This Week: Legal Problems for Former President Trump Drag On, While MAGA Supporters Continue To Be Motivated By Conspiracy Theories
This week, state investigations of former President Donald Trump slowly continued. In the “hush money case against the former president” in New York, Trump’s lawyers tried to slow the process down by asking the judge in the case to “step aside,” while the Georgia case over whether Trump broke the law in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election expanded to Washington, DC, and other states. This is an indication that prosecutors might be “building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws.”
While the state cases against Trump are crawling along, the federal inquiry over Trump taking and refusing to return classified documents appears to be nearing the end. In what could be a key piece of evidence, it was reported this week that prosecutors have in their possession an audio recording in which Trump acknowledged that “he held onto a classified…document about a potential attack on Iran.”
In Georgia, MAGA supporters are trying to put Jason Frazier on the Fulton County Board of Elections. Frazier tried to kick approximately 10,000 voters in the county off the voter rolls last year. The board “has the power to cancel or suspend registrations of voters who face challenges” from MAGA activists like himself.
In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, a “close” Trump ally who filed a lawsuit to overturn election results in “battleground states” Trump lost, was impeached on charges of “bribery, obstruction of justice,” and abusing the public trust. “MAGA world” dismissed the impeachment of Paxton as “political persecution.” John Scott, who was appointed to replace Paxton, is an election denier who was briefly part of Trump’s legal team that challenged the 2020 presidential election results.
In Arizona, mail-in voting survived a court challenge by MAGA supporters, but Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, “a high-profile election official,” announced he will leave office “following years of harassment” and violent threats from MAGA conspiracy theorists who were upset that he certified the 2020 presidential election.
In Nevada, the Republican governor vetoed a bill to criminalize fake presidential electors. The bill was opposed by MAGA supporters in the state legislature.
In the North Carolina Senate, MAGA supporters filed a bill that includes numerous voting restrictions, including “restrictions on mail-in voting” and absentee ballot rules that could disenfranchise senior citizens. This bill was introduced shortly after key legislators met with former Trump election lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was on the call when Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes for him to win the state.
