Georgia

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Rudy Giuliani mugshot released after he surrenders in Trump Georgia case – live

      by

      Hugo Lowell reports:
      Just in: A federal judge has denied former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ request for an emergency order to prevent his arrest at Fulton County jail while he tries to have his case removed to federal court.
      Furthermore:
      A federal judge has denied former Trump Justice department official Jeff Clark’s request for an emergency stay to avoid having to surrender at Fulton County jail, after he filed to have his case removed to federal court. Clark has until Friday at noon to travel to Atlanta for booking.
      In a fundraising email to supporters, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott offers a (very basic) taste of what he might offer on the debate stage in Milwaukee tonight.“If you had told 7-year-old Tim Scott he would one day be on a presidential debate stage, he would NOT believe you,” the email says.Seven-year-old Tim might also not have believed that his grown-up self would take his debate stage bow with just 1% support, a mere 51 points behind the frontrunner, Donald Trump. But I digress.The email continues: “I’m a child of divorce. When I was 7, my mom, my older brother, and I moved into a two-bedroom rental house that we shared with my grandparents.“My Mama and Granddaddy told me you can be bitter or you can be better. You can be a victim or you can choose victory. Well Friend, I’m ready to choose victory!“Tonight, I’ll share why the truth of my life disproves the Left’s lies and why I believe America can do for anyone what she’s done for me.”What Scott might do in the primary remains of course to be seen. He has big support from the Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison and with a big debate performance, who knows.But the signs are not particularly rosy, even when one zeroes in on Iowa, the first state to vote and one where evangelical Christians, a key Scott constituency, are strong.At the weekend, a major poll from NBC News and the Des Moines Register gave the senator third place. That was better than his position in national averages, linked to above. But though Scott had 9% support, Ron DeSantis of Florida had 19% and Trump – thrice-married and an adjudicated rapist yet still the No1 choice for Christian conservatives – had 42%.Our Washington bureau chief reports from Milwaukee, ahead of tonight’s Republican debate …Donald Trump is missing from the first Republican primary debate but his supporters are not. Nine hours before kick-off, they were roving outside the venue wearing “Make America great again” caps and brandishing signs mocking the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.Some of the former president’s allies in the US Congress, such as Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, are also on here. Sitting in a hotel lobby, Greene told the Guardian that she backs Trump’s decision to stay away.“I told him to skip it,” the far-right congresswoman and conspiracy theorist said. “It’s a waste of his time.“He’s winning by over 60%, poll after poll depending on what state you’re looking at and the national poll. It’s a complete waste of his time to step out on a stage and be the centre of the attacks when he has a four-year record as president that everybody wants back and none of those people on the stage have anything that they can compare to him.”There has been speculation that Trump could choose Greene as his running mate.She said: “Well, I’d have to think about it and consider it. It’s talked about frequently and I know my name is on a list but really my biggest focus right now is serving the district that elected me.“That’s of course a decision that President Trump has to make. I don’t know who that person is going to be and I don’t even think they’re going to be on that debate stage. I’ll argue that. But, of course, that’s up to him. But I would be honoured and consider it. But my most important job is, of course, to serve the American people and I’ll help him do whatever in any way I can.”Greene said the three Republicans she talks to most frequently are Trump, Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives, and James Comer, chairman of the House oversight committee. Do they all seem to be on the same page?“A lot of times, yeah. Not all the time but a lot of times. It just depends on the issue.”Trump is expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges, over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. It is Greene’s home state but she dismisses the sweeping indictment as “garbage” and has not read it.“I wouldn’t waste five seconds of my time,” she said.Booking pictures of those Trump aides and allies who have so far surrendered in Georgia have now been released.Here is the official booking picture of Giuliani:Here are some for more of the co-defendants:Some levity, of a sort, for those wanting a slightly different angle on what until relatively recently would have been the outlandish, outrageous prospect of a former US president being booked at an Atlanta jail on charges including racketeering and conspiracy, related to an attempt to overturn an election.Bookies are offering punters the chance to bet on what Donald Trump’s recorded weight will be when he surrenders at the Fulton County Jail tomorrow. As the Daily Beast puts it, perennially pleasingly snarky…
