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Trump’s lawyers continue to try to block 2020 election investigation efforts, following MI “fake” electors charges and as expected Georgia indictment looms
- Washington Post: Trump attorneys again push to block Georgia 2020 election investigation: Attorneys for former president Donald Trump continued their last-minute push to block an Atlanta-area investigation into whether he and his allies broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia — a motion that will now be decided by a judge based outside Fulton County. In an order issued Thursday but made public Friday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville recused the entire judicial bench in Fulton County from hearing Trump’s motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and her office from further probing Trump. The motion also calls for throwing out evidence and a final report gathered by a special grand jury that investigated the case.
- CNN: Trump’s legal team continues effort to disqualify Georgia DA as possible state indictments loom: Former President Donald Trump’s legal team in Georgia is continuing its efforts to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from pursuing her 2020 election interference investigation, as possible indictments in the state loom. In a new, 650-page filing in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Trump’s lawyers stepped up attacks on Willis, a Democrat. CNN has previously reported that Willis is considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. The district attorney’s office declined to comment. In the filing, Trump’s lawyers argue that due to Willis’ “conflict of interest” as a political candidate, she should not be allowed to continue to pursue the case. “The District Attorney personally retweeted requests for followers and campaign donations which referenced her prosecution of this investigation,” Trump’s attorneys argued in the lengthy petition.
- New York Times: For Trump and Allies, a Waiting Game as Georgia Indictment Decisions Loom: Two indictments of Donald J. Trump are already in the books, but the outcome of a Georgia investigation into the former president and a number of his allies promises to be strikingly different. While the cases filed by the Manhattan district attorney and the Department of Justice have focused mostly on Mr. Trump himself, a long-running investigation into election interference by prosecutors in Atlanta has cast a far broader net, with nearly 20 people already warned that they could face charges. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., is leading the investigation and has indicated she will seek charges by mid-August. A special grand jury that heard evidence for roughly seven months recommended more than a dozen people for indictments, and its forewoman strongly hinted in an interview in February that Mr. Trump was among them.
- The Guardian: Fulton county prosecutors prepare racketeering charges in Trump inquiry: The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has developed evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month, according to two people briefed on the matter. The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes. In the Trump investigation, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has evidence to pursue a racketeering indictment predicated on statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass, the people said.
Trump lashes out at the Special Counsel as interviews of key witnesses in 2020 election and Jan. 6 probe continue
- Newsweek: Donald Trump Accuses ‘Deranged’ Jack Smith of Election Interference: Donald Trump has once again attacked Jack Smith amid speculation the Special Counsel’s office is due to indict the former president in the 2020 election and January 6 investigations. In a post on Truth Social, Trump, the front runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, accused Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland of “election interference” days after Trump reported receiving a target letter informing him he is under federal investigation in the probes into attempts to overturn the last election results and events leading up to the Capitol riot in January 2021. Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in connection to Smith’s investigation, and has frequently accused all other criminal inquiries into him—including Smith’s probe into the former president’s retention of classified documents after he left office in which Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 charges—as being politically motivated “witch hunts.”
- The Independent: Trump lashes out at ‘deranged’ Jack Smith in Sunday night Truth Social rant about legal woes: Donald Trump lashed out at Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, US Attorney General Merrick Garland and his own successor President Joe Biden in his latest tirade on Truth Social on Sunday night, where he once again claimed to be the victim of a “coordinated HOAX” orchestrated by his enemies to rob him of a return to the White House.Mr. Trump was informed by Mr Smith last week that he is the target of a grand jury investigation into his role in the deadly Capitol riot of 6 January 2021 and in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.
- Washington Post: Kemp, Ga. governor, contacted by Trump special counsel in 2020 probe: Special counsel Jack Smith recently asked Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for information about efforts by President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the election results in Georgia in 2020, the governor’s spokesman confirmed Friday afternoon. “Our office has been contacted by Jack Smith’s office, but we will decline to comment further at this time,” said Andrew Isenhour, the spokesman for Kemp (R). Trump received a target letter last week from Smith’s office, saying he was facing potential criminal charges in the investigation of efforts to block Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
- NBC News: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp contacted by special counsel in 2020 election probe: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was contacted by special counsel Jack Smith’s office as it investigates efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results, a spokesperson for the governor confirmed on Friday. “I can confirm our office has been contacted by Jack Smith’s office,” Andrew Isenhour said in a statement, declining to provide further comment. The Washington Post first reported on the Republican governor’s contact with Smith’s office, which has been examining false electors from battleground states who in most cases signed certification documents purporting that Trump had won in their states even though he had lost.
In The States
ALABAMA: Alabama Republicans refuse to draw a second Black congressional district in defiance of the Supreme Court
- New York Times: Alabama Lawmakers Decline to Create New Majority-Black Congressional District: Alabama Republicans pushed through a new congressional map on Friday that will test the bounds of a judicial mandate to create a second majority-Black district in the state or something “close to it,” incensing plaintiffs in the court case and Democrats who predicted the plan would never pass muster with a judicial panel charged with approving it. A month after a surprise Supreme Court ruling that found the state’s existing map violated a landmark civil rights law by diluting the power of Black voters, the Republican supermajority in the Alabama Legislature backed a plan that would increase the share of Black voters in one of the state’s six majority-white congressional districts to about 40 percent, from about 30 percent. The map also dropped the percentage of Black voters in the existing majority-Black district to about 51 percent from about 55 percent. In Alabama, more than one in four residents are Black.
