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      Mark Meadows pleads not guilty in Georgia 2020 election indictment

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      Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of participating in an illegal scheme to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and will not appear in court in Atlanta this week.Scott McAfee, the Fulton county superior court judge, had scheduled arraignment hearings for Wednesday for Meadows, Donald Trump and the other 17 people charged last month in a sprawling indictment. By midday Tuesday, all of the defendants had filed paperwork pleading not guilty in filings with the court and waived their rights to an arraignment hearing.During an arraignment hearing, defendants have the right to have the charges against them read and to enter a formal plea. Trump pleaded not guilty in a court filing Thursday and Rudy Giuliani entered his plea Friday, with the rest of the pleas trickling in over several days.While all of the defendants had filed the paperwork by Tuesday, some of them did not file 48 hours ahead of the scheduled arraignments as required by the judge. And, while the judge requires the waiver to be “personally signed by the defendant”, a lawyer for Misty Hampton, a former elections director in Coffee county, filed the waiver without getting Hampton to sign it herself. It was not immediately clear whether the judge would reject any of the waivers as a result.Meadows and four others are seeking to move the charges against them to federal court. But during a hearing last week called on Meadows’ request, US district judge Steve Jones made clear that if he had not ruled by the arraignment date or if the case was not moved to federal court, Meadows would not be excused from arraignment.Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, former Trump lawyers, each have filed demands for a speedy trial, meaning their trials would have to start by early November, and have asked to be tried alone. The judge scheduled a hearing on Wednesday about their motions to sever themselves from the others.After Chesebro filed his speedy trial demand, Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, asked McAfee to set a 23 October trial date for all defendants. The judge set a trial to begin that date for Chesebro alone.Trump’s lawyer has filed a motion asking that he be tried separately from any defendant who asks for a speedy trial.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDuring Wednesday’s hearing, McAfee wrote that he intends to ask prosecutors how long they expect it will take to present their case against all 19 defendants together or for any groupings of defendants, including the number of witnesses they plan to call and the number and size of exhibits they will likely introduce. More

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      Cop City protesters charged with racketeering as Georgia takes hard line

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      Dozens of activists who oppose a controversial police and fire training facility in Georgia known as Cop City have been charged with racketeering, appearing to confirm fears from civil rights groups that prosecutors are stepping up an aggressive pursuit of environmental protesters.A total of 61 people – most not from Georgia – were indicted for violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act last week, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Some of the defendants face additional charges of money laundering and domestic terrorism, the newspaper reported.In July, a coalition of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote to the Department of Homeland Security decrying tactics used in authorities’ surveillance of the environmental protesters, and their use of the label “domestic violence extremism” for opponents of the $90m facility under construction on 85 acres of the South River Forest near Atlanta.The letter warned of the “dangers of … vague, overbroad, and stigmatizing terms like ‘domestic violent extremist’ and ‘militant’ to describe individuals who may be engaged in protected first amendment activity”.The US constitution’s first amendment protects Americans’ rights to free political speech and assembly.The most recent indictment was filed by the Georgia attorney general’s office in Fulton county last Tuesday, the AJC reported, and follows months of often violent protests at the site and in downtown Atlanta.In June, Sherry Boston, district attorney for DeKalb county, in which Cop City is located, announced she was withdrawing from criminal cases tied to protests, citing differences with Georgia’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, over how they were being handled.At that stage, more than 40 people had been charged with domestic terrorism following incidents in which fireworks and rocks were thrown at police. Police vehicles and construction equipment were also vandalized.“It is clear to both myself and to the attorney general that we have fundamentally different prosecution philosophies,” Boston said. The move handed Carr’s office sole responsibility for charging and prosecuting cases.Protesters have complained of intimidation and heavy-handed action by police, and the shooting death of an environmental activist, Manuel Paez Terán, in a January raid by officers on a camp at the constriction site. Investigators claimed Paez Terán, who was shot 57 times, fired first, but an autopsy found no gunpowder residue on the activist’s body.Paez Terán’s death was believed to be the first of an environmental campaigner by law enforcement in the US, reflecting what campaigners say is an escalation in the criminalization and repression of those who seek to protect natural resources.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNo detailed explanation of the charges against the 61 activists has yet been released, the AJC said. Ché Alexander, the Fulton county clerk of court, told the newspaper the indictment would be released later on Tuesday.In July, three members of a support group that helped earlier Cop City defendants with legal costs were arrested and charged with financial crimes, including money laundering and “charity fraud”. Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, called the three “criminals who facilitated and encouraged domestic terrorism”.In a message posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday morning, the ACLU said it was alarmed by the latest indictments. “This is unprecedented and extremely concerning, and we’re tracking the situation closely,” it said.The activist group Vote to Stop Cop City said the racketeering charges were “a clear assault on the broader movement for racial justice and equity”.In a statement to the Guardian, the group said: “These charges, like the previous repressive prosecutions by the state of Georgia, seek to intimidate protesters, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government.“[District attorney] Carr’s actions are a part of a retaliatory pattern of prosecutions against organizers nationwide that attack the right to protest and freedom of speech. His threats will not silence our commitment to standing up for our future, our community, and our city.” More

