Elections

ATLANTA — Fani T. Willis strode up to a podium in a red dress last year in downtown Atlanta, flanked by an array of dark suits and stone-faced officers in uniform. Her voice rang out loud and clear, with a hint of swagger.“If you thought Fulton was a good county to bring your crime to, to bring your violence to, you are wrong,” she said, facing a bank of news cameras. “And you are going to suffer consequences.”Ms Willis is the first Black woman to lead Georgia’s largest district attorney’s office. In her 19 years as a prosecutor, she has led more than 100 jury trials and handled hundreds of murder cases. Since she became chief prosecutor, her office’s conviction rate has stood at close to 90 percent, according to a spokesperson.Her experience is the source of her confidence, which appears unshaken by the scrutiny — and criticism — brought by the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his allies who tried to overturn his narrow 2020 election loss in Georgia.Ms. Willis tends to speak as if the world were her jury box. Sometimes she is colloquial and warm. In an interview, she noted, as an aside, how much she loved Valentine’s Day: “Put that in there, in case I get a new boo,” she said.But she can also throw sharp elbows: In a heated email exchange in July over the terms of a grand jury appearance by Gov. Brian Kemp, Ms. Willis called the governor’s lawyer, Brian McEvoy, “wrong and confused,” and “rude,” among other things.“You have taken my kindness as weakness,” she wrote, adding: “Despite your disdain this investigation continues and will not be derailed by anyone’s antics.”As a child, Ms. Willis split time between her divorced parents. Her father was a former Black Panther and criminal defense lawyer who practiced in the Washington, D.C., area. He brought her to the courthouse often and put her to work as his file clerk starting in elementary school. A career in law, she said, was never in doubt. More

The criminal investigation of former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia has its roots in activities that began shortly after he lost the 2020 election. So far, there have been two key investigatory threads: a plan to send an alternate slate of electors from states that Mr. Trump lost, including Georgia, and Mr. Trump’s request that Georgia’s secretary of state find the votes he needed to flip the state’s 16 electoral votes to him instead of Joseph R. Biden Jr.Here’s a look at some of the key events connected to the investigation.Nov. 18, 2020: Just over two weeks after Election Day, an outside adviser to the Trump campaign, Kenneth Chesebro, sends the first of three memos laying the groundwork for using the Electoral College system to affect the outcome of the race.Dec. 5: Mr. Trump calls Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, and urges him to circumvent the normal process for awarding electoral votes and allow Georgia’s lawmakers to do it instead.Dec. 6: Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, shares one of those memos with Jason Miller, a senior adviser on the Trump campaign. In the next few days, Mr. Trump decides to pursue the plan to offer alternate electors, according to the findings of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Dec. 7: Georgia elections officials recertified the results of the state’s presidential race after a recount reaffirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump, the third time that results showed that Mr. Trump had lost the state.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

So now Ron DeSantis is wishy-washy. A bit of a wimp. Or at least runs the risk of looking like one.That’s a fresh sentiment discernible in some recent assessments, as political analysts and journalists marvel at, chew over and second-guess his failure to return Donald Trump’s increasingly ugly jabs.I wish I agreed. I’m no DeSantis fan. But where those critics spot possible weakness, I see proven discipline. Brawling with Trump doesn’t flex DeSantis’s muscle. It shows he can be baited. And it just covers them both in mud.The doubters have also theorized that DeSantis could be this presidential election cycle’s Scott Walker, a gleaming governor who can’t make the leap from a local stage to the national one — who dims as the lights grow brighter. Walker’s bid to be the Republican nominee in 2016 winked out even before the Iowa caucuses.But he’d won his second term in Wisconsin in 2014 by less than six percentage points, while DeSantis sailed to re-election in Florida last year by more than 19. And DeSantis faced a much better-known opponent than Walker had.It brings me no joy to make those observations. It gives me the