US elections 2020

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia special grand jury recommended charges against Lindsey Graham and former senators – live

      by

      From 1h agoThe special grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results recommended bringing charges against the state’s former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as well as the current South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.None of the three were named in the indictment Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis unveiled last month, which targeted Donald Trump and 18 others with racketeering charges related to their attempt to stop Joe Biden from collecting Georgia’s electoral votes despite his victory there.According to the report, the jurors recommended the three senators be charged over “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.All told, the special grand jurors in Georgia recommended charges against 39 people for trying to overturn the state’s elections, but Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s indictment only targeted 19 people, Donald Trump among them.Among those who were named in the report, but not charged:David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were Georgia’s Republican senators, until both were ousted from office by the Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in elections held the day before the January 6 insurrection.The special grand jury in Fulton county recommended that Perdue be charged “over the persistent, repeated communications directed to multiple Georgia officials and employees between November of 2020 and January of 2021” – the period when Donald Trump was trying to overturn his election loss. The vote was 16 jurors in favor, one against, and one abstention.The jurors also recommended charges against both Loeffler and Perdue for “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”. However there was more dissent on this count. For Perdue, the vote was 17 in favor and four against, while for Loeffler, the vote was 14 in favor, 6 against, and one abstention.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis ultimately did not indict either of the former lawmakers.Lindsey Graham’s name appeared early as Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in the White House began shortly after his re-election defeat in November 2020.Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger told the press that the South Carolina senator had called him to ask if it was possible to throw away mail-in ballots in counties crucial to Joe Biden’s win in Georgia. From the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino’s report at the time:
      Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has said that Senator Lindsey Graham asked whether it was possible to invalidate legally cast ballots after Donald Trump was narrowly defeated in the state.
      In an interview with the Washington Post, Raffensperger said that his fellow Republican, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, questioned him about the state’s signature-matching law and asked whether political bias might have played a role in counties where poll workers accepted higher rates of mismatched signatures. According to Raffensperger, Graham then asked whether he had the authority to toss out all mail-in ballots in these counties.
      Raffensperger was reportedly “stunned” by the question, in which Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to throw out legally cast absentee ballots.
      “It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.
      Graham confirmed the conversation to reporters on Capitol Hill but said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that he pressured Raffensperger to throw out legally cast absentee ballots. According to Graham, he only wanted to learn more about the process for verifying signatures, because what happens in Georgia “affects the whole nation”.
      “I thought it was a good conversation,” Graham said on Monday after the interview was published. “I’m surprised to hear he characterized it that way.”
      Trump has refused to accept results showing Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, falsely blaming rampant fraud and irregularities that election officials in both parties have dismissed as meritless.
      The special grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results recommended bringing charges against the state’s former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as well as the current South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.None of the three were named in the indictment Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis unveiled last month, which targeted Donald Trump and 18 others with racketeering charges related to their attempt to stop Joe Biden from collecting Georgia’s electoral votes despite his victory there.According to the report, the jurors recommended the three senators be charged over “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.The full report of the special grand jury whose investigation led to the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result has been released.We’re digging into it and will let you know what it says.The special grand jury report that was used in the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others in Georgia for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results is expected to be released any minute now.While parts of it have already been unsealed, we will finally be getting a look at the full report by the jurors empaneled by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis. There are two main pieces of news expected from the report:
      Whether the grand jurors recommended charges be brought against people who Willis ultimately opted not to pursue.
      The vote counts for each person the jurors said should be indicted, and whether there were any significant splits within the panel.