      The line currently sits over/under 278.5lb, a far cry from the 244lb White House physician Sean Conley recorded for Trump in 2020.
      As the Beast also notes, part of punters’ interest in the former president’s avoirdupois is fueled by the purest schadenfreude, if I might overdo the pretentious italics. Trump, of course, has a habit of abusing his opponents, critics and enemies – see Christie, Chris and O’Donnell, Rosie, passim – about their body mass index.Trump’s height will also be taken. His 2020 White House physical said he was 6ft 3in tall. There is speculation, widespread, that the truth is different:Here’s a slightly fuller version of comments from Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor turned Trump attorney, after his surrender in Atlanta on charges including conspiracy and racketeering.Speaking to reporters, and laughing as he did so, Giuliani said he was “very, very honoured to be involved in this case because this case is a fight for our way of life”.“This indictment is a travesty,” he said. “It’s an attack on not just me, not just President [Donald] Trump, this is an attack on the American people. If this could happen to me, who is probably the most prolific prosecutor maybe in American history and the most effective mayor for sure, it can happen to you.”Giuliani was indeed a prolific prosecutor, back in New York before he became mayor and briefly, after leading New York on and after 9/11, dreamt of a rise to the White House.As US attorney in Manhattan, he memorably cracked down on organised crime by using racketeering statutes.It’s safe to say his current predicament in relation to similar such statutes … has been noticed by quite a few observers.I typed “Giuliani irony” into Google, and this and this and this came up. And more.Here, meanwhile, is some further reading about what Michael Cohen, another Trump attorney who turned on his old boss after being sent to jail, had to say the other day about Trump, Giuliani and the concept of payment for legal services rendered …Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota and GOP presidential candidate, said he will consult a physician before deciding if he will participate at tonight’s debate, after injuring his leg at a basketball game yesterday.Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash, Burgum said his debate walkthrough went well despite tearing his achilles tendon.Fulton County officials have released the mug shot of Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of Donald Trump’s fake electors plot.Chesebro surrendered at the Fulton county jail earlier on Wednesday.Here’s the mug shot, as shared by CBS’ Scott MacFarlane:Rudy Giuliani claims he is being indicted because he was a lawyer for Donald Trump.The former New York mayor accuses the FBI of having “stole(n) my iCloud account the day that I began representing Donald Trump”.Rudy Giuliani says the Fulton county district office’s case against him, Donald Trump and his co-defendants is “an attack on the American people”.“If they can do this to me, they can do this to you,” he tells reporters.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis “will go down in American history for having conducted one of the worst attacks on the American constitution”, Giuliani says.Rudy Giuliani is speaking to reporters after he surrendered to authorities at the Fulton county jail on charges that he helped lead a racketeering enterprise and conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.Asked if he regretted attaching his name to Donald Trump, Giuliani replied:
      I am very, very honoured to be involved in this because this case is a fight for our way of life.
      This indictment is a travesty. It’s an attack on not just me, not just President Trump, not just the people in this indictment, some of them I don’t even know.
      Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis sharply rejected efforts by two of Donald Trump’s co-defendants – former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark – to move their sprawling racketeering cases to federal court.From my colleague Sam Levine:Rudy Giuliani left Manhattan in the morning to travel to Atlanta with his lead lawyer, John Esposito, on a private jet, though the source of the funding for the plane remains uncertain given Giuliani has struggled financially in the wake of mounting legal bills.Giuliani’s financial trouble stemming from having to retain lawyers for the congressional and federal criminal investigations into efforts to subvert the 2020 election results have become particularly acute in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter.The money problems have been exacerbated by Giuliani’s recent setbacks in court – including in a defamation case against two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of stealing ballots – and the suspension of his law license over his election subversion efforts means he has few income streams.The situation has led to Giuliani listing his Manhattan apartment for sale for more than $6m. He also travelled to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in April to ask the former president to help pay his legal bills after Trump rejected his earlier entreaties for support, the people said.When that trip failed to convince Trump to have his Save America political action committee pay for Giuliani’s legal bills, in the way that