Video

CitationFrom the November 14, 2023, edition of Badlands Media's Why We Vote, streamed on Rumble

BRIAN LUPO (CO-HOST): All right, Harrison, where — do you have a GiveSendGo set up for your legal expenses?

HARRISON FLOYD: Yes. It’s at the top of my Twitter.

…

If anyone has already contributed, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And if anyone decides that they want to contribute something, no matter how big or how small, I promise we won’t waste it.

…

LUPO: So, Harrison Floyd, man, that’s some motivating stuff right there. Guys, if you can, donate to that. Like, I listened to that whole hearing and it — one of the recurring themes that they were talking about in that hearing is Fulton County and the secretary of state would argue that this is going to be extremely burdensome. And so the judge would ask them, “Well, OK, what if they — what if money wasn’t an option to pay for these open records requests and to pay for the clerks and the employees that would have to go through all these records?” And they said, “What if money wasn’t an option? What can we do?” And so I think it is going to get to the point where they’re going to say, “Hey, yeah, we can give you these records, but it’s going to cost you $15,000 or $10,000 or $50,000,” whatever it might come out to. We don’t know. But we need to make sure that this case right here, more than any other in the history of this whole “Stop the Steal,” whatever you want to call it. I know a lot of people –

ASHLEY EPP (CO-HOST): Don’t say that.

LUPO: I know. Well, yeah. I know. That’s what I was going to say — a lot of us are worn out and we feel like everything is a grift, and everything, and all this — this is in the courts, in a criminal case, folks. This is not going anywhere. Harrison is giving you his word that it will be used properly and accounted for. So if you can, donate to that GiveSendGo down below.

…

EPP: He’s not in this for personal gain. He’s suffering great personal cost to stand up for the rights of all of us and for our children and for future American generations. So, seriously, donate to his fund. As Brian is saying, this is a very important case.

Multiple people donated to Floyd’s defense fund, saying they had seen him on the show.

The interview on Why We Vote came a few weeks after Floyd did an interview on another Badlands Media show, SITREP. During that appearance he urged viewers to donate to the legal defense fund of another co-defendant, Mike Roman, and the link to Roman’s defense fund appeared on screen. QAnon-supporting co-host Brian Lupo (known online as “CannCon”) promised to match donations up to $1,000.

Video

CitationFrom the September 21, 2023, edition of Badlands Media's SITREP, streamed on Rumble

BRIAN LUPO (CO-HOST): Harrison, I want to ask you, do you have a website where people — a lot of people in chat are asking where they can donate. Do you have a site that we can send people to?

HARRISON FLOYD: Yeah. There’s a GiveSendGo up for me. It’s in my Twitter feed. If you scroll down — it was pinned up. I took it down because — I’m just going to be honest. You guys have done a lot for me. I really appreciate it. I think we’re sitting at like $320,000-something of the goal that we’re supposed to meet. But there’s some other folks and the co-defendants who need more help than I do right now.

LUPO: How about Mike Roman?

FLOYD: Mike, yeah. I was just going to say Mike Roman. Mike has eight kids. He’s lost all of his clients from work. I think he has like a $200,000 goal and he’s sitting at like $4,000 right now.

LUPO: There you go.

FLOYD: You got Cathy Latham. She’s a former school teacher. She’s living on her teachers pension. You know, teachers already don’t make enough. My wife is a teacher. She’s super shy of her role as well. So I appreciate everyone in the chat who wants to donate to me. If you want to, that’s great. But I would please ask if you could donate to some of the other co-defendants because, look, God has helped me out so much already and He is on my side. Look, I’m good, I’m good. I’m going down hooking and jabbing either on my shield or I’ll be victorious. And I truly believe we’re going to be victorious. But some of these other folks really need some more help than I do.

…

LUPO: I’m tearing up here thinking about the fact that you had an opportunity to help make sure that you’re taken care of and your first thought was to go to Mike Roman and Cathy Latham, which both of those people I love. Bro, you are above and beyond, man. That is incredible stuff right there.

FLOYD: That’s what we were taught, man, in the Marine Corps. Real leaders eat last, right?

LUPO: Yup.

FLOYD: So I have no problem with that. You got to put other people — when you put other people before yourself, that’s what makes you really a leader.

…

LUPO: But right now, Mike Roman is sitting at $4,800. Let me refresh and make sure. All right, so he’s sitting at $4,800 dollars. For the next 15 minutes until the show’s over, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to match anything you guys donate. So up to $1,000. I can’t go much over that. I’m not that — you know, I make a decent living, but up to $1,000, anything that’s donated in the next 15 minutes, I am going to match at the very end of the 15 minutes in real time. So put that out there.

Multiple people donated to Roman’s defense fund, citing the show or Lupo’s offer to match donations. Lupo also seemingly donated $1000 — the maximum amount he said he would match.

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no names

Six additional Trump co-defendants talk 'potential plea deals': report - Alternet.org

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an 10 23

thursday, October 19 saw a major bombshell in Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' sweeping election interference case against former President Donald Trump. In an Atlanta courtroom, Sidney Powell — a former Trump lawyer and one of the many co-defendants —.

Powell, CNN reported, will avoid prison and be given a six-year probation sentence. In return, she must fully cooperate with Willis' office.

Legal expert Kimberly Wehle, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at the University of Baltimore, offers three major takeaways in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on October 19.

POLL:Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Wehle's takeaways are: (1) "Two of 19 defendants have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors," (2) "Don’t be surprised if (bail bondsman Scott) Hall and Powell produce some jaw-dropping testimony," and (3) "Assuming (Kenneth) Cheseboro's trial goes forward, it will reveal a lot about the strength of the case against Trump."

IFrame Content

00:1203:44

"Whether Powell's and Hall's testimony will hurt Trump's defense remains to be seen," Wehle explains. "Powell's counsel claims that she 'did not represent President Trump or the Trump campaign' following the election, although Rudy Giuliani introduced her as one of 'the senior lawyers' representing Trump during his 2020 campaign. Having participated in a news conference shortly after the election at the White House, at a minimum Powell can testify as to conversations she had with Trump that could reveal what he knew about the true election results and what he intended to have happen in the lead-up to the January 6th insurrection."

Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results are the focus of two separate criminal prosecutions: Willis' for the State of Georgia and special counsel Jack Smith's federal case for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Unlike Smith, Willis is using RICO laws to prosecute Trump.

Wehle notes, "Powell's testimony could be important to special counsel Jack Smith, too, as she's believed to be one of the unindicated co-conspirators in the federal January 6th case. According to testimony obtained by the House January 6th Committee, Trump privately described her as 'crazy.'"

*Read Kimberly Wehle's full article for The Bulwark at this link.

---

mma 10 23

As four co-defendants in former President Donald Trump’s Georgia election subversion case recently pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right-wing media twisted the facts to further their “witch hunt” narrative.

