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      In Georgia, a Test of Rudy Giuliani’s Loyalty to Trump

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      Michelle Cottle and Donald Trump has been indicted, again. But this time, he’s got company. The Opinion writers Michelle Cottle and David French discuss why that makes this indictment different — and potentially more effective — than the others.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available midday on the Times website.)Illustration by Akshita Chandra; photograph by Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe 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.This Times Opinion Short was produced by Phoebe Lett. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Isaac Jones. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta, Kristina Samulewski and Derek Arthur. More

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      The Georgia Case Against Trump Is The Simplest and Most Direct

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      The best way to think about Georgia’s sprawling indictment against Donald Trump and his allies is that it is a case about lies. It’s about lying, conspiring to lie and attempting to coax, coerce and cajole others into lying. Whereas the attorney general of Michigan just brought a case narrowly focused on the alleged fake electors in her state (Trump is not a defendant in that one), and the special counsel Jack Smith brought an indictment narrowly focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, has brought a case about the entire conspiracy, from start to finish, and targeted each person subject to her jurisdiction for each crime committed in her jurisdiction.In other words, this indictment is ambitious. But it also answers two related questions: Why bring yet another case against Trump in yet another jurisdiction? Isn’t he going to face a federal trial in Washington, D.C., for the same acts outlined in the Georgia indictment?The answers lie in the distinctions between state and federal law. Georgia law is in many ways both broader and more focused than the federal statutes at issue in Smith’s case against Trump. The breadth is evident from the racketeering charges. As Norm Eisen and Amy Lee Copeland wrote in The Times, Georgia’s racketeering statute allows prosecutors to charge, among other crimes, a number of false statement statutes as part of a generalized criminal scheme. In other words, rather than seeing each actionable lie as its own, discrete criminal act, those lies can also be aggregated into part of a larger whole: an alleged racketeering enterprise designed to alter the results of the Georgia presidential election.Yet it’s the focus of Georgia law that’s truly dangerous to Trump. The beating heart of the case is the 22 counts focused on false statements, false documents and forgery, with a particular emphasis on a key statute: Georgia Code Section 16-10-20, which prohibits false statements and writings on matters “within jurisdiction of state or political subdivisions.” The statute is a state analog to a federal law, 18 U.S.C. Section 1001, which also prohibits false statements to federal officials on matters within their jurisdiction, but the Georgia statute is even broader.Simply put, while you might be able to lie to the public in Georgia — or even lie to public officials on matters outside the scope of their duties — when you lie to state officials about important or meaningful facts in matters they directly oversee, you’re going to risk prosecution. That’s exactly what the indictment claims Trump and his confederates did, time and time again, throughout the election challenge.The most striking example is detailed in Act 113 of the indictment, which charges Trump with making a series of false statements to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and his deputies in Trump’s notorious Jan. 2, 2021, telephone call. Most legal commentators, myself included, focused on that call because it contained a not-so-veiled threat against Raffensperger and his counsel. In recorded comments, Trump told them they faced a “big risk” of criminal prosecution because he claimed they knew about election fraud and were taking no action to stop it.Willis’s focus, by contrast, is not on the threats but rather on the lies. And when you read the list of Trump’s purported lies, they are absolutely incredible. His claims aren’t just false; they’re transparently, incandescently stupid. This was not a sophisticated effort to overturn the election. It was a shotgun blast of obvious falsehoods.Here’s where the legal nuances get rather interesting. While Willis still has to prove intent — the statute prohibits “knowingly and willfully” falsifying material facts — the evidentiary challenge is simpler than in Smith’s federal case against Trump. To meet the requirements of federal law, Smith’s charges must connect any given Trump lie to a larger criminal scheme. Willis, by contrast, merely has to prove that Trump willfully lied about important facts to a government official about a matter in that official’s jurisdiction. That’s a vastly simpler case to make.Yes, it is true that the individual lying allegations are also tied to much larger claims about a criminal conspiracy and a racketeering enterprise. But if I’m a prosecutor, I can build from that single, simple foundation: Trump lied, and those lies in and of themselves violated Georgia criminal law. Once you prove that simple case, you’ve laid the foundation for the larger racketeering claims that ratchet up Trump’s legal jeopardy. Compounding the danger to Trump, presidents don’t have the power to pardon state criminal convictions, and even Georgia’s governor doesn’t possess the direct authority to excuse Trump for his crimes.If Trump’s comments on Truth Social are any indication, he may well defend the case by arguing that the Georgia election was in fact stolen. He may again claim that the wild allegations he made to Raffensperger were true. That’s a dangerous game. The claims are so easily, provably false that the better course would probably be to argue that Trump was simply asking Raffensperger about the allegations, not asserting them as fact.But if Trump continues to assert his false claims as fact, then Willis has an ideal opportunity to argue that Trump lied then and is lying now, that he’s insulting the jury’s intelligence just as he insulted the nation’s intelligence when he made his claims in the first place.But declaring that the core of the Georgia case is simpler than the federal case does not necessarily mean that it will be easier to try. Willis chose to bring claims against 19 defendants, and she said she intended to try them together. While that decision makes some sense if you’re trying to prove the existence of a sprawling racketeering enterprise, it is also a massive logistical and legal challenge. Moreover, Trump is likely to try to move the case to federal court, which would require him to demonstrate that his actions were part of his official duties as president — a formidable task, given that he was interacting with Georgia officials in his capacity as a candidate. But if successful, it would expand the available jury pool to include more Trump-friendly areas outside Fulton County.These challenges — especially when combined with Trump’s upcoming criminal trials in Washington, D.C.; Manhattan; and Florida — make it difficult to see how Willis can bring this case to trial within the six months that she has said is her preference.For eight long years, Americans have watched Donald Trump lie. Those lies have been morally indefensible, but some may also be legally actionable. His campaigns and presidency may have been where the truth went to die. But the law lives, and the law declares that Trump cannot lie to Georgia public officials within the scope of their official duties. If Willis can prove that he and his confederates did exactly that, then she will prevail in the broadest, most consequential prosecution in modern American political history.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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      Trump Plans to Release 100-Page Report on Georgia Election Fraud Claims

