Eliana Willis

A new appointee to the Georgia state board of elections has elicited questions about whether she may be part of preparations to subvert the election on behalf of Donald Trump and others who are hoping to cast doubt on results that don’t go his way.Those fears are unfounded, she said.The Georgia speaker of the house appointed Janelle King, a Black conservative podcast host and Republican party hand, to a critical fifth seat on the board of elections in May. The state GOP applauded the replacement of a more moderate Republican with King, seeing her as a vote for “election integrity” ahead of a critical presidential election.But King flatly denies that she intends to interfere in the state’s elections as a board member or that she has had contact with the Trump campaign or its surrogates with regard to her appointment.“I’ve heard several rumors about what I’m going to do or not going to do,” King said. “And the way I see it is that this is what people expect of me and what they perceive. But I’ve never been one to do anything based off of what other people want. I like being fair, I like getting good sleep at night.”The elections board promulgates election rules, conducts voter education, investigates questions of election misconduct or fraud, and makes recommendations to the state attorney general or Georgia’s general assembly regarding elections. The five-member board has one appointee from the Democratic and Republican party and one each from the governor, state senate and state house, which now looks like a 4-1 Republican majority, although governor Brian Kemp sits outside of the increasingly radical Trump wing of the Republican party.“The state elections board has a massive role to play in how Georgia’s elections are run and certified, especially this year in a swing state that decided the last presidential election,” said Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project Action Fund. “The members of the SEB could, quite literally, determine who wins in November.”“With this appointment, I’m increasingly concerned about the future politicization of a board that should be focused on running our elections smoothly and accessibly for Georgia voters, not on moving forward an agenda for partisan gain,” Jackson Ali added.King is a former deputy director of the state party. She has also worked on bipartisan outreach with the League of Women’s Voters. Her husband Kelvin King is co-chair of Let’s Win For America Action, a conservative political action committee that focuses on minority outreach for Republicans. Kelvin King ran for US Senate in 2022, losing the Republican primary to Trump’s preferred candidate Herschel Walker.Janelle King hasn’t been an active participant in the swirling drama of Georgia’s election integrity politics in the wake of the 2020 election. Relative to other appointees to the board, she’s also light on experience with elections. Asked if she believed that the 2020 election was fairly administered in Georgia, she said she didn’t know.“I believe that there were some things that are questionable,” King said. “And I believe that those things have caused a disruption in whether or not people believe in our process.”The role will “allow me to be able to see evidence and – or the lack thereof, whatever it presents”, she added. “There were some things that were questionable. But we respect that the decision has been made, right? I mean, Trump’s not in the White House. So, President Biden is our president. And that’s where we stand.”King joins the board at a sensitive moment in Georgia’s election cycle. Conservatives are raising questions about the competence of the Fulton county registration and elections board in Georgia’s most populous county, which includes most of Atlanta.The state elections board voted last month to admonish Fulton county and require outside oversight through the rest of the 2024 election cycle, as a censure after discovering county elections workers violated state law while conducting a recount of the 2020 presidential election by double-counting 3,075 ballots.The secretary of state’s office determined that the infraction did not impact election results. The results of the 2020 election in both Fulton county and the state have repeatedly been validated in recounts and in court findings.Democratic party activists suggest that the state elections board’s focus on Fulton county is table setting for further denialism if Trump loses Georgia in November.The speaker of the house in Georgia, Jon Burns, appointed King to succeed Edward Lindsey, a former state representative whose lobbying practice for county government and votes on the board rankled Republicans in the Trump wing of the party. Lindsey was the tie-breaking vote earlier this year against recommending restrictions to absentee ballot voting.Rightwing organizations like the Texas Public Policy Foundation had been calling for Lindsey’s ouster, even as Lindsey’s term expired in March. The house failed to appoint his replacement before adjourning for the year, leaving the decision to Burns.Burns’ appointment of King was greeted by Georgia GOP chairman Josh McKoon as “very good news” at a fundraising dinner in Columbus, where he described it as giving the board “a three-person working majority, three people that agree with us on the importance of election integrity”.“I believe when we look back on November 5th, 2024, we’re going to say getting to that 3-2 election integrity-minded majority on the state election board made sure that we had the level playing field to win this election,” McKoon added.The board does not certify elections in Georgia; that role belongs to county elections board and ultimately the secretary of state’s office.“I’m only one vote,” King said. “I can’t block anything myself if I wanted to at all. And I don’t plan to interfere in elections. What I plan to do is make sure that what comes before us if there’s wrong that’s being done, then we need to address it.”The Georgia speaker’s office denied that Burns has been contacted by Trump, a member of his staff or someone else working on behalf of his campaign with regard to replacing Lindsey on the board with someone amenable to Trump’s interest.“Janelle King’s appointment to the state elections board was not impacted by any outside influence,” said Kayla Robertson, a spokesperson for Burns. “Janelle will be a tremendous asset as an independent thinker and impartial arbiter who will put principle above politics and ensure transparency and accountability in our elections.” More

