Georgia Criminal Case Against Trump (2020 Election)

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      ‘I’m Being Indicted for You,’ Trump Tells South Dakota Rally

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      In his first rally since his fourth indictment, the former president focused on his Republican rivals and President Biden, as some in the crowd wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on their T-shirts.When Donald J. Trump came to South Dakota in July 2020, then a president in the middle of his re-election campaign, he stood in front of Mount Rushmore and outlined a dark vision of what he claimed his opponents on the left would do to the country.Three years, an election defeat and four indictments later, Mr. Trump returned on Friday to South Dakota for a rally, where he struck a similar message: that he was the sole bulwark keeping America from falling into ruin.“They’re just destroying our country,” Mr. Trump told a crowd of roughly 7,000, this time at a hockey arena in Rapid City, S.D. “And if we don’t take it back — if we don’t take it back in ’24, I really believe we’re not going to have a country left.”Appearing at a large-scale event for the first time since he stood for a mug shot in Georgia late last month, Mr. Trump acknowledged that his circumstances had changed. Yet he referred to the four criminal cases against him proudly — and as an applause line.“I’m being indicted for you,” Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the G.O.P. presidential primary race, said to the audience. “That’s not part of the job description,” he added, “but I’m being indicted for you.”Mr. Trump did not mention the Georgia indictment or the booking photo even as his campaign has used it in fund-raising appeals and began selling merchandise with the image as soon as it was released. A smattering of attendees were wearing T-shirts featuring Mr. Trump’s mug shot and the phrase “Never Surrender.”“The mug shot did good for him,” said Lydia Lozano of Summerset, S.D., who wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on a blue T-shirt with the outline of an American flag. The charges in Georgia, she added, did not bother her, nor did Mr. Trump’s other indictments.“They’re just grasping at straws to try and get him to stop running,” Ms. Lozano said. “And he’s running anyway.”Mr. Trump’s mug shot appeared on T-shirts, which his campaign began selling immediately after his Georgia indictment.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Trump, too, marveled that his poll numbers in the primary had seemed to rise after his indictments. “I’m the only person in the history of politics who has been indicted whose poll numbers went up,” he said.Still, polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe his criminal cases were warranted, and some Republicans worry that the 91 total charges against him could hurt him in the general election. Mr. Trump’s legal issues could also create logistical and financial challenges that could make it difficult for him to campaign effectively.South Dakota, where Republicans have a firm stronghold, is a curious choice for an event during a political campaign. It does not hold an early nominating contest, and it does not qualify as a battleground state. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was 1964.Still, as Mr. Trump’s campaign has tried to reduce its costs, especially as Mr. Trump’s legal fees mount, it has welcomed opportunities for the former president to attend large-scale events held by other groups rather than staging its own expensive ones.Friday’s rally was organized by the South Dakota Republican Party. The Republican governor of the state, Kristi Noem — who endorsed Mr. Trump’s campaign in her remarks introducing him — said that organizers had invited other candidates but that Mr. Trump was the only one who had accepted.Ms. Noem also worked to bring Mr. Trump to Mount Rushmore for the Independence Day celebration in 2020. A looping video of that appearance greeted the crowds filing into the arena on Friday.Speaking for about 110 minutes, Mr. Trump largely doubled down on his 2020 remarks, repeatedly saying that Democrats were threatening to rewrite history, replace America’s foundational values and deface monuments like Mount Rushmore. But he was less vague on Friday about the perceived threats to the nation, singling out specific political opponents.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a political rival in the Republican primary, was an “unskilled politician” who “sided with the communists” against farmers. Television networks were “evil.” President Biden, he said, was “grossly incompetent and very dangerous,” if not “the most crooked president in history.”As he has repeatedly, he claimed without evidence that all four cases against him were part of a politically motivated campaign by Mr. Biden. (Two of the cases are being brought by local prosecutors in New York and Georgia, while the two federal cases are being led by an independent special counsel.)The speakers who preceded him advanced his view.“How many indictments does it take to steal the presidential election in 2024?” Josh Haeder, South Dakota’s treasurer, rhetorically asked. “Here’s the answer: There’s not enough, because Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States of America.” More

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      Judge Denies Mark Meadows’s Request to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court

