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      Inquiry Scrutinizes Trump Allies’ False Claims About Election Worker

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      Prosecutors are seeking testimony from three people who took part in the pressure campaign against the worker, Ruby Freeman, after the 2020 election.ATLANTA — One is a 69-year-old Lutheran pastor from Illinois. Another is a celebrity stylist who once described herself as a publicist for Kanye West. A third is a former mixed martial-arts fighter and self-described “polo addict” who once led a group called “Black Voices for Trump.”All three individuals now find themselves entangled in the criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia after former President Donald J. Trump’s loss there, with prosecutors saying they participated in a bizarre plot to pressure a Fulton County, Ga., election worker to falsely admit that she committed fraud on Election Day in 2020.The three — Trevian Kutti, the publicist; Stephen C. Lee, the pastor; and Willie Lewis Floyd III, the polo fan — have all been ordered to appear before a special grand jury in Atlanta, with a hearing for Mr. Lee scheduled for Tuesday morning at a courthouse near his home in Kendall County, Ill.None have been named as targets of the investigation or charged with a crime. Yet the decision to seek their testimony suggests that prosecutors in Fulton County are increasingly interested in the story of how the part-time, rank-and-file election worker, Ruby Freeman, 63, was confronted by allies of Mr. Trump at her home in the Atlanta suburbs in the weeks after he was defeated by President Biden.Ms. Freeman and her daughter were part of a team processing votes for the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections on election night. Soon after, video images of Ms. Freeman and her daughter handling ballots were posted online and shared widely among some Trump supporters, who claimed falsely that the video showed the two women entering bogus votes to skew the election in Mr. Biden’s favor.Mr. Trump helped spread the fiction. During his now-famous telephone call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, when Mr. Trump implored Mr. Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” the votes Mr. Trump needed to win the state, Mr. Trump referred several times to Ms. Freeman, calling her a “vote scammer” and “hustler.”Ms. Freeman processing ballots in Atlanta during the 2020 general election.Brandon Bell/ReutersMs. Kutti, 52, is a Trump supporter based in Chicago who was once registered as an Illinois lobbyist supporting the cannabis industry; she had also previously worked as a publicist for R. Kelly, the disgraced R&B singer. Prosecutors sought her testimony in a May court filing; it is unclear if she has appeared before the special grand jury, which meets behind closed doors.But Ms. Kutti unquestionably met with Ms. Freeman on Jan. 4, 2021, after showing up in her neighborhood, cryptically claiming to work for “some of the biggest names in the industry.”After persuading Ms. Freeman to meet her at a police station in Cobb County, outside Atlanta — the police had been summoned when Ms. Kutti came to her home, and an officer recommended that they talk at the station — Ms. Kutti warned her that an event would soon occur that would “disrupt your freedom,” according to police body-camera video of the meeting. Ms. Kutti also offered help, telling Ms. Freeman that she was going to call a man who had “authoritative powers to get you protection.”Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      4 Takeaways From the Last Kemp-Abrams Debate Before Election Day