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      Liz Harrington, a communications aide described as a true believer in the former president’s lies about a stolen election, helped prepare the report. Mr. Trump said he would release it on Monday.Hours after former President Donald J. Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges accusing him of a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, his aides and allies awoke to a social-media post from the Republican front-runner inviting people to a news conference on Monday.“A Large, Complex, Detailed but irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, just before 9 a.m.He added that it will be a “CONCLUSIVE Report” after which “all charges should be dropped against me & others.”The report in question, according to people familiar with the matter, is a document of more than 100 pages that was compiled at least in part by Liz Harrington, a Trump communications aide who is often described as among the true believers in his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.The document focuses on what detractors of the election have insisted are widespread voting anomalies in Georgia during that campaign, the people said. It has been in the works for many weeks, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.Ms. Harrington has been making calls to people outside of Mr. Trump’s campaign about the event, according to two people familiar with the matter. She posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, four hours after Mr. Trump announced the news conference.“Georgia has among the most corrupt elections in the country — and they haven’t gotten better since 2020, they’ve gotten worse!” she wrote. “Tune in Monday!”Ms. Harrington declined to comment when contacted. She also appears, although unnamed, in a key scene detailed in Mr. Trump’s first federal indictment, over his mishandling of classified documents.She was in the room with Mr. Trump at his home in Bedminster, N.J., in the summer of 2021, when the former president was recorded rustling through papers and discussing a sensitive military document that he lamented he could have declassified as president. Three people familiar with the matter said she is one of the women heard speaking in a recording of that conversation, a partial transcript of which appears in the indictment.A wide variety of Mr. Trump’s past claims about fraud in Georgia have already been debunked, and it remains unclear precisely what will be in the report he mentioned in his post. It is also unclear whether Mr. Trump’s promised news conference will go forward on Monday, when the club is expected to be closed and holding only private events.Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, denounced Mr. Trump’s comments a short time after the former president posted them.“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” Mr. Kemp wrote. “For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward — under oath — and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus.’’Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post came as people in his expansive orbit of lawyers and advisers have grown increasingly concerned about what he says publicly about the four criminal indictments he is facing. The judge overseeing his federal case over attempting to subvert the election has already warned Mr. Trump and his lawyers against making “inflammatory” statements that could compromise witnesses or the jury pool.Mr. Trump’s decision to revisit his baseless claims about the 2020 election in such a high-profile setting — with a news conference devoted entirely to the topic — cuts against months of efforts by his allies and advisers to limit the extent to which he focuses on a subject that has already proved to be a political loser.That is especially true after the 2022 midterm elections, when the candidates he endorsed and who promoted his claims of a stolen election fared poorly. More

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      With the Latest Trump Indictment, Mind These Lessons From the South

