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      Georgia Republican who resisted Trump insists he stands for ‘integrity and truth’

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      Georgia Republican who resisted Trump insists he stands for ‘integrity and truth’Brad Raffensperger says opponent for key post ‘should know better’ as pastor but dodges questions about election restrictions

      Is the US really heading for a second civil war?
      The Republican official who famously resisted Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat in Georgia has said he will run for re-election on a platform of “integrity and truth”, against an opponent who as a churchman “should know better” than to advance the former president’s lies.Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insistRead moreBrad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, became a household name after he turned down Trump’s demand that he “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have [to get]” in order to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the southern state. It was the first victory by a Democrat in a presidential race in Georgia since 1992.This year, Raffensperger will run for re-election against Jody Hice, a pastor, US congressman and Trump acolyte.“Congressman Hice, he’s been in Congress for several years,” Raffensperger said on Sunday, on CBS’s Face the Nation. “He’s never done a single piece of election reform legislation.“Then he certified his own race with those same machines, the same ballots [that were used for the presidential election]. And yet for President Trump, he said you couldn’t trust that.“That’s a double-minded person. And as a pastor, he should know better. So, I’m going to run on integrity and I’m going to run on the truth. I don’t know what he’s going to run on.”Hice played a key role in legal and political attempts to overturn the 2020 election result.Writing for the Guardian to mark the anniversary of the 6 January Capitol attack, in which Trump supporters failed to stop Congress certifying the election result, the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal said that as the riot unfolded, Hice “raced by a Democratic colleague, who told me Hice was screaming into his phone: ‘You screwed it up, y’all screwed it all up!’”Hice, Blumenthal wrote, “was tasked to present a challenge to Georgia’s electors … as part of the far-rightwing Republican faction, the Freedom Caucus, directed by Congressman Jim Jordan, of Ohio, who was in constant touch that day with Mark Meadows, the Trump chief of staff and former Freedom Caucus member, and a watchful Trump himself.“Just as the violent insurrection launched, and paramilitary groups spearheaded medieval style hand-to-hand combat against the police and burst into the Capitol, Hice posted on Instagram a photo of himself headed into the House chamber with the caption, ‘This is our 1776 moment.’”Hice deleted that post and said he condemned the violence at the Capitol. But he formally objected to results in Arizona and Pennsylvania and voted against investigation of the attack. The select committee is reportedly interested in his own phone records as Hice remains a vocal proponent of the lie that Trump lost due to electoral fraud, a lie believed by clear majorities of Republicans.Hice announced his run to be secretary of state in Georgia, last March, later gaining Trump’s endorsement. Should he win, he will be in charge of state election counts.Many outside the Republican party fear the prospect of Trump allies filling such posts in battleground states, preparatory to another attempt to overturn a presidential election.“It’s certainly not by accident that we’re seeing individuals who don’t believe in democracy aspire to be our states’ chief election officers, particularly in the states that were under the greatest spotlight in 2020,” Jocelyn Benson, Michigan secretary of state, told the Guardian earlier this month.Raffensperger and Governor Brian Kemp, however, have placed Georgia among Republican-run states which have implemented election laws which critics say aim to restrict Democratic turnout.Democracy under attack: how Republicans led the effort to make it harder to voteRead moreAsked about visits to Georgia this week by Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, to promote federal voting rights protections, Raffensperger told CBS: “6 January was terrible, but the response doesn’t need to be eliminating photo ID and then having same-day registration.“If you don’t have the appropriate guardrails in place, then you’re not going to have voter confidence in the results.”Pressed on claims by figures including the Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams that state election law is skewed against people of colour, Raffensperger heralded provisions for early voting and said: “I think that we have shown that Georgia has fair and honest elections. We have record registrations. We have record turnout.”He also said he was confident Hice would not take over the elections process.“The results will be the results,” Raffensperger said, “and those will be the results that will be certified. You cannot overturn the will of the people and so that won’t matter.“But at the end of the day, I will be re-elected, and he will not be.”TopicsUS voting rightsUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024US politicsRepublicansGeorgianewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate run