willies. I’m rooting hard against DeSantis, a flamboyantly divisive and transcendently smug operator with the chilling grandiosity to cast his political ascent as God’s will and a rapacity for power that’s one of the best arguments against giving it to him.But the latest wave of commentary underestimates him — and that’s dangerous. He’s not Walker: Nate Cohn explained why in The Times early this week, concluding that DeSantis “has a lot more in common with Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan” when they were gearing up for their first presidential bids than with Walker, Kamala Harris or Rick Perry, whose sizzle fizzled fast.He’s also not Jeb Bush. It has become popular to make that comparison as well, likening DeSantis to his predecessor in the Florida governor’s mansion. But DeSantis has the very venom that Bush didn’t. He’s a viper to Bush’s garter snake.Of course, there’s no guarantee DeSantis will even run for president. But many signs suggest that he’s headed there. Trump is obviously braced for that, and is intensifying his aspersions accordingly. A few months ago, “Ron DeSanctimonious” made its puerile and lavishly syllabic debut. “Meatball Ron” is apparently under consideration. And this month Trump insinuated on social media that when DeSantis was a secondary school teacher decades ago, he behaved inappropriately around female students.DeSantis’s response? “I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he told a reporter who asked him about the vague and unsubstantiated allegation. “I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans,” he added.What he mostly spends his time doing is peacocking and planting unignorable markers along every fault line in the culture wars.Immigration? He sends a planeload of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. “Woke” corporate activism? He punishes Disney for standing up for L.G.B.T.Q. employees and proposes banning any consideration of “environmental, social and governance” factors in decisions about how and where to invest Florida funds.Public education about systemic racism? He goes to war with the College Board over its proposed Advanced Placement course on African American studies. Abortion? He punishes and publicly shames a pro-choice Tampa-area prosecutor. Covid vaccines? He exhorts his state’s Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to look into incomplete and inaccurate information about them. He’s making a list and checking it twice, an anti-Santa of all-purpose antipathy.He’s methodical and relentless, and that compensates for his oratory, more yawn-stoking than heart-stirring, and his debating, more bluster than luster. Those limitations are also the object of current scrutiny and skepticism.Attention to politicians on the rise and on the make comes in predictable phases. They are built up, each observer outdoing the breathlessness of the previous ones, until they must be torn down, because the existing story is stale and new adjectives and anecdotes are in order.So DeSantis has gone from cunning (which he is) to unlikable (ditto), from someone who has outperformed expectations (that 19-point margin) to someone who cannot possibly meet them. In truth, there’s too much time between now and when he’d have to announce his candidacy — and between then and the start of voting — to evaluate his fortunes properly. They’ll change in unpredictable ways, just like the world around him.But voters have chosen plenty of presidential nominees — and presidents — who were humdrum speakers, workmanlike debaters or loath to fling muck at their rivals. None of those qualities nullifies DeSantis.And if he starts savaging Trump, whose flaws hardly need exposure, he doesn’t gain separation from him. He blurs into him.Heaven help us, he may well be too smart for that.For the Love of SentencesMarjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union address.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockBefore President Biden’s State of the Union speech recedes too much further into the past, I share two of the funnier riffs on it.Yair Rosenberg, in his Deep Shtetl newsletter for The Atlantic, remarked on how Marjorie Taylor Greene, “shouting ineffectually from the back while draped in an ostentatious white fur coat, looked like she’d just lost her last Dalmatian.” (Thanks to Barbara Steinhardt-Carter of Sacramento, Calif., and Deborah Barnes of Tallula, Ill., among others, for nominating this.)And in The Times, Annie Karni followed up on the visibly tense exchange between Senator Mitt Romney and Representative George Santos: “After the speech, Mr. Romney, a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told