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Defend Our Country Digest

Defend Our Country Digest — August 17, 2023

By August 17, 2023No Comments

Driving the Day

Must Read Stories

Case proceeds against Trump and his team in Georgia as they ready their defense 

  • Politico: Georgia prosecutors seek March 4 trial in Trump racketeering case: Georgia prosecutors are seeking a March 4, 2024, trial for Donald Trump and 18 allies on racketeering charges connected to the former president’s bid to subvert the 2020 election. The timeline, combined with Trump’s other proposed and scheduled criminal cases, could put Trump in the courtroom for most of the first six months of 2024, a span that covers almost the entirety of the GOP primary in which he’s the frontrunner for the nomination. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis framed the proposed date as a bid to work around Trump’s other scheduled matters, including a March 25 trial date in New York on charges that he falsified business records to cover up an extramarital affair and a May 20 trial date on federal charges that he hoarded classified documents at his Florida estate.
  • New York Times: Trump Plans to Release 100-Page Report on Georgia Election Fraud Claims: Hours after former President Donald J. Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges accusing him of a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, his aides and allies awoke to a social-media post from the Republican front-runner inviting people to a news conference on Monday. “A Large, Complex, Detailed but irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, just before 9 a.m. He added that it will be a “CONCLUSIVE Report” after which “all charges should be dropped against me & others.”
  • CNN: Trump lawyers negotiating with Fulton County DA over details of surrender, sources say: Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are in “ongoing negotiations” with the Fulton County District attorney’s office regarding details of his surrender, two sources familiar with the talks tell CNN. As of now, they have not yet landed on a date for when Trump will surrender, the sources said. Early indications from Trump’s team are that they are discussing a potential surrender date for next week, though the talks are ongoing. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, gave Trump and his 18 co-defendants until August 25 at noon to voluntarily surrender. The Fulton County sheriff said in a statement Tuesday that “all 19 defendants,” including Trump, are expected to surrender at the Fulton County jail, as is common procedure.
  • ABC: Indictment alleges Trump’s ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows played key role in efforts to overturn election: Less than 10 months after taking on the role as Donald Trump’s right-hand man in the Oval Office, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows allegedly became the then-president’s key partner in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. On Monday, the 64-year-old Meadows was listed with Trump and 17 other alleged co-conspirators in a sweeping felony indictment handed up by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury. Meadows, Trump and the other named co-conspirators are charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act. Meadows also faces a charge of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
  • New York Times: From ‘America’s Mayor’ to Criminal Defendant: Giuliani’s Long Tumble: Mr. Giuliani became Mr. Trump’s secretary of aggression and blind allegiance: his attack dog, legal adviser, unindicted co-conspirator — and now, co-defendant in a criminal conspiracy case.The two friends from New York, along with 17 others, were indicted Monday in Georgia in a broad racketeering case centered on the sobering charge that they illegally plotted to overturn the 2020 presidential election in favor of its loser, Mr. Trump. Adding to the ignominy for Mr. Giuliani, 79, is that he was once an innovative prosecutor who specialized in federal racketeering cases. “I think it’s going to be scary for him,” said Mr. Wilson, a former Republican who worked as an adviser to Mr. Giuliani a quarter-century ago and is a leading conservative critic of Mr. Trump. “The justice system is ringing his bell and calling him to account.”
  • Guardian: Trump prosecutor Fani Willis faces racist abuse after indicting ex-US president: Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word. Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social calling for all charges to be dropped and predicting he would exonerated. He did not mention Willis by name, but accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets.
  • Hill: Slight majority say Trump broke the law in Georgia: poll: A slight majority of respondents in a new poll said former President Trump broke the law in Georgia in his alleged attempts to interfere in the state’s vote count during the 2020 election. The survey, published Wednesday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, discovered that 51 percent of adults surveyed think Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Georgia were illegal — with 13 percent saying it was unethical, but not illegal. Additionally, 15 percent said he did nothing wrong, whereas 20 percent said they did not know enough about the case to make a choice.
  • New York Times: Georgia Case Lays the Ground for Parallel Prosecutions of Trump: The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., Fani T. Willis, began investigating former President Donald J. Trump 21 months before Jack Smith was appointed special counsel — but they both secured indictments, covering much of the same ground, in one two-week span. The Fulton County indictment represents a single chapter in the four-count indictment brought by Mr. Smith: the former president’s attempt to strong-arm Georgia into his win column. But the Atlanta case, because of its use of the state’s expansive anti-racketeering law, extends far beyond Georgia’s borders to encompass Mr. Trump’s broader effort across the country to cling to power — creating an extraordinary parallel-track prosecution of a leading political figure unlike anything in the country’s history.

