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      Trump’s latest indictment leads to fears of rise in calls for violence – live

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      After news broke on Monday night of Donald Trump’s indictment in Fulton county, Georgia, attention quickly turned to the possible spectacle of a trial unfolding on television as a former president attempts to rebut charges of racketeering and conspiracy over his efforts to overturn the results of an election.But before the district attorney Fani Willis can have the opportunity to make her case against Trump with the cameras rolling, she must first clear a key procedural hurdle to keep the case in Fulton county.Trump’s legal team is expected to rely on a little known legal statute to argue the case should be moved to federal court, and that jurisdictional question could delay a trial for months. The stakes of that procedural fight will be high, as a conviction in Fulton county would leave Trump facing years of prison time with no clear pathway to a pardon.Read the full story here.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dismissed the suggestion that she is running in the 2024 GOP presidential race in order to become the vice president.In an interview with Politico, Haley said:
      I think everybody that says, ‘She’s doing this to be vice president,’ needs to understand I don’t run for second.
      That’s something that I hear all the time, and I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it.
      Donald Trump’s legal advisers have urged the former president not to hold a press conference next week in response to his latest indictment, according to an ABC report. Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that he would present a “report” to refute the allegations in the indictment handed up by the Fulton country district attorney’s office from his home in Bedminster, New Jersey.But the press conference, originally scheduled for 11am Monday, is now very much in doubt, multiple sources told ABC.
      Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.
      The names, photographs and home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the Fulton county grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and 18 of his co-defendants this week are circulating on social media.The grand jurors’ purported addresses were posted on a fringe website that often features violent rhetoric, NBC reported on Wednesday.The indictment issued on Monday includes the names of all the grand jurors who served on the 26-member panel in Fulton county, but not their addresses or other personal information.Websites where the purported photographs, social media profiles and home addresses of the grand jurors included pro-Trump forums and sites that have previously been linked to violent extremist attacks, according to a CNN report. In some cases, users have posted social media profiles of different people who have the same name as some of the grand jurors, while some addresses appear to be wrong, the report said.The rightwing extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has not made up her mind about running for Senate in Georgia – in part because she hopes to be Donald Trump’s vice-president.“I haven’t made up my mind whether I will do that or not,” Greene told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about a rumoured challenge to the current governor, Brian Kemp, in a Georgia Senate primary in 2026.
      I have a lot of things to think about. Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?
      Despite a string of controversies over voicing conspiracy theories, aggressive behaviour towards Democrats and progressives and recent squabbling with her fellow House extremist Lauren Boebert, and despite being “kicked out” of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, Greene remains influential in Republican ranks, close to the speaker, Kevin McCarthy.She told the AJC she would consider it an “honour” to be picked as Trump’s running mate to take on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris next year. She would consider such an offer “very, very heavily”, she said.Trump has encouraged Greene to harbour higher ambitions, saying in March he would “fight like hell” for her if she ran for Senate.Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, has personally appealed to the former president to pay his ballooning legal bills, according to a CNN report. The former New York mayor traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in late April, along with his lawyer Robert Costello, where they had two meetings with Trump to discuss Giuliani’s seven-figure legal fees, the report said, citing a source.Giuliani and Costello made several pitches about how paying Giuliani’s bills was ultimately in Trump’s best interest, but the former president did not seem interested, the source said.The source said Trump verbally agreed to help with some of Giuliani’s bills but did not commit to any specific amount or timeline. He also agreed to attend two fundraisers for Giuliani, a separate source said.Giuliani is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits related to his work for Trump after the 2020 election.Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges against Donald Trump in the 2020 Georgia election subversion case were made public on Monday night.The former president’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms including Gab and Patriots.win. Several Gab posts reproduced images of nooses and gallows and called for Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and grand jurors who delivered the charges to be hanged. And posts on Patriots.win combined the wordplay with direct calls to violence.Earlier this month, Willis wrote to Fulton county commissioners and judges to warn them to stay vigilant in the face of rising tensions ahead of the release of the indictment. She told them that she and her staff had been receiving racist threats and voicemails since she began her investigation into Trump’s attempt to subvert the election two years ago.
      I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe.
      As Willis’s investigation approached its climax, Trump intensified his personal attacks on her through social media. He has accused her of prosecutorial misconduct and even of being racist herself.Willis, who on Wednesday said she wants to take the case to trial in March 2024, has rebuffed Trump’s claims as “derogatory and false”.Trump has also unleashed a barrage of vitriol against Jack Smith, the special counsel who earlier this month brought four federal charges against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has referred to the prosecutor, who is white, as “Deranged Jack Smith”.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word.Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social calling for all charges to be dropped and predicting he would be exonerated. He did not mention Willis by name, but accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets.“They never went after those that Rigged the Election,” Trump wrote.
      They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!
      Willis is African American. So too are the two New York-based prosecutors who have investigated Trump, the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg who indicted him in April over alleged hush-money payments, and Letitia James, the state attorney general who is investigating Trump’s financial records.Trump’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms including Gab and Patriots.win. The sites hosted hundreds of posts featuring “riggers” in their headlines in a disparaging context.The word has also been attached to numerous social media posts to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. The two Black poll workers from Atlanta were falsely accused by some of the 19 defendants in the Fulton county case of committing election fraud during the 2020 vote count, and the indictment accuses Trump allies of harassing them.US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion case, warned the former president last week to refrain from making statements that could intimidate witnesses or prejudice potential jurors.Just a day before Abigail Jo Shry allegedly left a voicemail message threatening to kill Chutkan, Trump had posted on his social media platform, Truth Social: writing “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”Trump has specifically posted about Chutkan since she was randomly assigned to oversee his 2020 election case. On Monday, the former president said she “obviously wants me behind bars” and described her as “very biased and unfair”.Chutkan has reportedly been assigned extra security by the US marshals service in recent weeks, and CNN reported observing more security detailed to the judge around the Washington DC federal courthouse.A Texas woman was arrested on charges that she threatened to kill US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the prosecution of former president Donald Trump on allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election.Abigail Jo Shry, 43, of Alvin, Texas, called the federal courthouse in Washington DC on 5 August and left the threatening voicemail message, using a racist slur, according to court documents.In the call, Shry told the judge: “You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” according to the documents. Prosecutors allege Shry also said: “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”Investigators traced the phone number and Shry later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.Shry is charged with Transmission in Interstate or Foreign Commerce of any Communication Containing a Threat to Injure the Person of Another. She is being held in detention pending trial, according to court documents, and a bond hearing has been set for 13 September.Good morning, US politics blog readers. A Texas woman has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge presiding over former president Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington DC over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.Abigail Jo Shry, 43, left a voicemail at US district judge Tanya Chutkan’s chambers on 5 August in which she used a racial slur and threatened her, saying “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, bitch”, according to a court document. She also allegedly threatened to kill “all democrats in Washington DC and all people in the LGBTQ community”, according to the court filing.On the day before the threatening phone call, Trump had posted on his social media platform, Truth Social: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” The former president has intensified attacks against those individuals involved in the many indictment against him, including Chutkan and Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who is prosecuting him over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word. Trump’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms, and Willis – who is African American – has faced a flurry of racist online abuse.Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges were made public on Monday night. The purported names and addresses of members of the Georgia grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 of his allies were posted on a fringe website that often features violent rhetoric, NBC News reported.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      10am Eastern time: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
      11.25am: Biden will leave for Andrews, where he will fly to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Airport.
      12.35pm: Biden will travel to Avoca, Pennsylvania, where he will pay respects to the state’s former first lady Ellen Casey in advance of a viewing.
      2.10pm: Biden will fly to Hagerstown, Maryland, for Camp David.
      The House and Senate are out. More