Trump has doled out $21m for aides’ legal bills tied up in the criminal investigations, Giuliani’s son Andrew made his own trip to see Trump.Trump has never explained why he has consistently refused to help Giuliani, but people in his orbit point to Trump’s complaints that Giuliani was defeated in almost every 2020 election lawsuit that he brought.But the meeting with Andrew Giuliani appears to have helped, and Trump agreed to attend two fundraisers, the people said. Trump will host a $100,000-per-person fundraiser at his Bedminster club in New Jersey next month, according to an invitation reviewed by the New York Times.Rudy Giuliani’s surrender to authorities at the Fulton county jail marks a jarring moment for Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor who made his name with aggressive racketeering cases, now facing a racketeering charge himself.Alongside Donald Trump, Giuliani faces the most charges in the sprawling 41-count indictment handed up by a grand jury last week that described how he played a principal role in marshalling fake slates of electors among other schemes to reverse Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.The bond for Giuliani was set at $150,000 after his lawyers met with the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis earlier in the day. The amount was slightly less than the $200,000 bond for Trump but more than the $100,000 bond for another former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell.Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his family are on vacation in Lake Tahoe.The president, first lady and members of the Biden family “are taking a Pilates class followed by a spin class”, the White House said earlier.AP’s Seung Min Kim shared a photo of Biden after his pilates and spin classes:Democrats will be denied political oxygen on Wednesday night but hope to turn this to their advantage by framing all the Republican candidates as Donald Trump-adjacent extremists.At a press conference on the top floor of a downtown Milwaukee hotel, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said:
      Tonight, in prime time, Americans will have an opportunity to see in action the most extreme, the most divisive, the most chaotic slate of presidential candidates in history when these Maga 2024 Republicans take the debate stage here in Milwaukee, and I don’t know if it’s going to be a debate, but more like a circus.
      They may try to differentiate themselves but the truth is that every single one of these candidates from Donald Trump on down are extreme.
      Harrison went on to list the candidates one by one, setting out their positions on abortion, pushing conspiracy theories and past associations with the Tea Party or Trump.
      No matter who you pick, this group is as extreme as it gets. A bag full of Maga apples and they are all rotten. They are wildly out of step with the American people.
      He attempted to draw a contrast between the two parties. “We believe that our better days as a nation are ahead of us, not behind us. They believe that our better days are behind us and that is the difference in this election.
      Joe Biden wakes up every day thinking about how to make the lives of the American people better. They wake up every day thinking about how do I get back in power? That is the difference between the Democratic party led by Joe Biden and a Republican party led by Maga extremists.
      Satya Rhodes-Conway, the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, accused Republicans of pushing a national abortion ban. “Let me be crystal clear about this: the 2024 Maga Republican presidential candidates are running on their extreme anti-choice records,” she said.
      I’m sure that they’re going to talk about freedom on the debate stage tonight. But what about the freedom to make my own health care decisions? I guess that their version of freedom doesn’t include women.
      Rhodes-Conway added:
      Here’s the bottom line: the American people don’t want anything to do with their abortion bans. Voters in states all across this great country, including right here in Wisconsin, have made it clear that the craven abortion bans are wildly unpopular and out of step with the American public.
      Rudy Giuliani has turned himself in at the Fulton county jail over charges tied to his efforts to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election.The former New York City mayor and longtime Trump ally faces 13 charges that include racketeering, soliciting lawmakers to violate their oaths of office, making false statements and conspiracy counts dealing with the recruitment of fake electors.Here’s a look at the Fulton county jail records, as shared by NBC’s Blayne Alexander:Rudy Giuliani has arrived at the Fulton county jail and surrendered to authorities, according to the county sheriff’s website.The former New York mayor and lawyer for Donald Trump faces charges in the sprawling Georgia elections racketeering case. At a meeting earlier today with Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’ team, Giuliani’s bond was set at $150,000.“I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I am defending the rights of all Americans, as I did so many times as a United States attorney,” Giuliani told reporters in New York this morning. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump to surrender at Fulton county jail on Thursday night