reporters that Mr. Santos is ‘a sick puppy, he shouldn’t have been there,’ in what could be construed as the Mormon equivalent of an eviscerating, curse-filled diatribe.” (Pam Maines, Goleta, Calif., and Brian Sullam, Baltimore, among others)Sticking with The Times, A.O. Scott reviewed “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” “the final chapter in a trilogy about lust, ambition and abdominal fitness in the modern age,” noting that “the sources of Mike’s appeal — a heart as big as his trapezius, resolve as firm as his glutes, a character as sturdy as his quadriceps — haven’t changed.” (Jane Sapinsky, Cherry Valley, N.Y.)Kyle Buchanan provided background on Andrea Riseborough, whose performance in “To Leslie” netted her an intensely debated Oscar nomination for best actress: “Because Riseborough has played such a wide variety of roles without developing a tangible star persona, she is often described as a ‘chameleon’ or even ‘unrecognizable,’ which is Hollywood-speak for an actress who doesn’t wear eye makeup.” (Paul Dobbs, Relanges, France)Jason Farago argued for the special current relevance of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings: “He matters now precisely for his vindication that we have not wholly decayed into data receptors; that we are still human, and if only we find the right master we can slow down time. What is a masterpiece, in 2023? A thing that returns to you — vitally, commandingly, after this clamorous world of news and notifications seemed to have wiped them out — your powers of concentration.” (Patricia Tracy, Blacksburg, Va., and Gwendolyn Morris, Stamford, Conn., among others)Sam Anderson made clear that he is “not a film critic”: “I am an ordinary American, someone raised on MTV and ‘S.N.L.’ and C.G.I. Which means that my entertainment metabolism has been carefully tuned to digest the purest visual corn syrup. Sarcastic men with large guns. Yearning princesses with grumpy fathers. Explosive explosions explosively exploding.” (Martin Hunt, Melbourne, Australia)“A paradox defines writing: The public sees writers mainly in their victories but their lives are spent mostly in defeat,” Stephen Marche observed. “I suppose that’s why, in the rare moments of triumph, writers always look a little out of place — posing in magazine profiles in their half-considered outfits with their last-minute hair; desperately re-upping their most positive reviews on Instagram; or, at the ceremonies for writing prizes — the Oscars for lumpy people — grinning like recently released prisoners readjusting to society.” (Mitch Kardon, Pittsburgh)And Stuart Stevens weighed in on a contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination who junked her supposed principles: “There is a great future behind Nikki Haley.” (John Connon, Toronto, and Mirinda Kossoff, Pittsboro, N.C., among others)In The New Yorker, James Wood appraised the fiction of Gwendoline Riley, first by comparing her to another writer, Helen Garner: “Riley has Garner’s quick eye for detail but replaces her anguished charity with vengeful clarity. Both of her novels have the unguarded nudity of correspondence; they have no time for the diplomatic niceties, the aesthetic throat-clearing of most literary fiction. The two novels relate to each other like twitching limbs from the same violated torso.” (Merrill Gillaspy, Berkeley, Calif., and Len Philipp, Toronto)Also in The New Yorker, Amy Davidson Sorkin provided historical context for a looming standoff between President Biden and Republicans in Congress: “In 1953, during an earlier debt-limit crisis, the federal government sold off gold coins and bullion that were sitting in its vaults — the change between the cushions of the national couch.” (Larry Feinberg, Chapel Hill, N.C.)And in the BBC Countryfile Magazine, Nicola Chester examined an industrious specimen of nature: “Blackbirds are ostensibly a woodland bird, and can be heard loudly and furiously flinging leaves about to find insects, eggs and grubs beneath hedges and shrubs, like a teenager who has lost something on the bedroom ‘floor-drobe.’” (Anne Fletcher-Jones, New Milton, England)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.On a Personal Note (Odd Neighborhood Names)Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon/Art Images, via Getty ImagesWhat a gold mine of material about discordantly, pretentiously, adorably, whimsically or just plain strangely named streets and subdivisions you all have sent me. It will generate occasional posts like this deep into the year. I’m going through your hundreds of emails at random, so this isn’t the best of the best. It’s just good stuff in the missives that I’ve had a chance to open, read and enjoy so far.