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      With her sweeping indictment of former President Donald Trump and over a dozen co-conspirators, the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney Fani Willis is now set to prosecute her case in a court of law. Just as important, it is essential that she and others continue to explain to the American public why the decision serves a critical purpose beyond the courts and for the health of our constitutional order.The indictment should be situated in the broader arc of American political development, particularly in the South. That history justifies using the criminal justice system to protect the democratic process in Georgia — a critical swing state — for elections now and in the future.We have the benefit of hindsight to heed the great lesson of the Reconstruction era and the period of redemption that followed: When authoritarians attack democracy and lawbreakers are allowed to walk away from those attacks with impunity, they will try again, believing there are no repercussions.We should not make those mistakes again.The period after the American Civil War entrenched many of America’s political ills. Ex-confederates were welcomed back into the body politic without meaningful penance. There were vanishingly few arrests, trials and lengthy punishments. Suffering minimal political disabilities, they could muster enough power to “redeem” Southern governments from biracial coalitions that had considerable sway to remake the South.Examples of democratic decay were regrettably abundant. An early sign occurred in Louisiana. With a multiracial electorate, Reconstruction Louisiana held great promise. During contentious state elections in 1872, Louisiana Democrats intimidated Black voters from casting ballots and corruptly claimed victory. The disputed election spurred political violence to assert white supremacy, including the Colfax Massacre in 1873, where as many as 150 Black citizens were killed in Grant Parish when a white mob sought to take control of the local government.Federal prosecutors brought charges against a number of the perpetrators. But in 1876, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Cruikshank that the federal government could not prosecute private violence under the 14th Amendment because it could only protect citizens against constitutional rights violations by state actors. By its decision, the court gave license to mobs to disrupt the peaceful transition of power with grave consequences.South Carolina could have been a Reconstruction success story. Its state constitution and government reflected the values and priorities of its Black majority. The planter elite attacked the Reconstruction government as a socialist rabble and baselessly mocked elected officials as incompetent. In the lead-up to elections in 1876, political violence brewed across the state, and Democrats secured a narrow victory. But democratic decay was precipitous. Over time, South Carolina imposed new limits on voting, moving precincts into white neighborhoods and creating a confusing system. Legislators passed the Eight Box Law, which required voters to submit a separate ballot for each elected office in a different box and invalidated any votes submitted in the wrong box. This created a barrier to voting for people who could not read.The lack of repercussions for political violence and voter suppression did little to curb the impulse to crush biracial democracy by mob rule. The backsliding spread like cancer to Mississippi, Virginia and North Carolina.In Georgia, just before the state was initially readmitted to the Union, Georgians elected a Republican to the governorship and a Republican majority to the state senate. Yet the promise of a strong Republican showing was a mirage. Conservative Republicans and Democrats joined forces to expel more than two dozen Black legislators from the Georgia General Assembly in September 1868. From there, tensions only grew. Political violence erupted throughout the state as elections drew closer that fall, most tragically in Camilla, where white supremacists killed about a dozen Black Georgians at a Republican political rally.The democratic failures of that era shared three common attributes. The political process was neither free nor fair, as citizens were prevented from voting and lawful votes were discounted. The Southern Redeemers refused to recognize their opponents as legitimate electoral players. And conservatives abandoned the rule of law, engaging in intimidation and political violence to extinguish the power of multiracial political coalitions.At bottom, the theory behind the Fulton County indictment accuses Mr. Trump and his allies of some of these same offenses.The phone call between Mr. Trump and the Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger (“Fellas, I need 11,000 votes,” Mr. Trump demanded) is crucial evidence backing for a charge relating to soliciting a public officer to violate his oath of office. Mr. Trump’s coercive tactics persisted even though he should have known that Joe Biden fairly won the state’s Electoral College votes. But facts never seemed to matter. Mr. Trump’s false allegation of a rigged contest — a claim he and others made well before voting began — was grounded in a belief that opposition to his re-election was never legitimate.Mr. Trump and his allies could not accept that an emerging multiracial coalition of voters across the state rejected him. Election deniers focused on Atlanta, a city whose Black residents total about half the population, as the place where Georgia’s election was purportedly stolen. The dangerous mix of racial grievance and authoritarian impulses left Trump loyalists feeling justified to concoct the fake electors scheme and imploring the General Assembly to go into a special session to arbitrarily undo the will of Georgians.Political violence and intimidation are some of the most obvious symptoms of democratic decay. The charges in Fulton County are an attempt to use the criminal justice system to repudiate political violence.The sprawling case is stronger because the conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results was replete with acts of intimidation by numerous people. Mr. Trump and Rudy Giuliani engaged in a full-scale harassment campaign against Fulton County election workers when they baselessly alleged that two individuals added fake votes to Mr. Biden’s tally. Mr. Trump threatened Mr. Raffensperger and a state employee with “a criminal offense” if they declined to join his corruption, warning them they were taking “a big risk.” A healthy democracy cannot tolerate this behavior.Democracy is not guaranteed, and democratic backsliding is never inevitable. The country avoided the worst, but the past few years have still been profoundly destabilizing for the constitutional order in ways akin to some of the nation’s darker moments.Indeed, the case by Ms. Willis can be seen as an effort to avoid darker moments in the future, especially for a critical swing state like Georgia. We should remember the words in 1871 of Georgia’s first Black congressman, Jefferson Franklin Long, who spoke out when Congress debated relaxing the requirements for restoring certain rights to ex-Confederates without meaningful contrition: “If this House removes the disabilities of disloyal men … I venture to prophesy you will again have trouble from the very same men who gave you trouble before.”His prediction proved all too accurate. It now may be up to the people of Fulton County to stop election denialism’s widening gyre.Anthony Michael Kreis is an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, where he teaches and studies constitutional law and the history of American politics.Source photographs by Bettmann, Buyenlarge, and Corbis Historical, via Getty.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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      Georgia Case Against Trump Could Allow Cameras in Courtroom