- Four co-defendants in the Georgia election subversion case — Scott Hall, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis — pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Trump and the other defendants. By accepting the plea deals, they were able to avoid being charged under Georgia’s RICO act. The Hill, [10/22/23; The Washington Post, 10/24/23]
- Testimony from these individuals will “give Willis and her prosecutors more bricks to use against Trump at trial,” which explains why the DA would be willing to drop other charges in their plea deals.The prospect of testimony from Powell, Chesebro, and Ellis is particularly “ominous” for Trump and the other co-defendants, as the three “could paint a detailed collective portrait of Mr. Trump’s activities in the postelection period.” New York magazine, [10/25/23; USA Today, 10/21/23; The New York Times, 10/24/23]
- Legal expertise suggests that these deals are not out of the ordinary, as plea bargaining “makes up the vast majority of criminal justice transactions today.” Cynthia Alkon, a law professor at Texas A&M University School of Law, told The Conversation that “prosecutors rely on plea bargaining at times to strengthen their cases by offering deals contingent on a defendant agreeing to testify against another person,” indicating that Willis’ decision to offer pleas to Powell, Chesebro, and Hall is fairly typical. Vera Institute, [9/2020; The Conversation, 10/23/23]

## Right-wing media insist that the leniency of the plea deals is proof that Willis “overcharged” the defendants and that she has a “weak” case
- National Review published an article titled “Sidney Powell’s Guilty Plea Points to a Faltering Case in Atlanta.” The article by Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy claimed, “While the media spin will be different, my first impression of Sidney Powell’s guilty plea in the Fulton County election-interference case is: It signals that District Attorney Fani Willis’s much-heralded RICO indictment — in which 19 are charged, including Powell’s famous co-defendant Donald Trump — is a dud.” National Review, [10/19/23]
- The Washington Examiner’s Byron York suggested that Willis dropping “the super-duper grand conspiracy charge against an alleged key player” was suspicious.His full post read, “For you lawyers out there: Wasn't Sidney Powell charged with taking part in the super-duper grand conspiracy that Fani Willis alleged in the Trump election indictment? A felony, of course. And now Willis drops the super-duper grand conspiracy charge against an alleged key player?” Twitter/X, [10/19/23]
- Former co-host of Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast Raheem Kassam posted that Powell’s plea deal “suggests their case was not as strong as they originally believed.” Kassam wrote, “Corporate media will crow about Sidney Powell's plea deal. But the fact she's being fined $6,000 and being made to write an apology letter suggests their case was not as strong as they originally believed…” Twitter/X, [10/19/23]
- Conservative influencer Will Chamberlain claimed that Powell and Chesebro’s plea deals are a “a pretty serious embarrassment for Fani Willis.”His full post read, “So both Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro get plea deals for zero jail time. They were facing a mandatory minimum of five years on the RICO counts and a maximum of 20 years. This is a pretty serious embarrassment for Fani Willis.” Twitter/X, [10/20/23]
- Conspiracy theory outlet WDN, formerly WorldNetDaily, published an article titled “Prosecutor offering plea deals to Trump co-defendants to bag the 'real target.'” The article quotes William A. Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor and founder of the conservative website Legal Insurrection: “While the prosecution’s willingness to accept plea deals may reflect they have been ‘overcharging defendants,’ Jacobson said they are keeping their eyes on the ‘real target’ — the former president.” The Daily Caller also quoted Jacobson’s claim about Willis “overcharging.” WND, [10/23/23; The Daily Caller, 10/21/23]
- WND quoted Molly McCann Sanders, Powell’s previous co-counsel, who claimed, “The fact that Fani Willis dropped all 7 felonies tells the tale. She had no case, but she did have the coercive power of the state.” Conservative Brief also included the Sanders quote and claimed that Powell’s guilty plea “could be good for Trump.” WND, [10/22/23; Conservative Brief, 10/20/23; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/19/23]
- The Federalist published an article titled “Sidney Powell’s Plea Proves Fulton County Prosecutor Went Nuclear To Get Trump.”The article argues, “That the Fulton County prosecutor settled for these misdemeanor charges when Powell faced seven major felony counts — including an expansive RICO conspiracy count — confirms the criminal justice system was weaponized to get Trump.” The Federalist, [10/20/23]
- Newsmax guest and former Trump administration official Theodore Wold claimed on Wake Up America that “this isn't the architecture of a massive RICO conspiracy as they lead us to believe over the last few months,” predicting the latest plea deal “isn’t really going to harm the president’s defense strategy.” Host Michael Grimm then asked right-wing attorney Jared Roberts if “this actually proof that the DA overcharged?” Roberts answered, “I think it’s definitely proof that they overcharged. These charges have been baseless since the beginning.” Newsmax, *Wake Up America*, [10/22/23]

---

Watch: Sidney Powell pleads guilty in Georgia election interference case - Alternet.org

---

Fani Willis speaks out about racist death threats and 'bold-faced lie' following Trump indictment - Alternet.org

state legis start remove her

https://www.alternet.org/georgia-republicans-seek-to-reprimand/

---

timeline: https://www.alternet.org/timeline-the-georgia-investigation-into-2020-election-interference/

---

an 10 23

an Atlanta, jury selection will soon be underway in the criminal trials of two co-defendants in Fulton County District Attorney's criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump: Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, both lawyers who represented Trump after the 2020 election.

In a report published on October 17, the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery describes the efforts of MAGA lawyers to "pollute the jury" in those trials.

"Friday marks the start of what promises to be an arduous and protracted jury selection, one that could take weeks because prosecutors and defense lawyers are trying to settle a fundamental question: How do you agree on a dozen fair-minded jurors when the Fulton County district attorney claims that every Georgian was victimized by a plot to deny their vote?" Pagliery explains. "A pre-trial hearing on Monday showed just how difficult it'll be — and how defense lawyers drafting a questionnaire for all potential jurors are already explicitly asking the judge to break the rules."

Pagliery adds, "In a case already denounced by Trump loyalists as nothing more than partisan politics, Powell and Chesebro's lawyers want to conduct what the judge deemed a highly irregular 'Gallup poll' to gauge how jurors 'feel' about everyone who took part in the attempt to flip the 2020 election results. Stranger still, the defense team wants to ask — point blank — reactions to statements that elicit deeply sectarian biases, such as: MAGA Republicans are radicals and white supremacists, and Trump tried to steal the election and take away my vote."

Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, according to Pagliery, "reminded everyone that there are longstanding rules that prohibit — for obvious reasons — essentially asking a juror how they'll judge a case before they even hear any of the evidence."

"McAfee seemed particularly uncomfortable with the way the defense lawyers want to list potential witnesses and all 19 defendants in the case — everyone ranging from the former president to a relatively unknown U.S. Marine who's involved with Black Voices for Trump — and ask prospective jurors how they feel about these people," Pagliery notes. "The options apparently ranged from 'very unfavorable' to 'very favorable,' prompting the judge to deride it as a 'Gallup poll.'"

---

https://www.alternet.org/trump-new-fani-willis/

attack, protective order?

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/maga-trolls/far-right-message-boards-target-georgia-trump-indictment-grand-jurors-after-their-names

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an 8 23

...according to The New York Times, “The indictment laid out eight ways the ‘enterprise’ obstructed the election: by lying to the Georgia state legislature, by lying to state officials, by creating fake pro-Trump electors, by harassing election workers, by soliciting Justice Department officials, by soliciting Vice President Mike Pence, by breaching voting machines and by engaging in a cover up.”

There are an additional “30 unindicted co-conspirators,” according to former top DOJ official Harry Litman.

Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal posted a small portion of the indictment and wrote, “Trump is not only indicted, his name is mentioned 193 times in the indictment, and the charges go out of the way to show Trump directly violated the law.”...

---

https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/08/15/here-are-19-people-named-sweeping-indictments-against-donald-trump/

no lnx

Here are the 19 people named in the sweeping indictment against Donald Trump

Here is a list of who is named in Fani Willis’ sweeping indictment of the nation’s 45th president and his allies.

By Tim Darnell, Atlanta News First staff and The Associated Press

Published: Aug. 14, 2023

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ sweeping indictment from her investigation into alleged attempts by former President Donald Trump to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election includes some of the most prominent figures in the Republican Party.

It comes just two weeks after the Justice Department special counsel charged him in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election, underscoring how prosecutors after lengthy investigations that followed the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol have now, two-and-a-half years later, taken steps to hold Trump to account for an assault on the underpinnings of American democracy.

Though the indictment is centered on Trump’s efforts to subvert election results in just one state, its sprawling web of defendants stands apart from the more tightly-targeted case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, which so far only names Trump as a defendant. The Georgia case also stands out because, unlike the two federal prosecutions he faces, Trump would not have the opportunity to try to pardon himself if elected president.

FULL COVERAGE: Timeline, history and key players of historic indictment in Georgia

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” says the indictment issued Monday night by the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The indictment charges Trump with making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state election officials on Jan. 2, 2021, including that up to 300,000 ballots “were dropped mysteriously into the rolls” in the 2020 election, that more than 4,500 people voted who weren’t on registration lists and that a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, was a “professional vote scammer.”

Here are the 19 people named in the indictment:

DONALD TRUMP: Then-President Donald Trump fixated on Georgia after the 2020 general election, refusing to accept his narrow loss in the state and making unfounded assertions of widespread election fraud there. He also called top state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp, to urge them to find a way to reverse his loss in the state. In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened an investigation into possible illegal attempts to influence the election shortly after a recording of that call was made public.

RUDY GIULIANI: During several legislative hearings at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney promoted unsupported allegations of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Prosecutors have said Rudy Giuliani was also involved a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans serve as fake electors, falsely swearing that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

JOHN EASTMAN: A former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, John Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers, was deeply involved in some of his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. He wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the election during a joint session of Congress where electoral votes would be counted. That plan included putting in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states, including Georgia, who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states.

MARK MEADOWS: Trump’s chief of staff visited Cobb County, in the Atlanta suburbs, while state investigators were conducting an audit of the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in December 2020. Mark Meadows obtained the phone number of the chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office, Frances Watson, and passed it along to Trump, who called her. He also participated in the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

SIDNEY POWELL: A lawyer and staunch Trump ally, Sidney Powell was part of a group who met at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood in November 2020 “for the purpose of exploring options to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere,” prosecutors have said. Wood, who’s licensed in Georgia, said Powell asked him to help find Georgia residents to serve as plaintiffs in lawsuits contesting the state’s election results. Additionally, emails and documents obtained through subpoenas in an unrelated lawsuit have shown that Powell was involved in arranging for a computer forensics team to travel to rural Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment there in January 2021.

KENNETH CHESEBRO: Prosecutors have said Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Georgia Republicans in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trump’s campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

JEFFREY CLARK: A U.S. Justice Department official who championed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, Jeffrey Clark presented colleagues with a draft letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session on the election results, according to testimony before the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Clark wanted the letter sent, but Justice Department superiors refused.

JENNA ELLIS: The lawyer appeared with Rudy Giuliani at a Dec. 3, 2020, hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. Jenna Ellis also wrote at least two legal memos to Trump and his attorneys advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia and other purportedly ‘contested’ states” when Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors have said.

RAY SMITH: A Georgia-based lawyer, Ray Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the state’s election.

ROBERT CHEELEY: A Georgia lawyer, Robert Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani.

MICHAEL ROMAN: A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations, Michael Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election.

DAVID SHAFER: The chairman of the Georgia GOP, Shafer was one of 16 state Republicans who met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won and also declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. He also joined Trump in a lawsuit challenging the certification of the 2020 election in Georgia.

SHAWN STILL: He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Shawn Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.

STEPHEN CLIFFGARD LEE: Prosecutors say Stephen Cliffgard Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year.

HARRISON WILLIAM PRESCOTT FLOYD: Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti.

TREVIAN C. KUTTI: Prosecutors allege publicist Trevian C. Kutti claimed to have high level law enforcement connections. They say Freeman met with Kutti at a police precinct, where she brought Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors say Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud.

CATHY LATHAM: One of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, Cathy Latham was also chair of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was at the county elections office for much of the day on Jan. 7, 2021, and welcomed a computer forensics team that arrived to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment in what the secretary of state’s office has said was “unauthorized access” to the machines.

SCOTT GRAHAM HALL: An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Scott Graham Hall was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County, a small south Georgia jurisdiction. Also charged in the scheme were Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton.

MISTY HAMPTON: She was the elections director in Coffee County. Misty Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment.

Willis’ indictments come after months of speculation into whether the first-term Fulton County district attorney would bring charges against the nation’s 45th president. Among the former president’s mounting legal troubles, Willis’ indictments mark the second time Trump has been linked to any alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Those charges include allegedly pressuring Georgia election officials to change the election’s results, including his now-famous phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021.

In February 2021, Willis opened a criminal investigation “into attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election,” a contest that saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992 by less than one percent of the state’s overall vote.

A special grand jury with subpoena power was seated later that May at her request. In court filings, she alleged “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Willis’ investigation also examined an alleged plot involving 16 Republicans who served as fake electors, one of whom was allegedly then-state Sen. Burt Jones, now Georgia’s lieutenant governor.

Willis’ special grand jury investigation heard from 75 witnesses. Some of the more notable figures were Gov. Brian Kemp; Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr; Raffensperger; Duncan; former White House official Mark Meadows; former U.S. House speaker and Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich; and Republican South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Last year, Raffensperger told a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud “were false.”

Raffensperger, along with Gabriel Sterling, the office’s chief operating officer, appeared before the Democrat-led House Select Committee’s nationally televised public hearings. Raffensperger told the committee that the 2020 election went “remarkably smooth,” with average ballot-casting wait times between two to three minutes statewide. “I felt we had a successful election,” he said.

Trump has accused Willis of conducting a “strictly political witch hunt.” In a September 2022 statement, he also took aim at Atlanta as “number 1 in the country in murders and heinous crimes, especially on a per capita basis - even worse than now-fabled Chicago.”

“Yet the District Attorney there is spending almost all of her waking hours, which aren’t many, on attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J. Trump, who got more votes in 2020 than any sitting president in the history of the United States,” Trump said at that time.

Timeline of Donald Trump/Georgia investigation

Trump timeline

Trump announced his 2024 White House candidacy last November.

Earlier this year, Willis notified Fulton County deputies she would announce charges from her investigation sometime between July 11 and Sept. 1. She also notified Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville her office planned to work remotely during the first three weeks of August and asked no trials be scheduled during that time.

Willis’ indictments are the latest in a series of legal troubles for the nation’s 45th president. Back in April, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. With Bragg’s indictment, Trump became the first former president in history to be criminally indicted at any level.

