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      Trump victory in 2024 would mean no trial in Georgia for years, lawyer argues

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      Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia would be delayed until 2029 if he won re-election next year because the US constitution prohibits states from interfering with federal government functions, his lawyer argued at a court hearing on Friday.“I believe that the supremacy clause and his duties as president of the United States – this trial would not take place at all until after his term in office,” the former president’s lawyer Steve Sadow said.The remark came during an hours-long hearing before the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the sprawling conspiracy and racketeering case connected to the efforts taken by Trump and dozens of his top allies to reverse his 2020 election defeat in the state.While that argument – that Trump would be shielded from the criminal case brought by the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis were he to become president once more – has been privately discussed for months, this marked the first time Trump’s lawyer affirmed the position in open court.The remark from Sadow came as the judge grappled with how to schedule a trial date in the case. Fulton county prosecutors had previously asked the judge to set trial for 5 August 2024, positioning it after Trump’s other criminal cases in Washington, New York and Florida.Trump’s current schedule includes: his Washington trial on federal charges over efforts to overturn the 2020 election on 4 March, his New York trial on local charges over hush-money payments to an adult film star on 25 March, and his classified documents trial in Florida on 20 May.Fulton county prosecutors’ proposal envisioned going to trial after those cases were complete. But with the New York case and the Florida case are almost certain to be delayed for months, and Trump likely to be the GOP presidential nominee, McAfee put off setting a trial date at the hearing.The judge said an August trial date was “not unrealistic”, though he added he was uncertain that could be determined months in advance.McAfee gave no indication how he might rule on a trial date and tried to navigate its politically and legally sensitive nature by questioning Trump’s lawyer and prosecutors on whether proceeding in the summer, just months before the election, would amount to “election interference”.The arguments were predictable: Trump’s lawyer Sadow argued it would take Trump off the campaign trail during the most crucial time, while prosecutor Nathan Wade contended that Trump was a defendant and it was “moving forward with the business of Fulton county”.The judge then turned to the question of whether Trump’s trial could even continue should he win the election, with prosecutors anticipating the case stretching into 2025. “Could he even be tried in 2025?” McAfee asked.Sadow responded that Trump could not, because the supremacy clause in the constitution meant the state’s interest in prosecuting him would be secondary to the federal government’s interest in him fulfilling his presidential role, although how it would apply in a criminal prosecution remains untested.The situation would apply only to Trump, Sadow conceded – and the judge indicated he would break up the remaining 14 co-defendants so that they would go to trial in several groups. McAfee added that it was still too early to decide how many groups he would create.Trump and the original 18 co-defendants in August pleaded not guilty to the indictment handed up by an Atlanta-area grand jury charging them with reversing his defeat in the state, including by advancing fake Trump electors and breaching voting machines.In the weeks that followed, prosecutors reached plea deals in quick succession with the former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro – all of whom gave “proffer” statements that were damaging to Trump, to some degree – as well as the local bail bond officer Scott Hall.The district attorney’s office currently does not intend to offer plea deals to Trump and at least two of his top allies, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the Guardian reported this week. More

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      Georgia County Signs Up to Use Voter Database Backed by Election Deniers