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      in US Politics

      Marjorie Taylor Greene floats Senate run but hopes to be Trump’s vice-president

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      The rightwing extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has not made up her mind about running for Senate in Georgia – in part because she hopes to be Donald Trump’s vice-president.“I haven’t made up my mind whether I will do that or not,” Greene told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about a rumoured challenge to the current governor, Brian Kemp, in a Georgia Senate primary in 2026.“I have a lot of things to think about. Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?”Trump faces 91 criminal charges – 13 of them in Georgia, over attempted election subversion – but nonetheless dominates polling for the Republican presidential nomination, nationally and in key states.Despite a string of controversies over voicing conspiracy theories, aggressive behaviour towards Democrats and progressives and recent squabbling with her fellow House extremist Lauren Boebert, and despite being “kicked out” of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, Greene remains influential in Republican ranks, close to the speaker, Kevin McCarthy.She told the AJC she would consider it an “honour” to be picked as Trump’s running mate to take on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris next year.She would consider such an offer “very, very heavily”, she said.Trump has encouraged Greene to harbour higher ambitions, saying in March he would “fight like hell” for her if she ran for Senate.Kemp is reported to be considering a run for Senate in 2026. On Wednesday, Greene rebuked Kemp for his own rebuke of Trump.Earlier this week, Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on charges including racketeering and conspiracy, regarding the attempt to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn response, Kemp said: “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law.”Greene told the AJC: “His message should have been against this, not arguing with President Trump about the election and making it about his own ego and pride over Georgia’s election. That’s a bad statement, and I was very upset over it.”Trump did not immediately comment about Greene’s wish to be vice-president. More

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      in US Politics

      Why is Trump desperate to move the Georgia trial to federal court?

