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      ‘Very alarming’: US airport screenings see a surge in loaded guns

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      ‘Very alarming’: US airport screenings see a surge in loaded gunsYou can’t carry a bottle of water on board the plane, but plenty of people – knowingly and unknowingly – try to carry gunA Connecticut woman was the first of the week, walking her child through security at New York’s JFK airport with a loaded gun in her purse and “one in the chamber”, as officials put it.Over the following days, an X-ray machine detected a 9mm pistol and ammunition in the hand luggage of a passenger in Philadelphia, a .45 caliber handgun and seven bullets in the carry-on bag of a man boarding a plane at New York’s Westchester airport, and a loaded weapon carried through screening in Wisconsin. ‘The kids need help’: how young people want adults to tackle gun violenceRead moreSecurity officers confiscated two firearms in two days at the Columbus, Ohio international airport. Other arrests for guns turned up by searches were made at terminals in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.And that was just a fraction of the 18 guns confiscated every day on average from passengers traversing flight security across the US – a number that has been rising for years and is likely to continue doing so as firearms sales rise and more states make it easier to carry concealed weapons – even in airports.Two decades after 9/11, thousands of passengers who are otherwise conditioned to remove their shoes, bag their liquids and all too often surrender their dignity at security screenings somehow manage to forget they are carrying an object that is the very reason they are being searched in the first place.Last year, the US Transport Security Administration (TSA) seized 6,542 guns from people about to board planes at 262 airports – a sixfold increase since 2010. Nearly nine in 10 of the weapons were loaded.Jeffrey Price, former assistant director of security at Denver international airport and co-author of a book on aviation security, said he wasn’t surprised.“One of our unique American traits is the number of people who purchase a weapon and forget they even have the thing with them. It seems like every time there’s another active shooter incident, a lot more people go out and buy guns because they feel scared,” he said.“A lot of those people who buy a gun in the heat of the moment, they toss it in their laptop bag or in their purse, and then they forget they have it. Next thing you know, they’re at the airport and oh, my gosh, I forgot I put that in there. Which in itself is pretty scary because it could mean they’re leaving a bag lying around at home with a gun in for a kid to get to.”The TSA says that passengers claiming to forget they even have a gun is the most common explanation and is frequently accepted by the police. Although officials were more skeptical about a man who blamed his mother for packing a rifle found in his bag at Baltimore airport.Price said other factors are also at work.”There’s also [a] certain percentage of people that think because they’ve been issued a permit (to carry a gun) they can carry it anywhere, anytime, which is not true. And then you’ve got people that just think they can slip it through. The TSA won’t notice,” he said.They would include the passengers caught trying to smuggle guns stuffed inside a raw chicken, jars of peanut butter, a PlayStation and an arm sling.Some cities and states press criminal charges, and the offending individual is marched out the airport in handcuffs. But it is not uncommon in gun-friendly parts of the country for a passenger to be allowed to put their weapon in their car and return to board their flight.Atlanta airport tops the gun seizure table with more than one a day found in passenger hand luggage.“It is very alarming,” Balram Bheodari, manager of Atlanta airport, told a congressional hearing last year about the record number of guns seized on his watch. “Eighty-six percent of those weapons had a round in the chamber or a loaded magazine in the weapon. Very, very alarming.”Bheodari had to contend with an incident 15 months ago in which a passenger “lunged” for a bag as a TSA agent began to search it and accidentally fired a gun inside, sending people around him diving for the floor and shutting down flight departures. The airport put out a message assuring passengers “there was not an active shooter”.The man ran out the airport with the gun but left his boarding pass behind and was arrested three days later.It was perhaps no surprise that Atlanta leads the nation. In 2014, Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a law pushed by the National Rifle Association allowing people to carry loaded guns in the state’s airports.Georgia was also one of 10 states to pass laws over the past couple of years no longer requiring a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Tennessee was another. The state’s TSA’s security director, Steve Wood, drew a direct line between weaker gun regulation and weapons at airports.