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      Mark Meadows Is a Warning About a Second Trump Term

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      On Monday, Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in an effort to move the Georgia racketeering case against his former boss Donald Trump and co-defendants to federal court. On the stand, he said that he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.The courts will sort out his legal fate in this and other matters. If convicted and sentenced to prison, Mr. Meadows would be the second White House chief of staff, after Richard Nixon’s infamous H.R. Haldeman, to serve jail time.But as a cautionary tale for American democracy and the conduct of its executive branch, Mr. Meadows is in a league of his own. By the standards of previous chiefs of staff, he was a uniquely dangerous failure — and he embodies a warning about the perils of a potential second Trump term.Historically, a White House chief of staff is many things: the president’s gatekeeper, confidant, honest broker of information, “javelin catcher” and the person who oversees the execution of his agenda.But the chief’s most important duty is to tell the president hard truths.President Dwight Eisenhower’s Sherman Adams, a gruff, no-nonsense gatekeeper, was so famous for giving unvarnished advice that he was known as the “Abominable No Man.” In sharp contrast, when it came to Mr. Trump’s myriad schemes, Mr. Meadows was the Abominable Yes Man.It was Mr. Meadows’s critical failure to tell the president what he didn’t want to hear that helped lead to the country’s greatest political scandal, and his own precipitous fall.Donald Rumsfeld, who served as a chief of staff to Gerald Ford, understood the importance of talking to the boss “with the bark off.” The White House chief of staff “is the one person besides his wife,” he explained, “who can look him right in the eye and say, ‘this is not right. You simply can’t go down that road. Believe me, it’s not going to work.’” A good chief is on guard for even the appearance of impropriety. Mr. Rumsfeld once forbade President Ford to attend a birthday party for the Democratic majority leader Tip O’Neill because it was being hosted by a foreign lobbyist with a checkered reputation.There used to be stiff competition for the title of history’s worst White House chief of staff. Mr. Eisenhower’s chief Adams was driven from the job by a scandal involving a vicuna coat; Mr. Nixon’s Haldeman served 18 months in prison for perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal; and George H.W. Bush’s John Sununu resigned under fire after using government transportation on personal trips.But the crimes Mr. Meadows is accused of are orders of magnitude greater than those of his predecessors. Even Mr. Haldeman’s transgressions pale in comparison. Mr. Nixon’s chief covered up a botched attempt to bug the headquarters of the political opposition. Mr. Meadows is charged with racketeering — for his participation in a shakedown of a state official for nonexistent votes — and soliciting a violation of an oath by a public officer.Mr. Meadows didn’t just act as a doormat to President Trump; he seemed to let everyone have his or her way. Even as he tried to help Mr. Trump remain in office, Mr. Meadows agreed to give a deputy chief of staff, Chris Liddell, the go-ahead to carry out a stealth transition of power to Joe Biden. This made no sense, but it was just the way Mr. Meadows rolled. Mr. Trump’s chief is a world-class glad-hander and charmer.As part of the efforts to subvert the 2020 election, Mr. Meadows paraded a cast of incompetent bootlickers into the Oval Office. This culminated in a wild meeting on the night of Dec. 18, 2020 — when Mr. Trump apparently considered ordering the U.S. military to seize state voting machines before backing down. (Even his servile sidekick Rudy Giuliani objected.) A few days later, Mr. Meadows traveled to Cobb County, Ga., where he tried to talk his way into an election audit meeting he had no right to attend, only to be barred at the door.All the while, the indictment shows that Mr. Meadows was sharing lighthearted remarks about claims of widespread voter fraud. In an exchange of texts, Mr. Meadows told the White House lawyer Eric Herschmann that his son had been unable to find more than “12 obituaries and 6 other possibles” (dead Biden voters). Referring to Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Herschmann replied sarcastically: “That sounds more like it. Maybe he can help Rudy find the other 10k?” Mr. Meadows responded: “LOL.”Mr. Meadows’s testimony this week that his actions were just part of his duties as White House chief of staff is a total misrepresentation of the position. In fact, an empowered chief can reel in a president when he’s headed toward the cliff — even a powerful, charismatic president like Ronald Reagan. One day in 1983, James A. Baker III, Mr. Reagan’s quintessential chief, got word that the president, enraged by a damaging leak, had ordered everyone who’d attended a national security meeting to undergo a lie-detector test. Mr. Baker barged into the Oval Office. “Mr. President,” he said, “this would be a terrible thing in my view for your administration. You can’t strap up to a polygraph the vice president of the United States. He was elected. He’s a constitutional officer.” Mr. Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz, who was dining with the president, chimed in, saying he’d take a polygraph but would then resign. Mr. Reagan rescinded the order that same day.Why did Mr. Meadows squander his career, his reputation and possibly his liberty by casting his lot with Mr. Trump? He once seemed an unlikely casualty of Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball — he was a savvy politician who knew his way around the corridors of power. In fairness to Mr. Meadows, three of his predecessors also failed as Mr. Trump’s chief. “Anyone who goes into the orbit of the former president is virtually doomed,” said Jack Watson, Jimmy Carter’s former chief of staff. “Because saying no to Trump is like spitting into a raging headwind. It was not just Mission Impossible; it was Mission Self-Destruction. I don’t know why he chose to do it.”In their motion to remove the Fulton County case to federal court, the lawyers for Mr. Meadows addressed Mr. Trump’s now infamous Jan. 2, 2021, call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — during which Mr. Meadows rode shotgun as the president cut to the chase: “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes ….” Addressing Mr. Meadows’s role, his lawyers wrote: “One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things.”Actually, any competent White House chief of staff would have thrown his body in front of that call. Any chief worth his salt would have said: “Mr. President, we’re not going to do that. And if you insist, you’re going to make that call yourself. And when you’re through, you’ll find my resignation letter on your desk.”Mr. Meadows failed as Mr. Trump’s chief because he was unable to check the president’s worst impulses. But the bigger problem for our country is that his failure is a template for the inevitable disasters in a potential second Trump administration.Mr. Trump’s final days as president could be a preview. He ran the White House his way — right off the rails. He fired his defense secretary, Mark Esper, replacing him with his counterterrorism chief, Chris Miller, and tried but failed to install lackeys in other positions of power: an environmental lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, as attorney general and a partisan apparatchik, Kash Patel, as deputy C.I.A. director.Mr. Trump has already signaled that in a second term, his department heads and cabinet officers would be expected to blindly obey orders. His director of national intelligence would tell him only what he wants to hear, and his attorney general would prosecute Mr. Trump’s political foes.For Mr. Meadows, his place in history is secure as a primary enabler of a president who tried to overthrow democracy. But his example should serve as a warning of what will happen if Mr. Trump regains the White House. All guardrails will be gone.Chris Whipple is the author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency” and, most recently, “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.”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. More

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      in US Politics

      Hurricane Idalia: Georgia declares state of emergency as severe flooding and storm surges hit south-eastern US – live

