This Week: Trump Attempts to Dismiss and Delay Cases Against Him While MAGA Supporters Threaten Election Integrity in the States
This week, in the federal case against former President Donald Trump for allegedly leading a coup attempt after losing the 2020 presidential election, Trump filed a motion to have the case dismissed, claiming he is immune from prosecution. In the New York criminal case against Trump for allegedly “falsifying business records linked to a hush money payment” to porn star Stormy Daniels, Trump moved to have the case dismissed on a technicality.
In the federal case stemming from whether Trump obstructed justice and willfully retained national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago, the judge paused the case to consider Trump’s motion to delay the trial until after 2024.
In the Fulton County case against Trump for allegedly leading a vast multistate criminal enterprise to overturn the 2020 presidential election in seven states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, prosecutors floated plea deals to many of Trump’s 18 co-defendants.
In the Michigan case against 16 “so-called fake electors” for signing documents falsely claiming that Trump won the 2020 election in the state, a judge rejected motions to drop the charges. Also this week, a judge “rejected a Pennsylvania county’s attempt to sue Dominion Voting Systems for breach of contract.”
In Georgia, the State Election Board rejected a MAGA-led effort to allow voters to fill out ballots by hand instead of using touchscreens. Also this week, MAGA supporters in a Wisconsin Senate committee voted against confirming an appointed election commissioner in retaliation for trying “to block them from voting to fire the state’s nonpartisan top elections official” after “conspiracy theorists” accused her of “helping to steal” the 2020 presidential election.
MAGA supporters have threatened to sue Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for rolling out an automatic voter registration system in which eligible voters will be registered to vote when they get a new or renewed driver’s license, unless they opt out.
The North Carolina General Assembly overrode a veto of legislation supported by MAGA legislators to let the state legislature step in to overturn election results. It also overrode a veto of MAGA-supported legislation to make same-day voter registration more onerous and make it more difficult to cast an absentee ballot by imposing “stricter mail-in voting rules.”