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate runCritics seize on Build Back Better criticisms from controversial candidate nonetheless endorsed by Donald Trump Herschel Walker has Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race for US Senate in Georgia but the former NFL star may be struggling to counter fears from some Republicans that he could damage the party’s chances of taking back a seat lost in 2020, and with it the Senate itself.Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account Read moreIn December, the former University of Georgia and Dallas Cowboys running back admitted he does not have a college degree – having repeatedly said that he did.Then, as January began, Walker posted to social media a short but to some bafflingly phrased video.Under the message “a few things to think about as we start the New Year”, Walker attacked policy priorities championed by Democrats including Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator who will defend his seat in November.“Build Back Better,” he said, referring to Joe Biden’s domestic spending plan, which targets health and social care and the climate crisis.“You know I’m always thinking: if you want to build back better, first you probably want to control the border, because you want to know who you’re building it for and why. Then you probably want to protect your military, because they’re protecting you against people in other countries that don’t like you.”He then shifted to a broader goal, popular among progressives.“Defunding the police? Bad idea. You want to fund the police so that they have better training, better equipment to protect the law of the land, because you don’t want people doing whatever they want to do.”Then he shifted back again.“Build Back Better. You probably want to become energy independent. Otherwise you’re going to depend on other countries for your livelihood. Build Back Better. You probably want something written, like law of the land, stating that all men are to be treated equal. Oh! We have the constitution. So you probably want to put people in charge who’s going to fight for the constitution.“Just thinking. God bless you.”Burgess Owens, a Republican congressman from Utah who once played safety for the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, said Walker “represents what the American dream is all about: hard work, strong character, and love for our great country. I am honored to endorse Herschel for Senate and look forward to working with him!”But critics said the video – and a similarly rambling Fox News appearance – was evidence of Walker’s unsuitability for office.To some, such evidence has piled up ever since Walker signaled a shift into politics. Last summer, the Associated Press said “hundreds of pages of public records tied to Walker’s business ventures and his divorce, including many not previously reported, shed new light on a turbulent personal history that could dog his Senate bid”.The documents, the AP said, “detail accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior”.The day Donald Trump’s narcissism killed the USFLRead moreThe AP also reported that Walker “has at times been open about his long struggle with mental illness, writing at length in a 2008 book about being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, once known as multiple personality disorder”.The report also quoted the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, who said that while Walker “certainly could bring a lot of things to the table … as others have mentioned, there’s also a lot of questions out there”.In the matter of Walker touting a college degree he does not hold, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the false claim was made on a campaign website, “in an online biography advertising Walker’s book, at a campaign rally … and even during his introduction this year at a congressional hearing”.In a statement, Walker said: “I was majoring in criminal justice at UGA when I left to play in the USFL my junior year. After playing with the New Jersey Generals” – a team Trump owned – “I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.”TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Left and Center-Left Both Claim Stacey Abrams. Who’s Right?

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      Ms. Abrams, the Georgia Democrat running for governor, has admirers in both wings of her party — and Republicans eager to defeat her. Her carefully calibrated strategy faces a test in 2022.To left-leaning Democrats, Stacey Abrams, who is making her second run for Georgia governor, is a superstar: a nationally recognized voting-rights champion, a symbol of her state’s changing demographics, and a political visionary who registered and mobilized tens of thousands of new voters — the kind of grass-roots organizing that progressives have long preached.“I don’t think anyone could call Stacey Abrams a moderate,” said Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People, a progressive advocacy group for women of color.Moderates would beg to differ. They see Ms. Abrams as an ally for rejecting left-wing policies that center-left Democrats have spurned, like “Medicare for all,” the Green New Deal to combat climate change and the defunding of law enforcement in response to police violence.“I don’t know that anybody in the party can say, ‘She’s one of us,’” said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, the center-left group. “We can’t pretend she’s a moderate,” he added. “But the progressives can’t say she’s a progressive and not a moderate. We’re both kind of right.”The question of how to define Ms. Abrams, 48, the presumptive Democratic standard-bearer in one of the most high-profile races of 2022, takes on new urgency amid the current landscape of the party.Moderates and progressives sparred in Washington throughout 2021, frustrating a White House struggling to achieve consensus on its priorities and continuing an ideological debate that has raged in the party for years. There is also thirst for new blood across the party, considering the advanced ages of President Biden, congressional leaders, and leading progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.On a local level, whether Ms. Abrams maintains credibility with both Democratic wings may determine how well she can withstand Republican attacks. Those close to her campaign say they expect an extremely close race, and that the key is holding the suburban moderates who supported her in 2018 while exciting enough of the new Georgia voters who have registered since that election.Republicans in Georgia — who await Ms. Abrams in the general election — are eager to denounce her as a left-wing radical out of place in a state that was a G.O.P. stronghold until it narrowly tipped into the Democratic column in 2020. Gov. Brian Kemp, who faces a fierce primary challenge in May from former Senator David Perdue, who has the support of former President Donald J. Trump, has released five digital advertisements attacking Ms. Abrams since she announced her campaign on Dec. 1.