The publisher of 2000 Mules issued a statement Friday apologizing to a Georgia man who was shown in the film and falsely accused of ballot fraud during the 2020 election.The widely debunked film includes surveillance video showing Mark Andrews, his face blurred, putting five ballots in a drop box in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb, as a voiceover by the conservative pundit and film-maker Dinesh D’Souza says: “What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes.”Salem Media Group said in the statement that it had “removed the film from Salem’s platforms, and there will be no future distribution of the film or the book by Salem”.“It was never our intent that the publication of the 2000 Mules film and book would harm Mr Andrews. We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr Andrews’ image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr Andrews and his family,” the statement said.A state investigation found that Andrews was dropping off ballots for himself, his wife and their three adult children, who all lived at the same address. That is legal in Georgia, and an investigator said there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Andrews.The film uses research from True the Vote, a Texas-based non-profit, and suggests that ballot “mules” aligned with Democrats were paid to illegally collect and deliver ballots in Georgia and four other closely watched states. An Associated Press analysis found that it is based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data.Salem said it “relied on representations by Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote, Inc (‘TTV’) that the individuals depicted in the videos provided to us by TTV, including Mr Andrews, illegally deposited ballots”.Lawyers for D’Souza and True the Vote did not immediately respond to emails Friday afternoon seeking comment on Salem’s statement.Andrews filed a federal lawsuit in October 2022 against D’Souza, True the Vote and Salem. The case continues, and representatives for Salem and for Andrews’ legal team did not immediately respond to emails asking whether the statement came as a result of the lawsuit. More

A Republican activist with links to Florida’s Republican senator, Marco Rubio, and its governor, Ron DeSantis, has been indicted on charges relating to the 6 January 2021 storming of the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.Barbara Balmaseda, 23, has been charged with five counts of being involved in the riot, including obstructing an official proceeding, knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building, and engaging in disorderly conduct with intent to impede a session of Congress.The indictment against Balmaseda, a former director-at-large of the Miami Young Republicans, follows her arrest on the same charges last December, after an FBI investigation alleged she had been communicating with members of the far-right Proud Boys organisation, which pledges allegiance to Donald Trump.It comes after investigators discovered a chain of mobile phone messages with a member of the group, including the potentially revealing information two days after the riot that he had her Taser.Balmaseda previously served as an intern in the office of Rubio, who voted to certify Biden’s election win, defying the then president, Donald Trump, and worked as an organiser for DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor.Nayib Hassan, Balmaseda’s lawyer, said she was pleading not guilty to the charges. “We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense on her behalf,” he said. Hassan added that he was awaiting the US supreme court verdict on an appeal against the conviction of another participant in the January 6 events, Joseph Fischer, saying it “may have a direct impact on Mrs Balmaseda’s case”.Balmaseda is accused of exchanging hundreds of texts with Gabriel Garcia, who was convicted last November of felony charges relating to the Capitol riot.According to documents submitted by an investigating FBI agent, Balmaseda’s messages were found on Garcia’s phone.Prosecutors say they identified the pair inside the Capitol building from January 6 footage, and allege that they had entered after they “climbed on equipment that had been staged in preparation for the presidential inauguration”.Two days later, Balmaseda allegedly messaged Garcia: “Hey! Good morning! You left a hat and a gas mask in Adolfo’s car, I also have your sunglasses in my purse and you have my taser.”The FBI investigator wrote: “As part of my investigation, I reviewed images sent in text and chat messages to Garcia’s phone, from a contact saved as ‘Barbarita Balmaseda’ in Garcia’s phone with the phone number XXX-XXX-4534 (the ‘4534 Number’).“In one text message thread, Garcia and ‘Barbarita Balmaseda’ exchanged hundreds of texts and images from August 2020 through January 2021.”A message in a separate WhatsApp thread on Garcia’s phone read: “My name is Barbara Balmaseda [I am] involved in local politics. id [sic] love to stay informed on the D116 race. Can you add me to the group chat?”A subsequent text showed a selfie-style picture featuring a woman, believed to be Balmaseda – wearing a Trump 2020 hat – posing alongside Garcia, who wore a hat sporting the words “Proud Boys”. More