“Since the implementation of new gun laws in the state last year, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of firearms brought to Tennessee security checkpoints,” he said.There is also the disturbing question of how many guns go undetected.In 2015, ABC News revealed that the TSA sent undercover investigators through airport checkpoints carrying real guns and fake bombs. Security officers only discovered three of the 70 smuggled items.The TSA’s director was sacked. The Department of Homeland Security promised reforms but two years later security agents were still failing to detect about 80% of weapons in tests because of a mix of inadequate equipment and human failings.Since then the TSA has stopped talking publicly about such tests of its system.Ban on marijuana users owning guns is unconstitutional, judge rulesRead morePrice said travelers should assume that some guns get on to planes.“It’s really a matter of deterrence. Can we catch enough prohibited items to make it not worth a terrorist or criminal’s effort to try and get through the system with one? We’re never gonna catch everything. That some guns will get onto planes is just one of those things we have to accept if we’re going to accept aviation as part of our daily lives,” he said.Which makes it something of a miracle that no one has been shot accidentally mid-flight.“It is kind of amazing,” said Price. “One of the few that did go off accidentally was when a US Airways pilot, who was authorized to carry on a gun on the flight deck, fired off a round as he was putting it back in its holster.”The pilot said he was trying to stow the gun for landing when it went off, blowing a hole in the cockpit just below the window.TopicsUS gun controlGeorgiaAirline industryUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Takeaways From the Report on the Trump Georgia Investigation

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      The released excerpts from the special grand jury’s report suggest that the jurors probably recommended indictments on more charges than just perjury.On Thursday, after a lengthy criminal investigation by a Georgia special grand jury into allegations of election interference by Donald J. Trump and his allies, a judge released excerpts from a report drafted by the panel. The grand jury’s recommendations were redacted, and little new information was released, but a close reading, together with earlier reporting, offers some insights into where the case is headed. Here are some key takeaways.Legal experts say Mr. Trump remains in real jeopardy in Georgia.In a post on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Trump thanked the special grand jury for its “Patriotism & Courage.“Total exoneration,” he added. “The USA is very proud of you!!!”In fact, the portions of the grand jury’s report that included recommendations on possible indictments were not revealed. Many legal experts continue to see two significant areas of exposure for Mr. Trump.The first is his direct involvement in recruiting a slate of alternative presidential electors after the 2020 election, even after Georgia’s results were recertified by the state’s Republican leadership. The second are the telephone calls he made to pressure state officials after the election, including one in which Mr. Trump told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, one more than President Biden’s margin of victory in the state.“Even before we got these initial statements from the special grand jury, we knew Trump was in deep criminal peril because of the mountain of evidence that has accumulated that he violated Georgia statutes,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment and trial of Mr. Trump, and a co-author of a lengthy Brookings Institution report on the Fulton County investigation.The jurors did make recommendations about indictments.The special grand jury noted in its report that it had voted on indictment recommendations, though the released excerpts do not reveal what the results of those votes were. The jurors wrote that they had “set forth for the Court our recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes.” (A special grand jury cannot bring indictments, but can make recommendations to the district attorney.)In ordering that only portions of the report be released, with all names redacted, the judge handling the case may have provided a clue to the grand jury’s recommendations. The judge, Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, said he was limiting the extent of the release because the grand jury inquiry, by its nature, allowed for only “very limited due process” for potential defendants. The judge’s stance would have been unlikely if the grand jury had not recommended indictments.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

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      It’s Time to Prepare for a Possible Trump Indictment

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      “We find by unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.” With those words, a Fulton County special grand jury’s report, part of which was released Thursday, repudiated Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy.The excerpts from the report did not explicitly offer new detail on a potential indictment of Mr. Trump or any other individual. But they suggest that, combined with everything else we know, Mr. Trump may very well be headed for charges in Georgia.We need to prepare for a first in our 246-year history as a nation: The possible criminal prosecution of a former president.If Mr. Trump is charged, it will be difficult and at times even perilous for American democracy — but it is necessary to deter him and others from future attempted coups.Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, may present the case as a simple and streamlined one or in a more sweeping fashion. Success is more likely assured in the simpler approach, but the fact that the redacted report has eight sections suggests a broader approach is conceivable. In either event, we must all prepare ourselves for what could be years of drama, with the pretrial, trial and appeal likely dominating the coming election season.Ms. Willis opened her investigation shortly after Mr. Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, demand that the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, “find 11,780 votes.” The second impeachment of Mr. Trump and the Jan. 6 committee hearings developed additional evidence about that request for fake votes and Mr. Trump and allies pushing fake electors in Georgia and nationally. There is now abundant evidence suggesting he violated Georgia statutes, like those criminalizing the solicitation of election fraud.The parts of the special grand jury’s report revealed on Thursday only reinforce Mr. Trump’s risk of prosecution. The statement that the grand jurors found “no widespread fraud” in the presidential election eliminates Mr. Trump’s assertion that voter fraud justified his pushing state election officials. We also know that the grand jurors voted defendant by defendant and juror by juror, and set forth their recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes over seven (currently redacted) sections. The likelihood that they did that and cleared everyone is very low. And the fact that the grand jurors felt so strongly about the issues that they insisted on writing the recommendations themselves, as they emphasize, further suggests a grave purpose.Also notable is the grand jury’s recommendation of indictments, “where the evidence is compelling,” for perjury that may have been committed by one or more witnesses. It seems unlikely that Ms. Willis will let that pass.She will now decide the next steps of the case. Her statement that charging decisions were imminent came more than three weeks ago. If she does indict Mr. Trump, the two likely paths that she might take focus on the fake electoral slates and Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger. One is a narrower case that would likely take weeks to try; the other is a broader case that would likely take months.Narrow charges could include the Georgia felonies of solicitation of election fraud in the first degree and related general crimes like conspiracy to commit election fraud, specifically focusing on events and people who have a strong nexus with Georgia. In addition to Mr. Trump, that might include others who had direct contacts with Georgia, like his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and his attorneys John C. Eastman and Rudolph W. Giuliani (who already received a “target” notification from Ms. Willis warning him that he may be charged). Such a case would focus on activities around the execution of the fake electoral slates on Dec. 14, 2020, followed by the conversation with Mr. Raffensperger on Jan. 2, rooting it in Georgia and avoiding events nationally except to the extent absolutely necessary.Or Ms. Willis could charge the case more broadly, adding sweeping state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, charges that could still include the impact of the conduct in Georgia but bring in more of a nationwide conspiracy. This would look more like the Jan. 6 investigation, albeit with a strong Georgia flavor. It could additionally include those who appeared to have lesser contact with Georgia but were part of national efforts including the state, like the Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro and the Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.A more narrow case might make slightly more sense: Given the extraordinary circumstances around it, Ms. Willis will surely have her hands full. And it will feature a likely lead defendant who has demonstrated his propensity for legal circuses — coming in the midst of a heated political season no less.That said, Ms. Willis has a proven propensity for bringing and winning RICO cases. And as we have learned in our criminal trial work, sometimes juries are more responsive to grander narratives that command their attention — and outrage.Whether it’s simple or broad, if a case is opened, one thing is nearly certain: It’s going to take a while, probably the better part of the next two years, and perhaps longer. We would surely see a flurry of legal filings from Mr. Trump, which while often meritless nevertheless take time. Here the battle would likely be waged around pretrial motions and appeals by Mr. Trump arguing, as he has done in other cases, that he was acting in his official presidential capacity and so is immune.That challenge, though not persuasive at all in our view, will almost certainly delay a trial by months. Other likely sallies are that the case should be removed to federal court (it shouldn’t); that he relied on the advice of counsel in good faith (he didn’t); or that his action was protected by the First Amendment (it wasn’t).Even if the courts work at the relatively rapid pace of other high-profile presidential cases, we would still be talking about months of delay. In both U.S. v. Nixon and Thompson v. Trump, about three months were consumed from the first filing of the cases to