In early May, Trump lost a civil battery and defamation case against him in New York in a case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll. The writer claimed Trump assaulted her in a New York department store back in the 1990s. A Manhattan federal jury has ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million, which the former president is appealing.

Then, on June 13, Trump was arraigned at a federal courthouse in Miami on a single federal indictment that included more than 30 charges of mishandling classified documents after he left the White House in January 2021. Trump became the first ex-president ever to face criminal charges from the federal government he once oversaw.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing that federal investigation, was also responsible for overseeing the criminal investigation involving Trump’s alleged role in the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, an investigation that yielded, earlier this month, the four-count felony indictment.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office sent deputies to both New York and Miami to observe how local law enforcement prepared for any demonstrations or possible unrest in the wake of Trump’s indictments.

In late July, security barriers were seen being set up around the Fulton County courthouse. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said in early August his department would be ready for any demonstrations or civil unrest that may result from Willis’ indictments.

FULL COVERAGE OF DONALD TRUMP/GEORGIA INVESTIGATION

Trump Investigation

He also said the former president, if indicted, would be booked, photographed and processed at the county jail on Rice Street, a facility that has come under intense scrutiny over the last several months because of its allegedly deplorable conditions, and which is also the target of a U.S. Department of Justice civil investigation.

link

https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/08/15/10-indictments-approved-fulton-countys-2020-georgia-election-interference-investigation/

...The charges include:

Violation of the Georgia RICO Act
Perjury
Solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer
False statements and writings
Impersonating a public officer
Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
Forgery in the first degree
Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
Conspiracy to commit false statements
Filing false statements
Influencing witnesses
Conspiracy to commit election fraud
Conspiracy to commit computer theft
Conspiracy to commit computer trespass
Conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy
Conspiracy to defraud the state
Criminal attempt to commit filing false documents

...In total, there are 41 counts listed in the indictment. Trump is named in 13 of the counts.

Everyone named in the indictment is facing a violation of the Georgia RICO Act charge.

Willis said at a Monday night press conference that those named in the indictment are alleged to have engaged in a “criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results.”

Willis said as is “the normal process in Georgia law,” the grand jury has also issued arrest warrants for those charged in the indictment. Willis said she is giving them until noon on Friday, Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender.

THE STATE OF GEORGIA

V. DONALD JOHN TRUMP

Counts 1,5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 2729, 38-39

RUDOLPH WILLIAM LOUIS GIULIANI Counts 1-3, 6-7, 9,11,13,15,17,19, 23-24

JOHN ChaRLES EASTMAN

Counts 1-2, 9, 11,13, 15, 17, 19, 27

MARK RANDALL MEADOWS

Counts 1, 28

KENNETH JOHN CHESEBRO

Counts 1, 9,11,13,15,17,19

JEFFREY BOSSERT CLARK

Counts 1, 22

JENNA LYNN ELLIS

Counts 12 RAY STALLINGS SNIITH III Counts 1-2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13,15, 17,19, 23, 25

ROBERT DAVID CHEELEY

Counts 1, 9,11,13, 15, 17,19, 23, 26, 41

MICHAEL A. ROMAN

Counts 1, 9, 11,13,15,17, 19

:{:{}:

DAVID JAMES SHAFER

Counts 1, 8,10,12,14,16,18, 40

:{:{}:

SHAWN MCAH TRESHER STILL

Counts 1, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18

STEPHEN CLIFFGARD LEE

Counts 1, 20-21, 30-31

HARRISON WILLIAM PRESCOTT

FLOYD

Counts 1,

3031 Emma

TREVIAN C. KUTTI Counts 1,

SIDNEY KATHERINE POWELL Counts 1, 32-37

CATHLEEN ALSTON LATHAM

Counts 1, 8, 10, 12, 14, 32-37

SCOTT GRAHAM HALL

Counts 1, 32-37

misty hampton aka

Counts 1, 32-37

---

1 VIOLATION OF THE GEORGIA RICO

(RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS) ACT O.C.G.A. 16144(c)

2 SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH

BY PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 164-7 1640-1

3 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 16-10-20

4 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 1610-20

5 SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH

BY PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 16-47 16101

6 SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH

BY PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 164-7 1610-1

7 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 16102'0

8 IMPERSONATING PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. 16-1023

9 CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT INIPERSONATIN PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 164-8 16-10-23

10 FORGERY IN THE FIRST DEGREE O.C.G.A. 169-1(b)

11 CONSPIRACY To COMMIT FORGERY 1N THE FIRST DEGREE

12 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS

13 CONSPIRACY TO COMmIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. §§

14 CRiminAL ATTEMPT To COMMIT filing FALSE DOCUMENTS O.C.G.A. §§ 1641 16102o.1(b)(1)

15 CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE DOCUMENTS

16 FORGERY IN THE FIRST DEGREE O.C.G.A. 16-9-1(b)

17 CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FORGERY THE FIRST DEGREE

18 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS

19 CONSPIRACY TO COMlVIIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-8 16-10-20

20 CRIMINAL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT INFLUENCING WITNESSES O.C.G.A. §§ 16-41 161093(b)(1)(A)

21 CRIMINAL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT INFLUENCUYG WITNESSES O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-1& 16-10-93(b)(1)(A)

22 CRIMINAL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT FALSE STATEMENTS AND writings O.C.G.A. §§ 16-41 161020

23 SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 16-47 16-10-1

24 FALSE STATENIENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 16-1020

25 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 161020

26 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 16-10-20

27 FILING FALSE DOCUMENTS O.C.G.A. 16-1020.1(b)(1)

28 SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 164-7 16-10-1

29 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 16-10-20

30 CONSPIRACY TO COMlVIIT SOLICITATION OF FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-8, 16-4-7 16-10-20

31 INFLUENcing WITNESSES O.C.G.A. 161093(b)(1)(A)

32 CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT ELECTION FRAUD

O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2603 21-2-566

33 CONSPIRACY TO CONIMIT ELECTION FRAUD

O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-603 21-2-574

34 CONSPIRACY To COMMIT COMPUTER THEFT O.C.G.A. §§ 1648 16993(a)

35 CONSPIRACY TO COMlVIIT COMPUTER TRESPASS O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-8 16-9-93(b)

36 CONSPIRACY TO COMIVIIT COMPUTER INVASION OF PRIVACY O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-8 169-93(c)

37 CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD TIE STATE O.C.G.A. 16-1021

39 SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH

BY PUBLIC OFFICER O.C.G.A. §§ 16-47 16101

39 FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS O.C.G.A. 16-1020

40 FALSE STATEMENTS and writings

41 perjury

---

an 8 23

fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Monday unveiled 13 charges against former President Donald Trump related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in Georgia. The 41-count indictment, which implicates 19 defendants in a Georgia racketeering charge, “brings the total number of criminal charges this year against” Trump to 91, the Washington Post reports.

In an analysis published Tuesday by the Washington Post, reporter Aaron Blake details 4 revelations from the Trump Georgia indictment — including that the alleged crimes “went well past” the events of Jan. 6, 2020.