“I grew up near a road whose name couldn’t have been less representative of its character,” Valerie Masin of Boston wrote. “It is a long, winding, lush, beautiful road on the north shore of Long Island. Its name: Skunks Misery Road. Were they trying to keep out the riffraff?!?” Maybe, Valerie. I prefer a more charitable interpretation. They were paying tribute to the roadkill.But it appears that we’re both wrong. I did some extensive research, which is to say I spent about five minutes on Google and I discovered a 2013 article in Newsday that gives a different explanation for the name of the road, which is in the town of Locust Valley. It says that a swamp there was long ago used “as a dump that was a handy fast-food stop for large numbers of skunks that foraged in the refuse. The odor was said to be so bad that people wondered how even the skunks could tolerate it.”As it happens, there are Skunk Misery and Skunk’s Misery roads, forests and such in places beyond Long Island. Miserable skunks and misery-inducing skunks are apparently a longstanding human preoccupation, at least cartographically speaking.Elsewhere in America: “I moved from North Carolina to central Texas in late 2020, to a neighborhood just east of Bastrop called ‘Tahitian Village,’” wrote Wick Baker. “The streets all have South Pacific names. Manawianui Drive, Kaanapali Lane (not to be confused with Kaukonahua Lane or Keanahalululu Lane). My favorites are Puu Waa Waa Lane and Pukoo Drive. No ocean. I pity the Amazon drivers!” And I am suddenly hankering for a pu pu platter.In Lititz, Penn., Mindy Rosenberg has had an oxymoronic experience on the street where she lives, in a community “with a patriotic theme,” she wrote. In addition to her street (whose name I’ll reveal shortly), there’s Independence Way, Glory Way, Patriots Way, Constitution Drive, Allegiance Drive and Presidents Drive. Governing all of them, she wrote, is a homeowners association “with hundreds of rules. So when we got a notice that the third bird feeder we hung up exceeded the two permitted, my son commented, ‘I guess there’s no freedom on Freedom Street!’”Special programming note: It’s an especially busy late winter and spring for me, with a full load of teaching at Duke on top of my journalism. In order to make overdue progress on my next book, I’m taking a March break from the newsletter. I’ll disappear after next week’s newsletter but be back at the start of April. My apologies (and deep thanks) to those of you who look forward to — and read — it weekly. The newsletter will continue to land in your inboxes in March, but will be written by guest authors with some connection, personal or thematic, to me. More on that next week. More

US officer fed details to far-right leader before Capitol attack, messages showWashington court sees string of messages from Shane Lamond to Proud Boys’ Enrique Tarrio in weeks before deadly 2021 riot A police officer frequently provided Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio with internal information about law enforcement operations in the weeks before other members of the far-right group stormed the US Capitol, according to messages shown at the trial of Tarrio and four associates.January 6 rioter who used stun gun on officer Michael Fanone pleads guiltyRead moreIn court in Washington DC on Wednesday, a federal prosecutor showed jurors a string of messages that Shane Lamond, a Metropolitan police lieutenant, exchanged with Tarrio in the run-up to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. Lamond, an intelligence officer, was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys.On 6 January, supporters of Donald Trump stormed Congress in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including suicides among law enforcementLess than three weeks before the riot, Lamond warned Tarrio that the FBI and Secret Service were “all spun up” over talk on an Infowars internet show that the Proud Boys planned to dress as Biden supporters on inauguration day.A justice department prosecutor, Conor Mulroe, asked a government witness, the FBI special agent Peter Dubrowski, how common it was for law enforcement to disclose internal information in that fashion.“I’ve never heard of it,” Dubrowski said.Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Capitol attack and charged with burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a historic Black church in December 2020. He was released and was not in Washington on 6 January.In a message to Tarrio on 25 December 2020, Lamond said Metropolitan police investigators had asked him to identify Tarrio from a photograph. He warned Tarrio that police might be seeking a warrant for his arrest.On the day of his arrest, Tarrio posted a message to other Proud Boys leaders that said: “The warrant was just signed.”Before trial, Tarrio’s attorneys said Lamond’s testimony would be crucial, supporting Tarrio’s claims he was looking to avoid violence.In court, Mulroe said Lamond asserted his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Tarrio’s attorneys have accused prosecutors of bullying Lamond into keeping quiet by warning the officer he could be charged with obstructing the investigation into Tarrio, a Miami resident who was the national chairman of the Proud Boys. Prosecutors deny that claim.Tarrio’s attorney Sabino Jauregui said other messages showed that Tarrio cooperated with police and provided useful information. Jauregui said prosecutors “dragged [Lamond’s] name through the mud” and falsely insinuated he is a “dirty cop” who had an inappropriate relationship with Tarrio.“That was their theme over and over again,” Jauregui told the presiding US district judge, Timothy Kelly.Lamond was placed on administrative leave in February 2022, according to Mark Schamel, an attorney who said Lamond aided in Tarrio’s arrest for burning the banner. On Wednesday, Schamel said Lamond’s job required him to communicate with protesting groups and his conduct “was appropriate and always focused on the protection of the citizens of Washington DC”.“At no time did Lt Lamond ever assist or support the hateful and divisive agenda of any of the various groups that came to DC to protest,” Schamel said. “More importantly, Lt Lamond is a decorated official who does not condone the hateful rhetoric or the illegal conduct on January 6 and was only communicating with these individuals because the mission required it.”Tarrio and four lieutenants are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power.Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men’s club for “western chauvinists”. They often brawl with antifascist activists.In a message to Tarrio on 18 December 2020, Lamond said other investigators had asked if the Proud Boys were racist. The officer said he told them the group had Black and Latino members, “so [it was] not a racist thing”.“It’s not being investigated by the FBI, though. Just us,” Lamond added.“Awesome,” Tarrio replied.In another exchange, Lamond asked Tarrio if he called in a tip claiming responsibility for the banner burning.“I did more than that,” Tarrio said. “It’s on my social media.”In a message to Tarrio on 11 December 2020, Lamond told him about the whereabouts of antifascist activists. The officer asked Tarrio if he should share that information with uniformed officers or keep it to himself.Two days later, Tarrio asked Lamond what the police department’s “general consensus” was about the Proud Boys.“That’s too complicated for a text answer,” Lamond replied. “That’s an in-person conversation over a beer.”TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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This Special Purpose Grand Jury (herein referred to as “the Grand Jury”) was impaneled pursuant to an Order dated January 24, 2022 by Christopher S. Brasher, Chief Judge of the Superior Court of Fulton County, Atlanta Judicial Circuit. The Grand Jury consisted of twenty-six Fulton County residents, three of whom were 7 alternates. On any day testimony was received or deliberations were had, the number of jurors present ranged between sixteen and twenty-four as availability allowed. Pursuant to statute, if we had our needed quorum of sixteen jurors present, we could do business with that.

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SPECIAL PURPOSE GRAND JURY REPORT

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The Grand Jury was impaneled to investigate a specific issue: the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 presidential elections in the State of Georgia.

This Grand Jury was selected on May 2nd, 2022 and first heard evidence on June 1st, 2022. We continued to hear evidence and receive information into December 2022. The Grand Jury received evidence from or involving 75 witnesses during the course of this investigation, the overwhelming majority of which information was delivered in person under oath. The Grand Jury also received information in the form of investigator testimony and various forms of digital and physical media. Pursuant to Georgia law, a team of assistant district attorneys provided the Grand Jury with applicable statutes and procedures. Any recommendation set out herein is the sole conclusion of the Grand Jury based on testimony presented, facts received, and our deliberations.