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      From 2h agoGeorgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, warned potential looters seeking to steal from people’s homes following the storm, saying: “You loot, we shoot.”“I’ve told all of our personnel at the state level, you protect people’s property and we are not going to tolerate any looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster. I mean, it’s just ridiculous that you would try to do something like that on the heels of an almost category 4 hurricane hitting this community,” DeSantis said in a press conference on Wednesday.
      “Also, just remind potential looters that even you never know what you’re walking into. People have a right to defend the property. [In] this part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates [who] are proponents of the second amendment and I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters and I would say probably here: ‘You loot, we shoot.’”
      World Central Kitchen, a non-profit founded by the celebrity chef and restaurateur José Andrés, mobilized its teams across western Florida ahead of Hurricane Idalia making landfall earlier today.WCK teams have prepared hundreds of sandwiches to provide immediate relief for residents.The Florida division of emergency management has issued a warning on hidden dangers of floodwaters.“Please do NOT walk, wade or drive through floodwaters as they can hide a variety of dangers,” the division said.Here are some graphics created by the Guardian’s visuals team on Hurricane Idalia’s path and direction:The Guardian has published an explainer on storm surges and the threat from storm surges from Hurricane Idalia.For the full story, click here:Here are some images of Hurricane Idalia coming through the newswires:The South Carolina governor, Henry McMaster, said that he does not think Hurricane Idalia will be as detrimental as other hurricanes that have swept through the state.“This is not as bad as some that we’ve seen. We don’t think it’s going to be as disruptive as some but it is going to be disruptive. There’s going to be high winds, a lot of water,” McMaster said at a press briefing on Wednesday.He added that the state is not going to have any evacuations, saying:
      “We are not going to have any evacuations. We’re not have any closing of state agencies … This does not appear to be one that requires any evacuation orders or closing of state agencies but some of the schools are closed. Some of the schools are closed, we’re urging them to try to get back open back up as quickly as possible …
      We’ve been through this before. We’ve been through a lot worse than this one appears to be, so we are ready.”
      Georgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Guardian’s Ankita Rao has tweeted photos of what she describes as “some of the worst flooding” in Tarpon, Florida, that her parents and friends have seen as a result of Hurricane Idalia.According to Rao, the access to and from one of her friend’s home has been flooded entirely.Other residents can be seen kayaking across the flood waters.Idalia has brought heavy flooding and damage to the state’s Gulf coast after it made landfall slightly before 8am ET on Wednesday as a category 3 storm.“I found them all to be laser focused on what their needs were and I asked them, but I think they’re reassured that we’re going to be there for whatever they need, including search and rescue off the shore,” Biden said of the governors of North and South Carolina, as well as Georgia, as he reffirmed federal assistance to southeastern states currently enduring Hurricane Idalia.“How can we not respond? My god, how can we not respond to those needs?” Biden said in response to whether he can assure Amricans that the federal government is going to have the emergency funding that they need to get through this hurricane season.“I’m confident even though there’s a lot of talk from some of our friends up in the Hill about the cost. We got to do it. This is the United States of America,” he added.“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage,” Biden said.He added that he has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redeploy resources, including up to 1,500 personnel and 900 Coast Guard personnel throughout the south-eastern states.Biden said that he approved an early request of an emergency declaration by Florida governor Ron DeSantis “in advance” of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival.He added that he spoke with the governors of Georgia and South Carolia and let each of them know that “if there’s anything the states need right now, I’m ready to mobilize that support.”President Joe Biden is speaking now about Hurricane Idalia.We will bring you the latest updates.Anthony White is in Perry, Florida where the small city is seeing widespread destruction as a result of Hurricane Idalia.He reports for the Guardian:Driving into Perry, a small, historic city with a population of just more than 7,000 on Wednesday morning, about 15 miles inland from the coast where Hurricane Idalia made landfall, the scene of destruction was jaw-dropping.Many residents had evacuated, especially after it was announced that some emergency shelters in the region would need to close because even they may not be able to withstand the impact of the storm.Approaching from Tallahassee, the state capital, 50 miles inland, where I left on Tuesday evening at the urging of relatives – having originally planned to ride out the hurricane – more and more streets and highways were blocked by fallen trees on the approach to Perry.There were power lines down all over the place and poles leaning, flood waters in some parts, and trees blocking even several lanes on both sides of the four-lane highway, forcing people to drive in the median. There was danger everywhere.For the full story, click here: More

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      in US Politics

      Judge rules against Rudy Giuliani in Georgia election workers’ defamation suit – as it happened