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      Moving the case to federal court would have given Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald J. Trump.Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Read the documentJudge Steve C. Jones of the Northern District of Georgia rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his racketeering case from state court to federal court.Read Document 49 pagesThe ruling, which Mr. Meadows appealed on Friday night, came after his lawyers took the unexpected step of putting their client on the witness stand to make the case for removal in a hearing on Aug. 28 in Judge Jones’s courtroom in downtown Atlanta.“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”Mr. Meadows testified at the hearing before Judge Jones that he believed there were outstanding allegations of election fraud that Mr. Trump was concerned about that needed further investigation in the weeks after the election even after William P. Barr, the attorney general at the time, met with Mr. Meadows and told him that many of the allegations were “bullshit.”In a likely preview to his defense strategy, Mr. Meadows also said he wanted to help Mr. Trump look into election fraud allegations as a way to “hopefully get this off of the president’s concern list.” That way, he could “land the plane,” he said, referring to facilitating a smooth and peaceful transfer of power to an incoming President Biden.Mr. Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully sought removal in his state criminal case in New York, in which he is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016. Mr. Trump is also facing two federal criminal cases in Florida and Washington, D.C.Besides Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark, three other co-defendants in the Georgia case have asked for their cases to be moved to federal court. The others were Republican Party electors who submitted Electoral College votes for Mr. Trump despite his loss in Georgia: State Senator Shawn Still; Cathy Latham, a party activist from rural Georgia; and David Shafer, the former head of the Georgia Republican Party. Their claim is seen as particularly tenuous, because they did not work for the federal government.For cases that remain in the state court system, the jury will be drawn from Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta; Mr. Trump received just over 26 percent of the vote there in 2020. Cases removed to federal court would get a jury from a 10-county area where Mr. Trump received nearly 35 percent of the vote — a not-insignificant advantage for defendants, given the fact that it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury.In addition to racketeering, Mr. Meadows is charged with one count of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer for his participation in the phone call with Mr. Raffensperger, the secretary of state. Prosecutors accuse Mr. Meadows of having “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” Mr. Raffensperger to engage in the illegal act of changing the certified vote returns in the state.Prosecutors subpoenaed Mr. Raffensperger to testify at Mr. Meadows’s removal hearing. Mr. Raffensperger recounted how he was not swayed by Mr. Trump’s arguments that there were problems with the election results, which at that point had been subject to multiple recounts.When asked to characterize the conversation with Mr. Trump and Mr. Meadows, Mr. Raffensperger said, “I thought it was a campaign call.” More

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      Special Grand Jury in Georgia Recommended Charging Lindsey Graham in Trump Case