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      After news broke on Monday night of Donald Trump’s indictment in Fulton county, Georgia, attention quickly turned to the possible spectacle of a trial unfolding on television as a former president attempts to rebut charges of racketeering and conspiracy over his efforts to overturn the results of an election.But before the district attorney Fani Willis can have the opportunity to make her case against Trump with the cameras rolling, she must first clear a key procedural hurdle to keep the case in Fulton county. Trump’s legal team is expected to rely on a little known legal statute to argue the case should be moved to federal court, and that jurisdictional question could delay a trial for months. The stakes of that procedural fight will be high, as a conviction in Fulton county would leave Trump facing years of prison time with no clear pathway to a pardon.Fulton county is already bracing for a media frenzy when Trump’s case goes to trial, which could happen in March 2024 if Willis gets her way. A Georgia trial could provide Americans with their sole opportunity to see one of the criminal cases against Trump play out in real time, as state law generally requires cameras to be permitted inside courtrooms to cover judicial proceedings. That policy would be a stark contrast to rules for federal courtrooms – unless Trump succeeds at moving the case by invoking the federal officer removal statute.The statute allows a federal official to have a state case moved to federal court if the matter of concern is “for or relating to any act under color of such office”. Trump’s legal team is expected to argue that, as he attempted to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, he was acting in his official capacity as president, and thus the case is a federal issue. Some of Trump’s 18 codefendants in the Fulton case may attempt to make the same argument, as the statute also covers “any person acting under” a federal officer. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, filed a motion on Tuesday to have his case moved to federal court based on this legal doctrine.A federal judge will be called upon to determine whether Trump’s case will remain in state court. If a judge rules in Trump’s favor, the case would move out of Fulton county, killing the possibility of a televised trial and significantly altering the legal stakes for the former president.“This jurisdictional issue is the key to this case right now,” said Eric Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “Talking about anything other than the federal removal statute is putting the cart before the horse.”If Trump’s motion is successful, the case could continue in federal court, but Segall warned that such a ruling might ultimately result in a dismissal of the charges.“He may get immunity in federal court … States aren’t allowed to arrest federal officers for performing federal duties,” Segall said. “The issue is not, did he do the acts? The issue is, is it part of his official conduct? And if it is, charges could get dropped.”But there is warranted skepticism that Trump’s efforts to remove the case will prove successful. Trump’s lawyers attempted to make a similar argument in New York, where he is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records over his alleged role in a hush-money scheme to silence an adult film star who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the former president. The federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the argument, ruling that Trump’s alleged misdeeds did not qualify as acts under color of his office as president.“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President – a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” Hellerstein wrote in his ruling. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.”Of course, the New York and Georgia cases differ significantly in terms of their substance, which will affect Trump’s chances of success in Fulton county. Trump could theoretically make a stronger argument that questions of election administration fall under the umbrella of his presidential duties, a more far-fetched claim when it comes to his involvement in a hush-money scheme. But Willis will likely rebut that Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of a free and fair election, after he had already lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the results, do not qualify as official presidential duties.Ronald Carlson, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, predicted a federal judge would soon issue a ruling keeping the Fulton county case in state court.“Removal of cases from state court to federal court is something that is a more typical process in the civil arena. The rules of civil procedure do allow that with much more liberality than in the criminal arena,” Carlson said. “So in criminal cases, the presumption is that, if it’s a Georgia charge, it’ll be tried in a Georgia court.”Even if the case does stay in state court, legal wrangling over state versus federal jurisdiction could theoretically stretch on for months, jeopardizing Willis’s preference for a quicker trial date.“Whichever way the federal judge rules on the removal question, it will be appealed and then appealed again,” Segall said. “That could take a really long time. That’s why six months is not reasonable.”Much will be riding on Trump’s ability to remove the case to federal court. The racketeering charge filed against Trump carries a sentence of five to 20 years in prison. If Trump were convicted in Georgia, he could not pardoned by a sympathetic president because the charges were filed at the state level. In Georgia, the governor does not even have the power to issue pardons, as that duty lies with the state’s board of pardons and paroles. According to Carlson, Trump could not even apply for a pardon until he has been convicted and served five years in a Georgia prison.“The stakes for the Trump team are really high in Georgia, so I expect a full-fledged defense by President Trump,” Carlson said. “Probably a lot of that will verge on political bias.”Trump has already offered a preview of that politically driven strategy. In a statement issued Monday night, Trump’s presidential campaign attacked Willis as a “radical Democrat” and “rabid partisan”. Despite those personal attacks, Willis appeared undaunted as she spoke to reporters on Monday night, shortly after the indictment was unsealed.“All elections in our nation are administered by the states, which are given the responsibility of ensuring a fair process and an accurate counting of the votes,” Willis said. “The state’s role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy.”Although Segall believes Trump may succeed at removing the case to federal court, he expressed hope that a group of Georgians will eventually have the opportunity to issue a verdict on the former president’s election subversion efforts.“I’m talking as a citizen more than as a law professor, but I think Donald Trump is an existential threat to our country,” Segall said. “And I think a Georgia jury should decide if he broke the law in Georgia.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump is undermining the entire US judicial system with another big lie | Robert Reich