      Yesterday, Ron DeSantis had a testy exchange with an audience member who accused the Republican governor of backing policies in Florida that enabled violence against Black people – such as last month’s shooting by a racist gunman in Jacksonville:Clearly smarting over the exchange, DeSantis later went on Fox News to call the questioner a “nutjob”:While Joe Biden is in India for a meeting of G20 leaders, Republicans angling to replace him next year are continuing their campaigns, including Ron DeSantis – who may have done himself more harm than good by skipping a meeting with the president after a hurricane struck Florida. Here’s the story, from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe:One reality of Florida politics is that a bad hurricane for the state traditionally blows good fortune for its governor. It was true for Rick Scott, elected a senator in November 2018, one month after guiding Florida through Category 5 Hurricane Michael; and again for Ron DeSantis, whose landslide re-election last year followed his much-praised handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.This year, however, DeSantis is struggling to shake the dark clouds of Hurricane Idalia, as his return to the national stage to try to rescue his flailing presidential campaign after an 11-day break has been further scarred by his “petty and small” snub of Joe Biden’s visit to Florida last weekend to survey the storm’s damage.Opponents seized on it as a partisan politicization of a climate disaster, contrasting the Republican Florida governor’s approach to a year ago after Ian, when DeSantis and Biden put their differences aside to praise each other and tour the worst-affected areas with their respective first ladies.“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and a rival for the Republican presidential nomination, told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade.“You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job,” added Christie, who was applauded by Democrats and savaged by Republicans for working closely with Barack Obama after superstorm Sandy mauled his state in 2012.The Twitter/X account of Joe Biden, who is currently flying on Air Force One to New Delhi for a summit of G20 nations, just released video showing him touring the renovated situation room.That’s the space in the White House where the president goes to handle emergencies or highly sensitive operations:Perhaps the most famous appearance of a president in the situation room is Barack Obama’s from 1 May 2011, as he watched US soldiers kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. His photographer Pete Souza captured the scene:Yesterday, Donald Trump indicated he may ask that his trial in the Georgia election subversion case be moved to federal court, which the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported could have a number of advantages for the former president:Donald Trump’s lead defense lawyer notified a judge in Fulton county on Thursday that he could soon seek to remove to federal court the racketeering prosecution charging him with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.The unusual filing, submitted to the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee, said only that the former president “may seek removal of his prosecution”, stopping short of submitting a formal motion to transfer the trial venue.Trump has been weighing for weeks whether to seek removal to federal court and, according to two people familiar with deliberations, is expected to make a decision based on whether his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his own effort.The idea with waiting on a decision in the Meadows case, the people said, is to use him as a test. If Meadows is successful in transferring to federal court, the Trump legal team is intending to repurpose the same arguments and follow a similar strategy.To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level.The rationale to seek removal to federal court is seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.The Georgia special grand jury report that is expected to be released at 10am ET today could reveal whether the investigative panel thought anyone else besides Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants should face charges for meddling in the state’s election result three years ago.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis convened the panel and used its subpoena power to compel witness testimony, and portions of its final report have already been released. The special grand jury did not indict Trump – that was done by one of the regular grand juries she convened in August.Good morning, US politics live blog readers. It’s going to be another big Friday in one of the criminal cases against Donald Trump, while US president Joe Biden is in India for G20 and a crucial bilateral with the prime minister, Narendra Modi.Here’s some of what’s ahead:
      The report of the special grand jury in Georgia that investigated Trump in the election subversion case – where the now-former president attempted to overturn the 2020 election in the swing state – is expected to be unsealed today.
      Biden is due to touch down in New Delhi, India, in under two hours, a day before the start of the G20 summit there. He and Modi will hold a bilateral meeting shortly after the US president arrives. The specter of Russia’s war in Ukraine looms over the event.
      Speaking of criminal cases against former US presidents, on this day 49 years ago Republican president Gerald Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former president Richard Nixon covering his entire term in office, the AP notes.
      Trump will attend a rally tonight in South Dakota and the state’s rightwing governor Kristi Noem is expected to endorse his run for the 2024 Republican nomination for the White House. Noem is considered a vice-presidential hopeful. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia report reveals jury called for criminal charges against Lindsey Graham and others