“Stacey Abrams’ far left agenda has no place in Georgia,” one warns ominously.But a review of Ms. Abrams’s policy statements and television advertisements, and interviews with political figures who have known her for years, reveal a leader who has carefully calibrated her positions, making a point to avoid drifting into one Democratic lane or another.Her allies say the fluidity is an asset, and highlights how policy is only one way that voters choose which candidate to rally behind. Racial representation and the unique political context of the American South are also factors in whether a candidate can credibly claim progressive bona fides, they argue..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Steve Phillips, an early supporter and prominent progressive Democratic donor, said Ms. Abrams’s political strategy was progressive, even if her policy positions were more moderate.“It’s hard for white progressives to be too critical of someone who is so strongly and fiercely unapologetically Black and female,” he said. “Her authenticity comes from the sectors that are the core parts of the progressive base.”Ms. Abrams’s approach does carry risks. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, several candidates who sought to straddle the line between moderate and progressive policies lost the trust of significant numbers of voters in both camps, as activists pushed for firm commitments on issues like health care, climate change, expanding the Supreme Court and reparations for descendants of enslaved people.At times, Ms. Abrams has used her perch to speak out against progressive causes and defend the Democratic establishment. She said attempts to defund police departments after the murder of George Floyd were creating a “false choice” and said departments should be reformed instead.On health care, she has focused on expanding Medicaid rather than supporting a single-payer system. And in 2020, a think tank founded by Ms. Abrams released a climate plan focused on the South that embraced efforts to incentivize renewable energy but stopped short of the ambitious goals pushed by progressive activists and lawmakers like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.But Ben Jealous, a former Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland who leads the progressive group People for the American Way, said progressives should trust Ms. Abrams just the same. “The Green New Deal is designed for the industrialized unionized North,” he said. “And you’ve got to translate that into Southern.” He added, “She does that.”Several of Ms. Abrams’s allies welcomed an examination of her policy record, arguing that characterizing her as a progressive only fueled Republican attacks.Ms. Abrams declined to be interviewed for this article. Asked how she defined herself ideologically, a spokesman, Seth Bringman, said she “defines herself by her values and her ability to deliver results for the common good by navigating disparate groups and ideologies.”“She’s unwavering in her support for unions, and she worked with anti-union corporations to stop discrimination against the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” he added. “She’s unapologetically pro-choice, and she coordinated with anti-choice legislators to pass criminal justice reform. She’s a capitalist who supports regulation and believes we can fight poverty while praising success.”Such pragmatism has encouraged some moderates — including Georgians who served with Ms. Abrams in the State Capitol — to compare her to other center-left national figures who had credibility among the grass-roots base, like Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Mr. Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, said Ms. Abrams had demonstrated that she “wasn’t going to be pushed around by anybody in the party, from the center or from the left.”Some moderates see Ms. Abrams as a center-left leader in the mold of former Presidents Barack Obama, right, and Bill Clinton.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesHe added, “That independence has made her a very viable candidate.”Carolyn Hugley, a Georgia state representative who has known Ms. Abrams since 2011, said she had always sought to be seen as a “doer” and an organizer. As minority leader, Ms. Abrams, a budget wonk, aligned with Tea Party members and some religious groups to oppose a Republican tax reform bill.“If you had asked me 10 years ago if voting rights was what she was going to be known for, I would probably say no,” Ms. Hugley said. In Georgia, Ms. Abrams became known for her willingness to work with anyone, even if it led to a backlash. In 2011, she lent bipartisan credibility to an effort by Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, to restructure the state’s scholarship program for low-income students. Several Democrats criticized her decision to stand with him at a news conference, saying it gave a gift to an incumbent who had sought to shrink the program and was an example of Ms. Abrams’s putting her own ambitions above the party’s long-term interests.