Round Four of Indictments for ex-President Coming Next Week
Donald J. Trump’s midnight train to Georgia looks like it will be a bumpy ride.
The Fulton County District Attorney in Atlanta is expected to take findings from an election interference investigation to a grand jury, which will likely issue indictments next week.
From the New York Times:
The Georgia investigation may be the most expansive legal challenge yet to the efforts that Mr. Trump and his advisers undertook to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election. Nearly 20 people are known to have been told that they could face charges as a result of the investigation, which Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has pursued for two and a half years.
Ms. Willis has signaled that she would seek indictments from a grand jury in the first half of August. In a letter to local officials in May, she laid out plans for most of her staff to work remotely during the first three weeks of August amid heightened security concerns. Security barriers were recently erected in front of the downtown Atlanta courthouse, and at lunchtime on Tuesday, 16 law enforcement vehicles were parked around the perimeter.
There are a couple of reasons charges coming out of the grand jury hearings in Atlanta are different. While Trump –if elected- theoretically could pardon himself if convicted on federal charges, he wouldn’t have authority to wipe away state convictions. And Georgia’s lax gun laws on top of a concentration of extremist right wing organizations in nearby rural areas create an environment where it may be difficult to hold a trial.
Additionally, Trump’s camp is taking the probable charges seriously. This week his campaign rolled out an attack ad targeting DA Willis, lumping her into the “fraud squad” of prosecutors who have already filed charges in Florida, Washington DC, and New York.
The ad will air in Atlanta, Washington D.C. and New York, and nationally on cable and broadcast, according to the campaign. It includes accusations aimed at the Fulton County DA, misrepresenting a Rolling Stone article to suggest she had a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting, and blaming her for a 60% increase in murders this year (murders are on track to decline this year).
The former president’s posts on social media this week have taken an increasingly desperate tone.
Via Salon:
Facing 78 felonies in three different jurisdictions, with a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, still waiting to weigh in — and perhaps facing additional federal charges or possible state charges in Michigan, Arizona and elsewhere — Donald Trump has spent the last few days spewing forth an extraordinary level of venom, even for him
On Tuesday, Trump lashed out at Willis at a campaign rally, calling her a "young racist in Atlanta" and falsely claiming she had an affair with "the leader of a gang" she was prosecuting. And she now plans to indict him, he said, on bogus charges so she can run for higher office.
The Fulton County DA has instructed her staff not to respond to the campaign ad. Security presence at the courthouse continues to increase as the threats against Willis continue. One email had the subject line “Fani Willis = Corrupt N*” and said, “You are going to fail, you Jim Crow Democrat whore.”
Prove it or lose it…Fani Willis upped the ante yesterday, challenging Trump to prove the gang accusation by sundown on Friday or face charges for “sullying the image of a prosecutor,” which is apparently a thing in Georgia.
The Georgia investigation has been wide-ranging, covering a phone call made to secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger by the president asking him to “find” votes, plans being made to assemble a slate of bogus electors, harassment of local election workers, and lies about election fraud made by then Trump attorney Rudi Giuliani during legislative inquiries.
Ms. Willis has said that by bringing charges under Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, her inquiry could cover a wide range of issues. Broadly speaking, so-called RICO laws require prosecutors to prove that a group of people conspired to take part in organized criminal activity.
With RICO indictments, Ms. Willis said in an interview last year, “there are sometimes acts that occurred outside of the jurisdiction that are overt acts that we can use if they are evidence of the greater scheme.”
The special grand jury heard evidence in the case for roughly seven months and recommended more than a dozen people for indictments, its forewoman has said.
This hasn’t been a good week for Team Trump, with the judge hearing charges in DC signaling that she’s not going along with delaying tactics. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team has proposed January 2, 2024 as the start date for their trial.
Below are their thoughts on how it might go.
****
Strange Days, Good Reporting
***
Idaho loses its 'Teacher of the Year' after right-wing parents chase her out of state Via Raw Story
The Boston Globe reports that, shortly after receiving her award for excellence in teaching, Lauritzen became the target of a right-wing media campaign that flagged her social media posts expressing support for LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.
This led to parents angrily demanding to see her lesson plans, despite the fact that there was no suggestion she ever brought her personal politics into the classroom.
However, parents nonetheless objected to teaching students about other cultures around the world and even teaching them about the United Nations on the grounds that the parents said they "don't believe" in the institution.
***
His Recycling Symbol Is Everywhere. The E.P.A. Says It Shouldn’t Be Via the New York Times. Those encircled arrows don’t mean squat.
More than a thousand environmental groups and individuals, along with the E.P.A., sent comments to the Federal Trade Commission from December to April, arguing, among other points, that the misuse of the recycling logo in plastic products may be contributing to a growing plastic-waste crisis.
Roughly 5 to 6 percent of plastic in the United States was recycled in 2021, a drop from 9.5 percent in 2014, according to a 2022 study of recycling facilities by Greenpeace, an environmental advocacy organization. Most types of plastic packaging were “economically impossible to recycle,” partly because of the costs associated with collecting and sorting them, and could remain so in the future, researchers found.
The F.T.C. said in December that it was seeking public comment on changes to its environmental advertising and labeling regulations, known as the Green Guides. Last revised in 2012, the guides are meant to protect consumers from companies that make false claims about their efforts to protect the environment.
***
Michael Smolens: Why Tuesday’s supervisor election has always been about Amy Reichert Via the Union-Tribune. The real race is for second place.***
The election is just five days away and trying to predict the outcome would be a risky exercise. A private poll for law enforcement groups opposed to Montgomery Steppe conducted at the outset of the race had the council member leading, followed by Reichert and Goldbeck. But there’s been a lot of campaigning since then.
Should Reichert succeed Tuesday, the celebration will soon run into a hard political reality.
To win in November, she may need the political equivalent of lightning striking twice and the stars aligning.
*** Smolens forgot to note that even by losing, Reichart could follow in Carl DeMaio’s footsteps, getting a radio show and a fundraising vehicle to keep her views public. Let’s face it, DeMaio is no longer looking or sounding like the prototype for future Republicans.