the final rejection of presidential arguments by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, there would be more issues, which would be likely to require additional time. At the earliest, Ms. Willis would be looking at a trial toward the end of 2023. Even on that aggressive schedule, appeals would not be concluded until the end of 2024 or beyond.Needless to say, this would have a profound impact on the election season. It would feature a national conversation about what it means for a former president to be prosecuted, and it would no doubt have unexpected consequences.Still, the debate is worth having, and the risks are worth taking. The core American idea is that no one is above the law. If there is serious evidence of crimes, then a former president should face the same consequences as anyone else. If we do not hold accountable those who engage in this kind of misconduct, it will recur.It would be the trial of the 21st century, no doubt a long and bumpy ride — but a necessary one for American democracy.Norman Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. E. Danya Perry is a former federal prosecutor and New York State corruption investigator. Amy Lee Copeland, a former federal prosecutor, is a criminal defense and appellate attorney in Savannah, Ga.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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      Biden says three objects shot down over US ‘most likely’ private, and not more Chinese spy balloons – live

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      Joe Biden says the intelligence services haven’t determined the purpose of the three objects American planes shot down in recent days, but there’s no sign they were used for surveillance or connected to China.“Our intelligence community is still assessing all three incidences. They’re reporting to me daily and will continue the urgent efforts to do so, and I will communicate that to the Congress,” Biden said in an address from the White House.“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program, or they were surveillance vehicles from other any other country. The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”01:19In a White House address, Joe Biden tried to reassure Americans about what fighter jets shot down over North America in recent days, saying there were no signs the still-unidentified objects were connected to China or used for surveillance. Earlier in the day, a Georgia court released portions of a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s election meddling campaign, which indicated jurors were worried about being lied to, but did not reveal if they think the former president or his allies committed crimes. The ball is now in Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis’s court, since she’s using the document to determine the next steps in her investigation of the former president’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Here’s what else happened today:
      Senator John Fetterman checked himself into the hospital to receive treatment for depression. The Democrat’s election in Pennsylvania last November was crucial to the party gaining an outright majority in the Senate.
      Biden wants to speak with China’s president Xi Jinping after the spy balloon incident, though it’s not clear when the leaders plan to jump on the phone.
      Nikki Haley thinks Trump could pass one of the “mental competency tests” she wants to force politicians older than 75 to take.
      Democrats are beginning to worry that Biden is too old to run for re-election.
      A bill to prevent police from using search warrants to access data from menstrual tracking apps failed in Virginia’s legislature, apparently due to interference from Republican governor Glenn Youngkin.
      A theory has emerged from the amateur radio community about what exactly a US jet shot down over Canada’s Yukon territory.The unidentified object, one of three downed by American planes in recent days, may have been a “pico” balloon equipped with a GPS module and a solar panel that was launched from Illinois last October, and in the middle of circumnavigating the earth for the seventh time, according to this report on hobbyist website RTL-SDR.As the article makes clear, the details of the K9YO-15 amateur radio balloon and US and Canadian authorities’ description of the object encountered on 11 February sure seem to line up:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The launch blog post indicates that the K9YO-15 balloon was flying a silver mylar 32” sphere SAG balloon which appears to be this one from balloons.online. Unlike latex or rubber weather balloons which inflate and stretch as they rise into lower atmospheric pressures, these mylar balloons can’t stretch, so their fully inflated ground size will be the same as their size at high altitudes, meaning the pico balloon won’t get much bigger than 32”. The payload was a GPS module, Arduino, SI5351 used as a WSPR and APRS transmitter and a solar panel, all together weighing 16.4 grams. A pentagon memo notes that the object shot down over Canada was a “small metallic balloon with a tethered payload” which fits the description of the pico balloon exactly.
      The K9YO-15 balloon ceased all WSPR telemetry transmissions while flying just below Alaska since Feb 11 00:18 UTC (just before sunset in Alaska when the solar panels would stop working).