      by

      Donald Trump is expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, according to two people briefed on the matter.The former president – seeking to distract from the indignity of the surrender by turning things into a circus – in essence had his lawyers negotiate the booking to take place during the prime viewing hours for the cable news networks.Trump has posted on his Truth Social platform that he would be arrested on Thursday, but the prime-time scheduling was finalized in recent days after his lawyers met with the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, at her office on Monday.The former president became a criminal defendant in a fourth case last week when a grand jury handed up a sprawling 41-count indictment that accused Trump and 18 co-defendants of engaging in a criminal enterprise and committing election fraud in trying to reverse his 2020 defeat.Trump returned to his instinct to maximize television ratings to his benefit for his surrender to authorities in Atlanta, the people said, and could extend the coverage of the proceedings by speaking afterwards in front of cameras and reporters.The strategy to turn surrenders in each of his four criminal cases into spectacles has been an effort to discredit the indictments, as well as to capitalize on the information void left by prosecutors after such events to foist his own spin on the charges.While he would prefer not to be charged, once indicted, Trump has moved to present himself as defiant and lament to his supporters that he supposedly is the victim of partisan investigations, for which he needs their political and financial support.A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The surrender itself is expected to be mundane. At the Rice Street jail north-west of downtown Atlanta, where defendants charged in Fulton county are typically taken, the booking process involves a mug shot, fingerprinting and having height and weight recorded.Trump asked his lawyers and the US secret service to get him an exemption from being photographed, the people said, though it was not clear whether he will get special treatment. The Fulton county sheriff, Patrick Labat, has previously said Trump would be treated no differently.The other 18 co-defendants in the 2020 election subversion case appear to be receiving regular treatment based on online jail records for the former Trump election lawyer John Eastman and others, who had their height, weight and personal appearance made public.Once the booking is complete, Trump is expected to be released immediately on conditions that include stringent witness intimidation restrictions that have not been put in place for his co-defendants, court filings show, until he is due back in state court for arraignment.The Trump legal team could file a motion to remove the case to federal court before then, under a federal statute that allows for such venue changes if the case involves federal officials’ actions taken “under color” of their office – as in, if it was part of official duties.Trump could face major difficulties with that argument, however, since he would have to show that taking steps to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia amounted to him acting in his official capacity as president, legal experts have said. More

    • 225 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows seeks emergency order to protect him from arrest in Georgia – as it happened