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      Rudy Giuliani pleads not guilty to Georgia election racketeering charges

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      Rudy Giuliani on Friday pleaded not guilty to Georgia charges that accuse him of trying, along with former president Donald Trump and others, to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.In filing his not guilty plea with the court, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney also waived his right to appear at an arraignment hearing set for 6 September. He joins the former president and at least 10 others in forgoing a trip to Atlanta to appear before a judge in a packed courtroom with a news camera rolling.Trump and Giuliani are among 19 people charged in a sprawling, 41-count indictment that details a wide-ranging conspiracy to thwart the will of Georgia’s voters who had selected Democratic nominee Joe Biden over the Republican incumbent.The charges against Giuliani, along with other legal woes, signal a remarkable fall for a man who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack. He now faces 13 charges, including violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, the federal version of which was one of his favorite tools as a prosecutor in the 1980s.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, has said she wants to try all 19 defendants together. But the legal wrangling has already begun in a slew of court filings since the indictment was filed on 14 August.Several of those charged have filed motions to be tried alone or with a small group of other defendants, while others are trying to move their proceedings to federal court. Some are seeking to be tried quickly under a Georgia court rule that would have their trials start by early November, while others are already asking the court to extend deadlines.Due to “the complexity, breadth, and volume of the 98-page indictment”, Giuliani asked the judge in Friday’s filing to give him at least 30 days after he receives information about witnesses and evidence from prosecutors to file motions. Normally, pretrial motions are to be filed within 10 days after arraignment.Also Friday, Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, appointed a three-person panel to consider whether Shawn Still should be suspended from his state senate post while his prosecution is ongoing. Under Georgia law, Kemp is supposed to appoint such a panel within 14 days of receiving a copy of the indictment. The panel, in turn, has 14 days to make a written recommendation to Kemp. The Republican governor named Chris Carr, the attorney general, as required by the law, as well as Republican state senate majority leader Steve Gooch and Republican state house majority leader Chuck Efstration.Still is a swimming pool contractor and former state Republican party finance chair. He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state, declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Still was one of only three members of that group who was indicted.Still was elected to the Georgia state senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. It’s unclear whether the panel will find grounds to suspend Still, because the constitution specifies that officials should be suspended when a felony indictment “relates to the performance or activities of the office”. The three-person commission can have a hearing for Still including lawyers. More

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

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

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      Donald Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election racketeering case