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      No television cameras or still photographers captured the first three arraignments of former President Donald J. Trump in Manhattan, Washington and Miami. And that will likely continue when those cases go to trial over the next year or so.But in Georgia, where Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants were indicted on Monday, state courts typically permit cameras in the courtroom. That means the sprawling conspiracy case could present the best opportunity for the public to watch the legal proceedings unfold.“I would expect it, absolutely,” said David E. Hudson, general counsel for the Georgia Press Association. In 40 years of representing the state’s news media, he could not recall one trial that had been closed to cameras, he said.The judge in the Georgia case, Scott F. McAfee, who was randomly assigned after the indictment was handed up on Monday, has not weighed in on court procedures. But the presumption is in favor of openness.“Open courtrooms are an indispensable element of an effective and respected judicial system,” states a 2018 order regarding Georgia’s law on recording devices in courtrooms. “It is the policy of Georgia’s courts to promote access to and understanding of court proceedings, not only by the participants in them, but also by the general public and by news media who will report on the proceedings to the public.”In Georgia, members of the news media must apply to record the proceedings, but most applications are approved, Mr. Hudson said. There may be restrictions, including on photographing the jury or requiring a pool system to avoid overcrowded courtrooms. But even the highest-profile cases have been open, he said.That stands in contrast to what is expected in the two federal cases against Mr. Trump in Miami and Washington. Federal courts generally do not permit cameras.It has yet to be determined whether the court in the Manhattan case, related to hush-money payments, will allow cameras, but trials in the New York state court system are not typically broadcast. In the past, the judge in the Manhattan case, Juan M. Merchan, has been reluctant to permit video of proceedings that have involved Mr. Trump.In the rare occasion that a Georgia judge seeks to close down a courtroom, he or she must offer evidence in a hearing, explaining why recording should be prohibited to protect specific interests, said Derek Bauer, who is head of media litigation at the BakerHostetler law firm and the general counsel of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters.In practice, closing a courtroom is rarely sought, he said, and state appellate courts have frequently reversed trial court decisions when it has happened.He also said he did not expect the Trump trial to be closed. “We recognize the importance of open courtroom proceedings in the state of Georgia, particularly in connection with criminal proceedings,” he said. More

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      Donald Trump’s Response to the Georgia Indictment