      by

      From 2h agoMark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement, according to court documents.The filing by Meadows’ legal team comes after he was denied a request to delay the arrest while he tries to move his case to federal court.Meadows claims that his alleged actions, including participating with Donald Trump in a phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, should be immune from state prosecution because they were performed in his capacity as a federal official.Hello again, US politics live blog readers. It’s been a very interesting day, especially in terms of a certain election-related criminal racketeering case in Georgia … This blog will be back on Wednesday for all the political news during the day but also live coverage of the first Republican debate of the 2024 election campaign in the evening. Do click join us then, but for now, this blog will close. You can read the separate story on Mark Meadows that has just launched on our site here.Here’s where things stand:
      Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff to Donald Trump, filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement in Georgia.
      The majority of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said they believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll.
      Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman, two of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump, entered bond agreements, for $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.
      Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, attempted to clarify conspiracy-tinged remarks he made earlier this week about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump hoping to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
      Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official, and David Shafer, one of the Georgia fake electors, who were charged with Donald Trump in the election subversion case in the state, filed to move the case from state to federal court.
      Shawn Still, who was also charged in the state’s election subversion case, reached a $10,000 bond agreement with prosecutors.
      Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy will stand center stage at Wednesday night’s first Republican presidential nomination debate, according to a lineup released by the Republican National Committee.
      You can read our latest full report here:Joe Biden was briefed earlier today on the extreme weather that is affecting many parts of the US, according to the White House. The US president also talked to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the topic and was warned of the peak of the hurricane season that is approaching.Now Biden has issued a statement and unequivocally linked the severity of the weather to the climate crisis:
      Across the country, people are experiencing the devastating impacts of extreme weather worsened by climate change. As peak hurricane season approaches, my administration continues taking action to bolster the country’s preparedness, and support response and recovery efforts.
      I continue to be briefed on Tropical Storm Harold and its potential impacts on South Texas.
      Biden said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) was deploying. Our latest story on Tropical Storm Harold is here.Biden’s statement also said:
      I have also been briefed on Tropical Storm Franklin, and I directed FEMA to pre-deploy personnel and resources to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
      Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega is highly unimpressed with the efforts of Mark Meadows’ legal team in trying to stave off the prospect of arrest of the former chief of staff to Donald Trump if he doesn’t surrender to be booked in the Georgia election subversion case.There has been some frantic correspondence between Meadows’ team and Fulton county DA Fani Willis.And this:Meanwhile, Jewel Wicker’s recent profile of Willis is a good read, here.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis doesn’t mince her words.There are some choice reactions from legal experts.And there was this before the latest request, after Meadows asked for his Georgia case to be moved to federal court.Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants face a Friday deadline to surrender after being charged in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday, 25 August, for Trump and his co-defendants to voluntarily turn themselves in to be booked.On Monday, Trump said he plans to surrender to authorities on Thursday to face charges including criminal conspiracy, filing false documents and violating the Georgia Rico Act.The first two co-defendants have already surrendered today – Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall and former Trump lawyer John Eastman.In the court filing, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pointed to the Fulton county court’s plans to hold a hearing on Monday on his request that his case be moved to federal court.The filing reads:
      District Attorney Fani Willis has made clear that she intends to arrest Mr Meadows before this Court’s Monday hearing and has rejected out of hand a reasonable request to defer one business day until after this Court’s hearing.
      Absent this Court’s intervention, Mr Meadows will be denied the protection from arrest that federal law affords former federal officials, and this Court’s prompt but orderly consideration of removal will be frustrated.
      Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement, according to court documents.The filing by Meadows’ legal team comes after he was denied a request to delay the arrest while he tries to move his case to federal court.Meadows claims that his alleged actions, including participating with Donald Trump in a phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, should be immune from state prosecution because they were performed in his capacity as a federal official.John Eastman, the lawyer facing criminal charges for his alleged efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, made a statement to the press after turning himself in to the Fulton county jail earlier today.Eastman, who has been charged with nine felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, solicitation, filing false documents and violating the Rico Act, said he would “vigorously” contest every count of the indictment in which he had been named.He said he was “confident that when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated”.Asked by a reporter if he still believed the 2020 election was stolen, Eastman replied:
      Absolutely. No question in my mind.
      In December 2020, Eastman reportedly helped orchestrate the plan for Georgia Republican electors to meet and sign a fraudulent certificate that said Trump won the election in what is now known as the fake electors scheme.He also drafted a six-point memo that directed former vice-president Mike Pence to refuse to certify electoral votes on 6 January 2021.The majority of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said they believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll.The NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found that 51% of likely caucus-goers said they believe Trump’s claims that he won in 2020, despite no evidence of widespread election fraud, while 41% said they don’t, and 8% said they are not sure. The poll included both Republican and independent voters.Of those who said they believed Trump’s claims were a majority of self-identified Republicans (60%), those making less than $70,000 a year (69%), evangelicals (62%) and those without college degrees (59%), the poll showed.Of those who listed Trump as their first-choice candidate, 83% said they believe he won the 2020 election.Two-thirds of respondents, or 65%, said Trump has not committed serious crimes, despite him being indicted four times over the past year.Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman, two of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump, have entered bond agreements in Fulton county, Georgia, for $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney and former Colorado prosecutor, spread multiple statements claiming voter fraud during the 2020 election and sent at least two memos advising Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states. She was ordered to appear before the special grand jury in 2022.Earlier this year, the Colorado supreme court censured Ellis for making false statements and she acknowledged making misrepresentations as part of the agreement.A former Trump campaign staffer, Roman was involved in the plot to deliver lists of fake electors to Pence on 6 January 2021 in a bid to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.A former White House aide, he served as Trump’s director of election day operations and attempted to convince state legislators to unlawfully appoint alternate electors, according to the indictment.From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, did not qualify for Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate in Milwaukee, after his performance in a series of polls fell short of requirements set by the Republican national committee.Hurd has also refused to sign the party’s pledge to support its eventual nominee – another RNC requirement to take part in the debate.Hurd is one of the few GOP candidates prepared to attack Donald Trump in strong terms, not least over scheduled trials that include civil cases over defamation and a rape allegation and investigations of his business affairs.In a statement, Hurd said he was disappointed to be kept off the debate stage but said he would not be deterred.
      I have said from day one of my candidacy that I will not sign a blood oath to Donald Trump. The biggest difference between me and every single candidate who will be on the debate stage in Milwaukee is that I have never bent the knee to Trump. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows asks judge to block his arrest in Georgia

