This Week: As Former President Trump’s Legal Problems Continue, Judges and Elected Officials Stymie Efforts By MAGA Supporters to Push Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theories
This week, the judge in the 37 felony-count case against former President Donald Trump that stems from whether Trump obstructed justice and willfully retained national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago “set an aggressive schedule,” including an order for the trial to tentatively start in less than two months – “a timetable that is likely to be pushed back” due to expected delaying “pretrial clashes” in the unprecedented case.
Meanwhile, the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election is “quietly” continuing “inside a grand jury room” in the nation’s capital, while the Georgia case over whether Trump broke state law in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election is “pushing forward.” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office said the 37 felony-count federal case will not impact their investigation.
As the prosecution of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th continues, MAGA supporters in the U.S. House of Representatives have “entertained false conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack,” including Georgia Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Barry Loudermilk. Greene wants Congress to investigate how the Justice Department handled these prosecutions and has introduced articles of impeachment against the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia over the way he is handling these cases.
The Georgia State Election Board closed the investigation requested by pro-MAGA legislators into alleged corruption during the counting of votes in the 2020 general election. According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the investigation determined that the allegations “were false and unsubstantiated.”
Michigan’s state legislature, over the objection of MAGA supporters, approved a “wide-ranging overhaul” of the way elections are conducted in the state, including a change to guarantee “at least nine days of early voting” across the state.
Also in Michigan, Republican Party Chair Kristina Karamo and other MAGA supporters were ordered to pay nearly $60,000 to cover legal fees incurred by the City of Detroit to defend itself against a “frivolous” lawsuit filed before the midterm election last year. The lawsuit tried to prevent Detroit residents from receiving absentee ballots in the mail, even though the state constitution gives voters the “right to request and return absentee ballots by mail.”
MAGA supporters in the North Carolina Senate pushed bills in committee to restrict voting early and by absentee ballot. Voting rights advocates warned that the bills “could cancel tens of thousands of otherwise lawful ballots.”
In Arizona, MAGA supporters in the state legislature voted for a bill to allow any county in the state to count ballots by hand instead of electronically, even though hand-counting is less accurate than tabulation equipment, while in Nevada, Republican Governor Joe Lombardo sided with MAGA supporters when he vetoed legislation to require votes to be counted by mechanical tabulators.
In Pennsylvania, election-denying Senator Cris Dush is pushing for the state to withdraw from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which states use to share data to ensure accurate voter rolls and prevent voter fraud.