Following is the final report of the Special Purpose Grand Jury. We set forth for the Court our recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes, including the votes by the Grand Jurors. This includes the votes respective to each topic, indicated in a “Yea/Nay/Abstain” format throughout. The total number of Grand Jurors who placed a vote on each topic has been indicated in each section. Footnotes have been added in certain places where a juror requested the opportunity

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to clarify their vote for any reason. Each applicable statute is referenced by citation

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The decision by Ms. Sturgeon to step down as the country’s leader came as a shock. What is her legacy, and why did she quit?The impending departure of Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s longest-serving first minister, who said on Wednesday that she would step down, has roiled the nation’s political establishment.One of Britain’s most powerful politicians and a fierce champion for Scottish independence, Ms. Sturgeon cited exhaustion and said that she had become too polarizing a figure to continue after eight years in the role.Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom, which also includes England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and though the British government is responsible for some policies across the union in areas like foreign policy and defense, it shares power with elected officials on the country level, including Ms. Sturgeon, who determine policies on health care and the economy, among other areas.Though Ms. Sturgeon will remain in office until a successor is chosen, her resignation prompted shock at a time of division on issues including transgender rights and Scottish independence. Here’s what you need to know.Who is Nicola Sturgeon?The first woman to lead Scotland’s government, Ms. Sturgeon, 52, rose through her party ranks to become a force in Scottish politics.Born in the coastal town of Irvine in 1970, she joined the then-marginal Scottish National Party at just 16. She later worked as a lawyer in Glasgow before being elected as a regional representative in 1999.She served as the S. N. P.’s deputy first minister before becoming its leader in 2014 — months before the party won a landslide victory in Britain’s general election that propelled her into Scotland’s most prominent political position. Her inspiration to run for office came in part from Margaret Thatcher, she said, because she was opposed to Thatcher’s politics and horrified by the impact of her policies on Scotland, which led to surging unemployment.Ms. Sturgeon is married to Peter Murrell, the chief executive of the S.N.P., whom she first met at a youth camp.Ms. Sturgeon resigned as first minister at Bute House in Edinburgh on Wednesday.Pool photo by Jane BarlowWhy did she quit?Ms. Sturgeon said the “brutality” of political life and exhaustion contributed to her decision to resign.“I could go on for another few months, six months, a year maybe,” she said in a hastily arranged news conference on Wednesday in Edinburgh. “But I know that as time passed, I would have less and less energy to give to the job.”“Giving absolutely everything of yourself to this job — it’s the only way to do it,” she added. “But in truth, that can only be done by anyone for so long.”The announcement came as a surprise: Only last month, Ms. Sturgeon had told the BBC that she was not ready to step down, and in her resignation speech said she had wrestled with the decision for weeks.It drew comparisons to the resignation of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand last month, who said being an effective leader required “a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.”Ms. Sturgeon called the party her extended family because she joined so early, at age 16. “Being your first minister has been the privilege of my life,” she said. But she said she had become too polarizing a figure to effectively lead in the country’s tense environment and that the job had taken a toll on her and her family.“Maybe I want to spend a bit of time on Nicola Sturgeon, the person, the human being,” she said.What is she known for?A deft hand at navigating the power-sharing system of the United Kingdom, Ms. Sturgeon has been a dominant figure in the push for Scottish independence.She has argued for independence as a way for Scotland to secure autonomy over its own decisions while engaging on the world stage, framing nationalism as outward looking rather than parochial.As deputy minister, she led a failed referendum in 2014 for Scottish independence, and had announced new plans for another that would take place in October, but the Supreme Court ruled that would need the approval of Britain’s government.Supporters of Scottish independence marched in Glasgow in 2021. Ms. Sturgeon had sought another referendum on the matter for this fall, but it was blocked by Britain’s Supreme Court.Robert Perry/EPA, via ShutterstockShe also emerged as a sure-footed and cautious leader during the coronavirus pandemic. She kept virus restrictions in place longer than England, challenging what she saw as a more lax approach. Scotland has reported fewer deaths and positive cases relative to its population compared with England. Ms. Sturgeon described leading the country through