      by

      Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, has asked a federal court to block his arrest in an emergency motion, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.Meadows, a named defendant in the sweeping election interference case against Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton county, Georgia, has requested the case be moved to federal court, saying the charges concern his actions as an officer of the federal government.Trump’s legal team is also expected to argue that the case should be moved to federal court because he was acting in the capacity of president.In the Tuesday emergency motion, Meadows asked the court to “protect” him from arrest before a Monday, 28 August, hearing on his request to move the case out of the Fulton county superior court to the district court of northern Georgia.Meadows asked the court to either grant his removal request or issue an order prohibiting the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, from arresting him, according to the Tuesday motion.Last week, Willis set the deadline for the 19 defendants to voluntarily turn themselves in to the Fulton county jail, where they would be booked, for noon this Friday, 25 August.Willis rejected Meadows’ request for an extension on the deadline, according to Meadows’ emergency motion.“I am not granting any extensions. I gave 2 weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy,” Willis wrote in an email on Tuesday morning.Willis also indicated that if Meadows does not turn himself in by noon on Friday, he would be arrested, writing: “At 12:30 pm on Friday I shall file warrants in the system.”Meadows was charged with two felony counts, including violating the Georgia Rico Act and solicitation of violation of oath from a public officer, according to Willis’s indictment. Meadows was on the infamous phone call when Trump asked the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” votes to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also received hundreds of text messages on 6 January 2021 alerting him and the White House of escalating violence at the US Capitol and asking Trump to intervene.Two of the 19 named defendants, Scott Hall and John Eastman, have turned themselves in and were booked at the Fulton county Rice Street jail on Tuesday.Another two named defendants, Jeffrey Clark and David Shafer, have joined Meadows in making requests that their cases be moved to federal court. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      First two defendants in Georgia election subversion case booked in Fulton county jail