January 6 case: Trump tests his legal boundaries 

  • New York Times: ‘Biased.’ ‘Corrupt.’ ‘Deranged.’ Trump’s Taunts Test Limits of Release: Just days ago, the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of seeking to subvert the 2020 election admonished him against violating the conditions of his release put in place at his arraignment — including by making “inflammatory statements” that could be construed as possibly intimidating witnesses or other people involved in the case.But Mr. Trump immediately tested that warning by posting a string of messages on his social media website, Truth Social, that largely amplified others criticizing the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan. In one post, written by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, the lawyer Mike Davis, a large photo of Judge Chutkan accompanied text that falsely claimed she had “openly admitted she’s running election interference against Trump.” In two other posts, Mr. Trump wrote, “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR.”
  • Politico: Special counsel obtained Trump DMs despite ‘momentous’ bid by Twitter to delay, unsealed filings show: Special counsel Jack Smith obtained an extraordinary array of data from Twitter about Donald Trump’s account — from direct messages to draft tweets to location data — newly unsealed court filings reveal. But it took a bruising battle with Twitter’s attorneys in January and February — punctuated by a blistering analysis by a federal judge, who wondered whether Elon Musk was attempting to “cozy up” to the former president by resisting the special counsel’s demands — before prosecutors got the goods.
  • New York Times: After Years of Spreading Lies, Election Deniers Face Consequences: 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.

In The States

Texas: Texas County Judge temporarily blocks GOP-backed law abolishing Harris County nonpartisan elections administrator’s office

  • Texas Tribune: Harris County’s election chief remains in legal limbo after judge rules that lawmakers can’t dissolve the position: The Texas attorney general’s office on Tuesday appealed the decision of a judge to temporarily block a new law passed by Republicans to abolish Harris County’s elections chief position. The decision earlier Tuesday by a Travis County district judge ruled that the law is unconstitutional and would disrupt this fall’s elections. The Texas attorney general’s office filed its appeal in the Texas Supreme Court, keeping Travis County District Judge Karin Crump’s order from taking effect. The law, which would have forced the county to eliminate the county’s elections administrator and transfer all election duties to the county clerk and the tax assessor-collector, is set to take effect Sept. 1, weeks before early voting begins for the county’s November municipal elections.
  • Houston Chronicle: Texas judge blocks state law abolishing Harris County elections administrator: Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum will be able to operate the upcoming November elections after a Travis County District Court ruled Tuesday to temporarily block Senate Bill 1750, a state law abolishing the position of county elections administrator.SB 1750, written by Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), gives election responsibilities to the county tax assessor-collector and county clerk, undoing the nonpartisan county elections office. Under the law’s provisions, SB 1750 removes the top elections official position from counties with 3.5 million or more on September 1, 2023—parameters that would only apply to Harris County.

