This Week: State and Federal Cases Against Trump and His Enablers Advance, While MAGA Supporters in the States Continue Pushing to Restrict Voting Rights
This week, Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants pleaded not guilty in the Fulton County case alleging that Trump led a vast multistate criminal enterprise to overturn the 2020 presidential election in seven states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In the federal case against Trump for allegedly leading a coup attempt after losing the 2020 presidential election, the special counsel continued to widen the investigation.
In Georgia, MAGA supporters in the state legislature said they will try to sanction Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, which could derail the case against Trump and his co-conspirators. A federal judge ruled that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is “liable for defaming” two election workers in the state by repeatedly making false statements about them. Giuliani repeatedly said they “mishandled ballots while counting” 2020 presidential election votes.
In New York, Attorney General Letitia James argued in court that a trial is not necessary to find that Trump and his business fraudulently overvalued their assets by $800 million and $2.2 billion every year over a decade to obtain “favorable loans and insurance arrangements.”
Meanwhile, legal challenges to redistricting maps are moving forward in several key states. In Michigan, a panel of federal judges ordered a trial to determine if nine state legislative districts “dilute the voting power of Black residents” in violation of the Voting Rights Act, while a Florida judge struck down a congressional map because it restricts “Black voting power” in violation of the state constitution. In Georgia, a federal trial to determine if state legislative and congressional maps violate the Voting Rights Act by discriminating “against minority voters” began this week.
In Wisconsin, a state judge ruled in a lawsuit by the pro-MAGA Wisconsin Institute For Law and Liberty that using the National Mail Voter Registration Form to register to vote violates state law and blocked state elections officials from using it.
In North Carolina, MAGA supporters in the General Assembly made it clear that they intend to override the governor’s veto of legislation imposing “stricter mail-in voting rules” that make same-day voter registration and absentee voting more difficult. Texas is preparing to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which states use to share data to ensure accurate voter rolls and prevent voter fraud. And in Arizona, “election deniers” who run the Republican Party in Maricopa County, where a majority of voters in the state live, unsuccessfully pushed to “opt out of the state’s government-run presidential primary” and instead have a “one-day, in-person election, with paper ballots that would be counted by hand.”