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      Not content with trying to destroy America’s trust in the US election system with his big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, Donald Trump is now trying to destroy America’s trust in the US judicial system with another big lie.The second big lie is that judges, prosecutors, witnesses and juries are corruptly prosecuting Trump as a means of keeping him from being re-elected.Late on Monday, following a two-and-a-half-year investigation by the Fulton county, Georgia, district attorney, Fani Willis, a grand jury there charged the former president and 18 others with criminally seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia.This fourth indictment marks another step in the US’s slow but steady process of criminal justice. It is another illustration that no one is above the law.Willis and her staff deserve the nation’s thanks, as do special counsel Jack Smith and his staff at the justice department, who have brought evidence to other grand juries of Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election nationwide and to steal secret documents.None of this is easy work under the best of circumstances. With a rogue former president fanning the flames of anger and recrimination, the work is also potentially dangerous.Trump has called Willis “corrupt”, and worse. He has called Smith “deranged”, among many other epithets and baseless charges. He has leveled similar charges against judges who have already been assigned to hear the cases against him.We know all too well of the violent proclivities of a subset of Trump supporters. His wild statements endanger people. Willis and her staff have already been threatened, as has Smith, and potential witnesses.On Monday morning, for example, before the Georgia grand jury even met, Trump posted that he “had been reading reports” that former Georgia lieutenant governor Jeff Duncan would be testifying before the grand jury.Trump then charged that Duncan “was, right from the beginning of this Witch Hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the Election Fraud that took place in Georgia. He refused having a Special Session to find out what went on … and fought the TRUTH all the way.”Was Duncan intimidated by Trump’s post when he testified on Monday? Did he alter or downplay his testimony out of fear of retribution by a Trump supporter?We may never know. But the mere possibility of intimidation is itself troubling.Trump’s conditions of release at his arraignment in Washington earlier this month included a vow – which Trump swore to uphold – that he would not intimidate or harass witnesses and officers of the court or threaten the administration of justice.Yet Trump has not ceased posting inflammatory invective against potential witnesses, against potential jurors in Washington DC, New York and Georgia, against judges who have been assigned to hear the cases against him, and against Willis, Smith and other prosecutors.The possibility that his threats might silence potential witnesses, or that his rants might intimidate jurors, prosecutors and judges, cannot be dismissed. It is incumbent on the courts to stop Trump, even if it requires revoking his release from jail pending his trials.Trump’s invective is also having a more insidious effect. By casting the criminal justice system as corrupt and partisan – as part of a conspiracy to prevent him from being re-elected – Trump is undermining public trust in that system.Republican members of Congress have joined Trump in charging that Democrats have “weaponized” the prosecutions against him, even though those prosecutions come through grand juries composed of average citizens.More than half of Republicans – including 77% of self-identified Maga Republicans – say the indictments and investigations against Trump are an attack on people like them, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll taken soon after the most recent indictment.“I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU,” Trump posted in all caps on 3 August, the day of his indictment in Washington for seeking to overthrow the 2020 election.“I’m being indicted for you,” Trump said in June, after being charged with retaining government secrets.A century ago, the world witnessed fascist leaders who sought to fuse their identities with their followers while sowing distrust in all other institutions, so that followers lost their capacities for independent thought and accepted whatever the leaders said as truth.If a substantial portion of the American public comes to believe that the judges, juries and prosecutors seeking to hold Trump accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election are part of the same trumped-up plot to keep him from becoming president, the US’s 244-year experiment in self-government is seriously jeopardized.Trump’s second big lie is almost as dangerous to the future of American democracy, and to the rest of the world that looks to the US for leadership, as was his first.The second big lie should be understood as an extension of Trump’s attempted coup.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      in US Politics