“It got misinterpreted,” said DuBose Porter, a former chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party. “But the real Stacey Abrams will always come through. And that real Stacey Abrams is somebody that cares about the issues.”Mr. Jealous, of People for the American Way, said he recalled Ms. Abrams encouraging him to reach out to Newt Gingrich, the Georgia Republican and former House speaker, to build cross-aisle support for reforming the state’s prisons.This campaign cycle, even Ms. Abrams’s supporters concede that the intensifying spotlight could test her political talent anew. The prospect that she could become the first Black woman in the country to be elected governor has already renewed whispers about her possible presidential ambitions.Unlike in 2018, when Ms. Abrams was not yet a national figure, or during Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential search, in which she was considered a long shot, she enters the 2022 race as a marquee name on the Democratic roster — and a prime target for Republicans.The Virginia governor’s race offered a preview of what Ms. Abrams could face, with Democrats on the defensive and Republicans pummeling them over Mr. Biden’s vaccine mandates, how schools teach about racism and the removal of Confederate statues.Ms. Abrams rallied Virginia Democrats behind the Democratic candidate, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, in the days before the election — a testament to her standing in the party. By contrast, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she and other progressives were told to stay away.When announcing her candidacy in December, Ms. Abrams stuck to local themes, highlighting her work during the pandemic and her efforts to expand Medicaid access in Georgia. In the 2018 governor’s race, she did not run an ad about race or voting rights, according to a list her aides provided.Last month, during an online campaign event with more than 350 supporters on the theme of “One Georgia,” Ms. Abrams steered clear of policy specifics and hot-button cultural conversations, focusing instead on issues like the coronavirus and education — and on her Republican opponents.“When people ask what’s the biggest difference between me and the current governor, it’s that I like Georgians,” Ms. Abrams said. “I like all of them. The ones who agree with me and the ones who do not.”As much as Democrats may want to label her, Mr. Jealous advised against it, citing two lessons he learned about Ms. Abrams when they first met as 19-year-old college activists. The first: She would not be pushed to go anywhere she was not comfortable. The second: “Never speak after her,” he said.Mr. Phillips, the Democratic donor, said he was confident that the war between moderates and progressives would not affect Ms. Abrams in 2022.When, then, would it matter?“If and when she runs for president,” he said. More

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      in Elections

      Georgia debunks Trump claim that 5,000 dead people voted in 2020

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      Georgia debunks Trump claim that 5,000 dead people voted in 2020State officials confirm four cases, and all involved family members submitting votes for the deceased

      Robert Reich: 6 January shows we must answer neofascism
      Donald Trump has claimed 5,000 dead people voted in 2020 in Georgia, a key state he lost to Joe Biden on his way to national defeat.Capitol panel to investigate Trump call to Willard hotel in hours before attackRead moreHe was off by 4,996.As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Monday, state officials have confirmed four cases of dead people voting.All involved family members submitting votes for the deceased, cases in which the state has the power to levy fines.In one case detailed by the paper, a widow submitted an absentee ballot for her husband after he died in September, two months before polling day.An attorney for the 74-year-old woman reportedly told officials her husband “was going to vote Republican, and she said, ‘Well, I’m going to cancel your ballot because I’m voting Democrat.’ It was kind of a joke between them. She received the absentee ballot and carried out his wishes.“She now realises that was not the thing to do.”Even if Trump’s claim about dead voters were true, it would not have saved him from being the first Republican to lose Georgia since 1992. Biden won the state by nearly 12,000 votes. Nor could Georgia alone have overturned Trump’s electoral college defeat, by 306-232.But Trump included his claim in a notorious call in which he pushed the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to give him victory.“Dead people,” Trump said. “So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.”He also claimed that “a tremendous number of dead people” voted in Michigan, adding: “I think it was … 18,000. Some unbelievably high number, much higher than yours, you were in the 4-5,000 category.”Referring to a claim of “upward of 5,000” dead voters he said was presented to Georgia officials, Raffensperger, said: “The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong.”Trump insisted: “In one state, we have a tremendous amount of dead people. So I don’t know – I’m sure we do in Georgia, too. I’m sure we do in Georgia, too.”Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told Raffensperger: “You say they were only two dead people who would vote. I can promise you there are more than that.”The View seeks conservative to replace McCain – and angers ‘Never Trumpers’Read moreRaffensperger refused to help Trump, prompting threats to his safety. But the call also placed Trump in legal jeopardy, as a district attorney investigates whether he broke electoral law.The call was part of scattershot attempts to overturn a defeat Trump insists in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary was the result of electoral fraud.A few days after the call, on 6 January, Trump told supporters in Washington to “fight like hell” in his cause. Rioters then attacked the US Capitol, seeking to stop certification of Biden’s win, in some cases seeking to capture or kill officials including Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence.Five people died.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-Georgia election workers sue Giuliani and OAN, saying fraud claims put them in danger