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      The decision ignores warnings from voting rights groups and some election experts.A suburban county in Georgia agreed on Friday to use a new voter information database endorsed by the election denial movement, a move that defied warnings from voting rights groups, election security experts and state election officials.Columbia County, a heavily Republican county outside Augusta, is the first in the country known to have agreed to use the platform, called EagleAI. Its supporters claim the system will make it easier to purge the rolls of ineligible voters.Among the leading backers for this new system is Cleta Mitchell, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and the leader of the Election Integrity Network, a national coalition of activists built around the false idea that the 2020 election was stolen.Ms. Mitchell and others have billed EagleAI as an alternative to the Election Registration Information Center, a widely used interstate system that made it easier for officials to track address changes and deaths as they maintain the voter rolls. That system, known as ERIC, has become the subject of conspiracy theories and misinformation that prompted nine states to withdraw with few backup plans.Ms. Mitchell declined to answer questions about the county’s decision.At an election board meeting Friday, around 40 people packed a room, with all speakers favoring the new system, according to Larry Wiggins, a Democratic member of the board who said he voted in favor.Mr. Wiggins said he was hopeful the tool would help the county handle an expected influx of voter eligibility challenges next year. A 2021 law made it easier for individuals to challenge large numbers of other voters’ registrations at once. Those challenges have often come from the same community of Republican activists now helping to push the EagleAI software.EagleAI was developed by a retired doctor in Columbia County, John Richards Jr., who did not response to a request for comment.Georgia state officials, who reviewed the EagleAI presentations, have found them riddled with errors and said the tools were unnecessary, according to documents provided by the groups American Oversight and Documented.In May, William S. Duffey Jr., the chairman of the State Election Board in Georgia, sent a letter to the county board of elections warning that EagleAI’s software might violate state privacy laws and state election statutes.The county responded in November that it would not allow access to private voter information and that the use of the tools would be limited.In a statement, the Georgia secretary of state’s office noted that the state still belonged to the Election Registration Information Center and that counties needed to follow state laws.Election experts have labeled the new system unnecessary and flawed.“EagleAI cannot be trusted to provide reliable information regarding who on the voter rolls is not eligible to remain there,” wrote seven voting rights and election organizations in a letter to Columbia County commissioners. It continued: “It will point you towards false positives and waste your staff’s time.”But Mr. Wiggins said the board wasn’t convinced. “We don’t put much faith in letters from outside groups,” Mr. Wiggins said. “We pay more attention to local individuals.” More

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      Pro-Palestine protester self-immolates outside Atlanta’s Israeli consulate

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      A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.The person, whom officials did not identify, is in critical condition, the Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum said at a news conference. The guard’s condition was not immediately clear.“We believe this building remains safe, and we do not see any threat here,” the chief said. “We believe that was an act of extreme political protest.“The protester arrived about 12.15pm ET at the office building – which houses the consulate as well as several businesses – and used gasoline, police said.The FBI’s Atlanta office said it was coordinating with local law enforcement. The consulate and the Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on Friday after talks to extend a week-long truce collapsed.Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas after the militant group attacked southern Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.More than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault, Palestinian officials say, which has destroyed much of the territory.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe conflict has prompted hundreds of protests and rallies across the US, both in support of Palestinians as well as Israelis. More

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      Trump Lawyer Tells Judge a Georgia Trial Would Be ‘Election Interference’

