A federal grand jury in August indicted Trump on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, in the January 6 case. Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith has investigated Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the election results, including alleged attempts to submit false slates of pro-Trump electors from swing states he lost to the Electoral College. Trump, who is campaigning for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and is the current frontrunner, maintains his innocence, accusing prosecutors of targeting him for political purposes.
Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, previously put in place a “narrowly tailored” gag order against Trump at the request of prosecutors, who had raised concerns about Trump’s previous comments. Chutkan then temporarily put the gagging order on hold thus giving Trump’s attorneys time to prove why the former president’s comments should not be restricted, The Associated Press reports.
The gag order prohibited Trump from making certain types of statements about Jack Smith’s team or potential witnesses, including any comments that directly targeted court personnel, potential witnesses or the special counsel and his staff.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s attorneys via email for comment.
Former US President and 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the New England Sports Center in Derry, New Hampshire, October 23, 2023. Judge Tanya Chutkan has reinstated a gag order for Trump amid his 2020 election case. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
Chutkan’s ruling on the gag order was posted online to PACER Sunday night, but the order itself was not immediately available, according toThe AP. Newsweek also could not gain access to PACER Sunday night as the system seemed to be experiencing a glitch.
Meanwhile, after Chutkan’s ruling, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday saying, “The Corrupt Biden Administration just took away my First Amendment Right To Free Speech. NOT CONSTITUTIONAL! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN…”
Victor Shi, a Biden-supporting activist, reacted to the ruling saying on X, formally Twitter, “BREAKING: Judge Tonya Chutkan just lifted the temporary hold she placed on Donald Trump’s gag order, denying Trump of his motion to stay her gag order. It’s a Sunday night & Judge Chutkan is still working. This is great news.”
Former U.S. attorney Andrew Weissmann said on X, “BREAKING -Chutkan lifts the temporary stay of her “gag” order, so it is now back in effect. Trump will likely seek a stay from the appellate court in DC. Trump’s continued attacks during the short interim when there was a stay was relied on by the US in arguing to lift the stay.”
Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney, also said on X, “Judge Chutkan is on solid legal ground. She could gag Trump completely if she wanted to. Instead, she has given him wide latitude to criticize Biden, DOJ, and even her. Trump just can’t target parties and witnesses outside of court.”
BREAKING -Chutkan lifts the temporary stay of her “gag” order, so it is now back in effect. Trump will likely seek a stay from the appellate court in DC. Trump’s continued attacks during the short interim when there was a stay was relied on by the US in arguing to lift the stay. https://t.co/t3WREve10V
— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) October 29, 2023
In addition to the 2020 election case, Trump is currently battling an array of other legal issues. The former president is also facing a $250 million civil fraud trial stemming from a lawsuit New York Attorney General Letitia James filed last year alleging that Trump and top executives at The Trump Organization conspired to increase his net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements provided to banks and insurers to make deals and secure loans.
Trump was also indicted for alleged mishandling of classified documents that were recovered from his Mar-a-Lago residence. He has maintained his innocence in all cases.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The possibility that former Vice President Mike Pence takes the stand against Donald Trump in the Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) election interference case is “high” and “almost a certainty” after dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, legal analyst Danny Cevallos said Sunday.
The DOJ charged Trump in August on four criminal counts in special counsel Jack Smith‘s investigation into the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when a group of his supporters violently protested the election results in a failed effort to block congressional certification of President Joe Biden‘s victory. The former president has claimed, without evidence, the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud, and has maintained his innocence in the case.
Meanwhile, Pence was among the packed crowd of candidates seeking the 2024 Republican nomination for president, all of whom have struggled against the overwhelming polling strength of Trump and his reelection bid. Pence, in particular, struggled greatly and garnered only single-digit support from likely Republican voters. His troubles were attributed by some to his unpopularity with independents and moderate Republicansfor his association with the Trump administration, and among MAGA Republicans over his refusal to go along with Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.
“It’s become clear to me it’s not my time,” Pence said during his speech Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition Conference. “I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today. We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks on September 18 in Washington, D.C. Former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on July 8 in Las Vegas. The possibility that Pence takes the stand against Trump in the Department of Justice’s election interference case is “high” and “almost a certainty,” legal analyst Danny Cevallos said Sunday. Getty Images/Drew Angerer/Mario Tama
While speaking on MSNBC on Sunday, Cevallos was asked about the likelihood of Pence taking the stand against his former boss. He replied, “High to almost a certainty.”
“I think that when he was opposing subpoenas in the past, he was doing so symbolically. He was really just putting on a front,” Cevallos said. “If he was speaking candidly behind closed doors, he was probably saying, ‘All right, we’ve got to argue against the subpoena, just for the show, just for my candidacy. But secretly, I can’t wait to go in there and testify against the guy who put this tremendous fear into me and many other people in Congress on that fateful day well over a year ago now.’”
“I don’t think there’s going to be much impediment to Mike Pence racing in to testify,” the legal analyst continued. “There is absolutely nothing holding him back now.”
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek on Sunday, “Pence has already flipped on Trump and he’s going to be the star witness in the election fraud cases. Pence was the target of the fake elector scheme, he’s already testified before the grand jury, and has said publicly that he told Trump that what he and his lawyers wanted to do was unconstitutional.”