      Giuliani championed organised crime act Rico. Now he’s charged under it

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      Rudy Giuliani has dined out for years on his aggressive use of Rico, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which he wielded with dramatic effect against New York mobsters in the 1980s.For his pains, he was granted an award by the Italian government. Later, as New York City mayor, he turned his use of the anti-racketeering law into a vote-getter, presenting himself as the hero of Rico.As an in-joke, he handed the keys of the city to the cast of the Sopranos. Then he went on Saturday Night Live and bragged about “sticking it to organised crime”.He may not be laughing so loudly now.On Monday night Giuliani, Donald Trump and 17 other co-defendants were slapped with organised crime charges in Georgia under the state’s Rico law, for allegedly having been part of a vast conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The hero of Rico had been hoist with his own petard.The grand jury indictment charges all of the 19 co-defendants, Giuliani included, with “racketeering activity” in Georgia and other states. It alleges that they acted together as a “criminal organisation” which engaged in illegal activities including forgery, filing false documents and conspiracy to defraud the state.The irony that Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county who is leading the prosecution, chose to hit the hero of Rico with a Rico rap has not been lost on Giuliani watchers. Appointed as US attorney for the southern district of New York in 1983, he did not so much invent the anti-racketeering law, which was enacted in 1970, as become an early adopter in its use against organised crime.His most famous case, the 1986 prosecution known as the “commission” case, targeted eight defendants at the very top of one of the most powerful New York mafia families. “The verdict reached today has resulted in dismantling the ruling council of La Cosa Nostra,” Giuliani said after the convictions were secured in a 10-week trial.His victory demonstrated the huge potential of Rico as a prosecutorial tool against crime gangs. Instead of the traditional approach of picking out individual foot soldiers, one arduous case at a time, Rico allowed prosecutors to take out the entire upper leadership of the criminal enterprise in a single devastating blow.Giuliani may well be ruing his much-vaunted success. The “commission” case put Rico on the map, and since 1986 it has spread widely at both a federal level and across state jurisdictions – Georgia included.The Fulton county indictment makes a specific point of highlighting aspects of Giuliani’s behavior in the thick of the 2020 election that it alleges amounted to racketeering. It recounts some of the more lurid lies that he disseminated in front of the Georgia lawmakers in an attempt to persuade them to subvert Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the state.The falsehoods included his claim that 10,315 dead people had voted in the presidential election; that fraudulent ballots had been counted five times in a counting center; and that two poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, had passed around USB ports “as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine” seeking to infiltrate the voting machines.In July, Giuliani admitted in court that his comments about Freeman and Moss were false. Moss testified to the January 6 committee that the supposed USB ports she had exchanged with her mother were in fact ginger mints.The indictment presents all these incidents not just as lies, but as the actions of a member of a criminal racketeering enterprise, designed to further the conspiracy and achieve its goal of keeping Trump in the White House despite his electoral defeat. That Giuliani should have exposed himself to a Rico prosecution in this way is puzzling to those who have followed his legal career.“Of all the defendants, Giuliani knows Rico better than anyone, he lived with it for decades,” said Michael Discioarro, a former prosecutor in the Bronx. “Rudy knows darn well where the line is drawn, and it’s surprising to me that he even put himself in that position.” More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s Indictment Has Georgia Republicans Fearing Replay of 2020