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      A special grand jury made the recommendation last year after hearing from dozens of witnesses on whether Donald J. Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election.A special grand jury that investigated election interference allegations in Georgia recommended indicting a number of Trump allies who were not charged, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, and Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser.In its final report, which a judge unsealed on Friday, the panel also recommended charges against Boris Epshteyn, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s main lawyers, as well as a number of other Trump-aligned lawyers, including Cleta Mitchell and Lin Wood.Mr. Trump and 18 allies were charged in a racketeering indictment that was handed up last month by a regular grand jury in Fulton County, Ga.The special grand jury, which Fulton County prosecutors convened to help with the investigation, met at an Atlanta courthouse from June to December of last year. It spent much of that time hearing testimony from 75 witnesses on the question of whether Mr. Trump or any of his allies had sought to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.Under Georgia law, the panel could not issue indictments itself. In the Trump case, that task fell to a regular grand jury that was seated over the summer. The regular grand jury heard evidence from prosecutors for one day in early August before voting to indict all 19 defendants whom prosecutors had sought to charge.The special grand jury’s mandate was to write a report with recommendations on whether indictments were warranted in the investigation, which was led by Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. Ms. Willis asked to convene a special grand jury because such panels have subpoena powers, and she was concerned that some witnesses would not cooperate without being subpoenaed.Portions of the report were publicly released in February, but those excerpts did not indicate who had been recommended for indictment, or on what charges. The release of the full nine-page report this week was ordered by Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court.Read the Report by the Special Grand Jury in Georgia That Investigated President TrumpThe special grand jury investigated whether Mr. Trump interfered in the 2020 election in the state. Their report included recommendations on whether indictments were warranted, and for whom.Read DocumentMr. Epshteyn declined on Friday to comment about the report. Others whom the advisory panel recommended for indictment did not immediately respond to requests for comment.After the special grand jury recommended indictments of about 40 people, the district attorney had to weigh which prosecutions would be the most likely to succeed in court. A potential case against Mr. Graham, for example, would have been hampered by the fact that there were conflicting accounts of telephone calls he made to a top Georgia official. Mr. Graham has repeatedly said that he did nothing wrong.Fulton County prosecutors indicated in court filings last year that they were interested in those calls by Mr. Graham, a onetime critic of Mr. Trump who became a staunch supporter. They were made shortly after the November 2020 election to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state.Mr. Raffensperger has said that in those calls, Mr. Graham suggested the rejection of all mail-in votes from Georgia counties with high rates of questionable signatures, a step that would have excluded many more Democratic votes than Republican ones. But the phone calls are not known to have been recorded, and recollections differ about exactly what was said — factors that probably figured in the decision not to charge Mr. Graham.In a filing seeking Mr. Graham’s testimony, prosecutors said that he “questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about re-examining 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” during those calls.A few weeks after the calls, Mr. Trump followed up with a call of his own to Mr. Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, saying that he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his loss in Georgia. Mr. Trump’s call, which was recorded, is the basis for a number of charges in the 98-page indictment.Mr. Graham has characterized as “ridiculous” the idea that he had suggested to Mr. Raffensperger that he throw out legally cast votes, and the senator’s lawyers have argued that he was carrying out a legitimate investigative function as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a bid to avoid testifying before the special grand jury last year, Mr. Graham waged a legal battle that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, he was forced to testify.Afterward, he said that he had spent two hours giving testimony behind closed doors, where he said he “answered all questions.”Mr. Graham has been critical of prosecutors in the Georgia case and the three other criminal cases against Mr. Trump, characterizing them as liberals who were “weaponizing the law” to unfairly target the former president.After the Georgia indictment, Mr. Graham told reporters in South Carolina that he was not cooperating with the Fulton County prosecutors, dismissing the idea as “crazy stuff.”“I went, had my time, and I haven’t heard from them since,” he said. More

