Driving the Day
Must Read Stories
Trump files motion to disqualify prosecutor in Georgia election investigation – Georgia Supreme Court says “no”
- Politico: Georgia Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to head off potential indictment: Georgia’s highest court has unanimously rebuffed a last-ditch bid by former President Donald Trump to try to head off a potential indictment for tampering with the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state. In a five-page decision issued Monday afternoon, all nine justices of the Georgia Supreme Court said Trump’s lawyers had failed to make a persuasive case for shutting down the inquiry led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. She has signaled that indictments are possible in the election-related probe in the next few weeks as a grand jury convenes to consider possible charges.
- New York Times: Trump Seeks Court Order to Quash Investigation in Georgia: In his latest legal maneuver, Donald J. Trump sought a court order on Friday that would throw out the work of an Atlanta special grand jury and disqualify Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor leading an investigation into election interference in Georgia. A decision on indictments looms in the investigation, which has been in progress for more than two years. Ms. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, has signaled that the decision will come in the first half of August; she recently asked judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse not to schedule trials for part of that time as she prepares to bring charges. Mr. Trump’s lawyers made their request in a filing to Georgia’s Supreme Court. They want the court to throw out the evidence gathered by the special grand jury.
- Associated Press: Trump asks top Georgia court to disqualify election probe prosecutor and toss grand jury report: Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are asking Georgia’s highest court to prevent the district attorney who has been investigating his actions in the wake of the 2020 election from prosecuting him and to throw out a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. She has suggested that she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month. Trump’s Georgia legal team on Friday filed similar petitions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court naming Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, as respondents. A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. McBurney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
- The Wall Street Journal: Fani Willis: The No-Nonsense Georgia Prosecutor on a Collision Course With Donald Trump: A Fulton County Board of Commissioners meeting in the summer of 2021 was proceeding like most mundane local government gatherings. Then Fani Willis came to the podium. The county’s then-newly elected district attorney’s presentation was more like a closing argument of a trial than the traditional recitation of figures from a department head, as she demanded more funding for her office to handle a crime wave and case backlog. “If there is anyone in here confused and thinks I’m in here tog talk about widgets, I’m here to talk about human life,” she said. Her office got more funding. Willis has carved out a reputation in Georgia legal circles as a no-nonsense prosecutor and workaholic who relishes taking on complex cases. Her path to power has put her on a collision course with former President Donald Trump, whose behavior after the 2020 election is thought to be central to her investigation of alleged attempts to overturn President Biden’s narrow victory in this state.
Judge’s role in Trump’s classified documents case under increasing scrutiny
- Associated Press: Spotlight on judge in Trump documents case intensifies following controversial earlier ruling: A month after former President Donald Trump was charged with mishandling classified documents, the judge presiding over the case is set to take on a more visible role as she weighs competing requests on a trial date and hears arguments this week on a procedural, but potentially crucial, area of the law. A pretrial conference Tuesday to discuss procedures for handling classified information will represent the first courtroom arguments in the case before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon since Trump was indicted five weeks ago. The arguments could provide insight into how Cannon intends to preside over the case while she also confronts the unresolved question of how to schedule Trump’s trial as he campaigns for president.
- CNBC: DOJ opposes Trump bid to indefinitely delay classified documents trial: The Department of Justice’s special counsel on Thursday urged a federal judge to reject Donald Trump’s bid to indefinitely delay his trial on criminal charges related to his retention of classified documents after he left the White House. DOJ special counsel Jack Smith’s team said in a new court filing that the former president’s trial should start in Florida on Dec. 11, and not wait until after the 2024 presidential election as Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta have requested.