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      Arguments in court on Friday offered clues to Donald J. Trump’s legal strategy in fighting state charges of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.A lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump argued in an Atlanta courtroom on Friday that putting his client on trial in the final stages of the 2024 presidential contest would be “the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”Steven H. Sadow, Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer in Georgia, also asserted that if his client were to win the election, Georgia could not try him in the case until after he left the White House again. He cited the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.Whether a president would in fact be shielded from prosecution while in office is not a settled legal matter.Mr. Sadow’s comments, which were challenged by prosecutors, came during a hearing in the election interference case against Mr. Trump and 14 co-defendants that was brought in August by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga.Ms. Willis wants the defendants to go on trial in August, but the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, did not set a date on Friday. Mr. Trump is seeking to delay the trial, while another defendant, John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after he lost the 2020 presidential election, is seeking to speed it up.Judge McAfee scheduled the hearing to address motions not just from Mr. Trump, but also from a number of his co-defendants. He did not make any rulings from the bench, and gave few clues as to what he thought of the various arguments.All 15 defendants in the case face conspiracy charges related to attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results and subvert the will of voters. Four other defendants have pleaded guilty in the case and have agreed to cooperate with the government.The arguments from Mr. Sadow, a veteran Atlanta defense lawyer, were the main event at the hourslong hearing on Friday, offering some of the first hints about Mr. Trump’s legal strategy in the case.“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is in some form or fashion in a courtroom defending himself?” Mr. Sadow asked during the proceeding.That led Judge McAfee to ask what the prosecution thought of the idea “that having this trial on Election Day would constitute election interference?”Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor in the case, rejected it.“This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County,” he said. “I don’t think that it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign.”Mr. Sadow also argued that to have a fair trial on state charges in Georgia, Mr. Trump needed access to lists of the government’s evidence in a related federal case against him.Last month, Mr. Sadow sent an email to members of the former president’s legal team who are handling the federal election interference case. In the email, Mr. Sadow said he wanted an inventory of “relevant material” that is “common to both of our cases” — specifically, F.B.I. reports and federal grand jury transcripts.The F.B.I. reports and federal grand jury transcripts stem from the separate federal investigation into election interference following the 2020 election.It is not unusual for a lawyer to ask for broader access to evidence, but Mr. Sadow’s motion is complicated by the fact that it seeks material from a different jurisdiction. The motion is being interpreted by many legal analysts as an effort by Mr. Trump to delay the Georgia proceedings.In response to Mr. Sadow’s email, the lawyers in the federal case pointed to a protective order that “appears to restrict our ability to share information with others.” Mr. Sadow then filed a motion seeking Judge McAfee’s assistance.The federal case is being brought by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. It relates to Mr. Trump’s broader efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election despite losing to Joseph R. Biden Jr.On Friday, Mr. Sadow told Judge McAfee that there was “remarkable overlap” between the Georgia case and Mr. Trump’s election interference case in Washington. He said that if he were unable to get his hands on the federal discovery, “the remedy is dismissal of the case.”One possibility, Mr. Sadow said, would be for the Georgia court to wait until the Washington case was “completely over,” at which point, presumably, the information would be free for him to request. Or, he said, he could prepare a subpoena.A solution to the conundrum, he said, “is going to take some time.”For the bulk of the hearing, defense lawyers, including Mr. Sadow, argued motions challenging many of the charges in the 98-page indictment. A lawyer for Robert Cheeley, a defendant and pro-Trump lawyer, argued that the indictment was an assault on the First Amendment rights of the defendants to engage in political speech.The lawyer, Chris Anulewicz, said that defendants’ statements challenging the 2020 election result had been rebutted “by a ton of counter-speech” in the public sphere and in the courts, a sufficient remedy in itself.Will Wooten, a deputy district attorney for Fulton County, said that some of the crimes listed in the indictment pertained to expression and speech, but that others did not.For example, he said, conspiracy to commit racketeering — the central crime that all the defendants are charged with — was not about speech, but rather “a crime involving a corrupt agreement.” More

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      Trump’s Georgia Lawyer, Steven Sadow, May Soon Drop His Quiet Strategy