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      Fani Willis Sharply Rebukes House Republican Investigating Her

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      The prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies.The district attorney leading a criminal case against Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the case in a sharply worded letter she sent on Thursday.Soon after the district attorney, Fani T. Willis, a Democrat, announced last month that she was bringing a racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 other defendants for their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, Mr. Jordan, a Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that he was going to investigate Ms. Willis over whether her prosecution of Mr. Trump was politically motivated.In her letter, Ms. Willis accused Mr. Jordan of trying “to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations,” and of not understanding how the state’s racketeering law works.“Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution,” she added. “The defendants in this case have been charged under state law with committing state crimes. There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution.”The letter came as the defendants and the prosecution continued sparring in legal filings over where and when the trial would take place. In a new filing, Mark Meadows, a defendant, who served as the White House chief of staff under Mr. Trump, was seeking a stay of the proceedings in state court until a judge ruled on his motion to move his case to federal court.The Georgia case is one of four criminal indictments that have been brought against Mr. Trump this year; Mr. Jordan’s investigation of Ms. Willis is the latest example of House Republicans using their power in Congress to try to derail efforts to prosecute the former president.When he announced his inquiry last month, Mr. Jordan, a close Trump ally, said it would look for any evidence of communication between Ms. Willis and the Biden administration and examine her office’s use of federal grant money.While Mr. Jordan expressed concerns that former federal officials were being unfairly targeted in a state prosecution, some of the issues he raised had little to do with the underlying facts of the investigation. For example, in a letter to Ms. Willis, he said her new campaign website had included a reference to a New York Times article that mentioned the Trump investigation.Ms. Willis’s response is the latest sign that she will not take attacks on her office and the investigation quietly — a striking difference in style from that of Jack Smith, the more reserved and laconic special prosecutor handling the two federal criminal cases against Mr. Trump.She has a track record as a pugnacious, law-and-order prosecutor, and is pursuing racketeering cases not only against the former president and his allies, but a number of high-profile Atlanta rappers accused of operating a criminal gang.In a heated email exchange in July over the terms of Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, providing testimony in her investigation, Ms. Willis called the governor’s lawyer, Brian McEvoy, “wrong and confused” and “rude,” after Mr. McEvoy expressed frustration over mixed signals he said he had received from her office, and asserted that there had been “leaks” associated with her investigation.“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.”On Thursday, scores of Trump supporters gathered near the State Capitol for a news conference and rally, demanding that the state legislature call a special session to defund Ms. Willis’s office. The effort, led by Colton Moore, a freshman state senator, has little support among Mr. Moore’s fellow lawmakers and is almost certain to fail.Mr. Moore, who has drawn attention and praise in recent weeks from news outlets supportive of Mr. Trump, said that Ms. Willis was engaged in “politicization” of the justice system. His constituents, he said, “don’t want their tax dollars funding this type of corrupt government power.”In her letter to Mr. Jordan, Ms. Willis invited him to purchase a book about racketeering statutes written by one her fellow prosecutors on the Trump case, John Floyd, titled “RICO State by State.”“As a non-member of the bar,” she wrote, “you can purchase a copy for two hundred forty-nine dollars.” More