      by

      A special purpose grand jury in Georgia that investigated Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election for nearly two years recommended bringing criminal charges against several people who ultimately were not charged, including US senator Lindsey Graham, former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, as well as the influential conservative figure Cleta Mitchell.Those recommendations were revealed Friday when the special purpose grand jury’s final report was unsealed. A regular grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election last month. Those charged include Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, and former Georgia Republican party chairman David Shafer.The special purpose grand jury recommended bringing charges against Graham, Perdue and Loefller “with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election with efforts focused on Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia”.Graham, a key Trump ally in the senate, called Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger after the election and inquired about tossing aside legally cast mail-in ballots. Perdue reportedly pushed Georgia governor Brian Kemp to call a special session of the Georgia legislature in order to overturn the election results. Loeffler initially said she would vote against certification of Biden’s win in the US Senate before reversing course after the January 6 riot and voting in favor of certification.Mitchell, who remains an influential figure on the right today, was on the infamous January 2021 phone call in which Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes in his favor. The special purpose grand jury unanimously recommended indicting her under several Georgia statutes.The special purpose grand jury also recommended indicting Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and Boris Epshteyn, who remains a top Trump aide.It also recommended charges against Burt Jones, who served as a fake elector and is now lieutenant governor of Georgia. A special prosecutor is handling an investigation of Jones after Willis was barred from investigating him after hosting a fundraiser for a political rival. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Trump may seek to transfer Georgia 2020 election charges to federal court

      by

      Donald Trump’s lead defense lawyer notified a judge in Fulton county on Thursday that he could soon seek to remove to federal court the racketeering prosecution charging him with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.The unusual filing, submitted to the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee, said only that the former president “may seek removal of his prosecution”, stopping short of submitting a formal motion to transfer the trial venue.Trump has been weighing for weeks whether to seek removal to federal court and, according to two people familiar with deliberations, is expected to make a decision based on whether his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his own effort.The idea with waiting on a decision in the Meadows case, the people said, is to use him as a test. If Meadows is successful in transferring to federal court, the Trump legal team is intending to repurpose the same arguments and follow a similar strategy.To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level.The rationale to seek removal to federal court is seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.There is no obligation for a defendant to inform a judge about a hypothetical motion and so, in that sense, Trump’s filing was aimed more at giving notice to the judge who is deliberating on whether all the defendants in the case should be tried at the same time.A spokesperson for Trump could not immediately be reached for comment.Last month, the Atlanta-area grand jury handed up a sprawling 41-count indictment against Trump and 18 others, alleging that the former president violated Georgia’s state Rico statute in pursuing a multi-pronged effort to throw out the results of a fair election.For the moment, two of the defendants, the former Trump election litigation lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, are scheduled for trial on 23 October after they both sought a speedy trial. But it remains unclear whether everyone else will also go to trial on that date.The removal question has major and complicated implications: if Trump or Meadows manages to transfer to federal court, that could upend any trial in Fulton county superior court that had started or finished because of potential jurisdictional issues.Trump can wait until 30 days after his arraignment – or in this case, his arraignment waiver and not-guilty plea filed on 31 August – to decide whether to seek removal to federal court.The Trump legal team is almost certain to wait until the last moment to file, the people said, given Trump’s overarching legal strategy with all of his criminal cases is to delay, potentially even beyond the 2024 election for which he is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      First hearing held in Georgia for 2020 election interference case

