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    Lawyers for Fake Trump Electors Hint at Defense Strategy in Georgia Case

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    The details came at a hearing on whether the three electors, co-defendants of Donald J. Trump in an election interference case, could have their cases moved to federal court.Lawyers for three Georgia Republicans charged in a racketeering indictment for casting false Electoral College votes for former President Donald J. Trump offered a glimpse of their defense strategy on Wednesday, telling a federal judge that they submitted the votes as part of their “duty” under federal law.The three defendants — David Shafer, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party; Cathy Latham, a party activist from a rural part of the state; and State Senator Shawn Still — were among 16 Republicans recruited to cast electoral votes for Mr. Trump at the Georgia State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, the same day that the legitimate electors for President Biden met to cast their votes for him.The three are among 19 people, including Mr. Trump, who were charged last month in an indictment that sketches out a multifaceted scheme to illegally overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. Crucial to the plan, the indictment says, was an effort to recruit Trump loyalists to “convene and cast false Electoral College votes” in Georgia.On Wednesday morning, lawyers for the three fake electors squared off against prosecutors from the Fulton County district attorney’s office in a hearing over whether the three were serving as “federal officers.” Such a designation could allow them to move their cases from state court to the federal system, where the jury pool would be somewhat more supportive of Mr. Trump.The defense lawyers are hoping that Judge Steve C. Jones of U.S. District Court will move the case to federal court — or throw out their clients’ cases completely.At the hearing, the lawyers for the would-be electors said that their clients had believed they were legally preserving Mr. Trump’s rights in case a lawsuit challenging the election at the time ended up in his favor.That lawsuit was filed by Mr. Trump and Mr. Shafer four days before the so-called safe harbor deadline of Dec. 8, 2020, when state-level election challenges were supposed to be wrapped up. Craig Gillen, a lawyer for Mr. Shafer, noted that a judge had not ruled on the lawsuit by the deadline. Therefore, he argued, Georgia, under federal law, lost its authority to decide who the legitimate electors were.That made it incumbent upon the Republican electors to cast votes for Mr. Trump, he said, so that Congress could decide which electoral votes from Georgia to ultimately count.“They did their duty,” Mr. Gillen said, arguing that they should be considered “contingent electors,” and not “fake electors,” as described by prosecutors and reporters.“It’s just too easy to say ‘fake’ without digging into what the law says,” he said.Anna Cross, a special prosecutor, countered that the electors had acted not out of duty, but in their own self-interest, and in the interest of their preferred candidate. She called the lawsuit filed by Mr. Shafer and Mr. Trump “meritless,” and said that the filing of such a suit just before the deadline should not be allowed to cause electoral “chaos.” (The lawsuit was voluntarily withdrawn by the plaintiffs on Jan. 7, 2021.)Not only were the electors not federal officials, Ms. Cross said, but they “were no electors at all.”While the hearing played out in federal court, pretrial jockeying continued in state court, where defense lawyers are seeking other ways to strengthen their hand as an Oct. 23 trial date for two of the 19 defendants, the lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, approaches. On Tuesday, Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court ruled that defense lawyers could interview members of the grand jury that returned the indictment against Mr. Trump and his co-defendants — but only those who were willing to be questioned.On Wednesday, the office of Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, filed a notice pointing to potential conflicts of interest for several of the defense lawyers, though it was unclear if any were serious enough to merit action from Judge McAfee. Many of the suggested conflicts related to having prior connections to witnesses who might be called to testify during a trial.One of the state’s witnesses mentioned in the filing was L. Lin Wood, one of the lawyers who sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss. After the election, Mr. Wood, who was not charged in the case, embraced conspiracy theories and extreme rhetoric, at one point calling for putting former Vice President Mike Pence before a firing squad.In an interview, Mr. Wood said that he had been subpoenaed to testify but that he has nothing worthwhile to say.“A lot of people are putting out stories that I’m a government snitch or I flipped on President Trump,” he said. “That’s just errant nonsense.”Last year, Mr. Wood testified before a special grand jury that heard from 75 witnesses as part of the investigation into election interference in Georgia. More

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      Why Trial Dates for Trump’s Georgia Case Are So Uncertain