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      Steven Sadow’s minimalist approach in the racketeering case against his client has created some dramatic tension, but his silence may be coming to an end.Steven H. Sadow, the lead lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump in his Georgia criminal case, has been praised by the Atlanta rapper T.I. — one of Mr. Sadow’s former clients — as “probably the best criminal defense attorney of his time,” a man with “a slight hint of genius.”If so, much of that genius has remained bottled up since Mr. Trump’s indictment in Georgia over the summer. Mr. Sadow, a heavyweight in the Atlanta legal world who specializes in representing what he calls “high profile individuals,” has so far kept a low profile in the state election interference case, largely piggybacking on briefings from other lawyers representing Mr. Trump’s co-defendants.Mr. Sadow has only rarely spoken publicly about the case. And at a number of related court hearings, he has shown up alone, in his trademark cowboy boots, observing the proceedings from the courtroom gallery.His minimalist approach stands in marked contrast to those of other, more voluble lawyers that Mr. Trump has retained around the country to deal with his legal problems. It has also lent a certain dramatic tension to the Georgia case. He is like a featured soloist in a band who has yet to really play.The quiet period may soon be coming to an end. This week, Mr. Sadow filed a motion arguing that before any trial, the Georgia courts should weigh whether the 13 felony charges against Mr. Trump should be thrown out because his claims about voting fraud after he lost the 2020 election were protected by the First Amendment.And on Friday, Mr. Sadow is expected to make his first significant court appearance in the case, to argue that Mr. Trump should be granted access to evidence gathered by federal prosecutors in his separate election interference case in Washington.The hearing could provide early hints of Mr. Sadow’s long-game strategy, and how he might incorporate lessons learned over decades of defending a colorful roster of clients including rappers and the occasional tabloid demi-celebrity.“This is an enormously creative guy who will design a defense based on all the tools at his disposal,” said Arthur W. Leach, a former assistant U.S. attorney who has faced off against Mr. Sadow.Like Mr. Trump’s lawyers in his other pending criminal cases, Mr. Sadow is trying not only to win exoneration for his client, but also to delay. Prosecutors have proposed an August start date for the Georgia trial, but Mr. Trump would probably prefer that it be pushed beyond next fall’s presidential election, in which he is a candidate.The indictment accuses the former president and 14 allies of conspiring to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss in Georgia; four other defendants have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.Mr. Sadow, 69, declined an interview request. He has previously let it be known that he is not a Trump supporter. He took over as Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer on the day of the former president’s voluntary surrender in August, replacing Drew Findling, known as the Billion Dollar Lawyer for his work defending prominent hip-hop artists.Mr. Sadow’s friends say that he most likely took the case for the challenge, as well as for the money. Mr. Findling’s firm was paid at least $816,000 for about a year’s worth of work, according to public records.Legal experts say that Mr. Sadow’s understated approach is a calculated strategy.Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court at a hearing for Harrison Floyd, part of the Georgia election indictments. Pool photo by Dennis ByronHe has probably been watching the moves of other defendants’ lawyers to see which approaches fare best with Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, who is relatively new to the bench. Mr. Sadow has occasionally joked to reporters that there was no reason he should write his own briefs when other lawyers who happen to be great writers have already done good work.Mr. Sadow may be trying not to put anything on paper that could inadvertently help Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the separate federal election interference case against Mr. Trump, which is scheduled to go to trial in Washington in March.“I don’t think anybody on Trump’s legal team in Georgia wants to do anything that will remotely rock the boat in D.C.,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University.In courtrooms in Atlanta and beyond, Mr. Sadow has shown an aptitude for aggressive cross-examination and thinking on his feet.Christian Fletcher, a client of Mr. Sadow’s who was acquitted in a major health care fraud case in March, said Mr. Sadow’s real strength was his feel for people, and for how jurors think. “It’s like he downloads who you are as a person,” he said, “and what moves you.”In an online interview with his client T.I., the rapper, Mr. Sadow said he did his own legal research because “I don’t think anybody else can do it better than me.” He also said he had been called to the profession to curb the excesses of government power.“People need to be looked after and protected,” he told the performer. “They’ve got to be protected against the government” — because, he said, the government does not care about most people.In addition to T.I., who was pleased with the plea deal and the one-year prison sentence that Mr. Sadow helped him secure when he faced a federal gun charge, he has represented the rappers Gunna and Rick Ross, who occasionally name-drops Mr. Sadow in his lyric.The rapper T.I. has praised Mr. Sadow, who arranged a plea deal for him on a federal gun charge.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“Indictment on the way, got Sadow on the case,” he rapped on his 2019 song “Turnpike Ike.”In 2000, Mr. Sadow obtained an acquittal for Joseph Sweeting, who had been charged in the stabbing deaths of two men after a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. The case earned national attention because Ray Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens football star, had also been charged; Mr. Lewis reached a plea agreement with prosecutors.Mr. Sadow also represented Steven E. Kaplan, the owner of a notorious Atlanta strip club called the Gold Club, which was targeted by federal prosectors who claimed it had mob connections and allowed prostitution. Mr. Sadow called it a “very good deal” when Mr. Kaplan, who had been facing decades in prison, pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in 2001, receiving a 16-month sentence and a $5 million fine.What those successes will bring to bear on Mr. Trump’s case is hard to say. Mr. Sadow faces the uphill task of winning over a jury in Fulton County, where President Biden won 73 percent of the vote in 2020. A number of legal experts following the case expect Mr. Sadow to file a motion soon arguing that Mr. Trump should be immune from the Georgia charges because he was the president. Mr. Trump’s lawyers in the Washington case have filed a similar motion that many experts say is unlikely to succeed.Mr. Sadow grew up in Ohio and moved to Atlanta in the 1970s to attend Emory Law School. Even back then, said Martin Salzman, a lawyer and a former classmate, he excelled at thinking up alternate theories for a case.“I said, ‘You just think like a criminal — that’s why you like criminal law,’” Mr. Salzman recalled, chuckling. “He really comes up with theories that most other people just don’t, in order to bring up a reasonable doubt.” More