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      Also, Russia’s worsening financial problems. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.Former President Donald Trump has 10 days to turn himself in to face accusations that he and 18 other people orchestrated a “criminal enterprise” to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The sweeping charges, which were brought last night by a local prosecutor in Atlanta, fall under the state’s racketeering statute, which was originally designed to dismantle organized crime groups.Trump — the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination — now faces 91 felony counts and the possibility of standing trial in four separate cases before next year’s elections. He denounced the indictment in Georgia today, saying in a post on his social media platform that he would hold a news conference on Monday and release an “Irrefutable” report that would somehow prove his false claims of election fraud in Georgia.While the gambit is unlikely to ward off the immense and expensive legal threats he faces, it may prove popular among his political base. Trump’s small-dollar donations and poll numbers both picked up around his previous indictments. “It’s still early,” my colleague Jonathan Swan said. But, “the official Republican Party apparatus, which had been distancing itself from Trump, rallied behind him after his first indictment.”However, with the Georgia case, other defendants may feel less secure sticking by Trump, Jonathan said. State charges — like those being pursued against Trump in Georgia — cannot be dismissed by Trump if he wins the presidency next year.“During the Mueller investigation, there was pretty heavy handed rhetoric from Trump hinting that he would pardon certain people,” Jonathan told me. “That tool is not available when it’s a state charge.”Russia’s financial problems are piling upThe Russian central bank raised interest rates today by the most it has since the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, a dramatic move that underlines the scale of concern about Russia’s economic stability.The move is designed to both tame inflation and support the ruble, which briefly slipped past the symbolically important exchange rate of 100 to the dollar yesterday. Overall, the ruble has declined 25 percent this year. The roots of Russia’s economic turmoil stem, in part, from the huge government spending increases to pay for its war effort in Ukraine, fueling inflation. Western sanctions have also contributed.Chelsea Denton FuquaHow a fire turned Lahaina into a death trapInterviews and video evidence reviewed by The New York Times show that the brush fire last week that wiped out Lahaina in Maui ignited under a snapped power line a full nine hours before it roared through town — flaring up in the afternoon after firefighters had declared it contained.Yet in dozens of interviews, people who survived said they had received no warnings before the fire came rushing toward their homes. They told stories of people scrambling to escape along the waterfront and driving past others who were frolicking on the beaches.In related news, residents are suing Hawaii’s biggest power utility, saying that the company should have shut down power before the winds came.Charles McGonigal, center, sought to enrich himself by trading on his job, prosecutors said.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesAn F.B.I. spy hunter pleaded guilty to aiding an oligarchCharles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence for the F.B.I. in New York, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions and laundering payments from a prominent Russian oligarch. His plea was a stunning turn for a man who once occupied one of the most sensitive and trusted positions in the American intelligence community, placing him among the highest-ranking F.B.I. officials ever to be convicted of a crime.Dive deep: My colleagues examined McGonigal’s remarkable rise and greed-fueled fall.More top newsChina: Beijing stopped releasing youth unemployment figures, its latest attempt to play down negative trends as growth stalls.Hunter Biden: The lawyer who represented Biden stepped down, saying that he intended to testify as a witness on behalf of the president’s son.Adderall shortage: As the school year begins, families are struggling to find A.D.H.D. medication.“Revenge porn” lawsuit: A Texas woman won $1.2 billion in damages after she sued her former boyfriend, accusing him of sending intimate images of her to her family, friends and co-workers.Addiction: Less than half of Americans with a substance use disorder have received treatment, according to a survey.Social media: X, formerly known as Twitter, “throttled” access to rival sites such as Substack and Facebook.Local news: After a Wisconsin news outlet reported that a businessman used an anti-gay slur, he sued. The bitter legal fight is threatening to bankrupt the news site.TIME TO UNWINDMaddi Koch, a movie reviewer, has three million followers on TikTok.Madeline Gray for The New York TimesThey review movies, but don’t call them criticsWhen looking for a good movie, some people check out movie rating websites. Others prefer to read established film critics. But many are now turning to TikTok personalities who offer recommendations to their millions of fans.These reviewers are changing the industry — but many of them don’t want to be thought of as critics. Not only do they sometimes accept payment from studios, but they also want to distance themselves from traditional criticism, which some feel is antiquated and removed from general audiences.Fans outside the stadium in Brisbane, Australia, before a Women’s World Cup match this month.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersThe Matildas unite a nationAustralia has long been proud of its rich sporting traditions like cricket, rugby and Australian rules football. Soccer, however, has largely been an afterthought — at least until the past three weeks. The whole country, it seems, is now decked out in green and gold to support the Matildas, as the women’s soccer team is known. But in order for Australia to compete in the Women’s World Cup final on Sunday on their home turf, the team must first defeat England, which is heavily favored, tomorrow at 6 a.m. Eastern.For more: Australian Indigenous leaders hope that soccer can improve outcomes for Indigenous children in remote communities.Ava Max, left, and Carly Rae Jepsen, right.Julie Sebadelha/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Rob Grabowski/Invision, via Associated PressDinner table topicsPop’s middle class: What happens when a pop star isn’t that popular?Original supermodels: The cover of Vogue’s September issue has ignited a new debate about beauty standards and what many viewers see as egregious age erasing.Jay-Z library cards: Fans of the rapper, who see the Brooklyn Public Library’s limited-edition cards as instantly classic pieces of hip-hop memorabilia, are rushing to collect all 13.Beach fight: As beach lounge chairs that rent for up to $130 pop up across the Greek islands, local people are protesting in a “beach towel movement.”WHAT TO DO TONIGHTLinda Xiao for The New York TimesCook: For this shrimp scampi, quick-cooking orzo simmers directly in the buttery, garlicky pan sauce.Watch: MTV is premiering a new dating show tonight in which the men are actually ready for relationships. Here’s what else is on TV this week.Read: In Maud Ventura’s “My Husband,” a Frenchwoman cannot stop surveilling her spouse.Preview: It’s not too early to pick out the perfect fall jacket.Defend: Suntans have serious risks. Here’s how to protect yourself.Give: If you have a coffee lover in your life, these gifts will likely please them.Play: Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Also, try out our new game Connections.ONE LAST THINGWhy did the chicken cross the road?  Ask ChatGPT.Pablo Delcan and Chanyu ChenA roast battle between a human and a robotLast month, in a crowded bar in Brooklyn, the fate of humanity hung in the balance. Or at least that’s how the comic Matt Maran portrayed the event, which was billed as the first roast battle pitting artificial intelligence against a human comedian.Neither side was getting big laughs, but the A.I. was more unflappable, and in the end, it won every round. However, inspired stand-ups shouldn’t fear for their jobs — yet. “Why did the human stare at the glass of orange juice?” the robot asked in one attempt at a dig against its real life opponent. “They were trying to concentrate.”Have a witty evening.Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — MatthewSign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com. More