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      Ex-Georgia election workers sue Giuliani and OAN, saying fraud claims put them in dangerRuby Freeman and daughter claim they became center of unfounded conspiracy theories and were singled out by Trump Two former Georgia election workers have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the rightwing One America News Network and several of its senior executives, claiming the workers became the target of vote-rigging conspiracy theories that put them in physical danger and threatened their livelihoods.During the 2020 election, Ruby Freeman and daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss worked as poll workers counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Fulton county, Georgia. They claim they became the center of a series of unfounded conspiracy theories promoted by former New York mayor Giuliani, who was then serving as an advisor to Trump, and several top employees at the California-based OAN news network.“As a result of their vital service, Ms Freeman and Ms Moss have become the objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment,” they said in Thursday’s complaint, filed in federal court in Washington.“They found themselves in this unenviable position not based on anything they did, but instead because of a campaign of malicious lies designed to accuse them of interfering with a fair and impartial election, which is precisely what each of them swore an oath to protect,” the suit said.The action targets San Diego-based Herring Networks, which owns and operates One America News Network, as well as the channel’s chief executive Robert Herring, president Charles Herring, and reporter Chanel Rion.Giuliani, Trump’s former personal lawyer often appeared on OAN and spearheaded the drive to claim voter fraud in the aftermath of the election and was also named as a defendant.In the complaint, Moss and Freeman claim that OAN broadcast stories falsely accusing them of conspiring to produce secret batches of illegal ballots and running them through voting machines to help Trump, who ultimately lost the state by 12,670 votes.Election workers in states closely won by Joe Biden, in particular, have faced a barrage of abuse from extremists pushing a lie that Trump was denied a win last November because of widespread electoral fraud.‘It’s been a barrage every day’: US election workers face threats and harassmentRead moreTrump himself pressured Georgia’s top election official, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, in a phone call to “find” the necessary votes to wrongly secure him a win in the state in the November, 2020, presidential election.Meanwhile, in an interview, OAN chief executive Robert Herring Sr told Reuters he was not concerned about the lawsuit and that his network had done nothing wrong.“I know all about it and I’m laughing,” he said of the lawsuit. “I’m laughing about the four or five others who are suing me. Eventually, it will turn on them and go the other way.”The plaintiffs in the action have also filed a defamation suit against The Gateway Pundit, a far-right website, claiming that the site’s managers and writers, twins brothers Jim and Joe Hoft, “instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment, and threats that has forced them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety”.Among the accusations levelled at Freeman in the month after the election a year ago, Gateway Pundit accused her of “counting illegal ballots from a suitcase stashed under a table”.Trump also singled out Freeman during that phone call with Raffensberger, claiming she “stuffed the ballot boxes” and was a scammer.Giuliani accused Freeman and Moss of acting suspiciously, like drug dealers “passing out dope,” their lawsuit asserts.Georgia state officials have said such “suitcases” were standard ballot containers and votes were properly counted under the watch of an independent monitor and a state investigator.TopicsGeorgiaThe fight to voteRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpLaw (US)RepublicansUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Johnny Isakson, former Republican senator from Georgia, dies at 76

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      Johnny Isakson, former Republican senator from Georgia, dies at 76Conservative senator was known as a consensus-builderRetirement in 2019 preceded GOP losses in both Senate seats Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican who earned a reputation for bipartisan co-operation as a US senator from 2005 to 2019, has died. He was 76.The Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, confirmed the death on Sunday.In a statement, the Republican said: “Georgia has lost a giant, one of its greatest statesmen and a servant leader dedicated to making his state and country better than he found it.“Johnny Isakson personified what it meant to be a Georgian. Johnny was also a dear friend … as he was to so many.”Isakson, whose real estate business made him a millionaire, spent more than three decades in Georgia political life.In the US Senate from 2005, he became known as an effective, behind-the-scenes consensus builder. His views on flashpoint issues such as abortion became more conservative, however, as Georgia politics moved right.In 2015, Isakson disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He remained in office until the end of 2019, retiring two years before the end of his term.That year, the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, a ruthless political warrior, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “If you had a vote in the Senate on who’s the most respected and well-liked member, Johnny would win probably 100 to nothing. His demeanor is quite different from what most people expect of politicians.”On Sunday, announcing Isakson’s death, the Associated Press called him “affable”. The Washington Post went for “courtly”.Ross Baker, a congressional scholar at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told the Post Isakson was “a transitional figure … the person who set the tone for debate, who was a facilitator rather than a legislative innovator.“His bipartisan brand of politics harks back to a different era in American politics. With his leaving the Senate, a very important link to the past [has been] lost.”Isakson was succeeded in the Senate by Kelly Loeffler, another Republican. But she lost the seat to Raphael Warnock in 2020, as Georgia turned Democratic blue in an election which cost the GOP control of the Senate and provoked political apoplexy in Donald Trump, the loser in the presidential contest.On Sunday the other serving Georgia US senator, the Democrat Jon Ossoff, said: “Senator Isakson was a statesman who served Georgia with honor. He put his state and his country ahead of self and party, and his great legacy endures. Alisha and I will keep [the former senator’s wife] Dianne and the Isakson family in our prayers.”TopicsGeorgiaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Map by Map, G.O.P. Chips Away at Black Democrats’ Power