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      Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired and engaged in racketeering activity to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, according to a court filing submitted by his lawyer in superior court in Atlanta.The former president also attested in the filing that he would waive his arraignment – the formal reading of the indictment handed up by a jury this month – meaning he will not need to appear for that proceeding next week.“As evidenced by my signature below,” said the two-page-filing submitted in Fulton county superior court by Trump’s lead lawyer, Steven Sadow, “I do hereby waive formal arraignment and enter my plea of NOT GUILTY to the Indictment in this case.”Trump’s Sharpie-written signature marks the fourth time in as many months that he has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, after previously being indicted in a hush-money case in New York, in a classified documents case in Florida, and in a federal 2020 election subversion case in Washington.But it was no less momentous given the seriousness of the allegations in the sprawling 41-count Fulton county indictment, which alleges Trump and 18 co-defendants violated Georgia’s state Rico statute in pursuing a multi-pronged effort to undermine the results of a fair election.The conclusion of the plea and arraignment process starts the pre-trial phase of the case. No trial date has yet been set for Trump, though the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, asked to try all 19 defendants together starting on 23 October after two ex-Trump lawyers sought a speedy trial.On Thursday, lawyers for Donald Trump moved to sever his case from two defendants who have asked for their own trials to be speeded up.“We’re in a huge state of flux right now,” attorney Bob Rubin told Georgia’s WABE. “The case involving these 19 defendants seems to be going in a lot of different directions all at the same time.”Trump’s lawyers have also been weighing whether to seek to have the case moved to federal court, according to two people familiar with the matter, and are expected to make a decision based on whether Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his effort.To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level.The reasons to seek removal to federal court are seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.Regardless of the final trial venue and jurisdiction, Trump’s overarching legal strategy has been to delay. Even with the Georgia case, if Trump were to win re-election, he could theoretically have the case frozen while he assumes the presidency, legal experts have said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast week, Trump surrendered at the Fulton county jail, where he was processed as any other criminal defendant. He had his fingerprints taken, his height and weight recorded, and submitted himself to a mugshot that the Guardian previously reported he had desperately sought to avoid.The booking came during the primetime viewing hours for the cable news networks, a time slot that Trump is said to have insisted his lawyers negotiate with prosecutors in an apparent effort to discredit the charges and distract from the indignity of the surrender.The strategy to turn the surrender into a made-for-television circus has been an effort to discredit the indictments, a person familiar with the matter said, as well as to capitalize on the information void left by prosecutors after the events to foist his own spin on the charges.And in a sign of the deeply interwoven nature of the Trump 2024 campaign and the legal team, his top political advisers at the very least explored whether Trump should appear for the arraignment and hold a press conference afterwards for “optics” reasons, the person said.The bond for Trump was agreed at $200,000, the highest amount of any of his co-defendants, including his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who turned himself in for booking a day earlier after his bond was set at $150,000 after being charged with principally the same counts. More

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      What is Trump charged with in Georgia and what is the case about?