the pandemic as “by far the toughest thing I’ve done.”More recently, Ms. Sturgeon had clashed with Britain’s government over transgender rights, after the Scottish Parliament passed legislation that would allow transgender people to have the gender with which they identify legally recognized without the need for a medical diagnosis. But the law was rejected by Britain’s government, which cited other equality laws. Her support for the legislation and for transgender rights has mired Ms. Sturgeon in a culture war, including a case over a convicted rapist who was briefly held in a women’s prison.What happens next?The leadership changeover will not be immediate, and Ms. Surgeon has said she will stay in the role for now.But her announcement precipitated the formal submission of her resignation to King Charles III, after which the S.N.P. will have several weeks to elect another party leader to take the reins.Who might succeed her?There is no clear front-runner for the leadership role, but some names have emerged as potential successors as Scotland’s next first minister. They include:Kate Forbes, 32, a former finance secretary who has often been tipped as next in line to Ms. Sturgeon. Elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2016, Ms. Forbes is a fluent Gaelic speaker and a member of the Free Church of Scotland, an evangelical Presbyterian denomination.Angus Robertson, 53, a senior party member who has served as a Scottish lawmaker in the British House of Commons. A former journalist, Mr. Robertson is currently a cabinet secretary for the Constitution, external affairs and culture.John Swinney, 58, Ms. Sturgeon’s deputy, who was also appointed cabinet secretary for Covid Recovery in May 2021. He led the party from 2000 to 2005 when it did not have a majority of seats in Scottish Parliament.Humza Yousaf, 37, cabinet secretary for health and social care. Elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2011 at age 26, Mr. Yousaf, a practicing Muslim of South Asian descent, was the first person from a minority ethnic background to hold a cabinet position. More

“Hell, yes.” “100%.” Those were the replies of some Republican state legislators in Georgia to a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump’s campaign to stop Joe Biden’s election win in the state, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, citing newly released congressional records.The Trump campaign wanted the group to appoint presidential electors who would vote for Trump, not Joe Biden – even though he’d won the state’s 16 electoral votes, the first time a Democrat has done so since Bill Clinton in 1992.The publication contacted the approximately 30 lawmakers who said they would participate in the effort, which was ultimately unsuccessful. Seventeen couldn’t be reached, or didn’t respond to a request for comment. But others appeared to deny they’d ever signed on.“I do think there were some issues with the election. But that was not the way to go,” Republican state representative Kasey Carpenter told the Journal-Constitution.You can read the rest of the story here.Let’s say Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis does decide bring charges against Donald Trump based on the grand jury’s report. What would be the alleged crime? As the Guardian’s Carlisa N. Johnson reported last month, the answer could be racketeering:An Atlanta prosecutor appears ready to use the same Georgia statute to prosecute Donald Trump that she used last year to charge dozens of gang members and well-known rappers who allegedly conspired to commit violent crime.Fani Willis was elected Fulton county district attorney just days before the conclusion of the 2020 presidential election. But as she celebrated her promotion, Trump and his allies set in motion a flurry of unfounded claims of voter fraud in Georgia, the state long hailed as a Republican stronghold for local and national elections.Willis assumed office on 1 January 2021, becoming the first Black woman in the position. The next day, according to reports, Trump called rad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, urging him to “find” the nearly 12,000 votes he needed to secure a victory and overturn the election results.The following month, Willis launched an investigation into Trump’s interference in the state’s general election. Now, in a hearing on Tuesday, the special purpose grand jury and the presiding judge will decide whether to release to the public the final report and findings of the grand jury that was seated to investigate Trump and his allies.Willis, who has not shied away from high-profile cases, has made headlines for her aggressive style of prosecution. Willis was a lead prosecutor in the 2013 prosecution of educators in Atlanta accused of inflating students’ scores on standardized tests. More recently, Willis brought a case against a supposed Georgia gang known as YSL, including charges against rappers Yung Thug and Gunna.Could Trump be charged for racketeering? A Georgia prosecutor thinks soRead moreGot questions about the special grand jury’s report in Georgia? The Guardian’s Sam Levine has answers in this piece published just before a hearing in which a judge ultimately opted to allow its partial release:A court hearing on Tuesday will mark one of the most significant developments in a Georgia investigation examining whether Donald Trump