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      Inside Fani Willis’s Georgia Investigation of Donald Trump

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      Fani T. Willis faced hiring challenges, threats, a judge’s reproach and a series of legal obstacles over her two-and-a-half-year investigation of Donald J. Trump.Fani T. Willis was barely three days into her new job as district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., when a potential case caught her attention.A recording had emerged of Donald J. Trump, in his waning days as president, telling Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state and a fellow Republican, that he wanted to “find” nearly 12,000 votes, or enough to reverse his narrow 2020 election loss there. The call fell squarely in Ms. Willis’s new jurisdiction, since Fulton County includes the State Capitol building in Atlanta where Mr. Raffensperger works.Ms. Willis had inherited an office with a deep backlog of cases exacerbated by the pandemic, and had limited staff. But she knew almost immediately that she would investigate.“When allegations come about — about anything that would hamper society’s ability to believe in fair elections, or if there is even conduct that rises to the level of suspicion, I don’t think that I have a choice,” Ms. Willis said in February 2021, shortly after announcing that she had opened a criminal inquiry into the matter.Over the next two and a half years, what began as an examination of a single phone call became a sprawling investigation stretching across multiple counties and states and into the federal government. On Monday, Ms. Willis announced that a grand jury had indicted 19 people on 41 felony counts, including Mr. Trump and a number of his former top aides and allies, on charges that they had criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election in her state.That the most expansive case against Mr. Trump and his associates would emerge from a local prosecutor’s office in the Deep South was never a given.Her office faced frequent security concerns and threats as the investigation played out, many of them racist, leading Ms. Willis to have staff members outfitted with bulletproof vests.There was a parade of legal challenges from witnesses reluctant to testify in her investigation — including from Senator Lindsey Graham and Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff — though most eventually did so after losing court battles.Ms. Willis’s own political judgment became a sticking point when a judge berated her for headlining a fund-raiser for a Democrat rival of a state lawmaker who was one of the investigation’s potential targets.Through it all, she made clear that she would not be deterred. When she and a lawyer for Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, got into a disagreement over the terms of Mr. Kemp providing testimony in her investigation, Ms. Willis wrote to the lawyer in an email: “You have taken my kindness as weakness,” adding, “Despite your disdain, this investigation continues and will not be derailed by anyone’s antics.”Ms. Willis, center, with her team during proceedings to seat a special grand jury in May 2022.Ben Gray/Associated PressSecurity around the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse in Atlanta was increased leading up the indictment announcement.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesWhile Ms. Willis has been depicted by Mr. Trump and his allies as a left-wing zealot, she is actually a centrist, law-and-order prosecutor. Only a few months before taking office, when she was facing a primary against her old boss, an anonymous flier circulated that superimposed a photograph of Ms. Willis standing next to Mr. Trump and branded her as a Republican.Before becoming district attorney, she was best known for helping lead a high-profile case a decade ago against a group of educators in the Atlanta public school system who were involved in a widespread cheating scandal. Some attacked her for prosecuting teachers and other educators, but she retorted in a 2021 interview that she was sticking up for children.“Y’all can put it in my obituary,” she said of the criticism.From the start of the Trump investigation, Ms. Willis floated the possibility of bringing charges under the state’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, as she had done in the cheating case. One of her early hires as an outside consultant, in March 2021, was John E. Floyd, who wrote a guidebook on such laws, published by the American Bar Association.But the investigation was slow to develop. Today, Ms. Willis has about 10 people working on the case, including Mr. Floyd, out of a total work force of 370 people.Finding a lead prosecutor for what would be one of the highest-profile cases in the state’s history was another hurdle. After several candidates turned her down, she enlisted an old friend, Nathan Wade, a defense lawyer and former municipal court judge whose small firm handled personal injury cases as well as criminal defense.As the case heads toward trial, Ms. Willis’s office is prosecuting another sprawling racketeering case involving prominent local rappers accused of operating a criminal gang. That case has its own dramas slowing it down, including legal sparring over evidence of a goat sacrifice and jury selection that has already taken more than seven months.