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      Trump Georgia Case: Defendants Powell and Chesebro to Get Early Trial Together

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      Sidney Powell followed Kenneth Chesebro in demanding a speedy trial, but neither defendant in the election interference case wanted to be tried with the other.Two of Donald J. Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election-interference case will go to trial together on Oct. 23, a judge ruled on Wednesday. The defendants, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, had asked to be tried separately from one another.The ruling from Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, however, is contingent on the case remaining in state court — a situation that could change if other defendants succeed at moving the case into a federal courtroom.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, is still holding out hope that all 19 defendants in the racketeering case can be tried together. One of her prosecutors said during a hearing on Wednesday that the state would take approximately four months to present its case, calling roughly 150 witnesses. That estimate does not include the time it would take to pick the jury.But during the hearing, Judge McAfee said he remained “very skeptical” that a single trial for all 19 defendants could work. For one thing, some of the accused, including Ms. Powell and Mr. Chesebro, have invoked their right to a speedy trial while others have not.The questions raised at the hearing underscore the tremendous logistical challenges prosecutors face in the racketeering case charging the former president and his allies with a multipronged effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. It is one of four criminal trials looming for Mr. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate in the 2024 election.So far, since his indictment in the Georgia case, Mr. Trump’s only request has been to sever his case from those of his co-defendants who are seeking a speedy trial.A federal judge is mulling requests from five defendants to move their cases to federal court. Mr. Chesebro demanded a speedy trial in state court.Ms. Powell made a similar demand soon after, but neither defendant wanted to be tried with the other. Both asked the judge to sever their cases from each other’s.Lawyers for Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell noted that even though their clients were charged with participating in a conspiracy to overturn Mr. Trump’s election loss in Georgia, the two were charged with very different roles in it.Prosecutors say that Mr. Chesebro, a lawyer, took part in a sweeping plot to create slates of fake electors pledged to Mr. Trump in several key swing states that he had lost. The charges against Ms. Powell, also a lawyer, stem from her involvement in a data breach by Trump supporters in an elections office in rural Coffee County, Ga.In court filings, Mr. Chesebro’s lawyers argued that the allegations against Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell were “akin to oil and water; wholly separate and impossible to mix (into one conspiracy).” One of the lawyers, Scott Grubman, raised the possibility that the same jury hearing his client’s case would be subjected to weeks, if not months, of testimony about the data breach that he was not involved in.Attorney Brian T. Rafferty, who is defending Sidney Powell, argues before Judge McAfee on Wednesday,Pool photo by Jason GetzBrian T. Rafferty, a lawyer for Ms. Powell, sounded a similar theme, arguing that Ms. Powell’s defense was “going to get washed away” by lengthy discussions about the fake electors scheme.But Will Wooten, a deputy district attorney, argued that Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell were part of the same overarching racketeering conspiracy. “The conspiracy evolved: One thing didn’t work, so we move on to the next thing,” he said. “That thing didn’t work, so we move on to the next thing.”Judge McAfee, in the end, decided that Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell would get a fair trial if tried together. He also noted that it would save time and money to combine them. Still, when or where all 19 defendants will ultimately face trial remains uncertain. The efforts to move the case to federal court have been led by Mark Meadows, a defendant who served as White House chief of staff under Mr. Trump. Such a move would expand the jury pool into suburban counties that are somewhat more supportive of Mr. Trump, and it would increase the likelihood of the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were appointed by Mr. Trump, getting involved in potential appeals.Defendants would still be tried under state laws, however, and the case would not be subject to a president’s power to pardon federal crimes.While typically only federal officials can get their cases moved to federal court, it is possible that if even one defendant succeeds at it, the others will come with him or her.Some defendants who were not federal employees at the time the alleged crimes took place are claiming that their role as bogus Trump electors qualifies them for a move to federal court. A lawyer for Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator, argued last month in a legal filing that Mr. Still was acting “in his capacity as a contingent United States presidential elector” and thus “was, or was acting under, an officer of the United States.”Ms. Willis’s office scoffed at that assertion, arguing in a motion filed Tuesday that Mr. Still “and his fellow fraudulent electors conspired in a scheme to impersonate true Georgia presidential electors; their fiction is not entitled to recognition by this Court.”Mr. Trump, like the other defendants, has pleaded not guilty, waiving an arraignment that was supposed to have taken place on Wednesday. He continues to use the Georgia investigation as an opportunity to raise money.“Today was supposed to be my scheduled arraignment in Atlanta,” he wrote to potential donors on Wednesday, adding that, “Instead, I want to make today a massive grassroots fundraising day.” More