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      State officials who rejected Donald Trump’s calls to subvert the election results say the party must move on from 2020 in order to defeat President Biden in 2024.Georgia Republicans say they know a winning message for 2024: Under President Biden, voters are struggling with inflation, gas prices are on the rise and undocumented migrants are streaming across the southern border.But they fear Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, won’t be able to stay on message.Mr. Trump’s obsession with the 2020 election, now heightened by two criminal cases over his efforts to steal it, threatens to reopen wounds in the state’s G.O.P. that have bedeviled it in the two and a half years since he pushed to overturn Mr. Biden’s narrow victory there. If Mr. Trump is the nominee, it’s unlikely he would contain his vitriol toward the officials who defied him to certify the 2020 election results, including the state’s popular governor — making for potential competing visions.“I don’t think he’ll let us” unite, said Jack Kingston, a former House Republican from Georgia and a Trump ally. “His nature isn’t to sit down and say nice things, even about Brian Kemp, one of the most successful governors in the country.”Like many Republicans, Mr. Kingston believes that Mr. Trump’s false claims that the election in Georgia was rigged cost the G.O.P. two Senate seats in runoffs in January 2021. Democrats flocked to the polls to secure victories for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, while many Republican voters appeared to heed the former president’s warnings that the state’s election system was “rigged” and stayed home.Mr. Trump’s false claims will now most likely be on trial in the state — and in its most populous county, Fulton — as the presidential election heats up. The 41-count indictment is the most sweeping of the four criminal cases that Mr. Trump faces, stretching from the Oval Office to the Georgia secretary of state’s office to the elections office in tiny Coffee County, where Trump allies successfully copied sensitive software.Early voters casting their ballots for the 2020 election in Suwanee, Ga.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesRepublicans in Georgia “have always had fissures,” said Rusty Paul, the Republican mayor of Sandy Springs, a rapidly growing Fulton County suburb abutting the capital city, Atlanta, to the north. Voters in North Georgia and other rural stretches tend to be staunchly conservative. Voters in the populous suburbs of Atlanta were once reliably Republican, but more moderate. Low-country Republicans in Savannah are still another breed.But the most difficult disconnect at the moment is the pro-Trump leadership of the Georgia Republican Party, versus the voters who soundly rejected the primary candidates handpicked by Mr. Trump in 2022. Those Trump-backed candidates challenged state officials, including Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who refused to go along with Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In a runoff election, a small but critical slice of Georgia Republicans cast ballots for Mr. Warnock or stayed home altogether, helping the Democrat win a full six-year term against Mr. Trump’s chosen U.S. Senate candidate, the retired football star Herschel Walker.Senior Republicans in the state believe the eventual presidential nominee will secure the support of the hard-core Republican base. They’re more concerned about the Republican voters who backed both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Warnock — and who recoil at the party leadership’s ardently pro-Trump stance.“That disconnect between the Republican leadership and the rank-and-file voters creates organizational problems,” Mr. Paul said, adding, “How do you get voters fired up and ready to go when they disagree with you?”The initial response of Georgia’s Republican base to Monday’s indictment, Mr. Trump’s fourth, is likely to mirror the national Republican response: rally around the candidate. But over time, Mr. Paul predicted, that could change, suggesting that “there’s beginning to be some fatigue with President Trump.”Mr. Kemp refuted stolen election claims that Mr. Trump made on Truth Social on Tuesday, saying that elections in Georgia are “secure, accessible and fair.”“The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus,” he wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.Mr. Raffensperger also weighed in: “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution,” he said in a statement. “You either have it or you don’t.”Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia has become a target of the former president’s wrath after failing to back his false election claims and refusing to aid in the effort to overturn the vote.Alex Slitz/Associated PressMr. Kemp has committed to supporting the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 regardless of who it is. But he has kept his distance from the party’s far-right factions. Neither he nor Mr. Raffensperger attended the state party convention in June — an event that once served as a conservative confab peppered with unflashy business meetings but has now become beholden, in the eyes of some state conservatives, to culture wars and election denialism.Georgia, with its 16 electoral college votes and genial suburban Republicans, has never been terribly friendly to Mr. Trump’s brand of pugilistic politics. Mr. Trump’s 50.8 percent in 2016 was down from Mitt Romney’s 53.3 percent in 2012 and George W. Bush’s 58 percent in 2004. The trend continued in 2020 when Mr. Trump slipped below 50 percent and lost to Mr. Biden by 11,779 votes.Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s Republican former lieutenant governor and a fierce Trump critic, emerged from grand jury testimony on Monday and said, “We’re either as Republicans going to take our medicine and realize the election wasn’t rigged” or lose again.“Donald Trump was the worst candidate ever in the history of the party, even worse than Herschel Walker, and now we’re going to have to pivot,” he said. “We want to win an election in 2024. It’s going to have to be someone other than Donald Trump.”That entreaty contrasted with the conclusion of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican and Trump ally who represents Northwest Georgia. “Corrupt Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis’ ‘investigation’ (WITCH HUNT) of President Trump dragged on for over two and a half years, just in time to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election,” she wrote on X. “That’s not a coincidence. That’s election interference.”Mr. Biden’s allies suggest that Mr. Trump’s ongoing crusade against Georgia Republicans could help Democrats keep the state in 2024.“Donald Trump is the one candidate around which Democrats can rally and will turn out to vote against him,” said Fred Hicks, an Atlanta-based Democratic political strategist. “This is a real crisis moment for Republicans who care about electability.”Joshua McKoon, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, said he thought the indictment would drive Republican voters in the state to unite around what they see as the politically motivated targeting of not only the former president but several state figures, including a sitting state senator and the former chairman of the state party. But, he added that same development could have a chilling effect on efforts to recruit and organize state activists.“I think the intent of this kind of activity is to discourage people from being involved,” Mr. McKoon said. “It’s sort of like sending a message, ‘you better be careful about how active you are in the party or you may find yourself criminally indicted.’”Mr. Trump, should he be the Republican nominee, would almost certainly maintain his conservative base of support through next year. But for any G.O.P. candidate to succeed in 2024, he or she would need to woo Georgia’s moderate and swing voters — the same small group whose distaste for Mr. Trump in 2020 helped Mr. Biden to victory, and who elected both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Warnock in 2022.Cole Muzio, president of the Georgia-based conservative group Frontline Policy Council, called Mr. Trump’s standing in the state “very dubious at best,” should he win the Republican nomination. For the G.O.P. to carry the state in the next presidential election, he added, “it can’t be about 2020.”“Good grief, we can’t keep re-litigating 2020 because if we do, we will lose the most consequential election in my life,” he said. More