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      Gov. Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams, who would like to replace him, met Sunday night for one of the last major televised debates of the 2022 midterm election cycle, and the Georgia showdown delivered an hour heavy on substance and light on political fireworks and viral moments.Mr. Kemp, a Republican who narrowly defeated Ms. Abrams, a Democrat, in 2018, holds a durable lead of 5 to 10 percentage points in public and private polling, a status that was evident throughout their discussion.Mr. Kemp took few chances, stuck to his talking points about how Ms. Abrams has spent the years since their last contest and tried to sell Georgia voters on how good they have things now.Ms. Abrams, as she has done throughout her campaign, pressed a message that prosperity in Mr. Kemp’s Georgia has not been shared equally. Under an Abrams administration, she said, Black people and women would have more input into their relationship with the government — or in the case of abortion rights, pushing the government away from any relationship at all.Here are four takeaways from Sunday’s debate:Abrams tried to catch up.With just about all of Ms. Abrams’s arguments against Mr. Kemp well worn by now — she has been making parts of them fairly consistently since their 2018 race — she sought a new approach to chip away at Mr. Kemp’s advantage in the race and remind her supporters that the election isn’t over.So she turned to Herschel Walker, seeking to tie Mr. Kemp to Georgia’s Republican Senate nominee. Mr. Walker’s campaign has been plagued by a host of revelations about his past: that despite opposing abortion rights, he pushed women with whom he’d had relationships to undergo abortions and that he had physically attacked women and family members — accusations Georgians are seeing nonstop in television advertising.A watch event in Atlanta for the governor’s debate on Sunday evening.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesDuring a segment discussing new restrictions on abortion that Mr. Kemp signed into law, Ms. Abrams accused him of refusing to defend women.“And yet he defended Herschel Walker, saying that he didn’t want to be involved” in Mr. Walker’s personal life, she said. She added, “But he doesn’t mind being involved in the personal lives and the personal medical choices of the women in Georgia. What’s the difference? Well, I would say the equipment.”Kemp: Check my record.Ms. Abrams criticized Mr. Kemp for a majority of the policy decisions during his term as governor, like ignoring public health guidance to keep businesses open at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and supporting a law that allows the purchase of firearms without a permit. But Mr. Kemp dismissed her arguments with an I’m-rubber-and-you’re-glue argument.“This debate’s going to be a lot like the last one,” he said early on, before delivering a line he’d repeat throughout the hour. “Ms. Abrams is going to attack my record because she doesn’t want to talk about her own record.”The refrain is a common one from Mr. Kemp and one he used against his Republican primary opponent, David Perdue. It also underlines a key feature of Mr. Kemp’s re-election campaign, which has focused largely on his first term. And while Ms. Abrams has a policy record dating back to her years as State House minority leader, hers did not include policymaking from the governor’s mansion.She recognized that fact in her rebuttal before reading off a laundry list of his policies she disagreed with: “I have not been in office for the last four years.”Mr. Kemp stuck to his talking points on Sunday in the debate in Atlanta.Ben Gray/Associated PressLong answers led to fewer fireworks.Hosted by the Atlanta TV station WSB, the debate was meant to be heavy on policy and light on drama — and policy heavy it was. The format gave each candidate 90 seconds — as opposed to 60 or even 45 in some other debates — to answer each question, with rebuttals that often lasted just as long.It was also a performance in which both candidates kept within the rules. There were no interruptions or interjections and at no point in the hourlong debate did the moderators have to remind either candidate of the agreed-upon time limits.That gave the candidates ample time to articulate their views and gave Georgia’s voters one of the clearest opportunities to judge for themselves the candidates’ policy and stylistic differences.The moderators also left the job of policing fact from fiction to the candidates themselves — a responsibility both Mr. Kemp and Ms. Abrams did not hesitate to accept. The questions posed were open-ended, allowing a robust discussion but not one in which the moderators challenged the candidates on their own past positions and statements.Two candidates who disagree on everything.There is virtually no overlap in Ms. Abrams’s and Mr. Kemp’s views on the issues most animating the race. Those stark differences came into full view during their back-and-forth on firearms, abortion, the state’s election laws and use of the state’s budget.Mr. Kemp argued that universal access to guns would allow more people in Georgia to protect themselves. Ms. Abrams said that logic would put more people in danger and increase the likelihood of mass shootings.Ms. Abrams has loudly criticized the state’s newly instituted law outlawing abortion after six weeks of pregnancy — Mr. Kemp signed and defended the law. And on the state’s more than $6 billion state budget surplus, Mr. Kemp said he supported allocating the funds for tax relief while Ms. Abrams has proposed using it to fund an array of state programs.The differences highlighted the candidates’ contrasting partisan instincts and put a clear choice between the two on display for an electorate that is very closely divided. More

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      Evangelicals Find a Way Forward With Herschel Walker