“One of the more striking details comes in the 38th and 39th counts — the last charges against Trump — which date to Sept. 17, 2021, nearly eight months after Trump left office,” Blake writes, noting the charge “has to do with a letter Trump sent to [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger in which he enclosed a report alleging that 43,000 ballots in Atlanta-based DeKalb County were not properly handled using chain-of-custody rules.”

In that letter, the Washington Post reports, “Trump suggested that Raffensperger ‘start the process of decertifying the election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is, and announce the true winner.’”

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? For prosecutors, that action amounts to the crime of Trump and others “corruptly [soliciting] Georgia officials … to violate their oaths to the Georgia Constitution and to the United States Constitution by unlawfully changing the outcome of the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia in favor of Donald Trump,” according to the indictment.

Blake also notes that the Georgia indictment differs from the 3 others brought against Trump because it includes the “Trump allies” his crimes “ensnared.”

“[Special counsel Jack] Smith opted this month to bring a case against Trump alone while listing six unnamed (but mostly easily identifiable) associates as unindicted co-conspirators," Blake writes. "Willis has gone in a different direction, also indicting 18 others she says took part in the criminal enterprise.”

According to Blake, Trump’s floated defense in Smith’s case appears to be that “he was merely exercising free speech.” But those “free speech” claims “won’t work as easily in Georgia,” Blake writes, because the state “has a broad prohibition against making ‘a false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation … in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government.’”

READ: Ex-U.S. District Court clerk: 'Significant evidence' that fake electors knew 'Trump had definitely lost'

Finally, Blake notes that “unless the rules change,” Trump’s trial in Georgia — “unlike the federal trials” — “should be televised.”

“There remains the possibility,” Blake writes, “of Trump’s winning the 2024 election and facing this trial as a sitting president.”

Read the full analysis at the Washington Post.

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https://www.alternet.org/georgia-grand-jury-indicts-trump/

Fulton County Superior Court grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 others on 41 counts Monday night "related to their efforts to overturn" the 2020 presidential election, The Washington Post reports.

According to The New York Times, "The 41 counts named in the indictment — from racketeering charges, to conspiracy to commit forgery, to perjury — are by far the most sweeping set of accusation Trump has faced in any of his other three indictments to date."

Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani and ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are among the 19 charged.

The Times also reports, "Former President Donald J. Trump has been charged with 13 counts in Fulton County, Ga. Those charges include violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, as well as conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree."

POLL:Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

The Times reports:

The indictment laid out [8] ways the "enterprise" obstructed the election: by lying to the Georgia state legislature, by lying to state officials, by creating fake pro-Trump electors, by harassing election workers, by soliciting Justice Department officials, by soliciting Vice President Mike Pence, by breaching voting machines and by engaging in a cover up.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is set to deliver remarks later this evening.

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no lnx slate

JURISPRUDENCE

Fani Willis Just Hit Trump and 18 Alleged Co-Conspirators With the Big One

BY JIM NEWELL

AUG 15, 2023

Former President Donald Trump, along with 18 other defendants, was indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, on Monday night, on a host of charges related to efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

It is Trump’s fourth indictment (with one superseding indictment thrown in for good measure). But it’s the first for many others in his orbit.

This 98-page indictment, unlike the federal, 2020 election-related charges on which Trump was indicted two weeks ago, did not let many of Trump’s co-conspirators off without charges of their own (although there do, still, remain 30 unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators in this indictment too). Among the other well-known figures indicted: lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark (a former Department of Justice official), Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell. Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was also indicted. In a press conference late Monday evening, District Attorney Fani Willis said that all of the defendants had until noon on Friday, Aug. 25, to voluntarily surrender to Fulton County authorities.

All 19 defendants, each of whose full names Willis seemed to savor enunciating, were hit with the very first count: violation of the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. Willis said that she intended to try all 19 defendants together and hoped to take the case to trial within the next six months.

The indictment lists 41 total felony counts; Trump himself was charged with 13 felony counts. In addition to the communal racketeering charge, the charges include “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer,” “conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer,” “conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree,” “conspiracy to commit false statements and writings,” and “conspiracy to commit filing false documents.”

A recount of the first, all-inclusive racketeering count takes up the majority of the pages in the indictment, spanning events from Oct. 31, 2020, three days before the election, to Sept. 15, 2022.

“Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads, introducing the racketeering count. “One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.”

Its account of the conspiracy spans 161 acts across that period of time laying out the case.

Additional charges against Trump focus on his efforts to pressure Republican state legislators to reject the results of the 2020 election in the state and declare him the winner, charges around a campaign to have certified false electors on his behalf, and a January 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump solicited the Republican to “find” the exact number of votes Trump needed to overturn his deficit in the state. Charges against Trump-aligned attorney Powell included election fraud, computer theft, and computer trespass for alleged efforts to swipe voting machine data from Coffee County, Georgia. Other crimes charged included efforts to intimidate Ruby Freeman, an election worker falsely accused of fraud by Giuliani, into giving false testimony about the election.

The Trump campaign released its statement before the indictment was even unsealed. Much like a recent campaign ad run in advance of the presumed indictment, it accused Willis of being a “rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump” in the same league of other prosecutors who have indicted Trump. The campaign accuses Willis of timing the indictment to hurt his presidential campaign—Trump has been leading the polling to win the Republican presidential nomination by significant margins for months. The 2024 Iowa Republican caucuses are scheduled on Jan. 15, 2024, exactly five months from Tuesday.

“These activities by Democrat leaders constitute a grave threat to American democracy and are direct attempts to deprive the American people of their rightful choice to cast their vote for President,” the campaign said. “Call it election interference or election manipulation—it is a dangerous effort by the ruling class to suppress the choice of the people. It is un-American and wrong.”

The campaign also released a long email of background against Willis, accusing her again of “fundraising on her bogus indictments of President Trump.” Six minutes prior to that email, the Trump campaign sent out an email fundraising on its indictments.

The 19 defendants’ charges come from a list of 41 total offenses. In Georgia, the RICO charge has a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. Presidents cannot pardon state convictions, which means that even if Trump, or another Republican, were to win the presidency, they could do little to scupper this prosecution. In Georgia, even the governor’s power to issue commutations and pardons is severely limited compared to other states. Trump has for years attacked Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for certifying the 2020 election and refusing to go along with Trump’s efforts to subvert that election. In 2022 Trump pushed to have Kemp ousted in the Republican primary. Kemp won that election by more than 50 points before winning reelection in the general.

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one has flipped thus atty COI? an 4 23

it was revealed today that there is an ongoing debate about removing a lawyer for some of the fake electors in the Georgia case. None of the fake electors have been charged with a crime. But it appears there is an ongoing fear that charges are coming from the grand jury and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Buried in the stories about the legal drama unfolding in Georgia was the revelation that one of those fake electors had made a deal with the prosecutors.

According to the New York Times report, "At least one of the electors not represented by Ms.[Kimberly B.] Debrowor Ms. [Holly] Pierson has an immunity deal in place and has cooperated with the prosecution, people with knowledge of the case have said."

It goes on to say that Willis' new motion asking for the removal of Debrow comes as others are desperately trying to get their own immunity deals.

"According to a legal analysis by the Brookings Institution, the fake electors could potentially face criminal liability for interfering with elections, among other charges," the report explained.