      by

      The first two defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump and 18 other defendants have been booked in the Fulton county jail, according to its online database.Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman, was booked at the Rice Street jail on Tuesday. John Eastman, a Trump attorney and one of the main architect’s of Trump’s plan to halt the certification of Biden’s victory, also voluntarily turned himself in later on Tuesday morning.They are expected to undergo fingerprinting, submit personal information and potentially take a mugshot.In a statement, Eastman said: “My legal team and I will vigorously contest every count of the indictment in which I am named, and also every count in which others are named, for which my knowledge of the relevant facts, law, and constitutional provisions may prove helpful. I am confident that, when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated.”In December 2020, Eastman helped orchestrate the plan for Georgia Republican electors to meet and sign a fraudulent certificate that said Trump won the election in what is now known as the fake electors scheme. He also drafted a six-point memo that directed former vice-president Mike Pence to refuse to certify electoral votes on 6 January 2021.Eastman, alongside the Trump attorney and disgraced former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, spoke at a rally near the US Capitol on the day of the insurrection where he spread baseless claims of election fraud. Kenneth Chesebro, another Trump attorney who worked closely with Eastman, Trump and Giuliani to halt the electoral certification and is a named defendant, was also at the Capitol that day.Hall was charged with seven felony counts, including six criminal conspiracy charges and with violating the Rico Act. His bond is set at $10,000, according to a “consent bond order” posted to the Fulton county court’s website on Monday.Eastman was charged with nine felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, solicitation, filing false documents and violating the Rico Act. Eastman’s bond is set at $100,000.After Trump’s 2020 loss, Hall illegally sought access to voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, to search for evidence they were rigged. According to the indictment, he traveled to the Coffee county elections office to copy voter data from Dominion Voting Systems machines, which was a breach of privacy and unlawful.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe was charged alongside the Coffee county officials Misty Hampton and Cathy Latham, as well as Trump-aligned attorney Sidney Powell, for “willfully and unlawfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines”, which was an act of conspiracy to commit election fraud.Hall also placed several phone calls to the individuals who were involved with intimidating Georgia poll workers to coerce false testimony about election security, according to the indictment.The district attorney, Fani Willis, who delivered the sweeping indictment last week, has given all 19 defendants until noon this Friday, 25 August, to voluntarily surrender. Trump, whose bond has been set at $200,000 and was charged with 13 felony counts, said he plans to turn himself in on Thursday. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Bond for Donald Trump set at $200,000 in Georgia election subversion case

      by

      Donald Trump’s bond on racketeering and conspiracy charges relating to attempted election subversion in Georgia was set at $200,000.In a court document posted online on Monday, bond amounts for the 13 charges against the former president ranged from $10,000, for counts including criminal conspiracy and filing false documents, to $80,000, for a violation of the Georgia Rico Act, often used against organised crime.Terms included a prohibition of “act[ing] to intimidate any person known to … be a codefendant or witness in this case”, including in “posts on social media”.Authorities in Georgia are investigating threats made to grand jurors.The bond document also said Trump “shall not communicate in any way, directly or indirectly, about the facts of this case with any person known to him to be a codefendant in this case except through his or her counsel”.John Eastman, a law professor who advised Trump in his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, saw bond set at $100,000.Defendants also include the former New York mayor and Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani. The deadline for defendants to turn themselves in is 12pm ET on Friday.The document concerning Trump’s bond was signed by Scott McAfee, a superior court judge, three Trump lawyers and Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county who last week secured indictments of Trump and 18 aides and allies.Willis has proposed that arraignments begin in the week of 5 September before a trial in March.Trump denies wrongdoing in Georgia and in three other indictments which have produced a total of 91 criminal charges.The charges cover federal and state election subversion in 2020, the retention of classified information after leaving office, and hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election.Despite such unprecedented legal jeopardy – to which can be added civil investigations of Trump’s business affairs and a defamation case in which a judge said Trump was adjudicated a rapist – the former president dominates the race for the Republican presidential nomination.Ahead of the first debate on Wednesday, which Trump will not attend, he leads his nearest challenger, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, by about 40 points in national polling averages and by wide margins in key states.On social media on Monday, some observers doubted that Trump, notorious for attacking enemies on social media (which he did the same day, aiming at the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp), would abide by the terms of his bond.“Barring a real come-to-Jesus moment,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State law professor, “the only way Trump doesn’t violate his … conditions is if his lawyers confiscate his phone.”Others noted how Trump has leveraged his predicament to fund his campaign to return to the White House, widely seen as his best hope of avoiding prison.Ron Filipkowski, a Florida attorney turned viral Trump critic, said it was “time to shake down the donors”. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Wasn’t Invited to This Georgia Event, but His Presence Was Still Felt