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      Black elected officials in several states, from Congress down to the counties, have been drawn out of their districts this year or face headwinds to hold onto their seats.More than 30 years ago, Robert Reives Sr. marched into a meeting of his county government in Sanford, N.C., with a demand: Create a predominantly Black district in the county, which was 23 percent Black at the time but had no Black representation, or face a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act.The county commission refused, and Mr. Reives prepared to sue. But after the county settled and redrew its districts, he was elected in 1990 as Lee County’s first Black commissioner, a post he has held comfortably ever since.Until this year.Republicans, newly in power and in control of the redrawing of county maps, extended the district to the northeast, adding more rural and suburban white voters to the mostly rural district southwest of Raleigh and effectively diluting the influence of its Black voters. Mr. Reives, who is still the county’s only Black commissioner, fears he will now lose his seat.“They all have the same objective,” he said in an interview, referring to local Republican officials. “To get me out of the seat.”Mr. Reives is one of a growing number of Black elected officials across the country — ranging from members of Congress to county commissioners — who have been drawn out of their districts, placed in newly competitive districts or bundled into new districts where they must vie against incumbents from their own party.Almost all of the affected lawmakers are Democrats, and most of the mapmakers are white Republicans. The G.O.P. is currently seeking to widen its advantage in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia and Texas, and because partisan gerrymandering has long been difficult to disentangle from racial gerrymandering, proving the motive can be troublesome.But the effect remains the same: less political power for communities of color.The pattern has grown more pronounced during this year’s redistricting cycle, the first since the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and allowed jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to pass election laws and draw political maps without approval from the Justice Department.How Maps Reshape American PoliticsWe answer your most pressing questions about redistricting and gerrymandering.“Let’s call it a five-alarm fire,” G.K. Butterfield, a Black congressman from North Carolina, said of the current round of congressional redistricting. He is retiring next year after Republicans removed Pitt County, which is about 35 percent Black, from his district.“I just didn’t see it coming,” he said in an interview. “I did not believe that they would go to that extreme.”Redistricting at a GlanceEvery 10 years, each state in the U.S is required to redraw the boundaries of their congressional and state legislative districts in a process known as redistricting.Redistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about redistricting and gerrymandering.Breaking Down Texas’s Map: How redistricting efforts in Texas are working to make Republican districts even more red.G.O.P.’s Heavy Edge: Republicans are poised to capture enough seats to take the House in 2022, thanks to gerrymandering alone.Legal Options Dwindle: Persuading judges to undo skewed political maps was never easy. A shifting judicial landscape is making it harder.A former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Butterfield said fellow Black members of Congress were increasingly worried about the new Republican-drawn maps. “We are all rattled,” he said.In addition to Mr. Butterfield, four Black state senators in North Carolina, five Black members of the state House of Representatives and several Black county officials have had their districts altered in ways that could cost them their seats. Nearly 24 hours after the maps were passed, civil rights groups sued the state.Representative G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina said he was retiring next year after Republicans removed Pitt County, which is 35 percent Black, from his district.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAcross the country, the precise number of elected officials of color who have had their districts changed in such ways is difficult to pinpoint. The New York Times identified more than two dozen of these officials, but there are probably significantly more in county and municipal districts. And whose seats are vulnerable or safe depends on a variety of factors, including the political environment at the time of elections.But the number of Black legislators being drawn out of their districts outpaces that of recent redistricting cycles, when voting rights groups frequently found themselves in court trying to preserve existing majority-minority districts as often as they sought to create new ones.