      by

      A Fulton county judge said that he hoped to decide on trial schedules in the Georgia election interference case next week, a case for which a joint trial will take approximately four months, according to state prosecutors.On Wednesday, the judge Scott McAfee held the first hearing in the Georgia election interference case involving 19 co-defendants including ex-president Donald Trump, who have been charged with interfering in the 2020 presidential elections.During the hearing, a prosecutor from the Fulton county district attorney’s office said that a joint trial involving all 19 defendants will take approximately four months.The prosecutor Nathan Wade also said that the trial will involve approximately 150 witnesses and that the timeline does not account for jury selection.McAfee also denied the request of Kenneth Chesebro to sever his case from his co-defendant Sidney Powell and ordered the two defendants to stand trial on 23 October together.McAfee disagreed with requests from Chesebro and Powell – both attorneys who worked alongside the Trump campaign in 2020 – who wanted their cases to be handled separately from other defendants. Both Chesebro and Powell have also filed motions for a speedy trial.Chesebro’s attorney Scott Grubman argued that while Chesebro’s case surrounds the fake electors scheme, Powell’s case revolves primarily around Coffee county’s voting systems breach.“You’re going to have two cases in one. You’re going to have days, if not weeks, God forbid months, of testimony just related to the Coffee county allegations,” Grubman argued.Manubir “Manny” Arora, another attorney of Chesebro’s, echoed similar sentiments, saying that Powell’s charges have “nothing to do with Mr Chesebro”.Meanwhile, state prosecutor Wade argued that even if Chesebro and Powell’s cases were severed, the Fulton county district attorney’s office would “absolutely” still require the same amount of time and witnesses to try the case.Nevertheless, McAfee disagreed, saying: “Based on what’s been presented today, I am not finding the severance from Mr Chesbro or Ms Powell is necessary to achieve a fair determination of the guilt or innocence for either defendant in this case.”McAfee, who decided to adhere to Chesebro and Powell’s request for a speedy trial, has yet to issue a final ruling on whether the remaining 17 co-defendants will also be tried in October.“It sounds like the state is still sticking to the position that all these defendants should remain and they want to address some of these removal issues,” McAfee said on Wednesday. “I’m willing to hear that. I remain very skeptical, but we can – I’m willing to hear what you have to say on it,” he added.McAfee gave prosecutors until Tuesday to submit a brief on whether the 23 October trial will include only Chesebro and Powell or all of the defendants. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Former Proud Boys leader sentenced to 22 years over US Capitol attack

      by

      The former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Tuesday for his part in the failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the 2020 election.Prosecutors sought a 33-year term. The judge did not agree but nonetheless handed down the longest sentence yet in a case relating to 2020 and the January 6 Capitol attack. The longest sentence previously handed down was 18 years, to both Ethan Nordean, a member of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia.Tarrio was a top target in one of the most important cases prosecuted by the US justice department over the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021.In May, Tarrio and three lieutenants were convicted of charges including seditious conspiracy, a civil-war-era offense previously rarely brought but now levied against members of far-right groups that took part in the January 6 attack.In remarks to the court in Washington, Tarrio said he was sorry for the events of January 6, and credited police officers for their bravery in resisting the attack.“What happened on January 6 was a national embarrassment,” Tarrio said, adding that he both now knew Trump lost to Joe Biden and blamed himself for actions that led to him losing his freedom.Becoming emotional, Tarrio said: “I do not think what happened that day was acceptable.”He pleaded with the judge, Timothy Kelly, for leniency. “Please show me mercy,” Tarrio said. “I ask you that you not take my 40s from me.”Kelly emphasised the damage done.“That day broke our previously unbroken tradition of peacefully transferring power,” he said. “That previously unbroken tradition is broken now, and it’s going to take time and effort to fix it.”Before handing down the sentence, the judge said he did not see any indication that Tarrio was remorseful for what he was convicted of, adding that there was a strong need to send a signal to others.“It can’t happen again,” Kelly said.The case was one of the most significant prosecutions in the federal investigation of the attack on Congress, which saw supporters of Trump shock the world with their attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.The Proud Boys are a so-called “western chauvinist” group, often involved in street fighting with leftwing activists. Tarrio was involved in the run-up to the January 6 insurrection but did not take part in the violence. Before members of the Proud Boys joined thousands in storming the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify Biden’s victory, Tarrio was arrested and ordered to leave Washington. But prosecutors showed he organised and led from afar.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Using his powerful platform, Tarrio has repeatedly and publicly indicated that he has no regrets about what he helped make happen on January 6,” prosecutors said.Tarrio’s lawyers denied the Proud Boys had any plan to attack the Capitol, arguing that prosecutors used Tarrio as a scapegoat for Trump, who spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on January 6, urging supporters to “fight like hell”.The justice department has charged Trump with conspiring to subvert American democracy. But the Tarrio case and hundreds of others stand as vivid reminders of the chaos fueled by Trump’s lies, including the storming of the Capitol in an attempt to thwart the peaceful transfer of power, a riot now linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.Urging a lenient sentence, Tarrio’s lawyers noted that he has a history of cooperating with law enforcement. Court records uncovered in 2021 showed that Tarrio worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012.During the riot, however, Tarrio posted encouraging messages on social media, expressing pride and urging followers to stay at the Capitol. He posted a picture of rioters in the Senate chamber with the caption “1776”, the year of the Declaration of Independence.Several days before the riot, a girlfriend sent Tarrio a document entitled “1776 Returns”. It called for storming and occupying government buildings, “for the purpose of getting the government to overturn the election results”, prosecutors said.More than 1,100 people have been charged in relation to the Capitol attack. More than 600 have been sentenced, more than half receiving prison terms.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Mark Meadows pleads not guilty in Georgia 2020 election indictment