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      The time had come for the Christian supporters of Herschel Walker to make a way where there seemed to be no way.It was the morning after the Republican senate candidate’s ex-girlfriend came forward to say he had paid for her to have an abortion, though he supports banning the procedure without exception. Dozens of people gathered in a fluorescent hall of First Baptist Atlanta, a prominent Southern Baptist church. Pastor Anthony George sat on a platform, with Mr. Walker at his right hand. The pastor recalled God’s protection of King David, the ancient Israelite king, and claimed similar promise for Mr. Walker. The candidate shared a testimony of how Jesus changed his life. The pastor invited people to the front to pray for him.They surrounded him and extended their hands toward the former football star. “This is the fight of his life, holy God,” the pastor prayed. “And we call forth your ministering angels to be his defenders.” The people clapped and gave shouts of amen.The scene, a private event revealed in videos shared on social media, reflected the evangelical language of sin and salvation, persecution and deliverance. It was a ritual of sanctification, the washing away of sin and declaration of a higher call.The Senate race in Georgia has become an explicit matchup of two increasingly divergent versions of American Christianity. Mr. Walker reflects the way conservative Christianity continues to be defined by its fusion with right-wing politics and tolerance for candidates who, whatever their personal failings or flaws, advance its power and cause. Mr. Walker has wielded his Christianity as an ultimate defense, at once denying the abortion allegations are true while also pointing to the mercy and forgiveness in Jesus as a divine backstop.Former President Donald J. Trump is backing Herschel Walker’s bid for U.S. Senate in Georgia.Audra Melton for The New York TimesSenator Raphael Warnock, his Democratic opponent, is a lifelong minister who leads the storied Ebenezer Baptist Church, home to the Christian social activism embodied in the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He has inherited the legacy of the Black civil rights tradition in the South, where faith focuses on not just individual salvation, but on communal efforts to challenge injustices like segregation.“We are witnessing two dimensions of Christian faith, both the justice dimension and the mercy dimension,” said the Rev. Dr. Robert M. Franklin Jr., professor in moral leadership at Candler School of Theology at Emory University.The loyalty to Mr. Walker reflects an approach conservative Christians successfully honed during the Trump era, overlooking the personal morality of candidates in exchange for political power to further their policy objectives. After some hesitation in 2016, white evangelicals supported Mr. Trump in high numbers after reports about his history of unwanted advances toward women and vulgar comments about them. They stood by Roy Moore, who ran a failed campaign for Senate in Alabama, after he was accused of sexual misconduct and assault by multiple women.Understand the Herschel Walker Abortion AllegationsCard 1 of 6The Daily Beast articles. More

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      A Local Prosecutor Takes on Trump and Crime in Atlanta

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      ATLANTA — Fani T. Willis strode up to a podium in a red dress late last month 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, the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., had called the news conference to talk about a street gang known as Drug Rich, whose members had just been indicted in a sprawling racketeering case. But she could have been talking about another crew that she is viewing as a possible criminal enterprise: former President Donald J. Trump and his allies who tried to overturn his narrow 2020 election loss in Georgia.In recent weeks, Ms. Willis has called dozens of witnesses to testify before a special grand jury investigating efforts to undo Mr. Trump’s defeat, including a number of prominent pro-Trump figures who traveled, against their will, from other states. It was long arm of the law stuff, and it emphasized how her investigation, though playing out more than 600 miles from Washington, D.C., is no sideshow.Rather, the Georgia inquiry has emerged as one of the most consequential legal threats to the former president, and it is already being shaped by Ms. Willis’s distinct and forceful personality and her conception of how a local prosecutor should do her job. Her comfort in the public eye stands in marked contrast to the low-key approach of another Trump legal pursuer, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.Ms. Willis, 50, a Democrat, 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 — the Trump case has brought.Poll workers sort ballots in Decatur, Ga., in 2021.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesShe tends to speak as if the world were her jury box. Sometimes she is colloquial and warm. In a recent 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, a Republican, 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.”Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Lindsey Graham Resists Testifying in Trump Investigation in Georgia