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      From 8h agoSince the start of the year, Donald Trump has appeared at arraignments in courthouses in New York City, Miami and Washington DC, but reportedly may decide to skip a court appearance in Georgia and enter his plea in writing.Court access rules vary across the country, but Trump’s previous arraignments have generated a variety of scenes – all of which are unprecedented, since no other former president has faced similar criminal charges.Here are some of the images that emerged from his previous arraignments:All that said, Trump’s brief visit to the Fulton county jail last week to be formally arrested already produced its own iconic image:A federal judge found Rudy Giuliani liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by spreading unfounded conspiracy theories about their work around the time of the 2020 election. While the exact monetary damages he will pay remain to be determined, the judge has already ordered Giuliani to cough up tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fee reimbursements and penalties in the case. Separately, another judge rejected a key part of former Donald Trump aide Peter Navarro’s defense against his indictment for contempt of Congress, and jury selection in his trial will begin next week.Here’s what else went on today:
      Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell froze up during a press conference today, his second public health scare in as many months. The 81-year-old had sustained a concussion earlier this year that kept him away from Capitol Hill for weeks.
      Sentencing for members of the Proud Boys militia group was delayed after a judge fell ill. The five defendants convicted on charges related to the January 6 insurrection will now be sentenced starting tomorrow.
      Was Giuliani drunk when he was advising Trump around the time of his 2020 election defeat? Federal prosecutors reportedly want to know.
      A Texas judge blocked a law passed by its Republican-dominated state government that would have blocked a host of local ordinances, including those mandating water breaks for some workers.
      Trump is considering skipping his arraignment in the Georgia election subversion case next week, and instead opting to enter his plea in writing.
      At the first debate of the Republican primary process last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis sidestepped a pointed question from the moderators about his stance on abortion by telling the story of “Penny,” a woman who had survived an abortion.“She survived multiple abortion attempts. She was left discarded in a pan. Fortunately, her grandmother saved her and brought her to a different hospital,” said DeSantis, who is placing a distant second in most polls to Donald Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination.The governor did not provide more details on Penny’s circumstances, but the Associated Press has partially unraveled the tale, which doesn’t quite line up with DeSantis’s recounting.Here’s more from their story:
      The woman is 67-year-old Miriam “Penny” Hopper, a Florida resident who has been told that she survived multiple abortion attempts when she was in the womb. The first, she said in an interview, was by her parents at home and the second by a local doctor who instructed a nurse to discard her in a bedpan after inducing her birth at just 23 weeks gestation.
      Hopper said she learned through her father that her parents tried to end the pregnancy at home. There were complications, and they went to the hospital. As the story goes, the doctor did not hear a heartbeat, gave her a shot and instructed the nurse to discard the baby “dead or alive.”
      Hopper said she was born and made a squeaky noise but was put on the back porch of the hospital. She said her grandmother discovered her there alive the following day, wrapped in a towel, and she was rushed to another hospital. Hopper was told she stayed there for three-and-a-half months and survived with the help of an incubator. Nurses nicknamed her “Penny” because of her copper-red hair.
      “My parents had always told me all my life, ‘You’re a miracle to be alive,’” she said.
      Hopper has used her story to partner with anti-abortion organizations nationwide. But doctors who reviewed the story said her birth did not appear to be an attempted abortion and questioned the accuracy of the presumed gestational age.
      When Hopper was born in the 1950s, before major advances in care for premature infants, babies born at 23 weeks would have had very little chance of surviving. Even into the early part of this century, the generally accepted “edge of viability” remained around 24 weeks. A pregnancy is considered full-term at 39 to 40 weeks.
      Several OB-GYNs said it appears the case was treated as a stillbirth after a doctor was not able to detect a heartbeat. Because the fetus was presumed dead, the procedure performed in the hospital would not be considered an abortion, said Leilah Zahedi-Spung, a maternal fetal medicine physician in Colorado.
      A newspaper article documenting Hopper’s miraculous recovery in 1956, the year after her birth, also complicates the tale. The story in the Lakeland Ledger says doctors at a hospital in Wauchula “put forth greater efforts” in keeping the 1 pound, 11 ounce baby alive before she was escorted by police to a larger hospital. She was admitted and placed in an incubator.
      “It sounds very much like they anticipated a stillbirth. And when she came out alive, they resuscitated that baby to the best of their abilities and then shipped her off to where she needed to be,” Zahedi-Spung said.
      Another news article from The Tampa Tribune said “doctors advised incubation which was not available at Wauchula,” leading to her transfer.
      Hopper disputes that doctors initially tried to save her: “I don’t think there was any effort really put forth.”
      OB-GYNs who reviewed the details also raised questions about Hopper’s gestational age at birth, saying her recorded birth weight more likely matches a fetus several weeks further along, around 26 or 27 weeks. They said the lungs are not developed enough to breathe at 23 weeks without intense assistance, making it improbable such an infant could survive abandonment for hours outdoors.
      Here’s video of Joe Biden’s brief remarks about Mitch McConnell’s health scare today:At his ongoing press conference addressing the federal government’s response to Hurricane Idalia in Florida and the wildfire that destroyed Lahaina in Hawaii, Joe Biden said he would reach out to Mitch McConnell after he appeared to freeze up while addressing reporters today.“Mitch is a friend, as you know,” said the president, who served a senator for decades. “People don’t believe that’s the case, we have disagreements politically, but he’s a good friend. So I’m going to try to get in touch with him later this afternoon.”Biden spoke to McConnell last month after the top Senate Republican suffered a similar health scare.Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Rudy Giuliani, has released a statement in response to today’s federal court ruling that the former attorney for Donald Trump is liable for defaming two Georgia election workers.“This is a prime example of the weaponization of the justice system, where the process is the punishment. This decision should be reversed, as Mayor Giuliani is wrongly accused of not preserving electronic evidence that was seized and held by the FBI,” Goodman said.A judge in Texas has blocked a state law that would override a host of regulations passed by communities in the state – including ordinances in two cities that would mandate workers receive water breaks to protect them from worsening heatwaves.The city of Houston had sued over the law, and according to Bloomberg Law, Travis county district court judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled it violated the state constitution and blocked its enforcement.Should Texas’s Republican-controlled government appeal, their petition would be considered by the state supreme court, where GOP justices control all nine seats.Here’s more from Bloomberg Law:
      The law (HB 2127), which its opponents nicknamed the “Death Star” for its potential to broadly kill off local regulations, attempts to override the local governing authority that the Texas Constitution gives to cities with more than 5,000 residents, the City of Houston argued in its lawsuit challenging the measure. It would have been implemented starting Sept. 1.
      Ruling from the bench following a Wednesday hearing, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble (D) of the Travis County District Court granted Houston’s request for summary judgment and blocked the preemption law, also denying the state’s motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.
      Republicans in the statehouse advanced the preemption measure earlier this year with support from business and industry groups, who said it would spare businesses from having to comply with a patchwork of local laws.
      But it faced vocal opposition, including from worker advocates and LGBTQ+ rights groups. Its opponents said it would preempt safety protections such as Austin and Dallas laws requiring water breaks for outdoor workers as well as local nondiscrimination ordinances that prevent bias in employment, housing, and public accommodations.
      The law creates a private enforcement mechanism, inviting businesses and individuals to sue cities to challenge ordinances they believe are preempted by state law. It bars local regulation in eight broadly defined policy areas unless specifically authorized by the state: agriculture, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, property, business and commerce, and occupations.
      Texas already specifically preempts cities from certain kinds of ordinances, such as minimum wages that apply to private businesses. Houston argued the Texas Constitution allows the state to preempt local regulations only where there’s a clear conflict between the state and local law.
      Concerns have been mounting about the health of top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell over the past months.In March, the 81-year-old fell and sustained a concussion which kept him away from Capitol hill for weeks. Last month, he appeared to freeze up during a press conference, before being led away by other Republican senators.After that episode, reports emerged that McConnell, who has represented Kentucky since 1985 and led the Senate when Republicans held the majority from 2015 to 2021, fell earlier in July while disembarking from a plane at the airport. Here’s more on those episodes, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
      Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, suffered an initially unreported fall earlier this month, before a very public health scare this week revived questions about his age and fitness.
      On Wednesday, while speaking to reporters at the US Capitol, the 81-year-old appeared to freeze for nearly 20 seconds. Another Republican senator, John Barrasso of Wyoming, a doctor, then escorted his leader away from the cameras.
      Only four months ago, McConnell, who suffered from polio as a child, affecting his gait, fell and sustained a concussion, leading to a prolonged absence from Capitol Hill.
      On Wednesday, he returned to work and told reporters he was “fine” shortly after his incident. An aide told reporters McConnell “felt lightheaded and stepped away for a moment. He came back to handle Q and A.”
      But NBC News then reported that McConnell also tripped and fell earlier this month, suffering a “face plant” while disembarking a plane at Reagan airport, according to an anonymous witness.