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      Brian Kemp, Raphael Warnock and Georgia’s Post-Trump Present

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      Georgia’s 16 electoral votes and a voting population that has supported both Democrats and Republicans at the top of the ticket in recent years keep the state one of few true battlegrounds.Georgia is, of course, also the place where Donald Trump called and asked a Republican to “find” votes. And Georgia is the place where the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, filed criminal charges that led to the indictment of Mr. Trump and 18 others for a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election. For all these reasons, Georgia is also home to conflicting visions about the present and future of the Republican Party, demonstrated by differing responses to the fourth indictment this year. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Mr. Trump’s most enduring defenders representing one of the country’s more conservative districts, posted an image of an American flag upside down, signaling distress.And in one second-floor wing of Georgia’s State Capitol, a pair of Republican executives most likely shed few tears. The offices of Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, secretary of state, sit just off a grand rotunda of the gold-covered dome in downtown Atlanta, and in 2020 the duo found themselves at the heart of a tsunami of threats and harassment.“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” Mr. Kemp said last month on social media in response to Mr. Trump’s claims that he would unveil a report demonstrating the state’s election was fraudulent. “The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus.” Mr. Raffensperger, who withstood pressure from Mr. Trump to “find” the votes that were not there, offered a more succinct response: “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don’t.”Enter a new paradox of Georgia politics: Even as voters and top leaders signal a desire to enter a post-Trump era, the former president’s antics in the courts and his hold on Republican politics keep him stuck squarely in the discourse like sweat on a humid Georgia summer afternoon.To understand the outsize influence Georgia will have on shaping the pathways of American politics once Mr. Trump is no longer the dominant force, one must look at the state’s recent electoral history that had voters send two Democrats to Washington and kept Republicans in charge back home.In the aftermath of the 2020 election, some savvy political operators and Washington insiders saw Republicans like Mr. Kemp and especially Mr. Raffensperger as dead men walking. The governor, a masterful retail politician, never wavered from his message touting a booming economy, looser coronavirus restrictions and a raft of conservative legislation around concealed carry, abortion restrictions and election administration. The secretary of state, a mild-mannered engineer, opted for Rotary Club speeches and smaller gatherings where he patiently explained that Georgia’s Republican-endorsed voting system was safe, accurate and one of the best in the country.Even as individuals like Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger saw personal success with an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach, the larger Republican apparatus in the state has only further embraced Mr. Trump, purging the ranks of nonbelievers and elevating election deniers into key party posts.But it’s clear that Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger benefited from being diametrically opposed to Mr. Trump’s temperament and obsessive focus on his 2020 defeat. Despite signature accomplishments and ideological underpinnings lying farther to the right than a battleground state’s electorate should theoretically support, each earned some degree of crossover support from Democratic-leaning voters.That electorate’s tiring of Trump also paved the way for Senator Raphael Warnock to win a full six-year term in a December 2022 runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker. Mr. Warnock was the only statewide Democrat to win. The two-time nominee for governor, Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the Democratic Party, and the rest of the slate failed to gain an effective foothold against the Republican nominees’ strong economic messaging and general lack of Trumpiness.In other words: The disarray on the right has not meant an equal and opposite opportunity for those on the left. But under that same lens, a key bloc of Kemp-Warnock voters who perceived Mr. Warnock as a less extreme option propelled him to victory.Mr. Warnock’s success came from largely avoiding direct attacks on Mr. Walker, his Trump-backed policies and often nonsensical stances and statements. Mr. Warnock focused instead on a more positive message, centered on tangible governance like lowering insulin costs, promoting Democratic economic projects like the bipartisan infrastructure bill and casting himself as a more moderate figure representative of Georgia — while still speaking to the more progressive base of the party.To see Georgia’s post-Trump electoral strategy play out in the real world, look at the state’s rise as a hub for clean energy and electric-vehicle manufacturing, touted by Democrats and Republicans alike (and opposed by Mr. Trump these days, naturally) as good for the state.Mr. Kemp’s broad mandate at the start of his second term has allowed him to loudly trumpet the growth in electric-vehicle manufacturing and associated suppliers as a result of incentives and a friendly business climate (despite being an un-conservative industry). Mr. Warnock, Mr. Biden and Democrats have celebrated the boom in green tech as a direct impact of federal investment in infrastructure. Global companies have also smartly praised their state and federal partners in announcing their multibillion-dollar expansions built around generous tax incentives.Though Georgia may be emerging as a pioneer in post-Trump politics, the pathways of politicians like Mr. Kemp, Mr. Raffensperger and Mr. Warnock are not necessarily replicable in other states. Georgia’s electorate is more diverse than those in some other parts of the country, for starters. More challengingly, the political latitude enjoyed by these politicians and the broader constituency that elected them can primarily be measured by its distance from Mr. Trump.So where does that leave Georgia and its crucial electoral votes heading into the 2024 presidential election cycle, where recent polling (and not-so-recent polling) suggests a rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump?For the case against the former president, it’s not entirely clear yet when a trial might take place, but the legal updates seem to come weekly.For the state’s electoral system, the lingering effects of 2020 have manifested in closer scrutiny over voting procedures and those who help oversee them, as well as renewed preparation by local officials.For Mr. Kemp, the past is prologue: On Thursday, he found himself yet again facing calls for a special legislative session pushed by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, this time seeking to punish Ms. Willis because of the charges against the former president, in a plan that other officials have called impractical and possibly unconstitutional. Yet again, Mr. Kemp refused, warning his fellow conservatives against siding with what he called an effort “somebody’s doing to help them raise a few dollars into their campaign account.”“In Georgia, we will not be engaging in political theater that only inflames the emotions of the moment,” he said. “We will do what is right. We will uphold our oath as public servants and it’s my belief that our state will be better off for it.”It’s unclear what the future holds, for Mr. Trump in court, for the direction of the Republican Party and for the ability of Democrats to continue winning battlegrounds. But all the answers might be in Georgia.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.Stephen Fowler is the political reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting and a regular contributor to National Public Radio. He also hosts the “Battleground: Ballot Box” podcast, which has chronicled changes to Georgia’s voting rules and political landscape since 2020. More

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      Trump, Waiving Arraignment, Pleads Not Guilty in Georgia Case