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      Trump prosecutor Fani Willis faces racist abuse after indicting ex-US president

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      Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word.Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social calling for all charges to be dropped and predicting he would exonerated. He did not mention Willis by name, but accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets.“They never went after those that Rigged the Election,” Trump wrote. “They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”Willis is African American. So too are the two New York-based prosecutors who have investigated Trump, the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg who indicted him in April over alleged hush-money payments, and Letitia James, the state attorney general who is investigating Trump’s financial records.Trump’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms including Gab and Patriots.win. The sites hosted hundreds of posts featuring “riggers” in their headlines in a disparaging context.The word has also been attached to numerous social media posts to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. The two Black poll workers from Atlanta were falsely accused by some of the 19 defendants in the Fulton county case of committing election fraud during the 2020 vote count, and the indictment accuses Trump allies of harassing them.Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges were made public on Monday night. Several Gab posts reproduced images of nooses and gallows and called for Willis and grand jurors who delivered the charges to be hanged. And posts on Patriots.win combined the wordplay with direct calls to violence.Earlier this month, Willis wrote to Fulton county commissioners and judges to warn them to stay vigilant in the face of rising tensions ahead of the release of the indictment. She told them that she and her staff had been receiving racist threats and voicemails since she began her investigation into Trump’s attempt to subvert the election two years ago.“I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe,” she said.As Willis’s investigation approached its climax, Trump intensified his personal attacks on her through social media. He has accused her of prosecutorial misconduct and even of being racist herself.Willis has rebuffed his claims as “derogatory and false”.Trump has also unleashed a barrage of vitriol against Jack Smith, the special counsel who earlier this month brought four federal charges against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has referred to the prosecutor, who is white, as “Deranged Jack Smith”.The judge in the federal case, Tanya Chutkan, has warned him to be careful not to make inflammatory public comments about the proceedings, saying she would “take whatever measures are necessary” to prevent intimidation of witnesses or contamination of the jury pool. More

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      What to know about the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Georgia election investigation