      Another source told NBC McConnell now uses a wheelchair as a precaution in crowded airports. McConnell did not comment on the NBC report.
      As Republicans relentlessly claim Joe Biden, 80, is too old to be president, McConnell’s freeze and news of another fall revived questions about his own age.
      Fox News has more details from top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell’s office on his apparent freezing up during a press conference this afternoon:“We are stopping the flow at the border,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to a question on New York City mayor Eric Adams’ comments he made about “any plan that does not include stopping the flow at the border is a failed plan.”
      “What the president has been able to do on his own, without the help of Republicans in Congress, something that he had to do on his own again because Republicans refuse to give the funding necessary to deal with the situation, a broken immigration system that has been broken for decades.
      What they choose to do is play politics,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to Republicans.
      Earlier this week, Adams issued harsh words surrounding the increasing number of migrants in New York City, saying, “We have no more room.” In recent months, Republican state leaders have been shuttling migrants to larger Democratic-led cities including Los Angeles and New York City in opposition to current border policies.“We should take politics out of any type of disaster we see that the American people are having to suffer or deal with … This is not about politics,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing when asked about Hurricane Idalia.“[President Joe Biden] is going to be closely watching this, getting updated regularly to make sure that the people in Georgia, in South Carolina, in Florida are getting exactly what they need,” Jean-Pierre added.Additional updates on Hurricane Idalia can be found at our separate live blog here:Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell froze while speaking to reporters in Covington, Kentucky, on Wednesday.McConnell, 81, stopped for over 30 seconds after he was asked whether he would seek re-election.At one point, an aide approached McConnell and asked, “Did you hear the question, senator?” McConnell continued to remain unresponsive before he appeared to re-engage again, only to have several questions repeated to him multiple times, NBC reports.Last month, McConnell froze for 19 seconds while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill before being escorted away temporarily.Democratic representative Ro Khanna of California has said that court dates interferring with Donald Trump’s campaign schedule is unfair.In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, Khanna said:
      “My instinct on all of this is they’re not going to have trials in the middle of something that’s going to compromise a candidate’s ability to have a fair fight…
      I just don’t see that happening in our country…
      You can’t just say OK, because someone was president or someone is a candidate, that you’re above the law. Everyone is under the law, and that allegations, the evidence needs to be pursued. But what we’re discussing is the timing.
      Trump, who turned himself into Fulton county jail last week in Atlanta, Georgia is currently facing 91 criminal charges across four indictments over interference with the 2020 presidential election results, illegal retention of confidential documents from the White House and hush-money payments.For the full story, click here:A federal judge has found Rudy Giuliani liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by reciting unfounded conspiracy theories about their work around the time of the 2020 election. While exact damages remain to be determined, the judge has already ordered Giuliani to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fee reimbursements and penalties in the case. Separately, another judge rejected a key part of former Donald Trump aide Peter Navarro’s defense against his indictment for contempt of Congress, and jury selection in his trial will begin next week.Here’s what else has gone on today:
      Sentencing for members of the Proud Boys militia group was delayed after a judge fell ill. The five defendants convicted on charges related to the January 6 insurrection will now be sentenced starting tomorrow.
      Was Giuliani drunk when he was advising Trump around the time of his 2020 election defeat? Federal prosecutors reportedly want to know.
      Trump is considering skipping his arraignment in the Georgia election subversion case next week, and opting instead to enter his plea in writing.
      In an interview with a conservative commentator yesterday, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that Donald Trump made clear what he would do if he wins next year’s presidential election:
      Donald Trump says he will lock up his political enemies if he is president again.
      In an interview on Tuesday, the rightwing broadcaster Glenn Beck raised Trump’s famous campaign-trail vow to “lock up” Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016, a promise Trump did not fulfill in office.
      Beck said: “Do you regret not locking [Clinton] up? And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?”
      Trump said: “The answer is you have no choice, because they’re doing it to us.”
      Trump has encouraged the “lock her up” chant against other opponents but he remains in considerable danger of being locked up himself.
      Under four indictments, he faces 91 criminal charges related to election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments to a adult film star. He denies wrongdoing and claims to be the victim of political persecution. Trials are scheduled next year.
      Earlier this month, Politico calculated that Trump faced a maximum of 641 years in jail. After the addition of 13 racketeering and conspiracy charges in Georgia, Forbes upped the total to more than 717 years.
      Trump is 77.
      Both sites noted, however, that if convicted, the former president was unlikely to receive maximum sentences. Nor would convictions bar Trump from running for president or being elected. On that score, Trump dominates national and key state polling regarding the Republican presidential nomination.
      Politico has obtained the full schedule for the sentencing of the Proud Boys militia group members convicted of seditious conspiracy over their roles in the January 6 attack:Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former leader, and Joseph Biggs, a self-described Proud Boys organizer, were to be sentenced today, but the hearing was called off when the judge fell ill, the Associated Press reports. Prosecutors are requesting some of the highest sentences yet in any of the January 6 prosecutions for members of the group:Rolling Stone reports that prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office have been asking witnesses if Rudy Giuliani was drinking while giving advice to Donald Trump around the time of the 2020 election:
      Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office has repeatedly grilled witnesses about Rudy Giuliani’s drinking on and after election day, investigating whether Donald Trump was knowingly relying on an inebriated attorney while trying to overturn a presidential election.
      In their questioning of multiple witnesses, Smith’s team of federal investigators have asked questions about how seemingly intoxicated Giuliani was during the weeks he was giving Trump advice on how to cling to power, according to a source who’s been in the room with Smith’s team, one witness’s attorney, and a third person familiar with the matter.
      The special counsel’s team has also asked these witnesses if Trump had ever gossiped with them about Giuliani’s drinking habits, and if Trump had ever claimed Giuliani’s drinking impacted his decision making or judgment. Federal investigators have inquired about whether the then-president was warned, including after Election Night 2020, about Giuliani’s allegedly excessive drinking. They have also asked certain witnesses if Trump was told that the former New York mayor was giving him post-election legal and strategic advice while inebriated.
      Stories about Giuliani’s drinking have circulated for a while, but as the Rolling Stone report makes clear, whether or not he was inebriated while advising Trump during the period when he sought to overturn his election defeat may prove crucial to the former president’s ability to defend himself from Smith’s indictment:
      Federal prosecutors often aren’t interested in investigating mere alcohol consumption. But according to lawyers and witnesses who’ve been in the room with special counsel investigators, Smith and his team are interested in this subject because it could help demonstrate that Trump was implementing the counsel of somebody he knew to be under the influence and perhaps not thinking clearly. If that were the case, it could add to federal prosecutors’ argument that Trump behaved with willful recklessness in his attempts nullify the 2020 election — by relying heavily on a lawyer he believed to be working while inebriated, and another who he bashed for spouting “crazy” conspiracy theories that Trump ran with anyway.
      And if federal prosecutors were to make this argument in court, it could undermine Trump and his legal team’s “advice of counsel” defense. To avoid legal consequences or even possible prison time, the ex-president is already wielding this legal defense to try to scapegoat lawyers who advised him on overturning the election — even though these attorneys were only acting on Trump’s behalf, or doing what Trump had instructed them to do.
      “In order to rely upon an advice of counsel defense, the defendant has to, number one, have made full disclosure of all material facts to the attorney,” explains Mitchell Epner, a former Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. “That requires that the attorney understands what’s being told to them. If you know that your attorney is drunk, that does not count as making full disclosure of all material facts.”
      In July, Rudy Giuliani admitted in a court filing that he had made false statements about Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, the two Georgia election workers who were suing him for defamation.But as the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reported at the time, an attorney for Giuliani said the admission was just part of their legal strategy.“Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss,” Goodman said. “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”That strategy appears to have backfired today, after a judge found Giuliani liable for defaming them and issued a summary judgment against him, which could result in the former Donald Trump attorney paying substantial damages.In a hearing before the January 6 committee last year, Moss and Freeman detailed how the campaign against them upended their lives. Here’s the report from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly on their testimony:
      In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.
      Testifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”
      That was a reference to lynching, the violent extra-judicial fate of thousands of Black men in the American south.
      Moss also said her grandmother’s home had been threatened by Trump supporters seeking to make “citizen’s arrests” of the two poll workers.
      No Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992 but Joe Biden beat Trump by just under 12,000 votes, a result confirmed by recounts. More