- The Hill: Trump praises judge overseeing his classified documents case, saying she ‘loves our country’: Former President Trump praised the judge overseeing his classified documents case as his legal team seeks a postponement of his trial in Florida. Trump’s motion for a continuance of the trial, filed last Monday, awaits a decision by Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of the former president who presided over his initial challenge to the FBI search of his Florida home. Asked on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News whether he believes the judge will grant the motion, Trump said he did not know. “I know it’s a very highly respected judge. A very smart judge, and a very strong judge,” Trump said. When host Maria Bartiromo noted that Trump appointed the judge in the case, Trump said, “I did, and I’m very proud to have appointed her.” “But she’s very smart and very strong, and loves our country,”
In The States
ALABAMA: State lawmakers have until Friday to come up with new congressional districts after historic voting rights decision
- Politico: Alabama Republicans, despite Supreme Court ruling, reject call for second majority Black House district: Alabama Republicans, under orders of the U.S. Supreme Court to redraw congressional districts to give minority voters a greater voice in elections, rejected calls Monday to craft a second majority-Black district and proposed a map testing the judges’ directive. Lawmakers must adopt a new map by Friday after the high court in June affirmed a three-judge panel’s ruling that Alabama’s existing congressional map — with a single Black district out of seven statewide — likely violated the Voting Rights Act.In a state where more than one in four residents is Black, the lower court panel had ruled in 2022 that Alabama should have another majority-Black congressional district or something “close to it” so Black voters have the opportunity to “elect a representative of their choice.” Republicans, long resistant to creating a second Democratic-leaning district, proposed a map that would increase the percentage of Black voters in the 2nd Congressional District from about 30% to nearly 42.5%, wagering that would satisfy the court — or that the state will prevail in a second round of appeals.
- New York Times: Alabama Scrambles to Redraw Its Voting Map After a Supreme Court Surprise: Under orders from the Supreme Court to produce a voting map that no longer illegally dilutes the power of Black voters in Alabama, the state’s lawmakers are now facing a high-stakes scramble to come up with an acceptable replacement by the end of this week. A little over a month after the court’s surprise ruling, the Alabama legislature will convene for a special five-day session on Monday, with the Republican supermajority having given little public indication of how it plans to fulfill a mandate to craft a second district that allows Black voters to elect a representative of their choice — one who could well be a Democrat. The effects of the revised map, which must be passed by Friday and approved by a federal court, could reverberate across the country, with other states in the South confronting similar voting rights challenges and Republicans looking to hold onto a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives next year. “The eyes of the nation are looking at you,” Evan Milligan, one of several Alabama residents who had challenged the legality of the map, told lawmakers during a committee hearing in Montgomery on Thursday. “If you can cut out the noise, look within — you can look to history, you can make a mark in history that will set a standard for this country.”
NEW YORK: New York congressional map must be redrawn, state court rules
- New York Times: New York Is Ordered by Appeals Court to Redraw House Map: A New York appeals court on Thursday ordered the state’s congressional map to be redrawn, siding with Democrats in a case that could give the party a fresh chance to tilt one of the nation’s most contested House battlegrounds leftward. Wading into a long-simmering legal dispute, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Albany said that the competitive, court-drawn districts put in place for last year’s midterms had only been a temporary fix. They ordered the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission to promptly restart a process that would effectively give the Democrat-dominated State Legislature final say over the contours of New York’s 26 House seats for the remainder of the decade. “In granting this petition, we return the matter to its constitutional design. Accordingly, we direct the I.R.C. to commence its duties forthwith,” Elizabeth A. Garry, the presiding justice, wrote in the majority opinion, referring to the Independent Redistricting Commission. (Two members of the five-judge panel dissented.)
- CNN: New York court orders congressional map redrawn, but appeal likely: A New York court on Thursday ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw the state’s congressional map. While the decision is likely to be appealed to the state’s highest court, the ruling is a win for Democrats, who are hoping to get a more favorable map after losing several congressional seats in New York last year. If the decision is upheld, it would start a process that could result in Democrats in the state legislature gaining control over the redistricting process. “The Democrats are a lot farther ahead now than they had been previously,” Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School, told CNN. After the 2020 census, the bipartisan commission failed to agree on a map, and after a long legal battle, a state court judge oversaw the process of drawing the map the state used for the 2022 elections. This case is over whether that map should be kept for the entire decade until the next census, or whether it should just be an interim map used for one election.
ARIZONA: Attorneys for Kari Lake sanctioned $122K for “frivolous lawsuit” over voting methods
- The Hill: Kari Lake’s team ordered to pay more than $122K in sanctions over Maricopa lawsuit: Kari Lake’s legal team, including lawyer Alan Dershowitz, must pay $122,200 in sanctions after a federal court in Arizona found that the former Republican gubernatorial candidate’s lawsuit contesting voting methods was “frivolous.” Lake, a former television news anchor, brought a suit against the state of Arizona in April 2022 demanding the election officials use alternative methods to collect and count ballots, claiming that electronic voting machines are not reliable. The lawsuit was thrown out and Lake ultimately lost the gubernatorial election to Gov. Katie Hobbs. She then filed another suit after the election alleging widespread fraud. That case was also dismissed, though she continues to make baseless claims that the race was stolen from her.