“Without a doubt it’s worse than it was in any recent decade,” said Leah Aden, a deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. “We have so much to contend with and it’s all happening very quickly.”Republicans, who have vastly more control over redistricting nationally than Democrats do, defend their maps as legal and fair, giving a range of reasons.Kirk Smith, the Republican chairman of Lee County’s board of commissioners, said that “to say only a person of a certain racial or ethnic group can represent only a person of the same racial or ethnic group has all the trappings of ethnocentric racism.”In North Carolina and elsewhere, Republicans say that their new maps are race-blind, meaning officials used no racial data in designing the maps and therefore could not have drawn racially discriminatory districts because they had no idea where communities of color were.“During the 2011 redistricting process, legislators considered race when drawing districts,” Ralph Hise, a Republican state senator in North Carolina, said in a statement. Through a spokesperson, he declined to answer specific questions, citing pending litigation.His statement continued: “We were then sued for considering race and ordered to draw new districts. So during this process, legislators did not use any racial data when drawing districts, and we’re now being sued for not considering race.”In other states, mapmakers have declined to add new districts with majorities of people of color even though the populations of minority residents have boomed. In Texas, where the population has increased by four million since the 2010 redistricting cycle, people of color account for more than 95 percent of the growth, but the State Legislature drew two new congressional seats with majority-white populations.And in states like Alabama and South Carolina, Republican map drawers are continuing a decades-long tradition of packing nearly all of the Black voting-age population into a single congressional district, despite arguments from voters to create two separate districts. In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, said on Thursday that the Republican-controlled State Legislature should draw a second majority-Black House district.Allison Riggs, a co-executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a civil rights group, said that the gerrymandering was “really an attack on Black voters, and the Black representatives are the visible outcome of that.”Efforts to curb racial gerrymandering have been hampered by a 2019 Supreme Court decision, which ruled that partisan gerrymandering could not be challenged in federal court.Though the court did leave intact Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial gerrymandering, it offered no concrete guidance on how to distinguish between a partisan gerrymander and a racial gerrymander when the result was both, such as in heavily Democratic Black communities.Understand How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      ‘It’s an American issue’: can Georgia’s candidate for secretary of state save democracy?

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      ‘It’s an American issue’: can Georgia’s candidate for secretary of state save democracy? Bee Nguyen, who has led her party’s fight against Republican-backed voting restrictions, may prove vital to building election integrity and restoring voter confidence in GeorgiaGeorgia state representative Bee Nguyen has seemed destined to wage epic battles in her fast-changing state ever since replacing Stacey Abrams in its legislature four years ago when the now-nationally-recognized Democrat announced her first bid for governor.Or maybe it’s since former president and Georgia native Jimmy Carter decided, more than 40 years ago, to double the number of refugees admitted to the US from Vietnam – including her parents. Nguyen was born in Iowa, but has lived in Georgia since her parents moved here when she was seven.Now, events of recent months have made it clearer than ever what’s at stake for Nguyen in her next bid: becoming Georgia’s secretary of state, responsible for overseeing elections and other duties in a state that seems set to be at the center of 2022’s midterm elections and also a key battleground in the 2024 presidential race.Since becoming the first Asian American woman in Georgia’s legislature, she has led her party’s fight against Republican-backed restrictions on voting. Now, if she becomes her party’s nominee for secretary of state, her ideas may prove vital to building election integrity and restoring voter confidence in Georgia, and by example, elsewhere in America at a moment when US democracy itself seems in peril.She may have just received a boost last week when Abrams announced her intentions to run for governor again. If successful, Abrams would become the nation’s first Black woman governor. Having Abrams on the ballot should “mobilize resources and get people aware of the seriousness” of the midterm elections next year, said Adrienne Jones, political science professor at Morehouse College. Having Abrams in office may provide a backstop to protecting elections in Georgia as well, Nguyen said. “We need Stacey Abrams to veto further erosion of voting rights,” she said – especially if federal voting rights legislation isn’t passed.Still, the challenges Nguyen faces include Georgia being one of three states where Donald Trump has endorsed Republican candidates for secretary of state who believe the 2020 election was “stolen”, along with Arizona and Michigan. The plan is to help elect election administrators who will make it difficult for Trump to lose in 2024. The former president has already visited Georgia to stump for current member of Congress Jody Hice, who is hoping to oust incumbent Brad Raffensperger – the same official who taped Trump’s 2 January phone call, in which the former president asked the current secretary of state to find “11,780 votes”. Fulton county district Attorney Fani Willis is leading an investigation to determine if Trump committed a crime in that call and other efforts to change last year’s election results.These events, along with continuing threats against Georgia election officials and poll workers, have made Georgia emblematic of the chaos surrounding voting and elections in the US. The resulting situation has given the once-overlooked office of secretary of state new importance, Nguyen said.In that context, “We’re no longer looking at this as a Georgia issue,” she said. “It’s an