This Week: Trump Took the Stand in Civil Fraud Case While His Supporters Continue to Push Voter Suppression Efforts in the States
This week, former President Donald Trump took the stand in the New York civil fraud trial against him and his businesses after an expert witness testified that Trump “benefited” by “more than $168 million” from the fraud. Trump’s testimony, which attacked the judge and proceedings against him, was so belligerent that the trial “devolved into a chaotic spectacle” “within minutes” of Trump taking the stand.
In the federal case against Trump for allegedly leading a coup attempt after losing the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors formally opposed Trump’s request to allow live video coverage of the trial. They also opposed Trump’s request to delay the trial.
Trump also requested the trial be delayed in the federal case stemming from whether he obstructed justice and willfully retained national security secrets. In response, the Trump-appointed judge indicated she may delay the start of the trial.
In Arizona, pro-MAGA Cochise County Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd are under investigation by the state for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. This week, they were served subpoenas and ordered to appear before a grand jury.
In the Michigan case against 16 “so-called fake electors” for signing documents falsely claiming that Trump won the state in the 2020 election, a judge delayed the case.
In Georgia, the state and pro-MAGA political organizations defended a law that limits drop boxes, restricts absentee voting, and bans “volunteers from distributing food and water” to people waiting in line to vote. These rules were imposed “in the wake of Trump’s 2020 loss, which he falsely blamed on voter fraud.”
Also in Georgia, pro-MAGA legislators pressed for technical changes to the state’s voting system. In response, the Secretary of State’s office “accused them of acting in bad faith” based on “lies that Georgia’s 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.”
In Wisconsin, MAGA supporters in the state legislature tried to “quash a lawsuit that would expand absentee voting in Wisconsin,” and, under pressure from Trump, advanced articles of impeachment against the nonpartisan administrator of the state’s elections commission after election-denying “conspiracy theorists” accused her of “helping to steal” the 2020 presidential election. The impeachment articles repeat claims related to the 2020 election that have been “repeatedly debunked.”
Gerrymandering cases continue to work their way through courts in many states. In Michigan, testimony was heard in federal court in a case to determine if legislative maps disenfranchise Black voters, while in Georgia, the federal government intervened in support of a ruling that the state’s legislative maps violate the Civil Rights Act. Under the ruling, new congressional and state legislative maps need to be drawn before the 2024 elections.