“We’re not one-dimensional, right?” Ms. Willis told a local radio station recently, adding that her office could pursue the election investigation “while making sure that, as you see, the murder rate is dropping in Atlanta. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”By last summer, the Trump investigation took a critical turn on two fronts. A special grand jury was empaneled at Ms. Willis’s request. In Georgia, such juries cannot bring indictments, but can gather information for longer periods of time than regular grand juries can, giving them the ability to dig into complex issues.At the same time, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol began its public hearings, and its fact-gathering would be a valuable source of information for the Georgia investigators.But Ms. Willis was soon found to have committed a misstep. In July 2022, the judge presiding over the case, Robert C.I. McBurney, barred her from pursuing charges against Burt Jones, a state lawmaker and Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia. Ms. Willis had headlined a recent fund-raiser for Mr. Jones’s Democratic rival.Ms. Willis, right, and Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, in the process of seating a grand jury in July.Brynn Anderson/Associated PressThe police removed flowers and photographs of Ms. Willis that were placed outside the courthouse the morning after the indictment was announced.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“This scenario creates a plain — and actual and untenable — conflict,” the judge wrote in his decision, after noting during a hearing on the matter that “the optics are horrific.” By then, Mr. Jones, one of the 16 pro-Trump “alternate electors” in Georgia, had been told that he could face charges, along with the other fake electors. But any potential prosecution of Mr. Jones, who eventually won election as Georgia’s lieutenant governor, would have to be handled by another prosecutor.The special grand jurors spent the second half of last year interviewing about 75 witnesses over seven months.“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger,” said Emily Kohrs, the forewoman of the special grand jury, in an interview in February.From there, they heard evidence about how votes and voting machines were handled. They discussed the vote counting that took place at State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta, and the false claims that Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and other Trump allies made about ballot fraud taking place there.The jurors “talked a lot” about state legislative hearings that Mr. Giuliani spoke at in December 2020, spreading misinformation about the election, Ms. Kohrs said, “and then we talked some about events leading up to and immediately following the January phone call.”They also heard evidence about Trump allies breaching the election system in a rural county south of Atlanta in hopes of finding evidence that the election had been rigged.As the special grand jury’s work proceeded, Mr. Trump hired a high profile Atlanta lawyer, Drew Findling, who had represented rappers such as Cardi B, Gucci Mane and Migos.Mr. Findling tried repeatedly to derail the investigation, an aggressive strategy that is not unusual among Mr. Trump’s growing retinue of lawyers. Complications proliferated as a number of witnesses wavered, and by May more than half of the bogus Trump electors were cooperating with Ms. Willis’s office.Georgia judges also appeared to run out of patience with the Trump team’s filings. The State Supreme Court unanimously rebuffed Mr. Findling’s efforts to have Ms. Willis disqualified. And Judge McBurney, of Fulton County Superior Court, encouraged the Trump team to follow professional standards “before burdening other courts with unnecessary and unfounded legal filings.”This week, after the charges were announced, Mr. Findling and Mr. Trump’s other Georgia lawyers, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg, said in a statement that they “look forward to a detailed review of this indictment which is undoubtedly just as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process has been.’”With the indictment in the books, a new set of legal battles is now sure to begin. Ms. Willis has made clear that this is not an ordinary prosecution, going so far as to instruct many employees to work from home for the first half of August as charges loomed and security concerns built.Yet she has also emphasized that in some ways, she will treat the case against Mr. Trump like any other.If anyone interfered with the election, “I have a duty to investigate,” she said, adding: “In my mind, it’s not of much consequence what title they wore.” More