The home of the mother of Michael Fanone, a Washington DC police officer who nearly died in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, was “swatted” on Tuesday night.An unnamed person who had written a manifesto seen by NBC falsely claimed they had killed Fanone’s mother and would go to Fanone’s old high school on Wednesday and shoot people. The manifesto listed Fanone’s mother’s address in Virginia.Fanone’s father was also targeted in the manifesto but was out of the country at the time. He called swatting calls like the one aimed at his parents “incredibly fucking dangerous”.Fanone told NBC News: “How dangerous is it to send law enforcement to an address in which you essentially are describing an active shooter, in which the only person present is a 78-year-old fucking woman.”Fanone spoke of how horrified his mother was that night to open the door and be met with Swat team officers while in her nightgown.Fairfax county police assisted in an investigation into the swatting call.Fanone said the swatting incident likely happened as a “direct result” of the public appearances he makes speaking out against Donald Trump.Speaking at a Biden campaign event earlier on Tuesday outside the courthouse where Trump’s hush-money trial was taking place alongside the Capitol police officer Harry Dunn and the actor Robert De Niro, Fanone said Trump was an “authoritarian who answers to and serves only himself”.Fanone voted for Trump in 2016 but has since thrown his support behind Biden, and blames the Capitol attack on “Trump’s lies”.At the Tuesday press conference, Fanone said: “These supporters were fueled by Trump’s lies and the lies of his surrogates, lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Those same lies have been spewed by Donald Trump and his surrogates about what happened to me and so many other police officers on January 6, 2021 – that day, I was brutally assaulted.”Recounting the attack on the Capitol during which he was on duty, Fanone said he was pulled by the “violent mob” and beaten, almost stripped of his firearm and tasered on his neck.He was assigned a desk job for his safety after leaving the Metropolitan police department later in 2021.The swatting incident involving Fanone’s mother is one of several targeted at high-profile individuals in politics. Others have been aimed at the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Florida senator Rick Scott, the Maine secretary of state Shenna Bellows, and the former House Republican from Wisconsin Mike Gallagher, who stepped down because of the threats against him and his family.Amid the spike in these types of threats, Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, said in January: “These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten the fabric of our democracy.” More

Leading Democrats are demanding that Samuel Alito recuse himself from election-related cases and also face investigation after a second report that a flag now associated with the far right was flying above one of his homes.Dick Durbin, the Senate judiciary chair, urged the US supreme court justice to step back from certain major cases and demanded John Roberts, the chief justice, implement an enforceable code of conduct on his bench, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanded that the US Senate investigate.The demands follow a new report by the New York Times of a second incidence of flags flown at homes of Alito that are associated with the 6 January 2021 attack at the US Capitol.Durbin put out a statement late on Wednesday, saying: “This incident is yet another example of apparent ethical misconduct by a sitting justice, and it adds to the court’s ongoing ethical crisis. For the good of our country and the court, Justice Alito must recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection. And the chief justice must see how this is damaging the court and immediately enact an enforceable code of conduct.”Ocasio-Cortez also weighed in during an interview with the MSNBC host Chris Hayes late on Wednesday, calling on Senate Democrats to launch “active investigations”.The congresswoman said: “What we are seeing here is an extraordinary breach of not just the trust and the stature of the supreme court, but we are seeing a fundamental challenge to our democracy.”She added: “Samuel Alito has identified himself with the same people who raided the Capitol on January 6 and is now going to be presiding over court cases that have deep implications over the participants of that rally.“And while this is the threat to our democracy, Democrats have a responsibility for defending our democracy.”The New York Times reported that an “appeal to heaven” flag, which has been adopted by Christian nationalists, was flown at the summer home of Alito on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, last July and September. The flag was carried by some in the crowd during the far-right, violent insurrection at the US Capitol, where extremist supporters of Donald Trump broke in to try, in vain, to stop the US Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election over Trump.Also known as the pine tree flag, it was originally used on warships commanded by George Washington during the American revolutionary war against the ruling British. It has since been adopted by Christian nationalists who advocate for an American government based on Christian teachings.The second flag report comes after the paper also reported that an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia residence of Alito’s home shortly after the January 6 insurrection. Alito claimed his wife flew the flag briefly during a spat with neighbors over politics.Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, posted on X: “Flying this flag is a political statement that is a clear and compelling reason for Alito’s recusal. He cannot responsibly sit on Trump-related cases when he has already signaled his sympathy with January 6th rioters. He owes the American people an explanation.”Sheldon Whitehouse also posted, with pictures of the offending flags.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Rhode Island Democratic senator said on X: “Did another neighbor make Alito’s wife mad? How many Maga battle flags does Alito need to fly for the court or the judicial conference to see there’s a problem?”Durbin has been pushing for regulation of the supreme court.He added: “This episode will further erode public faith in the court. The Senate judiciary committee has been investigating the ethical crisis at the court for more than a year, and that investigation continues. And we remain focused on ensuring the supreme court adopts an enforceable code of conduct, which we can do by passing the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act.”He has repeatedly called for the passing of legislation that the judiciary committee advanced last July. The supreme court has an internal, non-binding code of ethics.Neither the supreme court nor Alito had commented by Thursday morning. More