      By using NOAA wind models and the last known location by Alaska, K9YO-15 was projected to have been over Yukon when the US Air Force shot down the unknown balloon object at Feb 11 20:41 UTC (3:41 PM EST / 1:41 PM Yukon time according to Canadian Defense Minister Anand). Reports put the altitude of the shot down object at approximately 40,000ft (~12000 meters), which matches the projected ~11500 meters of K9YO-15. Based on the previous days transmission times, it is suspected that if it were operational, the balloon would have begun transmitting again sometime later in the Yukon afternoon when the sun was stronger, but no transmissions have been seen.A town in Ohio is demanding answers after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in their community, but the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani and Michael Sainato report that rail executives refused to provide any in a meeting last night:Nearly two weeks after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, community members packed a local high school auditorium on Wednesday night wanting answers to their health and safety concerns.Norfolk Southern Corporation, the Atlanta-based operator of the derailed train, ultimately skipped the meeting, which was the first community meeting in the town of 5,000 people since the incident.“We know that many are rightfully angry and frustrated right now. Unfortunately, after consulting with community leaders, we have become increasingly concerned about the growing physical threats to our employees and members of the community around this event stemming from increasing likelihood of the participation of outside parties,” the company said in a statement. “With that in mind, Norfolk Southern will not be in attendance this evening.”Ohio residents demand answers two weeks after toxic chemical train derailmentRead more01:23The New York Times has obtained an email from John Fetterman’s wife to the Democratic senator’s supporters:Email from @giselefetterman to supporters: “our family is in for some difficult days ahead, and we ask for your compassion on the path to recovery.””I’m sad, and worried, as any wife and mother would be.”— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) February 16, 2023
      John Fetterman, the newly elected Democratic senator whose victory in Pennsylvania gave Joe Biden’s allies an outright majority in the chamber after last November’s midterms, has checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression, his office announced.“Last night, Senator John Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment for clinical depression. While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Fetterman’s chief of staff Adam Jentleson said in a statement.“On Monday, John was evaluated by Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress. Yesterday, Dr. Monahan recommended inpatient care at Walter Reed. John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis. After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself.”The three recent shootdowns are among the more mysterious national security happenings in recent time, particularly because days have passed since they occurred, and Washington has yet to come out with an explanation of what American jets encountered in the skies.But Joe Biden seems to be preparing Americans for the possibility that the unidentified objects were simply innocuous vessels in the wrong place at the wrong time. While he didn’t say what was shot down in his White House speech today, he did note that he asked American intelligence agencies to look into reports of UFOs.“When I came into office, I instructed our intelligence community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects,” Biden said. “We know that a range of entities including countries, companies and research organizations operate objects at altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious, including legitimate scientific research.”He also noted that “our military and the Canadian military are seeking to recover the debris so we can learn more about these three objects.” There’s no indication there that they’ve managed to get their hands on them yet, even though it’s been days since they were downed.The president announced he would look to speak with China’s leader Xi Jinping in the wake of the downing of a spy balloon belonging to Beijing off American’s eastern coast.“The other thing I want to point out is that we are going to keep our allies and the Congress contemporaneously informed of all we know and all we learn, and I expect to be speaking with President Xi, and I hope we have we are going to get to the bottom, as I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” Biden said.He also noted that, “Our (experts) have lifted components of the Chinese balloon’s payload off the ocean floor, we’re analyzing them as I speak, and what we learn will strengthen our capabilities.”Biden says the government is coming up with practices to better detect and deal with unknown aerial objects in the wake of the recent shootdowns over North America.“I’ve directed my team to come back to me with sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects moving forward, distinguishing between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not,” Biden said.“But make no mistake: if any object presents a threat to the safety, security of the American people, I will take it down. I’ll be sharing with Congress these classified policy parameters when they’re completed, and they’ll remain classified so we don’t give our roadmap to our enemies to try to evade our defenses.”He also addressed why the United States found itself suddenly responding to three unidentified objects in its airspace just days after shooting down a confirmed Chinese spy balloon.“We don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. We’re now just seeing more of them, partially because the steps we’ve taken to increase our radars, to narrow our radars, and we have to keep adapting our approach to dealing with these challenges.”Joe Biden says the intelligence services haven’t determined the purpose of the three objects American planes shot down in recent days, but there’s no sign they were used for surveillance or connected to China.“Our intelligence community is still assessing all three incidences. They’re reporting to me daily and will continue the urgent efforts to do so, and I will communicate that to the Congress,” Biden said in an address from the White House.“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program, or they were surveillance vehicles from other any other country. The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”01:19Joe Biden has started his address about the UFOs shot down over North America in recent weeks, as well as the Chinese spy balloon.Follow along here for the latest. More