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      in Elections

      Legal Consequences Arrive for Trump and Other Election Deniers

      by

      Legal repercussions have arrived for the leaders of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential contest, in what could serve as a warning to those who meddle in future elections.For two and a half years, most of Donald J. Trump’s allies in the sprawling effort to overturn the 2020 election escaped consequences, continuing to try to undermine President Biden’s legitimacy by spreading false claims about voting machines, mail ballots and rigged elections.Now the legal repercussions are arriving.Last month, three leading election deniers in Michigan were charged with felonies over a scheme to surreptitiously obtain election machines and inspect them in parking lots and hotels. Soon after, Mr. Trump himself was indicted in a major federal investigation of his actions surrounding the 2020 election.Then, in the longest reach of the law yet, Mr. Trump and 18 others were criminally charged on Monday over their attempts to interfere with the outcome of the election in Georgia.The broad indictment includes some of the most prominent figures in the movement to subvert the election: Rudolph W. Giuliani, who presented state legislatures with what he said was evidence of fraud and has continued to make such claims as recently as this month; John C. Eastman, a lawyer and an architect of the scheme to create bogus slates of pro-Trump electors; David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, who filed 16 fake electors; and Sidney Powell, a lawyer behind some of the wildest claims about election machines.“The attacks on the election system were so brazen,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “Some accountability,” she added, would “make people think twice before pushing the envelope and trying to break the law.”Despite the flood of criminal charges, election denialism persists in American politics. Many of the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the election were re-elected, and Mr. Trump has made false election claims central to his campaign to take back the White House. In a post on his social media site on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump pledged to unveil a “report” next week on “election fraud” in Georgia. (Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani, among others, have said they did nothing wrong and have cast the charges as politically motivated.)It is still far from clear whether Mr. Trump and his allies who face charges will ultimately be convicted. But the legal threat may force Trump allies to think twice in the future about repeating their more drastic actions — tampering with election machines, organizing the fake elector scheme, filing reams of frivolous lawsuits.In addition to the criminal charges, several lawyers who pushed baseless election claims in court are facing disbarment. And Fox News was forced to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of misinformation about the 2020 election.One sign that prosecutions can act as a deterrent has already surfaced. More than 1,100 people were arrested after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, according to Justice Department records. More than 630 have pleaded guilty to various charges, and about 110 have been convicted at trial. Almost 600 have been sentenced and, of those, about 370 have served some amount of time behind bars.Legal experts say those convictions are a key reason that recent provocations by Mr. Trump after his series of indictments have not resulted in mass protests or violence.“The federal government has made a concerted effort to investigate and prosecute people who stormed the Capitol,” said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. “And I think we’ve seen when Trump tried to rally people in Manhattan or in Florida, not only were the crowds small, but a lot of right-wing influencers were out there telling people: ‘Do not do this. You are going to get arrested.’”Part of the challenge for prosecutors is that bringing criminal charges for trying to overturn an election is relatively uncharted legal terrain.“It would be wrong to say that there’s precedent in these exact circumstances, because we have never had these exact circumstances,” said Mary McCord, a former top official in the Justice Department’s national security division and a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.In Georgia, Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who led the investigation, turned to the state’s racketeering statute, often used for targeting organized crime, because of the magnitude of the inquiry and the large number of people involved.In the federal case, Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned by the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Trump, used novel applications of criminal laws — such as conspiring to defraud the government and corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding — to bring charges against the former president over his actions leading up to the Capitol riot.In Michigan, the charges were more straightforward, focusing specifically on allegations of illegal possession of a voting machine and a conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer or computer system.Such applications of the law, while in some cases untested, could establish a playbook for prosecutors to go after those who threaten elections in the future.“We hope at the end of the day, yes, there will be precedents created, legal precedents created as a result of actions people took after the 2020 election,” said Jon Greenbaum, the chief counsel for the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a former Justice Department lawyer, adding that he hoped those precedents “in the end will make our democracy stronger.”Alan Feuer More