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      DeSantis-Newsom Debate: What to Watch for at Tonight’s Showdown

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      The stakes are high for the governor of Florida as his polling sags fewer than seven weeks out from the Iowa caucuses.Call it the “Debate Me Please” showdown.Ron DeSantis of Florida, 45, and Gavin Newsom of California, 56, two relatively youthful governors adept at seeking — and finding — the spotlight, will square off at 9 p.m. Eastern on Thursday in a nationally televised debate in Alpharetta, Ga., in suburban Atlanta. Both pleaded for this matchup, and now they have it.Each has an agenda, both near-term and further out, as well as political challenges that they hope to address during their 90-minute encounter. Mr. DeSantis, the Republican, needs to lift his campaign for president a week ahead of the fourth Republican primary debate and under seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Mr. Newsom, the Democrat, needs to lift the fortunes of his president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and prove in the short run that he is a team player, and in the medium term that his appeal can reach beyond the liberal enclaves of the West Coast.With Donald J. Trump still holding wide leads in the Republicans’ 2024 nominating contests, and Mr. Biden resolute on standing for re-election, both men could also be eyeing the 2028 presidential race, though neither would admit it. They have presented themselves as the fresh, new avatars of their respective ideologies and, potentially, the future of their political parties. Now, after they have used each other as foils for years, the debate could offer a culmination to their long-running public feud.Here is what to watch.The higher stakes for DeSantisMr. DeSantis has much more riding on this moment than his verbal sparring partner.The first three Republican presidential debates featured jam-packed stages, some verbal brawling, often involving the 38-year-old entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and not a lot of Mr. DeSantis. Thursday night will be one-on-one, and with a friendly moderator, Sean Hannity, for the Republican on the stage.Mr. DeSantis’s poll numbers have sagged, leading him to seek exposure at every opportunity, including the debate against Mr. Newsom. Now Mr. DeSantis, who once preferred to ensconce himself in the friendly bubble of conservative media, has become almost a regular on mainstream broadcast networks.He has also repeatedly challenged his main rivals for the Republican nomination to debate him, hoping to generate momentum and attention, although his performances onstage so far have done little to change the dynamics of the race. But Mr. Trump has refused to appear at the G.O.P. debates, saying they were not worth his time given his lead in the polls. And former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who has caught up with or overtaken Mr. DeSantis in many early-state polls and has been busy building support among influential Republican donors, declined his recent offer of a one-on-one matchup.Voters in Iowa go to the caucuses Jan. 15 to cast the first ballots of the primary season. Mr. DeSantis has nailed down the coveted endorsements of the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds, and an influential evangelical leader, Bob Vander Plaats. Now he has to win over more Republican voters if he hopes to catch Mr. Trump and buoy his campaign ahead of more difficult primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina.There will not be a partisan audience to influence viewer perceptions, but Mr. Newsom’s camp fully expects Mr. Hannity to unlevel the playing field: “We’re under no illusions; this is going to be a two-on-one match with the ref in the bag for the home team,” said Nathan Click, a Newsom spokesman.If the moderator keeps the Democrat on the defensive over policy, Mr. DeSantis could use the 90 minutes on Fox to combat his awkward, remote and sometimes canned image. DeSantis supporters say it’s a moment for him to highlight the stakes for the Republican Party in a debate not over marginal policy differences between Republicans, like the primary debates, but over starkly different visions of the future. If he can best Mr. Newsom, he can bask in the victory of a unified party, if only for one night.