Local Atlanta station WXIA explained thatthe fake electors that once shared lawyers and were a united front, are now turning on each other.

Read the full report at the New York Times.

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August 15, 2023

Pema Levy @ Mother Jones: Trump and 18 Allies Slammed With 41 Charges in Sprawling Georgia Election Case.
William Bredderman, Matt Young and Brett Bachman @ The Daily Beast: Everyone Indicted With Donald Trump in Georgia.
Andrew Prokop @ Vox: The five conspiracies at the heart of the Georgia Trump indictment.
David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Trump Next Week: ‘Major’ News Conference, GOP Debate, Arraignment on 13 Felony Charges Including RICO.
Sarah K. Burris @ Raw Story: Trump’s allies are already demanding Georgia laws be changed so he can be pardoned.
Ethan Collier and Chloe Simon @ Media Matters: Right-wing media falsely claim Trump’s conspiracy charges in Georgia are “criminalization” of free speech.

Tags: Donald Trump Jenna Ellis Rudy Giuliani Sidney Powell Round-Up

August 15, 2023

Kandiss Taylor fumes after former President Donald Trump was indicted yet again: “We have a literal witch-hunt going on in GA against innocent men and woman and the man we elected President … Vengeance is [the] Lord’s, and it will come.”
QAnon conspiracy theorist Dave Hayes is confident that, thanks to Q, Trump is in possession of “all electronic communications” that will conclusively prove election fraud and soon the military will “start cracking skulls and making arrests.”
Ali Alexander declares that “Trump will be remembered for 1000 years MINIMUM or until Jesus Christ comes back and saves us from ourselves and these retards.”
Charlie Kirk claims that “the entire book of Deuteronomy is a political book” that tells you “here’s how you set up the government, here’s how you should separate powers, you should have consent of the governed, you should have an independent judiciary.” No, it doesn’t.
Finally, we are starting to get the impression thatElijah Schaffer and his audience are racist.

Tags: Ali Alexander Charlie Kirk Dave Hayes Donald Trump Elijah Schaffer Kandiss Taylor Leftovers

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https://www.alternet.org/brian-kemp-republicans/

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GA legis law to remove DA's ?! spkr? sponsor fake elector scheme??!

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https://www.alternet.org/team-trump-mammoth-legal-motion/

no links twt doc

attorneys for Donald Trump Monday morning filed a sweeping 483-page legal motion asking a Georgia court to block any report from the Fulton County special grand jury and any evidence the grand jury may find, and to force District Attorney Fani Willis to recuse in the investigation into his unlawful attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in that state.

The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery first reported the filing. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reports Trump's attorneys have filed the motion.

Lawfare Blog's Anna Bower, who has been covering the Fulton County case, calls the filing "mammoth."

The news comes just hours after reports District Attorney Willis could be considering RICO, or conspiracy and racketeering charges against Trump.

READ MORE: 'This Man Is a Criminal': George Conway Busts GOP's 'Completely Ridiculous' Trump Defense

This is a breaking news and developing story.

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an 2 23 badash

after the forewoman heading the Fulton County, Georgia special grand jury investigating Donald Trump and his allies gave multiple interviews this week about the group’s recommendation to indict more than a dozen people, attorneys for some who might be facing possible indictment are moving to kill any legal or law enforcement action against them.

"CBS News has learned that lawyers close to several GOP witnesses in Fulton Co. investigation are preparing to move to quash any possible indictments by DA based on the public statements by the forewoman of the special grand jury, per two people familiar with the discussions," CBS News' Robert Costa reports.

The forewoman, Emily Kohrs, gave the press increasingly suggestive interviews, including saying Americans will not be surprised if and when District Attorney Fani Willis hands down the indictments the group recommended.

The special grand jury investigated Donald Trump and his allies and their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The investigation was sparked by the release of Trump's phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump infamously pressured Raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes so he could "win" that state's election.

"It is not a short list," forewoman Emily Kohrs said, The New York Times reported Tuesday, noting multiple indictments were recommended.

Calling her remarks "cryptic," The Times says it asked her if Donald Trump was among those recommended for indictment. "You're not going to be shocked. It's not rocket science," she said, adding, "you won’t be too surprised."

"I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist," Kohrs said. "You probably have a fair idea of what may be on there. I'm trying very hard to say that delicately."

Some experts overnight expressed concern at Kohrs' very public remarks, and some have noted that the special grand jury has no power to indict. Any indictment would be made by a separate grand jury and District Attorney Fani Willis and thus not subject to her public remarks.

In response, noted national security attorney Brad Moss tweeted, "the little media tour the Georgia special grand jury foreperson did yesterday was obscenely stupid, ill-advised and inappropriate," but added, "it is highly unlikely the public remarks she made will undermine any actual indictments."

This is a breaking news and developing story.

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Donald Trump’s Tuesday night, November 15 announcement that he plans to seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination comes at a time when the former president is facing a variety of investigations, from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to New York State Attorney General Letitia James to Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis. Some of the Trump-related probes are civil; others are criminal, including Willis’.

The Fulton County DA is conducting a criminal investigation of Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, one of the swing states that President Joe Biden won. So far, Willis’ investigation has not resulted in any type of indictment for Trump or any of his allies.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp plays an important role in Willis’ probe, as he was among the conservative Republicans who famously pushed back against the Big Lie, acknowledged that Biden won Georgia fair and square, and favored the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory in the Peach State.

READ MORE: George Conway: Trump 'will be convicted of multiple felonies'

On November 15, according to NBC News reporters Summer Concepcion and Blayne Alexander, Kemp “testified…. before the special grand jury” in Georgia that is “investigating possible 2020 election inference by former President Donald Trump and his allies.”

“The grand jury, impaneled as part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into the 2020 election, is interested in speaking with Kemp about alleged efforts by Trump White House officials and allies to pressure him into overturning the results in the battleground state amid the then-president’s false claims of widespread election fraud,” Concepcion and Alexander explain in an article published by NBC News’ website on November 15. “Kemp became a target of Trump's ire after the governor resisted pressure to overturn the election, including pushing back on the then-president’s demand to convene a special session of the state legislature to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in the state.”

Trump, Concepcion and Alexander note, has vehemently attacked Kemp and told Fox News he was “ashamed” that he endorsed Kemp’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018.

Regardless, 2022 has been a great year politically for Kemp, who was aggressively challenged by Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue in a Republican gubernatorial primary. Perdue campaigned on the Big Lie, making the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump and relentlessly attacking Kemp for saying otherwise. But Perdue’s Senate campaign went down in flames when Kemp defeated him by a staggering 52 percent in that primary.

Kemp entered the general election with considerable momentum, taking on Democrat Stacey Abrams in the general election. Abrams is a major rock star in the Democratic Party, but in the end, Kemp defeated her by 8 percent.Although Trump has often slammed Kemp as a RINO (Republican In Name Only), that didn’t prevent the conservative Georgia governor from defeating a well-known Democrat who has a lot of clout in her party. In contrast, a long list of Trump-backed MAGA candidates and election deniers — from Kari Lake in Arizona to Tudor Dixon in Michigan to Dan Cox in Maryland — went down in defeat in the 2022 midterms.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, another conservative non-MAGA Republican who Trump has lambasted for rejecting the Big Lie, also enjoyed a decisive reelection victory on November 8. Raffensperger and members of his family have been facing death threats from Trump supporters for maintaining that Biden legitimately won Georgia in 2020.