American issue.”At the same time, the challenges for Georgia’s next secretary of state aren’t limited to overseeing elections in a state where millions of voters still believe the 2020 election was stolen. Or even sorting out the impacts of the state’s new election law, which allows the Republican-controlled legislature to take over local election boards, and is the subject of a handful of lawsuits alleging that the law makes it harder for thousands to vote.If elected, Nguyen will also have to face the fact that Georgia had already been struggling with election cybersecurity issues before 2020, resulting in a federal judge ordering former secretary of state and now governor Brian Kemp to scrap the entire state’s system – a historical first. Then the legislature ignored top cybersecurity experts and bought another vulnerable system – first used statewide in last year’s election. There’s also a 2018 US Commission on Civil Rights report that rated Georgia among the nation’s worst for violating the rights of voters.Against this backdrop, Nguyen has adopted a clear-eyed, practical approach to her campaign. Reached by phone after returning to Atlanta from meetings with community groups in coastal Georgia, she mentions a query she got about the Republican-controlled state legislature certifying elections under the new law. “I said, there’s nothing we can do about that. The secretary of state’s office is a safeguard to democracy – but it’s not a silver bullet.”Communicating transparently with the public, combating disinformation, and evaluating past elections for successes and failures are all key to protecting elections, said John S Cusick, counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund who is representing plaintiffs in one of the suits against Georgia’s new law. “While there are limitations, there are also opportunities,” he said.Nguyen has a host of ideas to “help offset” the new law, as well as restore voter confidence.They include building cybersecurity expertise into the secretary of state’s office, she said. “What I envision is hiring top-notch security experts,” she said. Their duties would include monitoring threats to the election system, as well as disinformation and conspiracies online, and communicating with the state’s 159 counties and their election officials in real time.As a legislator, Nguyen voted against the current $100-plus million computerized elections system, chosen despite top cybersecurity experts recommending that the state use hand-marked paper ballots, as in many other states.This decision is what Richard DeMillo, chairman of Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, calls the “original sin” underlying Georgia’s current situation. “They denied the ground truth … that these are opaque systems with vulnerabilities,” he said. “This is independent of whether the [2020] election was hacked, of which there is no widespread evidence.”Still, scrapping the entire system now would mean that Republican legislators “would have to admit they made an error”, said Nguyen. Her plan would at least make cybersecurity part of the central function of the secretary of state’s office, a first. She hopes to pay for it with federal funds.Other ideas include communicating by mail, text and email with registered voters when trying to maintain rolls current, instead of using only mail and then “purging” voters from the rolls when they don’t respond.“The state should be doing everything they can to notify voters,” she said – including about changes such as new deadlines for requesting absentee ballots or new polling locations. Also, she would make more information on voting available in languages other than English – a practice still controversial in Georgia. And, she would like to install computerized kiosks in grocery stores located in areas with spotty Internet access, to enable voters to do everything from updating registrations to sending in absentee ballots.As for election workers – the historically anonymous and now increasingly threatened key to running elections – “what I have witnessed as a member of the Government Affairs Committee [of the legislature] is that the secretary of state isn’t acting as a collaborative partner” with local election boards, Nguyen said. She wants to change that, improving training, and, she hopes, using federal funds to help counties obtain the equipment they need to avoid such issues as long lines due to a lack of voting machines.Although Nguyen allows that some of these ideas may seem “unsexy”, she says they are “necessary pieces to safeguard democracy. It’s like, ‘Here’s what we can do.’”One thing that Nguyen recognizes as necessary to run for secretary of state in the post-Trump era is a personal security plan.As an Asian-American woman in the public eye, she has become accustomed to bigotry; she noted that someone had posted on Twitter several days before we spoke, “Go back to your shit-hole country.” But “before last year, there was general harassment,” she said. “Now it’s more death threats.” Late last year, Nguyen personally contacted voters from a list Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s team had compiled, after the Big Lie promoter alleged they had voted fraudulently. Nguyen proved the accusation to be wrong. Video of her testimony was widely seen. The death threats increased. She contacted law enforcement officials; they advised that she remove personal information from the Internet as much as possible. “I asked family members to lock down their social media accounts,” she added. Police drove by her house.The situation is not without irony for Nguyen. “I have a frame of reference from my parents,” she said. “They saw a loss of civil liberties. My Dad was imprisoned by the government for three years. They have said to me that they never believed they would lose their country. I’m very concerned – we’re facing threats, disinformation, people actively trying to dismantle democracy. I believe we have a limited time to redirect ourselves.”TopicsGeorgiaStacey AbramsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More