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      Some defendants have already sought to move the case to federal court, while others are seeking speedy or separate trials.Even as former President Donald J. Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in one by one at an Atlanta jail this week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out.They are already at odds over when they will have their day in court, but also, crucially, where. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines.Five defendants have already sought to move the state case to federal court, citing their ties to the federal government. The first one to file — Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election — will make the argument for removal on Monday, in a hearing before a federal judge in Atlanta.Federal officials charged with state crimes can move their cases to federal court if they can convince a judge that they are being charged for actions connected to their official duties, among other things.In the Georgia case, the question of whether to change the venue — a legal maneuver known as removal — matters because it would affect the composition of a jury. If the case stays in Fulton County, Ga., the jury will come from a bastion of Democratic politics where Mr. Trump was trounced in 2020. If the case is removed to federal court, the jury will be drawn from a 10-county region of Georgia that is more suburban and rural — and somewhat more Trump-friendly. Because it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury, this modest advantage could prove to be a very big deal.The coming fights over the proper venue for the case are only one strand of a complicated tangle of efforts being launched by a gaggle of defense lawyers now representing Mr. Trump and the 18 others named in the 98-page racketeering indictment. This week, the lawyers clogged both state and federal court dockets with motions that will also determine when the case begins.Already, one defendant’s case is splitting off as a result. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, has asked for a speedy trial, and the presiding state judge has agreed to it. His trial is now set to begin on Oct. 23. Another defendant, Sidney Powell, filed a similar motion on Friday, and a third, John Eastman, also plans to invoke his right to an early trial, according to one of his lawyers.Soon after Mr. Chesebro set in motion the possibility of an October trial, Mr. Trump, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of going to court so soon, informed the court that he intended to sever his case from the rest of the defendants. Ordering separate trials for defendants in a large racketeering indictment can occur for any number of reasons, and the judge, Scott McAfee, has made clear the early trial date applied only to Mr. Chesebro.Mr. Trump’s move came as no surprise. As the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he is in no hurry to see the Georgia matter, or the other three criminal cases against him, go to trial. In the separate federal election interference case Mr. Trump faces in Washington, D.C., his lawyers have asked that the trial start safely beyond the November 2024 general election — in April 2026.In Georgia, the possibility that even a portion of the sprawling case may go to trial in October remains up in the air. The removal efforts have much to do with that.There is a possibility that if one of the five defendants seeking removal is successful, then all 19 will be forced into federal court. Many legal scholars have noted that the question is unsettled.“We are heading for uncharted territory at this point, and nobody knows for sure what is in this novel frontier,” Donald Samuel, a veteran Atlanta defense attorney who represents one of the defendants in the Trump case, Ray Smith III, wrote in an email. “Maybe a trip to the Supreme Court.”The dizzying legal gamesmanship reflects the unique nature of a case that has swept up a former president, a number of relatively obscure Georgia Republican activists, a former publicist for Kanye West and lawyer-defendants of varying prominence. All bring their own agendas, financial concerns and opinions about their chances at trial.And of course, one of them seeks to regain the title of leader of the free world.Some of the defendants seeking a speedy trial may believe that the case against them is weak. They may also hope to catch prosecutors unprepared, although in this case, Fani T. Willis, the district attorney, has been investigating for two and a half years and has had plenty of time to get ready.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney, has been investigating the case for two and a half years. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAnother reason that some may desire a speedy trial is money.Ms. Willis had originally sought to start a trial in March, but even that seemed ambitious given the complexity of the case. Harvey Silverglate, the lawyer for Mr. Eastman, said he could imagine a scenario in which a verdict might not come for three years.“And Eastman is not a wealthy man,” he said.Mr. Silverglate added that his client “doesn’t have the contributors” that Mr. Trump has. “We are going to seek a severance and a speedy trial. If we have a severance, the trial will take three weeks,” he predicted.How long would a regular racketeering trial take? Brian Tevis, an Atlanta lawyer who negotiated the bond agreement for Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, said that “the defense side would probably want potentially a year or so to catch up.”