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      ATLANTA — Six days after major news organizations declared Donald J. Trump the loser of the 2020 presidential election, his allies were applying a desperate full-court press in an effort to turn his defeat around, particularly in Georgia.The pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell went on television claiming that there was abundant evidence of foreign election meddling that never ultimately materialized. Another lawyer, L. Lin Wood, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the certification of Georgia’s election results.That same day, Nov. 13, 2020, Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican and one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters, made a phone call that left Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, immediately alarmed. Mr. Graham, he said, had asked if there was a legal way, using the state courts, to toss out all mail-in votes from counties with high rates of questionable signatures.The call would eventually trigger an ethics complaint, demands from the left for Mr. Graham’s resignation and a legal drama that is culminating only now, nearly two years later, as the veteran lawmaker fights to avoid testifying before an Atlanta special grand jury that is investigating election interference by Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Graham has put together a high-powered legal team, which includes Don F. McGahn II, a White House counsel under Mr. Trump. While Mr. Graham’s lawyers say that they have been told that he is only a witness — not a target of the investigation — that could change as new evidence arises in the case, which is being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. Her efforts to compel Mr. Graham to testify have been aided by legal filings from a number of high-profile, outside attorneys, including William F. Weld, a Trump critic and former Republican governor of Massachusetts.Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, center, during a hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesUnderscoring the risks for Mr. Graham, lawyers for 11 people who have been designated as targets who could face charges in the case have said that they were previously told that their clients were only “witnesses, not subjects or targets,” according to court filings.On Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit temporarily blocked Mr. Graham from testifying and directed a lower court to determine whether he was entitled to a modification of the subpoena based on constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress. After that, the appeals court said, it will take up the issue “for further consideration.” The matter is now back before Leigh Martin May, a Federal District Court judge who already rejected Mr. Graham’s attempt to entirely avoid testifying; she asked the sides to wrap up their latest round of legal filings by next Wednesday. It seems increasingly likely that Mr. Graham will testify next month.Ms. Willis has said that she is weighing a broad array of criminal charges in her investigation, including racketeering and conspiracy. She has already informed at least 18 people that they are targets, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer. Mr. Giuliani fought to avoid testifying in person but was forced to appear before the grand jury last week.Regarding Mr. Graham, Ms. Willis’s office is seeking to learn more about his role in Mr. Trump’s post-election strategy, and who he spoke to on the Trump campaign team before or after he called Mr. Raffensperger. While Mr. Trump assailed Mr. Raffensperger on Twitter as a “so-called Republican” on the same day as that call, Mr. Graham told CNN that the former president did not encourage him to place the call.Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Federal Appeals Court Halts Graham Testimony Before Atlanta Grand Jury

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      The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit temporarily blocked Senator Lindsey Graham from testifying before a special grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.ATLANTA — A federal appeals court temporarily blocked Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on Sunday from testifying in the investigation into efforts by President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The appeals court instructed a lower court to determine whether Mr. Graham should be exempt from answering certain kinds of questions, given his status as a federal lawmaker.The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit gives a temporary reprieve to Mr. Graham, who has been fighting prosecutors’ efforts to bring him before a special grand jury. After a protracted bout of legal sparring, Mr. Graham, at the end of last week, appeared to have failed in his efforts to remain above the matter and had been expected to testify behind closed doors on Tuesday in a downtown Atlanta courthouse.Mr. Graham has argued, among other things, that he should be exempt from testifying under the U.S. Constitution’s speech and debate clause, which prohibits asking lawmakers about their legitimate legislative functions. The appeals court laid out further steps on Sunday that must be taken before Mr. Graham gives any testimony.First, the court ruled, a Federal District Court must determine whether Mr. Graham is “entitled to a partial quashal or modification of the subpoena to appear before the special purpose grand jury” based on the speech and debate clause issue. After that, the appeals court said, it will take up the issue “for further consideration.”Lawyers for Mr. Graham have said that he was informed by Fulton County prosecutors that he was a witness, not a target, in the case.Even so, prosecutors want Mr. Graham’s testimony for a number of reasons. Among them are two phone calls that he made just after the 2020 election to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which Mr. Graham inquired about ways to help Mr. Trump by invalidating certain mail-in votes.They also want him to answer other questions about what they have called “the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Prosecutors have said in court documents that they expect Mr. Graham’s testimony “to reveal additional sources of information” related to their investigation.This month, Mr. Graham called the effort to make him testify “ridiculous” and a “weaponization of the law.”“We will go as far as we need to go and do whatever needs to be done to make sure that people like me can do their jobs without fear of some county prosecutor coming after you,” he said.The speech and debate clause appears in Article 1, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution, and states that members of Congress “shall not be questioned in any other place” for “any speech or debate in either house.” The framers of the Constitution wrote it with the idea of protecting the independence of the legislative branch from other branches, and were influenced by the evolution of an independent parliament in England.Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Stacey Abrams’ Personal Evolution on Abortion Rights