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      The Georgia district attorney Fani Willis delivered an extensive 41-count indictment against former president Donald Trump and 18 others over their plot to subvert the 2020 US presidential election, unsealed late on Monday night. While each defendant faces a different list of charges, all 19 have been charged with racketeering in violation of Georgia’s powerful Rico (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, which carries a sentence of five to 20 years.The racketeering charge also lists 30 “unindicted co-conspirators”, as participants in the “criminal enterprise in Fulton county, Georgia, and elsewhere”.Willis did not charge the 30 unnamed co-conspirators in her investigation, but that doesn’t mean they can never face penalties for their involvement in the election fraud plot to keep Trump in power.Here’s what to know about the 30 unnamed co-conspirators.13 unnamed Georgia Republican electorsDavid Shafer, Cathy Latham and Shawn Still are the three fake electors – out of 16 total – that are named as defendants in Willis’s indictment, charged with racketeering and other felonies. But the other 13 appear to be listed among the unnamed co-conspirators: “Individual 2, Individual 8, Individual 9, Individual 10, Individual 11, Individual 12, Individual 13, Individual 14, Individual 15, Individual 16, Individual 17, Individual 18, and Individual 19.”On 14 December 2020, the 16 Republican electors had met to cast fraudulent votes for Trump by signing a document titled “CERTIFICATE OF THE VOTES OF THE 2020 ELECTORS FROM GEORGIA’’ that declared a Trump victory, falsely claiming that they were the “duly elected and qualified Electors” from the state. They then mailed that document, attempting to file it in a Georgia district court.According to the indictment, the fake electors committed three felony offenses, including: impersonating a public officer, forgery in the first degree, and false statements and writings; and they attempted to commit a fourth felony offense of filing false documents, according to the unsealed indictment.Individual 3: references point to Trump adviser Boris EpshteynReferences to “Individual 3” within Willis’s indictment point to Boris Epshteyn, a political consultant and adviser to Trump, as one of the unindicted co-conspirators who aided the plot to subvert the election.Epshteyn, who is also believed to be one of the six co-conspirators in the federal investigation into Trump’s January 6 involvement by Jack Smith, attended a 19 November 2020 press conference on behalf of the Trump campaign along with Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell where they made false statements of election fraud.Epshteyn was also copied on previously reported emails that detail parts of the fake electors scheme, which the Willis indictment identifies as being received by Individual 3.Individual 4: references point to Robert Sinners, Trump 2020 campaign election day operations officialDavid Shafer sent a previously reported email to Robert Sinners on 20 November 2020, asking him to help Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall “as needed”, which matches a reference involving “Individual 4” from the Willis indictment. Individual 4 was also copied on a number of messages asking for help with the 16 Georgia Republican electors scheme on 14 December 2020, to “avoid drawing attention” and ensure everything went according to plan.From the indictment: “On or about the 20th day of November 2020, DAVID JAMES SHAFER sent an e-mail to unindicted co-conspirator Individual 4, whose identity is known to the Grand Jury, and other individuals. In the e-mail, DAVID JAMES SHAFER stated that SCOTT GRAHAM HALL, a Georgia bail bondsman, “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie” and asked unindicted co-conspirator Individual 4 to exchange contact information with SCOTT GRAHAM HALL and to “help him as needed.” This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”Sinners sent the 14 December 2020 email referenced in the Willis indictment to Michael Roman and others saying: “All votes cast, paperwork complete, being mailed now. Ran pretty smoothly” which was previously presented by the House January 6 select committee.OthersIndividual 1: discussed with Trump on 31 October 2020 a draft speech for a widely televised 4 November 2020 news conference during which Trump falsely declared victory.Individuals 5 and 6: met with a group of Pennsylvania legislators at the White House on 25 November 2020 along with Trump, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis to discuss holding a special session of the Pennsylvania general assembly.They also met with Arizona legislators, along with Giuliani and Ellis, on 30 November 2020 where the two Trump attorneys requested the Arizona legislators to unlawfully appoint Republican electors from their state.Individual 7: ‘Electors Whip Operation’Assisted with the fake electors scheme in six states – Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.This person is probably among a group of individuals associated with the Trump campaign whom Mike Roman enlisted to participate in his “Electors Whip Operation” – who kept track of Trump electors. That team included G Michael Brown, Peter McGinnis, James Fitzpatrick, Shawn Flynn, Jesse Law, Thomas Lane, Valerie Phillips McConahay, Robert Sinners and Ryan Terrill, as revealed by the House January 6 select committee.Individual 20: met with Trump, Giuliani, Powell and others at the White House where they “discussed certain strategies and theories intended to influence the outcome of the November 3, 2020, presidential election, including seizing voting equipment and appointing SIDNEY KATHERINE POWELL as special counsel with broad authority to investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere”. While the individual’s identity is unclear, the 18 December 2020 meeting was infamously “unhinged” as Trump and his allies screamed at White House aides who pushed back against their plan to overturn the election. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, and Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com, were among the Trump allies at that meeting.Individuals 21 and 22: copied on a 21 December 2020 email from Sidney Powell to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler LLC, who instructed him that they were to “receive a copy of all data” obtained by SullivanStrickler LLC from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Michigan.Individual 23: Participated in a four-way phone call with Harrison Floyd, Trevian Kutti and Steve Lee on 5 January 2021.Coffee county, Georgia, voting machine data schemeIndividual 24: traveled with Scott Hall to Coffee county, Georgia on 7 January 2021. That day, Hall, Cathy Latham and Misty Hampton sought to unlawfully access voting machines at the Coffee county board of elections & registration office.Individuals, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29: unlawfully sought to access data from voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, at various points in January and February 2021.Individual 30: involved with the unlawful effort to access voting machine data. More