Shafer, David J (1965- )

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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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      Fotos policiales de los acusados de conspirar con Trump: ¿por qué sonríen?

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      La imagen que se toma al fichar a los acusados de un delito suele reflejar seriedad, incredulidad o sorpresa. Eso no ha sucedido con algunos de los acusados con el expresidente en Georgia.[Última hora: Donald Trump fue fichado en Georgia y las autoridades difundieron su foto policial. Puedes leer más aquí, en inglés].La típica foto policial suele ser un asunto sombrío: con mala iluminación y gesto taciturno. Es un retrato permanente de la vergüenza, la letra escarlata del sistema legal.Y, casi por definición, va sin sonrisa.Pero entre las fotografías que han surgido de la oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton en Atlanta, donde Donald Trump y otras 18 personas han sido acusadas de conspirar para revertir las elecciones de 2020, hay varias que son peculiarmente alegres.Jenna Ellis, exabogada de Trump, luce una amplia sonrisa, al igual que David Shafer, expresidente del Partido Republicano de Georgia. Scott Hall, operador político de Trump, no logra reprimir una sonrisita burlona. Sidney Powell, acusada de esparcir teorías de la conspiración desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, deja ver un brillo en los ojos.Sidney Powell, acusada de difundir teorías conspirativas desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, es retratada con un gesto que oscila entre una sonrisa y un ceño fruncido.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton vía Associated Press¿Y qué expresan sin lugar a dudas sus expresiones faciales? Desafío.El semblante que han puesto para la cámara del sistema de justicia penal, y para el lente de la historia, recuerda los otros papeles de reparto que desempeñan en lo que parece ser una extraordinaria producción del teatro político: uno que concuerda con la afirmación muy repetida por Trump de que la fiscalía es una farsa y una burla.En la fotografía de Ellis, tomada el miércoles —tan alegre que podría ser una foto de perfil, a no ser por el logotipo de la oficina del sheriff detrás de su hombro— parece a punto de estallar en risas por el lugar donde se encuentra.La política moderna en tiempos de redes sociales, como casi todo, es una batalla por crear, controlar y definir imágenes. Y la foto policial, inventada en Bélgica en la década de 1840 como una forma útil de identificación, es un nuevo frente en ese combate.La mayoría de los otros acusados fichados hasta el momento de delitos de conspiración para revertir los resultados de las elecciones de 2020 dejaban ver su serio dilema. Tal vez ninguno más que Rudolph Giuliani, quien apretó los labios, miró con frialdad al frente y frunció el ceño luego de comparecer ante las autoridades el miércoles en Atlanta.Ellis intentó adueñarse de un proceso que suele verse como humillante o intimidante; ella ha presentado su acusación como una persecución política injusta que debe superarse con fe y optimismo.Publicó su fotografía policial en internet con una cita de los Salmos: “¡Alégrense, ustedes los justos; regocíjense en el Señor!”.Cuando se le pidieron comentarios, Ellis comparó su situación con la de un antiguo cliente, un ministro que desafió una orden de cerrar su iglesia en la pandemia.“Quienes se burlan de mí, de mi excliente y mi Dios, quieren ver que me quiebro y no tendrán esa satisfacción”, dijo. “Sonreí porque estoy decidida a enfrentar este proceso con valentía y actuando según la fe. No pueden robarse mi alegría”.Powell y los abogados que representan a Shafer y Hall no respondieron de inmediato a pedidos de comentario.Haber sido retratado en las instalaciones del condado de Fulton podría ser incluso un símbolo de estatus entre los seguidores de Trump más incondicionales: Amy Kremer, quien ayudo a organizar el mitin previo al motín del 6 de enero de 2021 en el Capitolio, publicó una foto manipulada en la que aparece, sin sonreír, frente al logotipo del sheriff del condado de Fulton. No se le ha acusado en Georgia.Se supone que el retrato policial sea un ecualizador, que tanto los poderosos como los desposeídos sean blanco del mismo lente objetivo. Y muchos enemigos de Trump han criticado al Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. por no tomar la foto de la ficha policial (como harían con otros acusados) cuando el expresidente fue fichado por cargos federales en Miami y Washington.Esta vez será distinto.Por regla general, los políticos suelen asumir su fichaje en la comisaría como eventos políticos que al final tendrán un peso en el resultado legal.Cuando a Tom DeLay, líder de la cámara baja, se le acusó de lavado de dinero y conspiración en 2005, se atavió con traje, ajustó su corbata y sonrió de oreja a oreja. Fue una forma astuta de privar a sus oponentes de una imagen que fácilmente podrían usar en anuncios para atacarlo. (Se retiró del Congreso pero su posterior condena fue anulada en apelación).John Edwards, quien fue senador por Carolina del Norte y candidato demócrata a la vicepresidencia en 2004, sonrió con calidez ante la cámara como si estuviera frente a un simpatizante cuando lo ficharon al imputársele delitos de violación de leyes de financiación de campaña en 2011. Como Ellis, quería transmitir su inocencia y la injusticia de los cargos. (Fue absuelto de uno de los cargos y el gobierno retiró los restantes).Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesServicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesA los políticos les obsesiona proyectar mensajes, es un rasgo dominante de su especie. Tom DeLay, John Edwards y Rick Perry acudieron a que los ficharan como a un evento político que a final de cuentas podría influenciar el veredicto legal.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Travis vía Getty ImagesY en 2014, Rick Perry, entonces gobernador republicano de Texas, ofreció una sonrisa taimada cuando lo ficharon por delitos relacionados con presionar al fiscal de distrito demócrata del condado de Travis para que renunciara. Calificó los cargos de “farsa”, publicó fotos suyas en una heladería poco después y dos años más tarde fue absuelto de todos los cargos.En la mayoría de los casos, sonreír en la foto policial es una muestra de rebeldía.Eso ha sido particularmente cierto si se habla de los delincuentes famosos que, en general, han sido casi tan cuidadosos de su imagen como las estrellas de cine o los políticos. Al Capone sonrió en varios retratos policiales así como en su foto de identificación en Alcatraz. Y en la única foto que se le tomó al narcotraficante Pablo Escobar para una ficha policial, luego de que lo arrestaron por narcotráfico en Colombia, parecía casi jubiloso.Donaldson Collection — Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesPor lo general, los criminales famosos, como Al Capone y Pablo Escobar, han estado muy atentos a su imagen, como las estrellas de cine o los políticos.Archivio GBB vía AlamyTenía un buen motivo. Los cargos fueron retirados rápidamente.Glenn Thrush cubre el departamento de Justicia. Se unió al Times desde 2017, luego de haber trabajado para Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald y City Limits. Más de Glenn ThrushMaggie Haberman es corresponsal política sénior y autora de Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Formó parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. Más de Maggie Haberman More

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      Legal Consequences Arrive for Trump and Other Election Deniers

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      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