      by

      Although the Republican front-runner was absent at a conservative conference where other candidates were in attendance, he was still top of mind.The two-day Republican gathering in Atlanta was supposed to be something of a Trump-free zone.The host, the conservative commentator Erick Erickson, did not include former President Donald J. Trump in the confab, and instead conducted 45-minute “fireside chat” interviews with six of his rivals for the Republican nomination. He told the crowd on Friday that Mr. Trump, and the criminal indictment handed down against him on Monday just 10 miles away, would not be a topic of discussion.“We’ve got six presidential candidates — two governors, two senators, two members of Congress,” said Mr. Erickson, who is based in Georgia. “I want to ask them about policy questions.”But even as the featured politicians tried to make their own cases without mentioning the former president, also the party’s current front-runner for 2024, his influence — and stranglehold over the Republican primary race — was palpable.Former Vice President Mike Pence sidestepped a question about how he would close the polling gap with Mr. Trump. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who served as United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, thinly complimented the former president even as she explained why she was running against her former boss. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trump’s closest rival, said he hoped that the party would focus more on the future than “some of the other static that is out there.”On and offstage, participants and attendees alike said they believed that defeating President Biden would not be possible as long as the party repeated Mr. Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was stolen.Georgia will play a pivotal role in the outcome of the general election, both because of recent election outcomes and because the state has the jurisdiction in the most recent Trump indictment. It’s why current and former state officials have been vocal about their belief that having Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket risks delivering a message that is more focused on 2020 election denialism than policy — one that could hurt their chances of winning in the key battleground state.“It should be such an easy path for us to win the White House back,” said Gov. Brian Kemp, one of the few figures who was asked about and who directly addressed Mr. Trump. “We have to be focused on the future, not something that happened three years ago.”Mr. Trump is expected to skip the first Republican debate next week and post an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that night instead. He still has a solid, double-digit lead over his rivals, according to recent state and national polls. At the weekend event, themed “Forward: Which Way,” attendees saw a chance to hear voices other than Mr. Trump’s. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is in single digits in most national polls, vowed to give governors more power in federal decisions and stayed true to his positive, faith-based message. Mr. DeSantis gave highlights from his family’s recent campaign trip to the Iowa State Fair while emphasizing the policies he has passed in Florida. Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and author who has received attention recently from voters and rivals alike, spoke of a “revolution” in changing how the federal government operates.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mr. Trump’s most vocal critic, largely avoided mention of the former president but later railed against him to reporters outside the event, calling him “a coward” for not joining the debate on Wednesday, adding, “He’s afraid of me, and he’s afraid of defending his record.”While many in the crowd expressed frustration over Mr. Trump’s legal troubles, they also said that Monday’s indictment was little more than a politically motivated sideshow that distracted from larger policy issues.Electing a candidate who can defeat Mr. Biden in the general election remained their chief objective — one that many attendees said would be challenging if Mr. Trump’s campaign message focused more on his 2020 grievances instead of policy.“Honestly, we need a new generation,” said Lyn Murphy, a Republican activist who attended Friday’s gathering. “We’ve got a great bench.”Bill Coons, 58, who identified himself as a political independent who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016 and supported Mr. Trump in 2020, said he probably would not support Mr. Trump if he became the party’s nominee.“Why talk about the past when you’ve got a future to move towards?” he said. “The future of this nation is dire if Biden is re-elected, in my opinion.”Although Georgia has long been a Republican stronghold, voters there chose Mr. Biden in 2020, making him the first Democrat in nearly 30 years to win the state. It also sent Democrats to the U.S. Senate in two 2021 runoff races, and re-elected Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in 2022 for a full term. When asked about her role in the Trump administration, Ms. Haley called Mr. Trump “the right president at the right time.”But “at the end of the day, we have to win in November,” she said. “And it is time to put that negativity and that drama behind us.” More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Georgia takes on Trump and his allies | podcast

      by

      Until five months ago, no former US president had ever faced criminal charges. As of Monday evening, Donald Trump is facing 91 felony counts. The 97-page indictment handed down by a Fulton county grand jury in Georgia includes 41 criminal counts, 13 of them against Trump. This case may represent the biggest legal peril for Trump to date and it could see him behind bars, no matter who wins the presidential election next year.
      Joan E Greve and Sam Levine discuss every possible outcome

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More