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      Giuliani Is Liable for Defaming Georgia Election Workers, Judge Says

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      The ruling means that a defamation case against Rudolph W. Giuliani, stemming from his role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election, can proceed to a trial where damages will be considered.A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani was liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by repeatedly declaring that they had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election.The ruling by the judge, Beryl A. Howell in Federal District Court in Washington, means that the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the narrow question of how much, if any, damages he will have to pay the plaintiffs in the case.Judge Howell’s decision came a little more than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that he had made false statements when he accused the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots while working at the State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections.Mr. Giuliani’s legal team has sought to clarify that he was not admitting to wrongdoing, and that his stipulations were solely meant to short circuit the costly process of producing documents and other records to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss so that he could move toward dismissing the allegations outright.Although the stipulations essentially conceded that his statements about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss were false, Mr. Giuliani has continued to argue that his attacks on them were protected by the First Amendment.But Judge Howell, complaining that Mr. Giuliani’s stipulations “hold more holes than Swiss cheese,” took the proactive step of declaring him liable for “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims.”In a statement, Mr. Giuliani’s political adviser, Ted Goodman, slammed the opinion as “a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment.” He added that “this decision should be reversed, as Mayor Giuliani is wrongly accused of not preserving electronic evidence.”Judge Howell’s decision to effectively skip the fact-finding stage of the defamation case and move straight to an assessment of damages came after a protracted struggle by Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss to force Mr. Giuliani to turn over evidence they believed they deserved as part of the discovery process.In her ruling, Judge Howell accused Mr. Giuliani of paying only “lip service” to his discovery obligations “by failing to take reasonable steps to preserve or produce” reams of relevant information. His repeated excuses and attempts to paint himself as the victim in the case, the judge went on, “thwarted” the two women’s “procedural rights to obtain any meaningful discovery.”“Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straightforward defamation case,” Judge Howell wrote.The remedy for all of this, she added, was that Mr. Giuliani would have to pay nearly $90,000 in legal fees Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss had incurred and would suffer a default judgment on the central issue of whether he had defamed the women.The lawsuit filed by Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss in December 2021 was among the first to be brought by individual election workers who found themselves targets of criticism and conspiracy theories promoted by right-wing politicians and media figures who claimed that Mr. Trump had won the election. The two women sued other defendants, including the One America News Network and some of its top officials, but ultimately reached settlements with everyone except Mr. Giuliani.The campaign of harassment against Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss came after Mr. Giuliani and others wrongly accused them of pulling thousands of fraudulent ballots from a suitcase in their vote-counting station and illegally feeding them through voting machines. The story of that campaign was featured prominently in a racketeering indictment against Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani and 17 others that was filed this month by the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga.The indictment accused Mr. Giuliani of falsely telling state officials in Georgia that Ms. Freeman had committed election crimes in an effort to persuade them to “unlawfully change the outcome” of the race on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Other members of the criminal enterprise, the indictment said, “traveled from out of state to harass Ms. Freeman, intimidate her and solicit her to falsely confess to election crimes that she did not commit.”Last year, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss — who are mother and daughter — appeared as witnesses at a public hearing of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 and related what happened after Mr. Giuliani amplified the false claims about them.Although Fulton County and Georgia officials immediately debunked the accusations, Mr. Giuliani kept promoting them, ultimately comparing the women — who are Black — to drug dealers and calling during a hearing with Georgia state legislators for their homes to be searched.Mr. Trump invoked Ms. Freeman’s name 18 times during a phone call with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, on Jan. 2, 2021. In the call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Raffensperger to help him “find” 11,800 votes — enough to swing the results in Georgia from the winner, Joseph R. Biden Jr.“I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation,” Ms. Freeman testified to the House panel, adding as her voice rose with emotion, “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”Mr. Giuliani has blamed his failure to produce documents to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss on his own financial woes. Facing an array of civil and criminal cases, Mr. Giuliani has racked up about $3 million in legal expenses, a person familiar with the matter has said.He has sought a lifeline from Mr. Trump, but the former president has largely rebuffed requests to cover Mr. Giuliani’s legal bills. Mr. Trump’s political action committee did pay $340,000 that Mr. Giuliani owed to a company that was helping him produce records in various cases, but he had still sought to avoid turning over documents to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, prompting the judge’s ruling on Wednesday.The defamation suit by the women is only one of several legal problems Mr. Giuliani faces.In addition to the Georgia indictment, Mr. Giuliani is facing a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused him of “a viral disinformation campaign” to spread false claims that the company was part of a complex plot to flip votes away from Mr. Trump during the 2020 election.Last month, a legal ethics committee in Washington said that Mr. Giuliani should be disbarred for his “unparalleled” attempts to help Mr. Trump overturn the election.He was also included as an unnamed co-conspirator in a federal indictment filed against Mr. Trump this month by the special counsel, Jack Smith, accusing the former president of plotting to illegally reverse the results of the election. More

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      Harrison Floyd, Last Defendant in Trump Election Interference Case in Georgia, Is Granted Bond

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      Harrison William Prescott Floyd, who once led a group called Black Voices for Trump, was held longer at an Atlanta jail after turning himself in, apparently because he showed up to his booking without a lawyer.Harrison William Prescott Floyd, a supporter of Donald J. Trump’s who was indicted along with the former president in the Georgia election interference case, was granted a $100,000 bond on Tuesday, the last of the 19 defendants in the case to reach a bond agreement.While the other defendants named in the indictment, including Mr. Trump, made only brief visits to an Atlanta jail in recent days to be booked, Mr. Floyd, 39, who once led a group called Black Voices for Trump, spent a number of days at the jail after turning himself in last Thursday, apparently because he showed up to his booking without a lawyer.As of Tuesday evening, Fulton County inmate records showed that Mr. Floyd had not yet been released. Neither Mr. Floyd nor the lawyer who eventually signed up to represent him, Todd A. Harding, could be reached for comment on Tuesday.Mr. Floyd, who also goes by Willie Lewis Floyd III, is accused of being involved in a scheme to extract a confession of election fraud from Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker, as Mr. Trump and a number of his supporters searched for evidence of fraud so that they could derail Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential vote.The targeting of Ms. Freeman, a Black woman in her 60s, is one of the stranger narratives that form the basis of the 98-page state indictment. Shortly after the election, right-wing commentators began spreading unfounded accusations of wrongdoing by Ms. Freeman, based on security-camera footage of her counting votes at a downtown Atlanta sports arena.Mr. Trump joined in, mentioning Ms. Freeman by name in his now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. During the call, he labeled Ms. Freeman as a “a professional vote scammer and hustler” and told Mr. Raffensperger that he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes in Georgia — just enough for him to win the state.Two days later, a Trump supporter named Trevian Kutti persuaded Ms. Freeman to meet her at a police station in Cobb County, Ga., outside Atlanta. Ms. Kutti warned Ms. Freeman that an event would soon occur that would “disrupt” her “freedom,” according to police body-camera video of the meeting. Ms. Kutti also offered vague assurances of help, telling Ms. Freeman that she was going to call a man who had “authoritative powers to get you protection.”Ms. Freeman then called Mr. Floyd. According to Reuters, Ms. Freeman said that Mr. Floyd had tried to pressure her into saying that she had committed voter fraud. Ms. Kutti warned her that she would go to jail if she did not “tell everything,” Ms. Freeman told the news outlet.All 19 defendants in the sprawling Georgia indictment, including Mr. Trump, are charged with racketeering in connection with what prosecutors call a “criminal organization” whose aim was to unlawfully reverse the former president’s election loss in the state. They all face at least one other charge; Mr. Floyd is charged with influencing a witness and conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings.Mr. Floyd was previously arrested in February on charges of attacking a federal agent involved in the Justice Department’s investigation into the 2020 election, The Washington Post reported last week. More

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      First Trump co-defendant pleads not guilty in Georgia election case – live