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      The Georgia Democrat, a child of Methodist preachers, once identified as an abortion foe. Now, she is putting her defense of abortion rights — and the story of her conversion — at the center of her campaign for governor.DUBLIN, Ga. — On the day that a leaked draft opinion suggested the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Stacey Abrams addressed the abortion rights group Emily’s List and preached about abortion rights with “the zeal of the converted.”Early in her professional career, she opposed abortion rights, she volunteered, adding that as a teenager she had criticized a friend who considered having an abortion.“I was wrong,” she said. “But I’ve worked hard to make myself right.”Ms. Abrams is among scores of Democrats pushing their defense of abortion rights to the center of their midterm campaigns, hoping anger over the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will energize the Democratic base and push fence-sitting moderates into her corner. But she is the rare Democrat eager to acknowledge that she didn’t always support abortion rights.The daughter of Methodist ministers living in the Deep South, Ms. Abrams grew up believing abortion was morally wrong. Conversations with other women, a friend’s deliberations over having an abortion and her own political ambitions led her to rethink her stance, she says.Ms. Abrams’ personal approach to talking about abortion is new for the longtime Georgia politician. She did not emphasize her shift when she first ran for governor in 2018. But today, Ms. Abrams says she uses the story to connect with voters who may personally oppose abortion but, perhaps for the first time, are confronting the reality of new government restrictions. In Georgia, most abortions are now banned after six weeks of pregnancy, based on a law signed by Ms. Abrams’ Republican rival, Gov. Brian Kemp.Talking about her own story is “giving them permission to say that choice should exist,” Ms. Abrams said in an interview.“I want people to understand that I know where they’re coming from,” Ms. Abrams said. “But it also creates the opportunity for people to tell you where they stand, as well.”Ms. Abrams’ strategy is something of a throwback. For decades, Democrats treaded carefully when talking about abortion, often assuming voters were disapproving and uncomfortable with the procedure, even if they supported the rights protected by Roe v. Wade. For years, Democratic leaders, starting with Bill Clinton in 1992, declared that their goal was to make abortion “safe, legal and rare,” in an attempt to unite voters with a broad range of views on the issue.For some Democrats, the phrase became emblematic of the party’s willingness to cede ground to abortion rights opponents and attach shame to the procedures. And in the wake of the court’s decision this summer, some are again criticizing the party for using messaging that lets abortion foes frame the debate.“I don’t think that Democrats as a whole — as a party — have talked enough about this issue,” said Renitta Shannon, a Georgia state representative, who did not specifically criticize Ms. Abrams. “All this time, we’ve been relying on the opinion of the court to hold intact people’s reproductive freedom, and that is not a good strategy.”Ms. Abrams has clear reasons for trying to use the issue to cast as wide a net as possible. After voters in conservative Kansas overwhelmingly voted to guard abortion protections, Democrats across the country are hoping the issue shifts momentum in their direction during a year when other political forces — ongoing economic anxiety and President Joe Biden’s weak approval ratings — are working against them.Abortion rights demonstrators outside the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesNearly 55 percent of voters in Georgia oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling reversing Roe v. Wade, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released last month.That poll also showed Ms. Abrams trailing Mr. Kemp by five points and, notably, losing ground with Black voters in the state. More