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      Findings in Georgia Trump report could be enough to bring criminal charges

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      AnalysisFindings in Georgia Trump report could be enough to bring criminal chargesCarlisa N. JohnsonThe partial release of the grand jury report signals the investigation already contains legitimate evidence of perjury The release of a portion of the Fulton county special purpose grand jury’s report marks a new step toward potential criminal charges holding Donald Trump and his allies accountable for election interference.Georgia was crucial in the 2020 presidential election, providing a key victory for Joe Biden and drawing the intense focus of Trump and his backers.Witnesses in Trump investigation may have lied, says Georgia grand jury reportRead more“I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said on the now infamous phone call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. During the call, Trump maintained that widespread voter fraud took place in Georgia, claiming that he had in fact won the state despite audits confirming the validity of election results.It was this call that sparked the initial Fulton county investigation and now fuels Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’ ability to bring charges. Unlike other investigations into Trump’s legal and business matters, the case is meant to face the former president’s election meddling head-on.The report excerpt revealed today recommends that charges be filed against a majority of witnesses who lied under oath and concludes there was not widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the 2020 election. It illustrates Fulton county’s role in looking to reveal how Donald Trump and his allies sowed seeds of election interference and denialism during the 2020 presidential election.While these segments fall short of clear criminal charges, they signal that the investigation already contains legitimate evidence of perjury, which could be enough to bring criminal charges against those in Trump’s orbit.Anthony Kreis, Georgia State University College of Law professor and political scientist, said the meticulously curated release of the report points to the ever-growing potential that the Willis’ office is working to prepare indictment charges for Trump and his allies.“The most damning evidence against Trump is in Georgia,” Kreis said. “The phone call from former president Trump to the secretary of state’s office is exceedingly damning both in the sense that there seems to be an express demand for something that could be the solicitation of election fraud and the fact that it is all caught on tape and it’s much more than just an allegation.”Due to the clarity of Trump’s indiscretions in Georgia, the Fulton county district attorney’s office is likely ahead of ongoing federal investigations and closer to presenting charges, according to Georgia attorney Kurt Kastorf, a former US justice department prosecutor.“It is likely that if there are charges [in Fulton county], the charges are going to be in the near term,” said Kastorf.While the report did not reveal the range of these potential charges, the scope of the investigation has been comprehensive. The grand jury called at least 75 prominent witnesses, including many of Trump’s known allies. Attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell, Senator Lindsay Graham and newly elected Georgia lieutenant governor Burt Jones all appeared before the committee.Though the report does not name which witnesses it believes lied under oath, it does conclude that “perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses.” It also recommends indictments for “such crimes where the evidence is compelling.”No matter the charges brought forth against Trump and those included in the investigation, state law presents a specific set of circumstances that are much different from any ongoing federal cases.According to Kastorf, there are two key elements that make Fulton county different for Trump and others who face potential indictment from the Fulton county district attorney’s office: the difference in the jury pool of Fulton county and the political considerations of a state-level case in comparison to a federal case.Fulton county is a predominantly Democratic region in the largely Republican state. This means that the jury pool could be comprised of largely Democratic leaning jurors who could be guided by partisan beliefs should a trial ensue. Furthermore, pardons and political immunity are much more difficult to obtain in Georgia.“The US president does not have pardon power in Georgia,” said Kastorf. “In fact, the governor doesn’t have pardon power in Georgia. It is significantly less likely that if Trump or someone associated with his campaign were convicted in Georgia, they would be able to obtain a pardon or have immunity based on holding political office.”Though there is not exactly legal precedence for this case that points to what happens when a sitting president attempts to influence and change the results of an election, according to Kreis, there is a parallel with another historical moment critical to democracy in the US.“We had election denialism run rampant in the United States at the end of the 19th century, and people who engaged in election denialism then decided that they were going to use that to dampen voting rights and disenfranchise people,” Kreis said.According to Kreis, this led to “democratic backsliding” that threatened the foundation of democracy in the US, similar to what we see today.“But the key difference is, nobody was ever really held accountable for engaging in actions of election denialism that led to acts of political violence back then,” said Kreis.TopicsDonald TrumpThe fight for democracyGeorgiaUS elections 2020US politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Witnesses in Trump investigation may have lied, says Georgia grand jury report