- Associated Press: The fight over Alabama’s congressional redistricting now shifts back to federal court: Standing at an Alabama Statehouse microphone before lawmakers voted on new congressional districts, state Rep. Chris England said that change in the Deep South state has often happened only through federal court order. The Democratic lawmaker accused Republicans of repeating history and flouting a judicial mandate to create a second majority-Black district in the state or “something quite close to it.” “Alabama does what Alabama does. Ultimately, what we are hoping for, I guess, at some point, is that the federal court does what it always does to Alabama: Forces us to the right thing. Courts always have to come in and save us from ourselves,” said England, a Black lawmaker from Tuscaloosa.
TEXAS: Texas becomes the latest state to leave ERIC, the voter roll cleanup group targeted by Republicans
- New York Times: Texas to Leave Voting Integrity Group Targeted by Right-Wing Attacks: Texas said on Thursday that it would drop out of a bipartisan voter integrity group that once included about three dozen states, further destabilizing an organization that has been undermined by right-wing attacks and defections by Republican-led members. The nonprofit group, the Electronic Registration Information Center, which is known as ERIC and helps maintain accurate voter rolls, confirmed to The New York Times that it had received a resignation letter on Thursday from officials in the nation’s second most populous state. Alicia Phillips Pierce, an assistant secretary of state and a spokeswoman for the Texas secretary of state’s office, provided The Times with a copy of the letter, which did not give a specific reason for the decision. It will take effect in 91 days.
WISCONSIN: Absentee voting rules violate Wisconsin Constitution, pro-voting groups say in lawsuit
- Wisconsin State Journal: Wisconsin absentee voting rules subject of lawsuit: One of the nation’s largest Democratic organizations has argued in a new legal challenge that Wisconsin’s absentee ballot rules — including witness signature requirements and the state Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling barring the use of absentee ballot drop boxes — violate the Wisconsin Constitution and disenfranchise voters. The lawsuit, filed in Dane County Circuit Court against the Wisconsin Elections Commission, seeks to change voting rules in the pivotal battleground state ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “Previous campaign cycles have put a much needed spotlight on the blatant attempts to use restricted access to absentee voting as a means of voter suppression,” Aneesa McMillan, deputy executive director of Priorities USA, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said in a statement. “As a result of this, vulnerable communities, including people of color, face extraordinary barriers to casting their ballots.”
What Experts Are Saying
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW): “Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik have both introduced House resolutions attempting to “expunge” (or retroactively remove) Trump’s two impeachments from his permanent record. What exactly does that mean? [Here] we answer basic questions about this unprecedented proposal” CREW: Impeachment Expungement: Frequently Asked Questions
VIDEO: Norm Eisen, special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Trump: “As I explained @CNN, Trump’s alleged 2020 election interference was a drama in 3 parts
Act 1 yielded the phony electoral certificates
Act 2 used them to press Pence
& when that failed, Act 3 was the violence of 1/6″ Tweet
VIDEO: Andrew Weissmann, lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office, re: Trump’s Special Counsel Jack Smith social media posts: “‘In DC, where I think it is anticipated he will be charged, there are standing rules that apply to every single defendant. And so this kind of conduct and these statements would violate those rules,’ Weissmann explains. ‘So I suspect that in that upcoming case, he will be given strong admonitions by the court as to what he can and cannot say.’” MSNBC: Weissmann: If indicted, Trump lashing out at Jack Smith ‘would violate’ standing rules in DC court
Joyce Vance, former US attorney for the Northern District of Alabama: “Our legal system is supposed to work for everyone and protect the rights of people who cannot protect themselves. Our laws are not intended to be enforced just for an elite group of people and only for their benefit…Republicans in the Alabama Legislature refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision that the redistricting maps drawn by Alabama’s legislature violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and should be redrawn to create two districts where Black voters would have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Instead, they approved, yet again, a map with only one district where Black voters are in the majority. The newest map also has the fringe benefit of protecting the state’s six white Republican incumbent Congressman…The courts should condemn, in no uncertain terms, the legislature’s flagrant disobedience of the Supreme Court’s legal ruling and craft a path forward that prevents the hyper-partisan legislature from continuing to bypass Black voters’ rights.” Civil Discourse
Headlines
The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections
Financial Times: How a squad of MAGA warriors flush with cash turned on each other
Trump Investigations
CNN: Special counsel obtains thousands of documents from Rudy Giuliani team that tried to find fraud after 2020 election
CNN: Special counsel scrutinizing February 2020 meeting where Trump praised US election security protections
New York Times: As Inquiries Compound, Justice System Pours Resources Into Scrutinizing Trump
The Washington Post: Trump’s trial date conjures GOP’s nightmare scenario
MSNBC: DOJ just successfully used a charge Jack Smith could bring against Trump
New York Times: An Untested Judge in the Trump Documents Case
January 6 And The 2020 Election
The Washington Post: Before Jan. 6, Mark Meadows joked about Trump’s election claims
NBC News: Mike Pence says he’s not convinced Trump’s Jan. 6 actions were criminal
The Washington Post: Judge rejects jail for Oath Keepers’ Jan. 6 ‘operations coordinator’
Politico: The numbers behind Trump’s confidence the Jan. 6 indictment won’t matter
Opinion
The Washington Post: Trump’s made-for-MAGA arguments keep losing in court
New York Times: There’s No Escaping Trump
The Washington Post: A Republican nightmare seems about to become real
The New York Times: The Moment of Truth for Our Liar in Chief
The Washington Post: The threat from far-right populism hasn’t gone away
In the States
Tampa Bay Times: Florida’s elections laws take aim at voter registration groups
Associated Press: Tennessee now requires court order or proof of pardon to restore felon voting rights
FiveThirtyEight: 16 States Made It Harder To Vote This Year. But 26 Made It Easier.