READ MORE:Fact checkers rebuff Trump’s claim of stopping a 2018 'steal' for Ron DeSantis

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an raw 11 22

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced Thursday that her office has found credible allegations that serious crimes have been committed in the Donald Trump election fraud case in Georgia, the Washington Post reported.

The scandal began when the former president pressured Georgia officials to change the 2020 election results. In a recorded phone call with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump demanded that he "find 11,780 votes."

The special grand jury has questioned several top Republicans involved in the election and who either directly witnessed what could be considered a conspiracy to commit election fraud. At one point, Trump's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, flew down to Atlanta, Georgia with the demand to speak to election officials. The officials were uncomfortable with Meadows and any administration officials putting pressure on their office, while fully understanding that Trump lost the election, according to text messages.

“The allegations are very serious. If indicted and convicted, people are facing prison sentences,”Fulton County District Attorney Willis told The Post.

“A decision is going to have to be made,” on whether to ask Trump to testify, “and I imagine it’s going to be made late this fall," she also said.

She also made it clear that she put a stop to any grand jury information during the primary election to avoid allegations that she was behaving in a political manner. She will also stop the panel on Oct. 7 to ensure the month prior to the election is similarly quiet.

She also said that the probe would be finished calling witnesses by the end of the year.

Previously, Willis suggested that the elector's scandal, the pressuring of officials and threats against election officials could be prosecuted using Georgia's conspiracy and anti-racketeering or RICO laws.

“The RICO statute allows you to tell jurors the full story” of a complex conspiracy, Willis explained. “It’s a great statute for prosecutors."

Read the full report at the Washington Post.

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an 10 22

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas used the "shadow docket" on Monday to temporarily block a subpoena seeking to have Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) testify in a Georgia election case.

According to The Hill's John Kruzel, Thomas made use of the "shadow docket" to "unilaterally" block the subpoena.

"IT IS ORDERED that the August 15, 2022 order of the United States, District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, case No. 1:22-CV-03027, as modified by the district court's September 1, 2022 order, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court," the order said.

Thomas is responsible for emergency applications issued out of the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Georgia.

The court has requested that the parties provide additional responses by Thursday, so more action on the case is expected.

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Denied': Lindsey Graham loses emergency appeal to delay testifying in Georgia election investigation

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

October 20, 2022

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has lost in federal appeals court and will have to given a deposition under oath in Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis’ special grand jury investigation into Donald Trump’s and h...

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no show ga grand jury

https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/sidney-powell/

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https://www.npr.org/2022/07/05/1109871416/grand-jury-subpoena-giuliani-eastman-graham

no lnx

Georgia grand jury subpoenas top Trump allies, including Giuliani and Eastman

July 5, 2022

Heard on All Things Considered

STEPHEN FOWLER

John Eastman, attorney for former President Donald Trump, stands at left as Rudy Giuliani speaks in Washington at a rally in support of Trump.

A special grand jury in Georgia has issued subpoenas to some of the key figures associated with former President Donald Trump's failed efforts to reverse his narrow defeat, as a wide-ranging investigation into possible criminal interference ratchets up.

Those summoned by the seven subpoenas approved Tuesday include Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney; John Eastman, the former Trump lawyer who told Georgia lawmakers they had a "duty" to submit alternate electors; Cleta Mitchell, who was on the infamous 2021 call with Georgia's Secretary of State where Trump wanted to "find" votes; and others who guided attempts to subvert election results.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has also been subpoenaed in relation to phone calls he made with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger regarding absentee ballot rejections, according to the filings.

A 23-person special grand jury has been meeting since May to determine what, if any, state laws were broken in the months-long attempt to undo President Joe Biden's roughly 12,000-vote victory over then-President Trump, including potential crimes like "the solicitation of election fraud, making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office" and other disruptions to the election.

Recent witness testimony includes Raffensperger, Democratic attorney general nominee and state Sen. Jen Jordan and Democratic secretary of state nominee Rep. Bee Nguyen.

Tuesday's court filings shed light on the potential direction of the investigation into crimes related to Trump's obsession with Georgia in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. That interest was fueled by a variety of figures who provided dubious legal justifications for undoing his defeat, including Giuliani and Eastman.

Giuliani's lawyer says he has 'no current comment'

The court documents note Giuliani's presentation to state lawmakers in an unofficial hearing in December 2020 that included numerous false claims about Georgia's elections, even after several claims had been debunked by state and local officials.

"Despite this, the Witness made additional statements, both to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings, claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia," the summons reads.

In a statement to NPR,Giuliani's lawyer Robert Costello said "we have not been served with any subpoena, so we have no current comment."

District attorney in Georgia asks for a special grand jury for Trump election probe

Eastman, who pushed a theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election results and according to the House Jan. 6 committee also asked for a presidential pardon, told state lawmakers in a hearing that they could ignore Georgia's election results and appoint an alternate slate of electors.

Other figures named Tuesday include Jenna Ellis, who the district attorney says authored memos citing disputed legal theories to justify the plan to have Pence reject electors from Georgia and other swing states, andKenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who allegedly worked with the chair of the Georgia GOP to have 16 people secretly meet in the state capitol building to serve as fake electors.

Georgia officials fact-check an infamous Trump phone call in real time

HOUSE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE HEARINGS

Georgia officials fact-check an infamous Trump phone call in real time

The court documents say Chesebro drafted two documents in support of the plan, provided a Microsoft Word document template for the fake elector plot and told the state party he was working with Giuliani to implement the plan.

Georgia has played an outsized role in the fallout from the last presidential election, including the leadup to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. Hearings held by the House committee investigating the attack have featured several Georgia witnesses in recent weeks as they try to outline how Trump's refusal to accept defeat contributed to the violent attempt to stop the Electoral College certification.

Raffensperger, his top deputy and a former Fulton County poll worker testified about the negative impact of false claims made about the election from individuals like Giuliani, including death threats and disruptions.

Georgia's special grand jury cannot indict individuals but will make recommendations to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis about how to proceed.

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above th law

...he 23-person special grand jury sitting in Atlanta spent June hearing from witnesses about multiple attempts to steal the state’s 16 electoral votes and award them to Trump. The resulting subpoenas focus on three facets of the Trump campaign’s plan to thwart the will of Georgia voters.

Of particular interest to the grand jury is a December 3, 2020 hearing before the Georgia Senate, in which Giuliani, Deason, Eastman, and Ellis presented widely debunked claims about election fraud, showing a video of election workers at State Farm Arena in Atlanta producing what they falsely claimed was a “suitcase” full of fraudulent ballots. The panel also seeks information on phone calls in December and January where Trump and Graham sought to pressure state election officials to decertify Biden’s electoral win. And finally, investigators are looking at the plan to swear in a slate of fake electors to substitute for the real ones as part of John Eastman’s harebrained coup plot, which he cooked up with Chesebro, an election lawyer from Wisconsin.