“You have to realize that the state had a two-year head start,” he said. “They know what they have, no one else knows what they have. No discovery has been turned over, we haven’t even had arraignment yet.”In addition to Mr. Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, is already seeking removal, as is David Shafer, the former head of the Georgia Republican Party; Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator; and Cathy Latham, the former chair of the Republican Party in Coffee County, Ga. Mr. Trump is almost certain to follow, having already tried and failed to have a state criminal case against him in New York moved to federal court.Former President Donald J. Trump informed the court that he intended to sever his case from the rest of the defendants.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe indictment charges Mr. Meadows with racketeering and “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer” for his participation in the Jan. 2, 2021 call in which Mr. Trump told the Georgia secretary of state that he wanted to “find” enough votes to win Georgia. The indictment also describes other efforts by Mr. Meadows that prosecutors say were part of the illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election.Mr. Meadows’s lawyers argue that all of the actions in question were what “one would expect” of a White House chief of staff — “arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the president’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the president” — and that removal is therefore justified.Prosecutors contend that Mr. Meadows was in fact engaging in political activity that was not part of a chief of staff’s job.The issue is likely to be at the heart of Mr. Trump’s removal effort as well: In calling the secretary of state and other Georgia officials after he lost the election, was he working on his own behalf, or in his capacity as president, to ensure that the election had run properly?Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant law professor at Georgia State University, said that the indictment may contain an Easter egg that could spoil Mr. Trump’s argument that he was intervening in the Georgia election as part of his duty as a federal official.The indictment says that the election-reversal scheme lasted through September 2021, when Mr. Trump wrote a letter to Georgia’s secretary of state asking him to take steps to decertify the election.Mr. Trump, by that point, had been out of federal office for months.“By showing the racketeering enterprise continued well beyond his time in office,” Mr. Kreis said in a text message, “it undercuts any argument that Trump was acting in a governmental capacity to ensure the election was free, fair and accurate.” More

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      Trump’s Bail Set at $200,000 in Georgia Election Interference Case

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      Mr. Trump, who said he would turn himself in on Thursday, was told not to intimidate or threaten any witnesses or co-defendants in the case.A judge in Atlanta set bail for former President Donald J. Trump at $200,000 on Monday in the new election interference case against him, warning Mr. Trump not to intimidate or threaten witnesses or any of his 18 co-defendants as a condition of the bond agreement.Mr. Trump, who posted on Truth Social that he would surrender to the authorities in Atlanta on Thursday, is also sorting out logistical details in three other criminal cases that have been filed against him this year. Earlier in the day, federal prosecutors pushed back on a request from his lawyers to postpone a separate election interference trial in Washington, D.C., until at least April 2026.Under his bond agreement in Georgia, Mr. Trump cannot communicate with any co-defendants in the case except through his lawyers. He was also directed to “make no direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community,” including “posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual.”The terms were more extensive than those set for other defendants in the case so far, which did not specifically mention social media. In the past, Mr. Trump has made inflammatory and sometimes false personal attacks on Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, who is leading the case.Bond was set at $100,000 for John Eastman, one of the architects of a plan to use fake electors to keep Mr. Trump in power. according to court filings; a lawyer for Kenneth Chesebro, who also developed that plan, said the same amount was set for Mr. Chesebro.Mr. Trump’s attacks continued on Monday ahead of his bond being set. In a post on Truth Social, he called Ms. Willis “crooked, incompetent, & highly partisan” and wrote that she “has allowed Murder and other Violent Crime to MASSIVELY ESCALATE.” In fact, homicides have fallen sharply in Atlanta in the first half of the year.From front left, Donald Trump’s lawyers Marissa Goldberg, Jennifer Little and Drew Findling outside the Fulton County Government Center in Atlanta.