      by

      Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of participating in an illegal scheme to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and will not appear in court in Atlanta this week.Scott McAfee, the Fulton county superior court judge, had scheduled arraignment hearings for Wednesday for Meadows, Donald Trump and the other 17 people charged last month in a sprawling indictment. By midday Tuesday, all of the defendants had filed paperwork pleading not guilty in filings with the court and waived their rights to an arraignment hearing.During an arraignment hearing, defendants have the right to have the charges against them read and to enter a formal plea. Trump pleaded not guilty in a court filing Thursday and Rudy Giuliani entered his plea Friday, with the rest of the pleas trickling in over several days.While all of the defendants had filed the paperwork by Tuesday, some of them did not file 48 hours ahead of the scheduled arraignments as required by the judge. And, while the judge requires the waiver to be “personally signed by the defendant”, a lawyer for Misty Hampton, a former elections director in Coffee county, filed the waiver without getting Hampton to sign it herself. It was not immediately clear whether the judge would reject any of the waivers as a result.Meadows and four others are seeking to move the charges against them to federal court. But during a hearing last week called on Meadows’ request, US district judge Steve Jones made clear that if he had not ruled by the arraignment date or if the case was not moved to federal court, Meadows would not be excused from arraignment.Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, former Trump lawyers, each have filed demands for a speedy trial, meaning their trials would have to start by early November, and have asked to be tried alone. The judge scheduled a hearing on Wednesday about their motions to sever themselves from the others.After Chesebro filed his speedy trial demand, Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, asked McAfee to set a 23 October trial date for all defendants. The judge set a trial to begin that date for Chesebro alone.Trump’s lawyer has filed a motion asking that he be tried separately from any defendant who asks for a speedy trial.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDuring Wednesday’s hearing, McAfee wrote that he intends to ask prosecutors how long they expect it will take to present their case against all 19 defendants together or for any groupings of defendants, including the number of witnesses they plan to call and the number and size of exhibits they will likely introduce. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Rudy Giuliani pleads not guilty to Georgia election racketeering charges

      by

      Rudy Giuliani on Friday pleaded not guilty to Georgia charges that accuse him of trying, along with former president Donald Trump and others, to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.In filing his not guilty plea with the court, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney also waived his right to appear at an arraignment hearing set for 6 September. He joins the former president and at least 10 others in forgoing a trip to Atlanta to appear before a judge in a packed courtroom with a news camera rolling.Trump and Giuliani are among 19 people charged in a sprawling, 41-count indictment that details a wide-ranging conspiracy to thwart the will of Georgia’s voters who had selected Democratic nominee Joe Biden over the Republican incumbent.The charges against Giuliani, along with other legal woes, signal a remarkable fall for a man who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack. He now faces 13 charges, including violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, the federal version of which was one of his favorite tools as a prosecutor in the 1980s.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, has said she wants to try all 19 defendants together. But the legal wrangling has already begun in a slew of court filings since the indictment was filed on 14 August.Several of those charged have filed motions to be tried alone or with a small group of other defendants, while others are trying to move their proceedings to federal court. Some are seeking to be tried quickly under a Georgia court rule that would have their trials start by early November, while others are already asking the court to extend deadlines.Due to “the complexity, breadth, and volume of the 98-page indictment”, Giuliani asked the judge in Friday’s filing to give him at least 30 days after he receives information about witnesses and evidence from prosecutors to file motions. Normally, pretrial motions are to be filed within 10 days after arraignment.Also Friday, Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor, appointed a three-person panel to consider whether Shawn Still should be suspended from his state senate post while his prosecution is ongoing. Under Georgia law, Kemp is supposed to appoint such a panel within 14 days of receiving a copy of the indictment. The panel, in turn, has 14 days to make a written recommendation to Kemp. The Republican governor named Chris Carr, the attorney general, as required by the law, as well as Republican state senate majority leader Steve Gooch and Republican state house majority leader Chuck Efstration.Still is a swimming pool contractor and former state Republican party finance chair. He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state, declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Still was one of only three members of that group who was indicted.Still was elected to the Georgia state senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. It’s unclear whether the panel will find grounds to suspend Still, because the constitution specifies that officials should be suspended when a felony indictment “relates to the performance or activities of the office”. The three-person commission can have a hearing for Still including lawyers. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election racketeering case