“Ron DeSantis will take this responsibility seriously and looks forward to sharing the stark contrast between his vision to revive our nation and Newsom’s blueprint for failure,” said Mr. DeSantis’s campaign manager, James Uthmeier.A top Biden surrogate seizing the spotlightIn political circles, it goes without saying that California’s governor has his eyes on the highest office in the land.“It’s very obvious that he is running for president right now,” said Jessica Patterson, the chairwoman of the California Republican Party. “He elevates himself to a national level when he tries to punch up to Ron DeSantis. Every opportunity he gets to be on the national stage, he goes for it.”Maybe so, but as long as Mr. Biden is seeking re-election, Mr. Newsom’s job on that stage is to defend the president’s record. Nothing else would lift Mr. Newsom in the eyes of his own party more than his help keeping a Democrat in the White House next year — and Mr. Trump out.But to be a credible surrogate, Mr. Newsom cannot come off as an elite, West Coast liberal out of touch with the concerns of voters in key swing states far from California, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.Can Hannity keep the focus on policy?Mr. Hannity sees the showdown not as a stand-in for a presidential debate but as a chance for the governors of the first and third largest states in the nation to defend and showcase the very different policies governing those states.“I think both governors really have an opportunity to present their political philosophy and ideology, why they govern the way they do,” he said in an interview.They would have much to discuss: Florida’s low-tax, growing economy versus California’s dominance in fields like technology and electric vehicles but struggles against Republican states poaching its businesses; university systems with divergent approaches to political speech and influence; California’s hands-on approach to climate change, including an eventual ban on internal combustion engines, versus Florida’s laissez-faire attitude even as it is battered by stronger, more frequent hurricanes and coastal flooding.Mr. DeSantis has relished talking up his record in Florida. He often brags about how many California residents are moving to Florida, claiming that Mr. Newsom’s “leftist” policies are responsible. Mr. DeSantis once said that Mr. Newsom had treated Californians like “peasants” during the coronavirus pandemic. He filmed a campaign ad in San Francisco that painted the city as a kind of dystopia, with Mr. DeSantis saying he had seen people using drugs and “defecating on the street.”Mr. Newsom has also not held back. During Mr. DeSantis’s re-election campaign, he ran a pointed ad on Florida airwaves criticizing Mr. DeSantis’s policies and recently ran another attacking the six-week abortion ban signed by the Florida governor. He has called Mr. DeSantis “weak” and “undisciplined” and said he would get “crushed” by Mr. Trump in the G.O.P. primary. After Mr. DeSantis sent planeloads of migrants from the southern border to Sacramento this year, Mr. Newsom suggested his Florida counterpart could face kidnapping charges, calling him a “small, pathetic man.”Mr. Newsom still sees the evening as “a way to showcase and put more scrutiny on Mr. DeSantis’s brand of authoritarianism,” Mr. Click said.But both men have said their more pressing objective for this debate is the White House, not the state house.“We’re focused on defending the president and contrasting the president’s record with Ron DeSantis’s record of taking away fundamental freedoms that we have come to take for granted over the last 50 years,” Mr. Click said, tallying off abortion, free speech and the right to vote.Location, location, locationThe Newsom camp has made much of the California governor’s willingness to venture into hostile territory and bring his message to Republican voters. And just a decade ago, the northern reaches of Fulton County, Ga., where the debate is being held, qualified as such.Not anymore. Most of North Fulton has turned Democratic in the last eight years, as its citizenry has diversified and many suburban Republicans have recoiled at the party’s direction under the leadership of Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump eked out a win in the ZIP code where the debate will be held, though his margin slipped by nearly 5 percentage points. But all around that 30005 ZIP code are blue stretches, a testament to Georgia’s arrival on the national stage as a true presidential battlefield.Both camps said they wanted the debate in Georgia (Mr. DeSantis will be campaigning on Friday in South Carolina next door). Fox News chose the venue, a battleground within a battleground.Adam Nagourney More