SOUTH CAROLINA: SCOTUS to hear state’s racial gerrymandering case on Oct. 11
- Post and Courier: Supreme Court sets October date for oral arguments in SC racial gerrymandering case: The U.S. Supreme Court this fall will hear oral arguments in a case that could fundamentally reshape South Carolina’s congressional map along the coast and determine whether the current political lines discriminate against Black voters in Charleston. A calendar released July 14 by the nation’s highest court shows the oral arguments in South Carolina’s racial gerrymandering case is scheduled for Oct. 11 in Washington, D.C. The outcome of the case, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, could determine whether a different congressional map will be in place in 2024 for voters in Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester and Jasper counties covering the seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace.
What Experts Are Saying
Joyce Vance, former US attorney, re: Southern District of Florida federal courts chief justice barring media from bringing any electronic devices into the courthouse during Mar-a-Lago criminal case proceedings: “Democracy dies in darkness. The proceedings against Trump must be fully viewable by the public w/the exception of nat’l security proceedings that require a closed courtroom. There must be cameras in the courts for this if the public is going to have confidence.” Tweet
Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor, re: Special Counsel reply to Trump request to delay Mar-a-Lago criminal case: “Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told MSNBC that Smith and his team ‘don’t mince words’ and ‘they don’t pull punches.’ Kirschner said the filing ‘feels like a sign of the prosecution to come.’ ‘I think that they are going to continue to insist on a timely trial date, and in fact, on page one of this reading, they highlight how the Trump defense team failed,’ he said. ‘And really, in its most important endeavor, when they filed their pleading on July 10th. They said ‘judge, don’t set a trial date.’ One of the first things Jack Smith pointed out, is that the Speedy Trial Act says the judge shall set a date certain for the trial to begin. So they really just sort of embarrass the Trump defense team’s request and they don’t let up for the ten pages.’” MSNBC via Salon
John P. Gross, clinical associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and director of the Public Defender Project, re: sentencing of January 6 criminal defendants: “John P Gross, a criminal law expert at the University of Wisconsin, said that having a change of heart can carry legal risks. The concept of ‘trial penalty’ means that in general, defendants who plead guilty receive lighter sentences than those convicted after a trial. Judges also have leeway to impose harsher sentences if they believe defendants aren’t truly sorry. ‘A judge can absolutely take lack of remorse into consideration when sentencing,’ he said. ‘I would tell a client, under no terms whatsoever should you be saying anything to the media between when you are plead and when you are sentenced.’” BBC News
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Newsweek: MAGA Cheers Tucker Carlson Confronting Mike Pence on Ukraine: ‘Obliterated’
AP: Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds
Trump Investigations
New Republic: Panicked Trump Wants Georgia Evidence Tossed to Stop Third Indictment
January 6 And The 2020 Election
CNN: Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks testified before grand jury investigating 2020 election interference, sources say
CNN: Exclusive: Pennsylvania, New Mexico secretaries of state interviewed as part of special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe
Politico: Ramaswamy: ‘Pervasive’ censorship caused Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol
NBC: FBI charges now-husband of ‘Pink Beret’ Jan. 6 rioter who was turned in by her ex
News 8 New Haven: Connecticut man accused of hitting police with baton, pole in Jan. 6 Capitol riot
BBC: The ‘QAnon Shaman’ and other Capitol rioters who regret pleading guilty
Opinion
Washington Post: The MAGA persecution complex is eating itself to death
Arizona Republic: Trump and MAGA are OKKK with Charlie Kirk’s racist, anti-women screeds
Washington Post: Jack Smith broadens his phony-elector case
MSNBC: Trump’s latest court filing in Georgia shows he’s getting desperate
In the States
Colorado Newsline: Changes in state election laws have little impact on results, new study finds
The Guardian: New Mississippi law discriminates against Black residents, says DoJ
Boston Globe: New Boston City Council map appears set after redistricting lawsuit resolves