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      From 2h agoDonald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows spent yesterday arguing that he should be tried in federal, rather than state, court, after being accused of attempting to stop Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia three years ago. In a surprise move, Meadows, who was Trump’s top White House deputy during the time of his re-election defeat, took the stand to argue that his phone calls and meetings with state officials were all part of his government job, and not political activities, as Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has alleged.Legal experts say a federal court trial could give Meadows’ defense team more options to argue his innocence, and would also expand the jury pool beyond the Democratic-heavy Atlanta area to the counties around it, which lean more Republican.The judge handling the case, Steve Jones, did not rule yesterday, but said he would do so quickly. If he does not before 6 September, Jones said Meadows will have to appear in state court to be arraigned on the charges, as will all the other defendants who have not entered their pleas yet. Should he find in Meadows’s favor, it could benefit other defendants who have made similar requests, including Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official that Trump tried to appoint acting attorney general. Trump, himself, is also expected to request to move his trial to Georgia federal court.For more on yesterday’s hearing, here’s the full report from the Guardian’s Mary Yang:
      The sprawling 41-count indictment of Donald Trump and 18 other defendants in Fulton county had its first test on Monday as Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, took the stand before a federal judge over his request to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court.
      Meadows testified for nearly three hours before the court broke for lunch, defending his actions as Trump’s chief of staff while avoiding questions regarding whether he believed Trump won in 2020.
      Meadows faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer. But Meadows argued that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.
      Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment.
      In a response, Willis argued that Meadows’ actions violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits government officials from using their position to influence the results of an election and were therefore outside his capacity as chief of staff.
      “There was a political component to everything that we did,” testified Meadows, referring to his actions during the final weeks of the Trump administration.
      And here’s video of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s comments on the approaching Hurricane Idalia:Hurricane Idalia’s ill winds could be blowing some good for Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis as he takes a break from the presidential campaign trail to oversee storm preparations in his state.The Republican, who is sinking in the race for his party’s nomination, has become an almost permanent fixture on national TV during his emergency briefings, drawing far more exposure than had he remained on the stump in Iowa and South Carolina.He was asked about it at his morning press conference in Tallahassee, and replied with a word soup that essentially said it’s no big deal:
      With Hurricane Ian [which struck Florida last September] we were in the midst of a governor’s campaign. I had all kinds of stuff scheduled, not just in Florida, around the country. You know, we were doing different things. And do what you need to do.
      It’s going to be no different than what we did during Ian. I’m hoping that this storm is not as catastrophic… we do what we need to do, because it’s just something that’s important, but it’s no different than what we’ve done in the past.
      In his place on the campaign trail, DeSantis has left his wife and chief surrogate Casey DeSantis to speak for him. At South Carolina congressman Jeff Duncan’s Faith and Freedom event in Anderson on Monday night, attendees were treated to a stirring speech about her children’s romp through the governor’s mansion:The ill will towards Donald Trump in Georgia extends even into the Republican party, with the state’s lieutenant governor blaming him for a host of issues and saying voters would be foolish to nominate him again, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump has “the moral compass of an axe murderer”, a Republican opponent in Georgia said, discussing the former president’s legal predicament in the southern US state and elsewhere but also his continuing dominance of the presidential primary.“As Republicans, that dashboard is going off with lights and bells and whistles, telling us all the warning things we need to know,” Geoff Duncan told CNN on Monday.“Ninety-one indictments,” Duncan said. “Fake Republican, a trillion dollars’ worth of debt [from his time in the White House], everything we need to see to not choose him as our nominee, including the fact that he’s got the moral compass of a … more like an axe murderer than a president.“We need to do something right here, right now. This is either our pivot point or our last gasp as Republicans.”Duncan was the lieutenant governor of Georgia when Trump tried to overturn his defeat there by Joe Biden in 2020, an effort now the subject of 13 racketeering and conspiracy charges.Last week, Atlantans were greeted with the spectacle of Donald Trump’s motorcade heading to the Fulton county jail, where the ex-president was formally arrested and then released after being indicted in the Georgia election subversion case.Most Americans will remember the day for the mugshot it produced, the first ever taken of a former US president, but the Washington Post reports that for residents of the Atlanta neighborhood his lengthy and heavily guarded convoy passed through, it was a unique and emotionally conflicted experience.“I see them bringing people to Rice Street every day,” 39-year-old Lovell Riddle told the Post, referring to the local jail. “But this was like a big show, this was a circus. He had this big police escort and all of that. If it were me or any other Black man accused of what he is accused of, we would have already been under the jail and they would have thrown the keys away.”Here’s more from their report:
      The areas that Trump traveled through Thursday are deeply intertwined with America’s record of racial strife and discrimination. Even the street signs reflect the connection: Lowery Boulevard, named for the Atlanta-based Black minister and civil rights advocate who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference alongside Martin Luther King Jr, was until 2001 named for a Confederate general.
      On Trump’s way down Lowery to the jail, he passed Morehouse College, the historically Black institution that is King’s alma mater; the Bankhead neighborhood, where rappers T.I. and Lil Nas X grew up and found inspiration; and the English Avenue community, where the local elementary school was dynamited during the contentious integration of the city’s public schools.
      Before the motorcade came through, residents and office workers rushed to get spots on sidewalks, stoops and balconies. Trump, who has proclaimed his innocence, later recounted on Newsmax that he had been greeted by “tremendous crowds in Atlanta that were so friendly.” Some cellphone videos that ricocheted around social media showed a different reaction, with people shouting obscenities or making crude gestures as the convoy sped by.
      Those who were there suggest the response was more complicated, with Trump’s unexpected arrival — and rapid departure — prompting feelings of catharsis and anger, awe and disgust, indignance and pride.
      Coryn Lima, a 20-year-old student at Georgia State University, was walking home from his aunt’s house when he noticed the commotion. Officials hadn’t announced the motorcade’s route in advance, but police cordoning off a two-mile stretch of Lowery Boulevard was a sure sign.
      As news spread that Trump was coming through on his way to the jail, where he would be fingerprinted and required to take a mug shot, the neighborhood took on a carnival air. Lima said his neighbors ran out of their homes with their kids to grab a spot, like they might for a parade. There were also people he didn’t recognize: Some had signs supporting Trump, others came with profanity-laced posters denouncing him.
      The moment came and went with a flash, Lima said, with Trump’s motorcade, which consisted of more than a dozen cars, moving down the street “extremely fast.” But Lima said it had still been “cathartic.”
      “From what I’ve been told by people around my age, Trump is like a supervillain,” Lima said. “And he’s finally getting caught for all of his supervillain crimes.”
      Speaking of courts, conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett spoke at a conference yesterday, where she declined to weigh in on efforts pushed by Democrats to force the judges to adopt a code of ethics. That’s unlike fellow conservative Samuel Alito, who spoke out forcefully against the campaign. Here’s the Associated Press with the full report:The US supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett told attendees at a judicial conference in Wisconsin that she welcomed public scrutiny of the court. But she stopped short of commenting on whether she thinks the court should change how it operates in the face of recent criticism.Barrett did not offer any opinion – or speak directly about – recent calls for the justices to institute an official code of conduct.She took questions from Diane Sykes, chief judge of the seventh US circuit court, at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and court personnel. The event came at a time when public trust in the court is at a 50-year low following a series of polarizing rulings, including the overturning of Roe v Wade and federal abortion protections last year.Barrett did not mention the ethics issues that have dogged some justices – including conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and the liberal Sonia Sotomayor.“Public scrutiny is welcome,” Barrett said. “Increasing and enhancing civics education is welcome.”Here are some thoughts from former US attorney Barb McQuade on why Mark Meadows wants to be tried in federal court, and whether his motion will succeed:Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows spent yesterday arguing that he should be tried in federal, rather than state, court, after being accused of attempting to stop Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia three years ago. In a surprise move, Meadows, who was Trump’s top White House deputy during the time of his re-election defeat, took the stand to argue that his phone calls and meetings with state officials were all part of his government job, and not political activities, as Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has alleged.Legal experts say a federal court trial could give Meadows’ defense team more options to argue his innocence, and would also expand the jury pool beyond the Democratic-heavy Atlanta area to the counties around it, which lean more Republican.The judge handling the case, Steve Jones, did not rule yesterday, but said he would do so quickly. If he does not before 6 September, Jones said Meadows will have to appear in state court to be arraigned on the charges, as will all the other defendants who have not entered their pleas yet. Should he find in Meadows’s favor, it could benefit other defendants who have made similar requests, including Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official that Trump tried to appoint acting attorney general. Trump, himself, is also expected to request to move his trial to Georgia federal court.For more on yesterday’s hearing, here’s the full report from the Guardian’s Mary Yang:
      The sprawling 41-count indictment of Donald Trump and 18 other defendants in Fulton county had its first test on Monday as Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, took the stand before a federal judge over his request to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court.
      Meadows testified for nearly three hours before the court broke for lunch, defending his actions as Trump’s chief of staff while avoiding questions regarding whether he believed Trump won in 2020.
      Meadows faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer. But Meadows argued that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.
      Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment.
      In a response, Willis argued that Meadows’ actions violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits government officials from using their position to influence the results of an election and were therefore outside his capacity as chief of staff.
      “There was a political component to everything that we did,” testified Meadows, referring to his actions during the final weeks of the Trump administration.
      Good morning, US politics blog readers. Last week brought shock and spectacle to the political scene in the form of Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others on charges related to trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election, resulting in the group traveling to Atlanta to be formally arrested and have their mugshots taken – yes, even Trump. Now the case enters the more mundane territory typical of all legal defenses. Yesterday, the first of Trump’s co-defendant’s, attorney Ray Smith, entered a not guilty plea in the case, waiving an arraignment that is scheduled to take place for Trump and the others on 6 September.Meanwhile, we are awaiting a ruling after Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows spent Monday in court, arguing that he should be tried in the Georgia case at the federal rather than the sate level. The judge’s decision could come at any time (though may not arrive for a few days), and if he rules in Meadows’s favor, it could open him up to new defenses and potentially a more conservative jury pool.Here’s what’s going on today:
      The Biden administration just announced 10 drugs that it will seek to negotiate the prices paid under Medicare, in part of a major push to reduce health care costs for older Americans. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will hold an event to announce the effort at 2pm eastern time.
      An excerpt of the first major book about Biden’s presidency has just been released, concerning how the president handled the chaotic and controversial withdrawal of Afghanistan.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre takes questions from reporters at 1pm ET. More