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      Witnesses in Trump investigation may have lied, says Georgia grand jury reportSections of report looking into whether Trump committed crime in attempt to overturn election released on Thursday Multiple witnesses who testified before a special purpose grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election may have lied and committed perjury, according to a section of the grand jury’s report released on Thursday.The report offers the first insight into the work of the special purpose grand jury, which was convened in May last year. The 23 jurors and three alternates heard from 75 witnesses during the course of its investigation.The Georgia case, led by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, is believed to be one of the most likely scenarios in which the former president, and some of his allies, could face charges for efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 US election.“A majority of the Grand Jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it. The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” the grand jurors wrote. The sections released on Thursday do not name the witnesses or provide any other details.A judge also released the introduction and conclusion to the report, neither of which provide substantive insight into whether Trump or allies will face criminal charges. The judge has declined to release the full report until Willis decides whether to bring charges.The introduction details the special grand jury’s process and says it ultimately unanimously concluded “no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election”. It also says the grand jurors heard “extensive testimony on the subject of alleged election fraud from poll workers, investigators, technical experts, and State of Georgia employees and officials, as well as from persons still claiming that such fraud took place”.The conclusion acknowledges that Willis, the prosecutor, has discretion to seek charges outside of what the grand jury recommends.“If this report fails to include any potential violations of referenced statutes that were shown in the investigation, we acknowledge the discretion of the District Attorney to seek indictments where she finds sufficient cause,” the report says. “Furthermore this Grand Jury contained no election law experts or criminal lawyers. The majority of this Grand Jury used their collective best efforts, however, to attend every session, listen to every witness, and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained.”The work of the special purpose grand jury is being closely watched because it ultimately could lead to the first criminal charges against Trump for his actions after the 2020 election. A special purpose grand jury is convened for an indefinite amount of time and can subpoena witnesses, but not issue indictments.The investigation is meant to determine whether Donald Trump and allies violated Georgia state law in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump infamously called the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and requested that he “find” votes in his favor. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state,” he said in a January 2021 phone call.Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, has also been informed he is a target of the investigation. Sixteen people who served as fake electors from Georgia are also reportedly targets of the investigation.The decision over whether to bring charges is ultimately up to Willis, a Democrat in her first term as the Fulton county district attorney. Willis said at a court hearing last month that a decision on whether to bring charges was “imminent”.Trump and allies could face a range of criminal charges under Georgia law. It is a crime in Georgia to solicit someone to commit election fraud or to interfere with the performance of official election duties. Willis could also bring charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act to charge Trump’s confidantes with crimes as part of a broader conspiracy to overturn the election. Willis hired a lawyer who specializes in Rico to assist her with the investigation.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Here’s a Timeline of the Trump Georgia Investigation

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      The criminal investigation of former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia has its roots in activities that began shortly after he lost the 2020 election. So far, there have been two key investigatory threads: a plan to send an alternate slate of electors from states that Mr. Trump lost, including Georgia, and Mr. Trump’s request that Georgia’s secretary of state find the votes he needed to flip the state’s 16 electoral votes to him instead of Joseph R. Biden Jr.Here’s a look at some of the key events connected to the investigation.Nov. 18, 2020: Just over two weeks after Election Day, an outside adviser to the Trump campaign, Kenneth Chesebro, sends the first of three memos laying the groundwork for using the Electoral College system to affect the outcome of the race.Dec. 5: Mr. Trump calls Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, and urges him to circumvent the normal process for awarding electoral votes and allow Georgia’s lawmakers to do it instead.Dec. 6: Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, shares one of those memos with Jason Miller, a senior adviser on the Trump campaign. In the next few days, Mr. Trump decides to pursue the plan to offer alternate electors, according to the findings of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Dec. 7: Georgia elections officials recertified the results of the state’s presidential race after a recount reaffirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump, the third time that results showed that Mr. Trump had lost the state.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

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      Georgia officials to release grand jury report on Trump bid to overturn election – live