The subpoenas for Giuliani and Ellis note that, although the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office immediately debunked the State Farm video, the president’s *pro bono* lawyer “made additional statements, both to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings, claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election and using the now-debunked State Farm video in support of those statements” as part of a “multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

The subpoena for Deason notes that she “personally presented and narrated selected portions of the State Farm video to members of the Georgia State Senate,” where Eastman is reported to have “provided testimony, during which he advised lawmakers that they had both the lawful authority and a ‘duty’ to replace the Democratic Party’s slate of presidential electors, who had been certified as the duly appointed electors for the State of Georgia after the November 2020 election, due to unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud within the state."

ot exactly conduct becoming an officer of the court.

And speaking of unbecoming conduct, we’ve all heard the infamous phone call where the sitting president pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” making multiple references to an innocent election worker, whom he called “a professional vote scammer and hustler” and implicitly threatening election officials, saying, “When you talk about no criminality, I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.” Cleta Mitchell, at attorney with a long history of advocating for Republicans and against gay people, got yeeted out of Foley & Lardner approximately 10 minutes after it emerged that she’d participated in that call.

According to the subpoena for Senator Graham, he made two similar phone calls in which he “questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump” and “made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign.”

The subpoena for Chesebro provides a concise description of the Trump campaign’s effort to work with the Georgia GOP to corral a slate of cosplay electors and submit a fraudulent electoral certificate to the National Archives:

As part of those efforts, the Witness worked with the leadership of the Georgia Republican Party, including Chairman David Shafer, in the weeks after the November 2020 election in Georgia, at the direction of the Trump Campaign. This work included the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 individuals meet at the Georgia State Capitol on December 14, 2020, to cast purported clectoral college votes in favor of former President Donald Trump, even though none of those 16 individuals had been ascertained as Georgia’s certified presidential electors by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. The Witness drafted at least two memoranda in support of this plan, which were provided to the Georgia Republican Party, and the Witness provided template Microsoft Word documents to be used by the Georgia Republican Party at its meeting on December 14, 2020. Further, the Witness indicated in communications with the Georgia Republican Party that he had worked directly with Trump Campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani as part of the coordination and execution of the plan.

According to the AJC, Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury and signed off on the subpoenas, is crafting a framework for the DA to question legislators who have claimed immunity. Looks like the judge will be crafting a whole bunch of frameworks for all the lawyers getting engraved invitations from the DA.

About damn time!

Fulton grand jury subpoenas Giuliani, Graham, Trump campaign lawyers [AJC]

Subpoenas

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an 7 22

far-right Republican U.S. Congressman is the latest to receive a subpoena from Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis‘ special criminal grand jury investigation into Trump allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), who was endorsed by Donald Trump in the race for the GOP nomination to become Georgia Secretary of State, received the subpoena which instructs him to appear Tuesday morning, Politico reports.

“The subpoena underscores the rapidly escalating pace of District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation, which has already issued subpoenas to other figures close to Trump, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.”

Hice is a former far-right radio show host and pastor. He lost the GOP Secretary of State primary against incumbent Brad Raffensperger. Before getting elected to Congress Hice was probably best-known for his claim that LGBTQ people have a secret plot to seduce and sodomize America’s sons.

“In a 2012 book, that candidate—pastor and talk radio host Jody Hice—alleges the gay community has a secret plot to recruit and sodomize children.” Mother Jones reported in 2014. “In It’s Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America, Hice also asserts that supporters of abortion rights are worse than Hitler and compares gay relationships to bestiality and incest. He proposes that Muslims be stripped of their First Amendment rights.”

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ref july 7 an

Former President Donald Trump published two posts on his Twitter-knockoff app Truth Social on Thursday indicating that he is extremely agitated about the criminal investigation into his infamous post-2020 election scheme to strongarm Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" nonexistent votes.

Trump called Raffensperger twice after victory was declared for President Joe Biden and strongly urged Raffensperger to, somehow, scrounge up 11,780 ballots – one more than the margin of Trump's upset loss to Biden – so that he could be awarded the Peach State's 16 Electoral College votes. It was one of, if not the most, glaring example of Trump's efforts to manipulate the results of the presidential contest.

Last month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened a grand jury to determine whether Trump had engaged in "the solicitation of election fraud, making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, and violation of oath of office," all of which are felonies that carry severe penalties.

On Tuesday, subpoenas were served to seven Trump World confederates: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who also phoned Raffensperger on behalf of the brooding soon-to-be-ex-commander in chief; Trump's television attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associate Jenna Ellis; coup architect John Eastman (who was behind the coordinated campaign to send fraudulent slates of electors to Washington from multiple swing states that Trump lost); as well as three lesser-known lawyers – Jacki Pick Deason, Kenneth Chesebro, and Cleta Mitchell – the latter of whom was present for Trump's clandestine chat with Raffensperger.

“During the telephone call, the witness and others made allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia and pressured Secretary Raffensperger to take action in his official capacity to investigate unfounded claims of fraud," Mitchell's subpoena says.

On Wednesday, Willis indicated that subpoenaing Trump himself is a real possibility and that more of his allies are in her sights.

“Anything’s possible,” Willis told NBC News while stressing that nothing is being rushed or overlooked. "We’ll just have to see where the investigation leads us. I think that people thought that we came into this as some kind of game. This is not a game at all. What I am doing is very serious. It’s very important work. And we’re going to do our due diligence and making sure that we look at all aspects of the case."

These developments are having a noticeably negative impact on Trump's psyche.

On Thursday morning, Trump defended his exhortative conversations with Raffensperger and repeated his Big Lie that the election was a hoax.

"BOTH of my phone calls to Georgia were PERFECT. I had an absolute right to make them &, in fact, the story on the one call was given a retraction, or apology, by the Washington Post because they were given terribly false information about it, & when they heard the actual call, they realized that their story was wrong. Thank you to the W.P. I, as does anyone else (just look at the Democrats!), have the absolute right to challenge the results of an Election," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "This one, CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN!"

The Washington Post article mentioned by Trump was not what he is making it out to be.

On March 16, 2021, the paper corrected a couple of misquotes that it had printed. It did not, as Trump claimed, promulgate "terribly false information" or perpetuate misleading data about the 2020 election.

Correspondent Erik Wemple noted that "in a time of much-overblown chatter about election irregularities, this call between the president of the United States and a state-level investigator was the real irregularity." What mattered, Wemple continued, was that "the call happened; it was an abuse of presidential authority; and it failed to corrupt the investigators working under Raffensperger. But Trump wasn’t quite the plain-spoken rogue depicted in The Post’s story."

Nevertheless, an hour after his first Thursday rant, Trump baselessly accused unspecified "others" of screwing him out of a second term.

"I did NOTHING wrong in Georgia, but others did," Trump seethed. "They CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election, and those are the ones that should be investigated (and prosecuted)! Letter to follow."

[Meanwhile, the fallout from Trump going down to Georgia](https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-pardon/ "view post: Rudy Giuliani: 'It would have been perfectly legitimate' to ask Donald Trump for a pardon" is compounded by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, whose seventh public hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.

Its theme, according to the bipartisan panel's announcement on Wednesday, will be the suspected coordination between Team Trump and white nationalist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in the leadup to the violent insurrection.

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