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesWhile Mr. Trump did not have to pay bail in the other criminal cases against him, the agreements posted for him and several of his co-defendants in Georgia on Monday require five- and six-figure sums. The defendants have to come up with only 10 percent of the bail amount, but even that could prove difficult for some, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for Mr. Trump, who is running out of money because of an array of legal entanglements.Racketeering cases like this one can be particularly long and costly for defendants — in another racketeering case in the same court, involving a number of high-profile rappers, jury selection alone has gone on for seven months.The costs clearly worry some of the defendants in the Trump case; one of them, Cathy Latham, a former Republican Party official in Georgia who acted as a fake elector for Mr. Trump in 2020, has set up a legal-defense fund, describing herself as “a retired public-school teacher living on a teacher’s pension.” The $3,645 she has initially raised is well short of a $500,000 goal.Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who assisted Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost in 2020, expressed frustration over the looming legal costs a few days after her indictment in the case. “Why isn’t MAGA, Inc. funding everyone’s defense?” she asked last week on X, formerly known as Twitter.Mr. Trump and the other defendants were indicted last week on charges that they were part of a conspiracy to subvert the election results in Georgia, where Mr. Trump narrowly lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr.The Fulton County jail in Atlanta, where Mr. Trump will be booked.Audra Melton for The New York TimesThe indictment laid out eight ways the defendants were accused of trying to reverse the election results as part of a “criminal enterprise”: by lying to the Georgia legislature, lying to state officials, creating fake pro-Trump electors to circumvent the popular vote, harassing election workers, soliciting Justice Department officials, soliciting Vice President Mike Pence, breaching voting machines and engaging in a cover-up.Mr. Trump has not been required to pay cash bail in the three other criminal cases he has been charged in this year — one in Manhattan and two federal cases brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, in Miami and Washington, D.C.In Atlanta, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have emphasized a desire to treat the defendants as other accused felons would typically be treated in the city’s criminal justice system, with mug shots, fingerprinting and cash bails. But the Secret Service is sure to have security demands regarding the booking of a former president.On Monday, lawyers for a number of the defendants were seen walking in and out of a complex of connected government buildings, including the Fulton County courthouse and a government office building, where they met with representatives from the district attorney’s office. The lawyers had little to say, including about when Mr. Trump might surrender.“You’ll find out everything soon enough,” Drew Findling, Mr. Trump’s lead local lawyer, told reporters. “Patience is a virtue.”The lawyer Scott Grubman, left, who is representing Kenneth Chesebro, outside the Fulton County Courthouse on Monday.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesMs. Ellis worked with Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, in the weeks after Mr. Trump lost the election, traveling with him to various states to push claims of widespread fraud that were quickly debunked. But she has been a target of online attacks by allies of Mr. Trump for months, as she has been critical of the former president and has made supportive statements about his closest competitor in the Republican presidential primary, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.“I was reliably informed Trump isn’t funding any of us who are indicted,” Ms. Ellis posted on X last week. “Would this change if he becomes the nominee? Why then, not now?”Asked about her post, Ms. Ellis replied in a text message, “Mounting a defense in these circumstances is exorbitantly expensive. I don’t have great personal wealth and am doing this on my own. I have been overwhelmed and blessed with the generosity and support of Christians and conservatives across the nation who want to help me.”A person briefed on the matter said that Ms. Ellis had not asked for help from a legal-defense fund formed recently by Mr. Trump’s advisers but that she had sought help earlier and had been denied.Mr. Trump has used a political action committee that is aligned with him, and that is replete with money he raised in small-dollar donations as he falsely claimed he was fighting widespread fraud after the 2020 election, to pay the legal bills of a number of allies, as well as his own.But other defendants have been denied help with mounting legal bills long before they were charged. Among those asking for help are Mr. Giuliani; Mr. Trump’s political action committee, which has spent roughly $21 million on legal fees primarily for Mr. Trump but also for others connected to investigations into him, has so far covered only $340,000 for Mr. Giuliani.All 19 defendants are required to turn themselves in by noon on Friday.“The order said it had to be by Friday, I believe, and he plans to follow the order,” Mr. Grubman said of Mr. Chesebro.Sean Keenan contributed reporting from Atlanta. More