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      “Hell, yes.” “100%.” Those were the replies of some Republican state legislators in Georgia to a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump’s campaign to stop Joe Biden’s election win in the state, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, citing newly released congressional records.The Trump campaign wanted the group to appoint presidential electors who would vote for Trump, not Joe Biden – even though he’d won the state’s 16 electoral votes, the first time a Democrat has done so since Bill Clinton in 1992.The publication contacted the approximately 30 lawmakers who said they would participate in the effort, which was ultimately unsuccessful. Seventeen couldn’t be reached, or didn’t respond to a request for comment. But others appeared to deny they’d ever signed on.“I do think there were some issues with the election. But that was not the way to go,” Republican state representative Kasey Carpenter told the Journal-Constitution.You can read the rest of the story here.Let’s say Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis does decide bring charges against Donald Trump based on the grand jury’s report. What would be the alleged crime? As the Guardian’s Carlisa N. Johnson reported last month, the answer could be racketeering:An Atlanta prosecutor appears ready to use the same Georgia statute to prosecute Donald Trump that she used last year to charge dozens of gang members and well-known rappers who allegedly conspired to commit violent crime.Fani Willis was elected Fulton county district attorney just days before the conclusion of the 2020 presidential election. But as she celebrated her promotion, Trump and his allies set in motion a flurry of unfounded claims of voter fraud in Georgia, the state long hailed as a Republican stronghold for local and national elections.Willis assumed office on 1 January 2021, becoming the first Black woman in the position. The next day, according to reports, Trump called rad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, urging him to “find” the nearly 12,000 votes he needed to secure a victory and overturn the election results.The following month, Willis launched an investigation into Trump’s interference in the state’s general election. Now, in a hearing on Tuesday, the special purpose grand jury and the presiding judge will decide whether to release to the public the final report and findings of the grand jury that was seated to investigate Trump and his allies.Willis, who has not shied away from high-profile cases, has made headlines for her aggressive style of prosecution. Willis was a lead prosecutor in the 2013 prosecution of educators in Atlanta accused of inflating students’ scores on standardized tests. More recently, Willis brought a case against a supposed Georgia gang known as YSL, including charges against rappers Yung Thug and Gunna.Could Trump be charged for racketeering? A Georgia prosecutor thinks soRead moreGot questions about the special grand jury’s report in Georgia? The Guardian’s Sam Levine has answers in this piece published just before a hearing in which a judge ultimately opted to allow its partial release:A court hearing on Tuesday will mark one of the most significant developments in a Georgia investigation examining whether Donald Trump and allies committed a crime in their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Here’s all you need to know about that hearing and what to expect next.What exactly is happening on Tuesday?Since May of last year, a special purpose grand jury in Fulton county, Georgia has been investigating whether Donald Trump committed a crime under state law when he tried to overturn the 2020 election by pressuring state officials to try and overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.The grand jury concluded its work earlier this month. On Tuesday, there will be a hearing to determine whether the grand jury’s report should be made public. The special grand jury – which consisted of 23 jurors and three alternates – has recommended its report be made public.Why is this investigation such a big deal?Trump and allies have yet to face any criminal consequences for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Fulton county probe could be the first time that charges are filed against Trump and allies for those efforts. The US House committee that investigated the January 6 attacks also made a criminal referral to the justice department, which is also investigating Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.What is Georgia’s Trump election inquiry and will it lead to charges?Read moreShould Donald Trump face criminal charges?That’s the big question the report authored by a special grand jury in Georgia’s Fulton county might answer. We won’t be seeing all of it today, but what’s released could shed light on what the jurors came to believe after spending months hearing from former Trump officials, state lawmakers and others with knowledge of his attempt to stop Joe Biden from carrying the state’s electoral votes.The answer to that question could very well be no – at least in the eyes of the jurors. But they might recommend charges against other officials who appeared before them. Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani was, for instance, told that he was a target of the investigation, as was reportedly the state’s lieutenant governor Burt Jones and David Shafer, chair of the Georgia GOP.But even if the jurors want to bring the hammer down, it’s not their decision to make. That’s up to Fani Willis, the district attorney for the Atlanta-area county, who will have to decide whether to accept their recommendations and move forward with prosecutions.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today, we may get a sense of which direction one of the many investigations into Donald Trump is heading, when parts of a special grand jury’s report into his attempt to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election win in Georgia are made public. A judge earlier this week ordered the release of the document’s introduction, conclusion and a chapter on jurors’ concerns that some witnesses were lying, while withholding the rest, at least for now. Fani Willis, the district attorney in Georgia’s Atlanta-area Fulton county, is expected to use the report to determine whether to bring charges in the investigations – and against who. This blog will dig into the document as soon as it’s released.Here’s what else is going on:
      Joe Biden may as soon as today give a public address about the Chinese spy balloon and three UFOs shot down by American jets over North America, the Washington Post reports, in a response to pressure from lawmakers who want more transparency on the unusual events.
      Barbara Lee, a progressive House Democrat known for her anti-war bona fides, has filed the paperwork to compete in the California Senate race, according to Politico.
      Special counsel Jack Smith wants to hear from Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff for his final days in the White House, CNN reports. More