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      The 19 defendants in the election interference case are sparring with prosecutors over when a trial might start, and whether it will be in state or federal court.Former President Donald J. Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday and waived his arraignment in the Georgia criminal case charging him and 18 of his allies with interfering in the 2020 election.His plea came as Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a fellow Republican, dismissed demands from the former president and some of his supporters to start impeachment proceedings against Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor who brought the case.Without Mr. Kemp’s help, it is all the more unlikely that Mr. Trump will be able to derail the prosecution.“In Georgia, we will not be engaging in political theater that only inflames the emotions of the moment,” Mr. Kemp said in a news conference at the State Capitol, where he also discussed the response to Hurricane Idalia. “We will do what is right, we will uphold our oath as public servants, and it’s my belief that our state will be better off for it.”It remains unclear where or when Mr. Trump will be put on trial in the case, one of four that he has been charged in this year. A number of the 19 defendants are sparring with Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, over when a trial might start and whether it will be in state or federal court, leaving two judges in courtrooms only a few blocks apart in downtown Atlanta to wrangle with defense lawyers pulling in different directions.“I do hereby waive formal arraignment and enter my plea of not guilty,” Mr. Trump stated in a two-page filing on Thursday morning.He wrote that he had discussed the charges with his lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, adding: “I fully understand the nature of the offenses charged,” and that he waived his right to appear at arraignment, which had been scheduled to take place in Atlanta next Wednesday along with those of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants.Mr. Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta last week and was booked on 13 felony charges for his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia. On social media, he has assailed and spread falsehoods about Ms. Willis, a Democrat, calling her “crooked, incompetent & highly partisan.” He has also praised State Senator Colton Moore, the most outspoken advocate for impeaching Ms. Willis. But calling a special legislative session to begin the impeachment process lacks enough support among lawmakers to move forward.Mr. Kemp has the power to unilaterally call a special session; his refusal to do so for an impeachment of Ms. Willis echoes his refusal to call a special session after the 2020 election, when Mr. Trump pressured him to make such a move to help overturn his election loss.State legislators may also call a special session. But although Republicans are in the majority of both houses of the Georgia General Assembly, doing so would require the support of three-fifths of the legislature, a threshold that could only be met with votes from some Democrats.Republican lawmakers in the state have wrestled since Mr. Trump’s indictment over whether anything can or should be done to impede Ms. Willis and her criminal case.This week, House Speaker Jon Burns said it would be “reckless” to take steps to defund Ms. Willis’s office, another move that some Republicans are considering, because it could hinder efforts to fight violent crime in Atlanta.But Mr. Moore, a first-year senator from ultraconservative northwest Georgia, has spoken in threatening terms.“I don’t want a civil war,” he said in a recent televised interview. “I don’t want to have to draw my rifle. I want to make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing so.”Mr. Kemp’s relationship with Mr. Trump fractured after the governor stood by the state’s election results in 2020, which gave Joseph R. Biden a narrow victory there.On Wednesday, he warned fellow Republicans that they could suffer politically if they focused on what he called the “distractions” posed by Ms. Willis’s case and Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss. They should be pursuing tax cuts and teacher raises, he said, “not focusing on the past, or some grifter scam that somebody’s doing to help them raise a few dollars into their campaign account.”Mr. Trump has also been indicted this year in a criminal case in Manhattan, on state charges in a case stemming from hush money paid to a pornographic film actress. And he has been indicted in a pair of federal cases — one in Washington, related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result nationally, and one in Florida over his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office.Should he be elected president again, he may theoretically be able to pardon himself of any federal convictions. But Mr. Trump would not be able to do so for a state conviction, even if the case was moved to federal court, as some defendants are seeking to do.Complicating the Georgia case, Mr. Trump and his co-defendants have differing legal strategies. Several of the defendants, including Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, have filed to move the case to federal court. Late Thursday afternoon, prosecutors and lawyers for Mr. Meadows filed a new round of briefs in their battle over the removal question.Other defendants, including Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have moved for speedy trials in state court, as they are allowed under Georgia law. Mr. Chesebro’s trial has already been scheduled to start on Oct. 23. Ms. Willis’s office is seeking to keep all of the defendants together in a single trial starting then, but Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has initially indicated that only Mr. Chesebro will be tried at that time.Mr. Sadow filed a motion on Thursday seeking to sever Mr. Trump’s case from Mr. Chesebro’s and those of any other defendants who invoke their right to a speedy trial. He wrote in his filing that “requiring less than two months preparation time to defend a 98-page indictment, charging 19 defendants, with 41 various charges” would “violate President Trump’s federal and state constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process of law.” More

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      Trump’s Indictments: Key Players in the 2020 Election Effort

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      It can be unsettling to see just how many people got involved in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 race. The mania spread far and wide to encompass administration officials, party apparatchiks and random MAGA foot soldiers. We’ve broken them down into six main groups. At the dark heart of the […] More