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      Georgia prosecutors oppose plea deals for Trump, Meadows and Giuliani

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      Fulton county prosecutors do not intend to offer plea deals to Donald Trump and at least two high-level co-defendants charged in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, according to two people familiar with the matter, preferring instead to force them to trial.The individuals seen as ineligible include Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.Aside from those three, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has opened plea talks or has left open the possibility of talks with the remaining co-defendants in the hope that they ultimately decide to become cooperating witnesses against the former president, the people said.The previously unreported decision has not been communicated formally and could still change, for instance, if prosecutors shift strategy. But it signals who prosecutors consider their main targets, and how they want to wield the power of Georgia’s racketeering statute to their advantage.A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.Trump and 18 co-defendants in August originally pleaded not guilty to a sprawling indictment that charged them with violating the Rico statute in seeking to reverse his 2020 election defeat in the state, including by advancing fake Trump electors and breaching voting machines.In the weeks that followed, prosecutors reached plea deals in quick succession with the former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro – who all gave “proffer” statements that were damaging to Trump to some degree – as well as the local bail bondsman Scott Hall.The plea deals underscore the strategy that Willis has refined over successive Rico prosecutions: extending offers to lower-level defendants in which they plead guilty to key crimes and incriminate higher-level defendants in the conspiracy pyramid.As the figure at the top of the alleged conspiracy, Trump was always unlikely to get a deal. But the inclusion of Meadows and Giuliani on that list, at least for now, provides the clearest roadmap to date of how prosecutors intend to take the case to trial.The preference for the district attorney’s office remains to flip as many of the Trump co-defendants as possible, one of the people said, and prosecutors have asked the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee to set the final deadline for plea deals as far back as June 2024.At least some of the remaining co-defendants are likely to reach plea deals should they fall short in their pre-trial attempts to extricate themselves from Trump, including trying to have their individual cases transferred to federal court, or have their individual charges dismissed outright.The prosecutors on the Trump case appear convinced that they are close to gaining more cooperating witnesses. In recent weeks, one of the people said, prosecutors privately advised the judge to delay setting a trial date because some co-defendants may soon plead out, one of the people said.On Monday, former Trump lawyer and co-defendant John Eastman asked the judge to allow him to go to trial separately from the former president, and earlier than the August 2024 trial date proposed by prosecutors. Eastman also asked for the final plea deal deadline to be moved forward.The court filing from Eastman reflected the apparent trepidation among a growing number of Trump allies charged in Fulton county about standing trial alongside Trump as a major Rico ringleader, a prospect widely seen as detrimental to anyone other than Trump.In a statement, Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow suggested the former president was uninterested in reaching a deal. “Any comment by the Fulton county district attorney’s office offering ‘deals’ to President Trump is laughable because we wouldn’t accept anything except dismissal,” Sadow said.But the lack of a plea deal would be a blow to Meadows. The Guardian previously reported that the former Trump White House chief of staff has been “in the market” for a deal in Georgia after he managed to evade charges in the federal 2020 election subversion case in Washington after testifying under limited-use immunity.It was unclear why prosecutors are opposed to negotiating with Meadows, though the fact that he only testified in Washington after being ordered by a court suggested he might only be a reluctant witness. Meadows’s local counsel did not respond to a request for comment on Monday night.The lawyers for Giuliani, meanwhile, have long said he never expected a plea deal offer. Giuliani’s associates have also suggested he wanted to remain loyal to Trump, who is scheduled to host a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December to raise money to pay for his compounding legal debts. More