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      What Fani Willis Got Wrong in Her Trump Indictment

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      By assembling a sprawling, 19-defendant RICO indictment with 41 counts, District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County has brought the sort of charging instrument that has typically led to monthslong trials, complicated appeals and exhaustion for the participating attorneys. Now, as some co-defendants seek federal removal while others demand speedy trials in state court, we are starting to see the costs of complexity.In federal and state cases, Donald Trump’s legal game plan has always been the same: delay often and everywhere with the goal of winning the 2024 election and hoping the charges go away. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference indictment — just four counts brought solely against Mr. Trump — makes that difficult. On Monday, the judge set the trial for March 4, 2024.By contrast, the Georgia indictment is a sprawling account of a conspiracy among the former president, his closest advisers and state and local Republican officials to change the outcome of the 2020 Georgia election through an escalating series of falsehoods. For many, it is a satisfying political document. But as a legal instrument, its ambitious scope will provide the co-defendants with many opportunities for delay, appeals, and constitutional challenges.And even though Fulton might very will win in the end, a simpler, more direct approach would likely lead to a better result, faster, here’s why.Much of the Georgia indictment is about how Mr. Trump and others tried to get public officials to do implausible things to hand him the election — things like asking state senators to appoint an alternate slate of electors, calling a special session of the General Assembly or asking the secretary of state to “find” the votes Mr. Trump needed to win.The state chose to charge this conduct in two ways. One of them is strong and simple: Team Trump lied to elected officials and tried to forge documents.The other — that they were aware of the officials’ oaths of office and were hoping specifically to get them to violate it — is unusual and hard to prove.Solicitation requires you to ask someone else to commit a felony intentionally. In this case, the oath of office the defendants were being asked to violate was a promise to follow the Constitution and do what’s best for their constituents. It is indeed a crime in Georgia for a public officer to “willfully and intentionally” violate the terms of his oath.Here’s the problem: It’s hard enough to prove that Mr. Trump’s request violates the Constitution, since the Constitution allows states to figure out how to select electors. But then the state must also prove that Mr. Trump knew this would violate the electors’ oath of office.It seems possible that Mr. Trump had no idea what these officials’ oath of office was, maybe even no idea that they swore an oath at all. Under Georgia’s “mistake of fact” affirmative defense, if Mr. Trump has some evidence that he was operating under a “misapprehension of fact” that would justify his actions, the state must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt.There are a few reasons this could be a strong defense. First, Mr. Trump surrounded himself with individuals who told him what he was doing was legal. Georgia does not normally have an “advice of counsel” defense, but in this context it seems relevant that people he apparently trusted were not telling him this would violate any oath of office.And to put it gently, Mr. Trump is plausibly ignorant on a variety of subjects, ranging from how hurricanes are formed to whether it’s a good idea to use or inject disinfectants as a possible Covid cure. Even if prosecutors can meet the burden of showing that what he requested was unconstitutional — not necessarily an easy thing to establish with a jury of non-lawyers — it may be difficult to prove that Donald Trump knew, or cared, what the Constitution had to say on the subject.Then there’s the Hawaii precedent. Mr. Trump’s advisers were relying on an incident from the 1960 presidential election, when Richard Nixon looked as though he had won the state of Hawaii by a few dozen votes. But the results were so uncertain that three Democrats submitted their Electoral College votes just in case, and when, after a recount, it looked like John F. Kennedy was the actual winner, the Senate (headed by Nixon) unanimously agreed to the alternate slate.Even though no court ever blessed this procedure, or even held that it wasn’t criminal, Mr. Trump’s team could argue with a straight face that they believed their request was legally possible.There’s also the possibility of a First Amendment defense. Typically, people are allowed to petition the government to do things, even unconstitutional things. That a court might, down the line, find those things to be unconstitutional seems like a dangerous basis to criminalize that petitioning.I’d understand bringing these charges to get at some obviously bad and immoral conduct by the president if there were nothing else available. But there are other, much stronger charges in the same indictment without the same constitutional concerns. Take the false statement counts: The very best case that Mr. Trump and his team could cite is United States v. Alvarez, where the Supreme Court held that there is a First Amendment right to lie about having received the Medal of Honor. But the Supreme Court also specifically said that this protection vanishes when lying for material gain, or to the government.Rudy Giuliani told state legislators that election workers were passing around flash drives like “vials of heroin” and that thousands of dead and felonious voters participated, but he can’t claim those statements have constitutional protection. All Mr. Giuliani can do is show the court what evidence supported those statements. There is none. And what’s more, Mr. Giuliani recently admitted in a civil filing that his claims against two Fulton County election workers had been false. Despite claiming that it was for “this litigation only,” that’s an admission.Similarly, the forgery charges simply need to establish a conspiracy to create fake elector votes that could potentially be counted on Jan. 6. It’s irrelevant whether the parties thought it was legal to do this, so long as they knew they were not, in fact, the duly appointed electors.So it is an odd legal choice to drag a jury through weak, disputed counts in a monthslong trial when you could just focus on the counts that are hard to challenge and easy to explain, saving weeks in the process. The RICO count will already require dozens of witnesses and some complicated instructions, so tossing in these oath of office charges seems like a recipe for confusion and delay.And it’s not just the charges that complicate things, but the sheer number of defendants. A judge granted one co-defendant, Ken Chesebro, a speedy trial, which will require Fulton County to bring this case to trial by Nov. 3 or acquit him as a matter of law. (Sidney Powell has also requested a speedy trial.)Ms. Willis reacted by requesting an October date for the entire case, but at least for the moment, a judge has declined her request. This puts the prosecutors in a bind. Mr. Chesebro’s trial would give Mr. Trump a useful preview of the entire case, from voir dire to closing arguments, which could weaken the effectiveness of Ms. Willis’s prosecution of Mr. Trump and the other defendants. It would allow Mr. Trump’s lawyers to dig into witness testimony and perhaps encourage Georgia Republicans to step in.Additionally, it might be very difficult for Fulton County to actually grant these parties the speedy trial they’ve requested. There is some Georgia authority to suggest that a trial does not “begin” under the statutory speedy trial act until a jury is empaneled and sworn. What happens if Fulton County needs a month, or two months, to actually select the jury that will be sworn?And for all the talk of potentially flipping co-defendants, many of the people in this case don’t have all that much criminal exposure. With no mandatory minimums for prison time and no criminal history, many of the participants could reasonably expect probation, and maybe even a first-offender sentence that would not count as a felony. A simpler case, with fewer co-defendants, would go more swiftly, with less legal uncertainty.As a general, George Washington was known for unworkable battle plans. Where an ordinary commander might send all his troops to one location at one time, Washington would split them into three columns, expecting them to arrive all at one spot with precision timing. It rarely worked out. Despite those mistakes, he’s now best known for winning.For all the potential problems with this indictment, I would still expect Ms. Willis to secure a conviction against Mr. Trump on one or more counts if this case goes to trial as it intends.But there are a dozen ways that things can go sideways, and it is very possible that history will remember the two years that Fulton County took to bring these charges as a wasted opportunity to make a simpler case.Andrew Fleischman is an attorney at Sessions & Fleischman in Atlanta.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. More