North Carolina: New bill in the state legislature that would tighten North Carolina voting laws moves toward adoption 

  • Queen City News: North Carolina Senate advances bills to change election oversite, absentee voting and same-day registration: New structures for overseeing and managing elections in North Carolina took a step forward on Wednesday when the Senate passed two bills that Republicans say will protect “election integrity.” SB 747 and 749, which make significant changes in how elections are conducted,  were approved on second and third readings along party-line votes of 28-19, with three absences, and sent to the House.
  • WFAE: House lawmakers have modified sweeping elections legislation: Sweeping elections legislation that could substantially change the way North Carolinians vote next year advanced in the state House Tuesday. The House Committee on Election Law and Campaign Finance Reform made key changes to an omnibus measure that passed the Senate in June. However, one thing that did not change is the legislation would eliminate a three-day grace period for receiving and counting mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day. The grace period has been in place since 2009 but became a target of the Right’s ire amid partisan rancor over the 2020 elections.
  • Tri-City Herald: A wide-ranging North Carolina elections bill is advancing again at the General Assembly: Republican state legislators on Tuesday again took up a wide-ranging North Carolina voting bill that would move up the deadline by which absentee ballots must be received to be counted, bar private funds to administer elections and retool rules for poll observers parties pick for voting places. The House elections committee approved a retooled version of a Senate bill that was passed by that chamber in June. It had been set aside for weeks as lawmakers stayed away from Raleigh during the ongoing state budget standoff. The General Assembly is returning this week to handle non-budget matters.

What Experts Are Saying

NEW: States United Democracy Center: Georgia Indictment Resources: Backgrounder | Comprehensive Chart: Charges & Defendants

UPDATED: Just Security: What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Trump Trial in Fulton County

UPDATED REPORT: Congressional Integrity Project: House Republicans Weaponize Congress Against Our Justice System To Defend Former President Trump From His Criminal Indictments, and Appease the MAGA Base, At All Costs

Media Matters for America: “Former President Donald Trump has been indicted for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia. The nearly 100-page indictment alleges that Trump, along with 18 others, participated in a ‘criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result. Leading up to this indictment, some in right-wing media touted Trump’s free speech rights as proof of his innocence, recycling the same defenses used in their attempts to dismiss the former president’s January 6 election interference charges, despite the fact that the charges are based on his actions, not his speech. Right-wing figures like Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk also attacked Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.” Right-wing media falsely claim Trump’s conspiracy charges in Georgia are “criminalization” of free speech 

Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: “The charges in Georgia are not only some of the most serious that Donald Trump faces, but some of the most important: as they are state crimes, no future president can interfere to attempt to make them disappear.” Tweet

Michael Podhorzer, a former political director of the AFL-CIO: “The focus on cultural elitism, in Podhorzer’s view, masks ‘billionaires’ collective influence over the political process or the ways in which their success is responsible for immiseration and what we call ‘inequality.’ This enables fascist politicians to shift the blame to intellectual and cultural ‘elites,’ like liberals or people with college degrees, redirecting the inevitable resentments of the losers in the winner-take-all economy.’ For that reason, Podhorzer continued, ‘Centrist commentators and Democratic strategists who have aggressively and continuously diagnosed the party’s capture by a woke ‘elite’ unwittingly — and without justification — affirm the fascist worldview in which ‘cultural,’ rather than economic or political, elites are the source of their disappointments.” New York Times

Headlines

The MAGA Movement And The Ongoing Threat To Elections

Daily Beast: MAGA Talking Heads Want Georgia Republicans to Overhaul Laws to Pardon Trump

Trump Investigations 

Washington Post: New York judge denies Trump request to recuse himself from state trial

ABC: Timeline: Special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents

January 6 And The 2020 Election

WAVY Norfolk 10: Jan. 6 prosecutors recommend up to 10 years for NC officer for conspiring with Oath Keepers

ABC 7 Detroit: Michigan man pleads guilty to attacking police officers during Jan. 6 riots

Politico: Pence: ‘The Georgia election was not stolen’

Opinion

New York Times: The Two Big Questions Answered by Trump’s Georgia Indictment

Washington Post: The best argument for the Georgia indictment doesn’t involve Trump

New York Times: With the Latest Trump Indictment, Mind These Lessons From the South

In the States

Wisconsin State Journal: Lawsuit over Wisconsin absentee ballot witness addresses allowed to proceed

Associated Press: Nevada election-fraud crusader drops US lawsuit under threat of sanctions; presses on in state court