and allies committed a crime in their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Here’s all you need to know about that hearing and what to expect next.What exactly is happening on Tuesday?Since May of last year, a special purpose grand jury in Fulton county, Georgia has been investigating whether Donald Trump committed a crime under state law when he tried to overturn the 2020 election by pressuring state officials to try and overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.The grand jury concluded its work earlier this month. On Tuesday, there will be a hearing to determine whether the grand jury’s report should be made public. The special grand jury – which consisted of 23 jurors and three alternates – has recommended its report be made public.Why is this investigation such a big deal?Trump and allies have yet to face any criminal consequences for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Fulton county probe could be the first time that charges are filed against Trump and allies for those efforts. The US House committee that investigated the January 6 attacks also made a criminal referral to the justice department, which is also investigating Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.What is Georgia’s Trump election inquiry and will it lead to charges?Read moreShould Donald Trump face criminal charges?That’s the big question the report authored by a special grand jury in Georgia’s Fulton county might answer. We won’t be seeing all of it today, but what’s released could shed light on what the jurors came to believe after spending months hearing from former Trump officials, state lawmakers and others with knowledge of his attempt to stop Joe Biden from carrying the state’s electoral votes.The answer to that question could very well be no – at least in the eyes of the jurors. But they might recommend charges against other officials who appeared before them. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani was, for instance, told that he was a target of the investigation, as was reportedly the state’s lieutenant governor Burt Jones and David Shafer, chair of the Georgia GOP.But even if the jurors want to bring the hammer down, it’s not their decision to make. That’s up to Fani Willis, the district attorney for the Atlanta-area county, who will have to decide whether to accept their recommendations and move forward with prosecutions.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today, we may get a sense of which direction one of the many investigations into Donald Trump is heading, when parts of a special grand jury’s report into his attempt to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in Georgia are made public. A judge earlier this week ordered the release of the document’s introduction, conclusion and a chapter on jurors’ concerns that some witnesses were lying, while withholding the rest, at least for now. Fani Willis, the district attorney in Georgia’s Atlanta-area Fulton county, is expected to use the report to determine whether to bring charges in the investigations – and against who. This blog will dig into the document as soon as it’s released.Here’s what else is going on:
Joe Biden may as soon as today give a public address about the Chinese spy balloon and three UFOs shot down by American jets over North America, the Washington Post reports, in a response to pressure from lawmakers who want more transparency on the unusual events.
Barbara Lee, a progressive House Democrat known for her anti-war bona fides, has filed the paperwork to compete in the California Senate race, according to Politico.
Special counsel Jack Smith wants to hear from Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff for his final days in the White House, CNN reports. More

The judge ordered the report’s introduction and conclusion to be made public, along with a section detailing the special grand jury’s concerns about witnesses lying under oath.A judge in Atlanta is expected to release portions of a report on Thursday detailing the findings of a special purpose grand jury that examined whether former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies violated Georgia law in their efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.Special grand juries cannot issue indictments, but they can recommend whether criminal charges should be sought. Earlier this week, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court ruled that much of the jury’s final report should not be disclosed until after Fani T. Willis, the local district attorney, makes her own charging decisions.Still, he ordered the report’s introduction and conclusion to be made public, along with a section detailing the special grand jury’s concerns about witnesses lying under oath. Judge McBurney wrote that revealing the grand jury’s specific recommendations now would create “due process deficiencies” that would be unfair to anyone who might be “named as indictment-worthy in the final report.” But legal experts say the judge’s decision to keep much of the report secret strongly suggests that the special grand jury determined that someone deserves to be indicted.“We’re at the cusp of something consequential, I think,” said Clark D. Cunningham, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, who has been following the case closely.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More