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      in Elections

      Mark Meadows Testifies in Bid to Move Georgia Trump Case to Federal Court

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      Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, told a judge he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta.Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021. “My wife will tell you sometimes that I forget to take out the trash,” he told Judge Steve C. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.At another point during the daylong hearing, he asked whether he was properly complying with the judge’s instructions, saying, “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”The effort to shift the case to federal court is the first major legal fight since the indictment of Mr. Trump, Mr. Meadows and 17 others was filed by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. The indictment charges Mr. Trump and his allies with interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the state. Mr. Meadows is one of several defendants who are trying to move the case; any ruling on the issue could apply to all 19 defendants.Mr. Meadows testified that Mr. Trump directed him to set up the now-famous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. During the call — a focus of the case — Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Raffensperger and said he wanted to “find” nearly 12,000 more Trump votes, enough to reverse his defeat in Georgia.Mr. Meadows said Mr. Trump wanted to make the call because he believed that fraud had occurred, and wanted to resolve questions about the ballot signature verification process. “We all want accurate elections,” Mr. Meadows said at one point.Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican who is the state’s top elections official, also testified after being subpoenaed by the prosecution. He recounted how he had ignored earlier calls from Mr. Meadows — he said he “didn’t think it was appropriate” to talk to him while Mr. Trump was contesting the state’s results — and initially tried to avoid the Jan. 2 call with Mr. Trump. Under questioning by the prosecution, he characterized it as “a campaign call.”“Outreach to this extent was extraordinary,” he said of the calls from Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump.Monday’s hearing marked a dramatic inflection point in the case: Mr. Meadows, one of the highest-profile defendants, faced Fulton County prosecutors for the first time. Mr. Raffensperger recounted the threats against him, his wife and election workers after Mr. Trump made unfounded allegations about Georgia voter fraud. And Mr. Trump’s distinctive voice filled the courtroom as prosecutors played snippets of the Jan. 2 call.“We won the state,” Mr. Trump said.If the effort to move the case to federal court succeeds, it could benefit the Trump side by broadening the jury pool beyond Fulton County into outlying counties where the former president has somewhat more support.It could also slow down at least some of the proceedings. If the case remains in state court, three of the defendants are likely to face trial starting in October. Kenneth Chesebro has already been granted an early trial, and Sidney Powell has sought the same. A lawyer for John Eastman, another defendant, has said he, too, will seek a speedy trial.Removing a case to federal court requires persuading a judge that the actions under scrutiny were carried out by federal officers as part of their official business. Earlier this year, Mr. Trump failed in his attempt to move a New York State criminal case against him to federal court; his argument in that case was seen as particularly tenuous.Mr. Meadows was cross-examined by Anna Cross, a veteran prosecutor who has worked for district attorneys in three Atlanta area counties. She continually pressed him on what kind of federal policy or interest he was advancing in carrying out what prosecutors have described in court documents as political acts in service of the Trump campaign — and thus not grounds for removal to federal court.Mr. Meadows and his lawyers argue that the job of chief of staff sometimes seeps into the realm of politics by its very nature, and that the local district attorney is essentially operating beyond her power by seeking to delineate what a powerful federal official’s job should and should not be.Ms. Cross noted to Mr. Meadows that he had visited suburban Cobb County, Ga., where a ballot audit was taking place, after a meeting with William P. Barr, who was then the U.S. attorney general. During the meeting, Mr. Barr dismissed election fraud claims as unsupported by facts. Mr. Meadows replied that in his mind, there were still allegations worthy of investigation.The arguments echoed those made in filings before the hearing by the prosecution and Mr. Meadows’s lawyers. Mr. Meadows, along with all 18 other defendants, is charged with racketeering. Along with Mr. Trump, he is also accused of soliciting Mr. Raffensperger to violate his oath of office. (Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, has written that he felt he was being pressured to “fudge the numbers.”)During his testimony, Mr. Meadows discussed the trip he made to Cobb County during its audit of signatures on mail-in absentee ballots. He was turned away after trying to get into the room where state investigators were verifying the signatures. Mr. Meadows said he had been in the area visiting his children who live there, and went to the auditing location because he was “anticipating” that Mr. Trump would eventually bring up the Cobb County review. He said what he found was “a very professional operation.”The case continues to move forward in state court. On Monday, the judge, Scott McAfee, scheduled arraignments of Mr. Trump and the other defendants for Sept. 6. It is possible that some or all of the arraignments will not be conducted in person, given the heightened security requirements involving a former president.For the next few weeks at least, the case will be wrangled by two different judges working in courthouses a few blocks apart in downtown Atlanta. Judge McAfee, of Fulton County Superior Court, is an appointee of Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, though he also once worked for Ms. Willis and is well regarded by many lawyers on both sides of the case.Judge Jones, an Obama appointee, has been moving quickly regarding the removal question. In 2019, he upheld Georgia’s purge of nearly 100,000 names from its voter rolls, over the objections of liberal activists. In 2020, he blocked a six-week abortion ban from taking effect in the state.The Georgia case is the fourth criminal indictment of Mr. Trump this year. If Mr. Trump is elected president again, he could theoretically try to pardon himself for any federal convictions. But regardless of whether the Georgia case is tried in state or federal court, it concerns state crimes, which are beyond the pardon power of presidents.Christian Boone More