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      Donald Trump has been criminally charged by the Fulton county district attorney for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.Prosecutors brought numerous counts against Trump and his associates, including forgery and racketeering, and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office, among other charges. Prosecutors charged 18 other people, including Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, and the lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.The charges mark the second time Trump has been indicted in connection to his push to overturn the will of American voters after losing to Joe Biden in 2020.Unlike the federal charges filed by Jack Smith, the special counsel for the justice department, the Fulton county case will proceed in state court. That means that Trump would have less capacity to interfere with the case if he is elected president next year, and he could not pardon himself. Trump is essentially accused of leading an organized crime racket in Georgia via the varied efforts of a web of people collectively to achieve the overturning of his election loss there.In the indictment by the state of Georgia, the state wrote: “Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity.”The group, the state charges, “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury”.Trump waived his right to appear in court for a formal arraignment on the charges, pleading not guilty on 31 August.What is this case about?Donald Trump lost Georgia to Joe Biden in the November 2020 presidential election. After the election, Trump and his allies made an aggressive but unsuccessful push to invalidate the election results in Georgia as part of an effort to overturn his defeat nationally.On 2 January 2021, Trump called Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who serves as Georgia’s top election official, and asked him to overturn the election. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” Trump said to Raffensperger on the call. Raffensperger refused.The call came as Trump and his allies, including Rudy Giuliani, were spreading outlandish lies about the election in Georgia in order to seed doubt about the results. Most notably, Giuliani and others amplified misleading surveillance video from State Farm Arena they claimed showed election workers taking ballots out from under a table and counting them after observers left for the evening. The claim was false – counting had not stopped for the evening when the ballots were tallied.Just as he did in other swing states, Trump convened a slate of fake electors in Georgia. The group of 16 people met discreetly in the Georgia capitol in December 2020 and signed a certificate affirming Trump’s purported victory that was sent to the National Archives. Some involved in the scheme have said they merely believed they were preserving Trump’s options amid pending litigation. The alternate slate of electors, both in Georgia and elsewhere, would later become a linchpin of Trump’s effort to overturn the election.One of those fake electors, Cathy Latham, also was involved in a separate incident in which Trump allies obtained unauthorized access to Dominion voting equipment. On 7 January 2021, Latham helped a firm hired by the Trump campaign get access to voting equipment in Coffee county, a rural county 200 miles south-east of Atlanta. The data was uploaded to a password-protected site, where other election deniers could download it as they sought to prove the baseless allegation that Dominion voting machines had been rigged and cost Trump the election.Why is this case taking place in Fulton county?Nearly all of the key events connected to Trump’s effort to overturn Georgia’s election results took place in Atlanta, the state capital, which is in Fulton county.Raffensperger was in Atlanta when he received the phone call from Trump urging him to overturn the election results. Trump and Giuliani targeted election workers in Atlanta and the fake electors convened at the state capitol in the city in December 2020.What is the Georgia Rico Act?Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act essentially allows prosecutors to link together different crimes committed by different people and bring criminal charges against a larger criminal enterprise. The law requires prosecutors to show the existence of a criminal enterprise that has committed at least two underlying crimes.Prosecutors have long used the federal Rico Act to go after the mafia. But Georgia’s version is even more expansive than the federal statute. It allows prosecutors in the state to bring racketeering charges if a defendant attempts or solicits a crime, even if they don’t bring charges for those crimes themselves.How is this case different from other criminal cases pending against Trump?This is the second case that has sought any kind of criminal accountability for Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. It is the fourth time the former president has been charged with a crime this year.Earlier in August, Smith filed four federal charges against Trump for trying to overturn the election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges, and Smith has moved to set a trial date for 2 January. If Trump were elected president while the case was still pending, he would almost certainly move to fire Smith and get rid of the charges. He could also theoretically pardon himself if he has been convicted. The Georgia case is different because Trump cannot interfere in it, even if he is president, and cannot issue a pardon.In June, Smith charged Trump with illegally retaining national defense information under the Espionage Act and obstructing the government’s attempt to retrieve the documents. Trump pleaded not guilty.In March, Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan. Those charges are connected to a $130,000 payment he made to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, with whom he is alleged to have had an extramarital affair. Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney at the time, paid the money to Daniels through a shell company and Trump reimbursed him, cataloguing it as a legal expense. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said that amounted to falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.Can Trump still run for president?Yes. The US constitution does not prohibit anyone charged with a crime, nor anyone convicted of one, from holding office.The 14th amendment, however, does bar anyone who has taken an oath to protect the United States and engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office. Relying on that provision, a slew of separate civil lawsuits in state courts are expected in the near future to try to bar Trump from holding office.Who is Fani Willis, the prosecutor bringing the charges in Fulton county?Willis, a Democrat, was elected Fulton county district attorney in 2020. She is the first Black woman to hold the office.She worked as the prosecutor in the Fulton county district attorney’s office from 2001 to 2018 and is no stranger to high-profile cases. In 2014, she led the prosecution against a dozen Atlanta educators who conspired to cheat on test scores in order to win funding. She is also prosecuting the rapper Young Thug as part of a broader indictment of the YSL gang. Willis relied on the Georgia Rico Act in both cases.How did the charges come about?In January of 2022, Willis requested that a Fulton county judge approve a special purpose grand jury to assist her investigation into Trump. A special purpose grand jury can issue subpoenas, hear testimony and ultimately issue a report recommending whether or not to charge someone. It cannot issue an indictment.A regular grand jury was convened in late July and ultimately voted to file criminal charges against Trump.Cast of charactersIn addition to Trump, Fani Willis has filed charges of violating the Georgia Rico Act and a variety of other laws against 18 co-defendants:Mark Meadows, former chief of staff heavily involved in efforts to keep Trump in office; Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to Trump who played a key role in national efforts to overturn the 2020 election results; John Eastman, an attorney to Trump and key to efforts to overturn the 2020 election result; Kenneth Chesebro, a legal adviser to the 2020 election campaign involved in the Georgia fake electors scheme; Jeffrey Clark, former justice department lawyer who became involved in efforts to overturn the Georgia result; Sidney Powell, a lawyer for Trump heavily involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 result; Jenna Ellis, an election campaign lawyer; Ray Smith, a Georgia lawyer implicated in the fake electors scheme; Robert Cheeley, a Georgia lawyer implicated in efforts to falsely show election fraud; Michael Roman, former aide in the Trump White House implicated in the fake electors scheme; David Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican party who signed the fake official certificate to send to Congress declaring Trump won the state; Shawn Still, a senior Georgia Republican and state senator who also signed the fake certificate; Stephen Cliffgard Lee, a pastor accused of bullying election workers over fake fraud claims; Harrison William Prescott Floyd, director of Black Voices for Trump, accused of influencing witnesses; Trevian Kutti, a publicist accused of pressuring election workers; Cathy Latham, who as chair of Georgia’s Coffee county Republican party signed the false certificate claiming Trump won the state; Scott Hall, a bondsman accused with others of breaching voting machines in Georgia; Misty Hampton, accused of involvement in breaching voting machines while serving as Coffee county elections director. 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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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      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