      by

      Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired and engaged in racketeering activity to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, according to a court filing submitted by his lawyer in superior court in Atlanta.The former president also attested in the filing that he would waive his arraignment – the formal reading of the indictment handed up by a jury this month – meaning he will not need to appear for that proceeding next week.“As evidenced by my signature below,” said the two-page-filing submitted in Fulton county superior court by Trump’s lead lawyer, Steven Sadow, “I do hereby waive formal arraignment and enter my plea of NOT GUILTY to the Indictment in this case.”Trump’s Sharpie-written signature marks the fourth time in as many months that he has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, after previously being indicted in a hush-money case in New York, in a classified documents case in Florida, and in a federal 2020 election subversion case in Washington.But it was no less momentous given the seriousness of the allegations in the sprawling 41-count Fulton county indictment, which alleges Trump and 18 co-defendants violated Georgia’s state Rico statute in pursuing a multi-pronged effort to undermine the results of a fair election.The conclusion of the plea and arraignment process starts the pre-trial phase of the case. No trial date has yet been set for Trump, though the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, asked to try all 19 defendants together starting on 23 October after two ex-Trump lawyers sought a speedy trial.On Thursday, lawyers for Donald Trump moved to sever his case from two defendants who have asked for their own trials to be speeded up.“We’re in a huge state of flux right now,” attorney Bob Rubin told Georgia’s WABE. “The case involving these 19 defendants seems to be going in a lot of different directions all at the same time.”Trump’s lawyers have also been weighing whether to seek to have the case moved to federal court, according to two people familiar with the matter, and are expected to make a decision based on whether Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his effort.To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level.The reasons to seek removal to federal court are seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.Regardless of the final trial venue and jurisdiction, Trump’s overarching legal strategy has been to delay. Even with the Georgia case, if Trump were to win re-election, he could theoretically have the case frozen while he assumes the presidency, legal experts have said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast week, Trump surrendered at the Fulton county jail, where he was processed as any other criminal defendant. He had his fingerprints taken, his height and weight recorded, and submitted himself to a mugshot that the Guardian previously reported he had desperately sought to avoid.The booking came during the primetime viewing hours for the cable news networks, a time slot that Trump is said to have insisted his lawyers negotiate with prosecutors in an apparent effort to discredit the charges and distract from the indignity of the surrender.The strategy to turn the surrender into a made-for-television circus has been an effort to discredit the indictments, a person familiar with the matter said, as well as to capitalize on the information void left by prosecutors after the events to foist his own spin on the charges.And in a sign of the deeply interwoven nature of the Trump 2024 campaign and the legal team, his top political advisers at the very least explored whether Trump should appear for the arraignment and hold a press conference afterwards for “optics” reasons, the person said.The bond for Trump was agreed at $200,000, the highest amount of any of his co-defendants, including his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who turned himself in for booking a day earlier after his bond was set at $150,000 after being charged with principally the same counts. More