He added: “Pence withdrawing from the presidential race doesn’t change his role as a witness in the cases. In fact, it probably makes it easier for him to testify without worrying about alienating potential voters.”
Political analyst and law professor Jonathan Turley also told Newsweek on Sunday that “Pence has been consistent since the January 6 riot on his view of the allegations of election fraud.”
Turley added: “I expect he will remain so as a potential witness. The question is not the animus but the evidence. We do not know if Pence can say with any foundation that Trump knew he lost the election and was actively pursuing claims that he considered factually or legally unfounded.”
Newsweek has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment via email.
On Saturday, Trump had a message for Pence after news of him dropping out of the 2024 race circulated.
“Everybody that leaves seems to be endorsing me. You know people are leaving now, and they’re all endorsing me. I don’t know about Mike Pence; he should endorse me. He should endorse me, you know why? Because I had a great successful presidency, and he was the vice president. He should endorse me,” the former president said. “I chose him, made him vice president, but people in politics can be very disloyal.”
Newsweek has also reached out to multiple legal analysts for additional comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Jenna Ellis, a former Donald Trump attorney who has pleaded guilty to a felony count in the Georgia 2020 election interference case, has been criticized regarding the apparent cost of her legal fees.
Ellis, who served as Trump’s lawyer during the 2020 presidential campaign, pleaded guilty to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings on October 24 after getting indicted alongside the former president and 17 others in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‘ sprawling racketeering case. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has consistently denied wrongdoing in the case.
Prior to her guilty plea, Ellis had raised more than $217,000 in online donations to cover her legal fees after realizing the costs would not be covered by Trump. Ellis then faced calls for her to return the money, which was raised via a GiveSendGo page created by her lawyer, Michael Melito, after she became the fourth defendant to enter into a plea deal in the Georgia interference case before they went to trial.
On Saturday, Ellis thanked her supporters who had “helped me with prayers and support” while she faced charges in Georgia, while also sharing a statement from Melito, which aimed to “answer a question that has been raised” regarding the funds to support her legal defense.
Jenna Ellis reads a statement after pleading guilty to a felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, inside Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s Fulton County Courtroom at the Fulton County Courthouse October 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Ellis, an attorney and prominent conservative media figure, reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to a reduced charge over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia having raised more than $200,000 in legal fees. John Bazemore-Pool/Getty Images
“The legal fees and costs significantly exceeded the amount raised by the fund,” Melito said. “Thank you for your continued support.”
The claim was doubted by some legal experts and met with anger from Trump supporters on X, formerly Twitter, who questioned how Ellis’ legal fees were so high.
Colorado-based trial attorney Craig Silverman posted on X: “No fast guilty plea should ever cost this much. Jenna Ellis did not litigate any motions. How hard can it be to take a ‘no jail’ plea deal? Over 200K? No way.”
X user Craig Voss, who has a photo of Trump as his profile, wrote in reply to Ellis: “‘Jenna’s legal fees and costs significantly exceeded the amount raised by the fund.’ What an absolute joke.”
Fellow X user Heather Carlile, who also has a picture of Trump for her profile, added: “Post the bills (detailed) this is absurd.”
Author and scientist Jonathan Sarfati wrote: “I do have a question for Michael Melito of Melito Law LLC: why were the legal fees so much more than the money raised by the fund? It seems like the only winners in the current American (In)Justice system are the lawyers. This means they have little incentive to fight to change.”
Another X user wrote in reply to Ellis: “So Jenna Ellis pleads guilty, which means she was guilty of what she did, yet got others to pay for her legal fees? What happened to personal responsibility? Is she on welfare now?”
Conservative pundit Carmine Sabia was one of those to defend the amount that Ellis and her legal team said they needed to fight her case.
“It is astounding that some people think in a RICO case that making a plea deal means you did not have massive legal debts,” Sabia posted on X.
Newsweek has contacted Ellis’ legal team for comment via email.
While appearing at the court in Fulton County to plead guilty, Ellis expressed “remorse” for being part of the attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in favor of Trump.
“I failed to do my due diligence,” Ellis said. “I believe in and I value election integrity.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Seth Meyers on Thursday contrasted the “blustery, unhinged” figure that former President Donald Trumpcuts in public to the Trump “who only exists when he’s under oath” and under threat of perjury.
Trump when testifying is “suddenly much calmer, he’s more restrained, you could even say sheepish,” noted the “Late Night” comedian.
To prove the point, Meyers aired a video deposition from the future president in a 2016 lawsuit. In the clip, Trump answers questions in a respectful tone.
“That footage is amazing,” said Meyers. “It’s like watching the neighborhood Rottweiler who’s always terrorizing the mailman suddenly mope around in a cone.”
“Like in public he’s a raving lunatic screaming shit like, ‘Radical woke Democrats are using windmills and secret satellites to kill Christmas’ and then under oath he’s practically Emily Post,” he added.
It’s because under oath is “the only place Trump faces consequences,” explained Meyers, who later noted how the ex-POTUS’ latest outburst against a court staffer in his civil fraud trial — in violation of a gag order which banned him from doing so — saw him slapped with a $10,000 fine.
As a general rule of thumb, it’s not considered a positive development if your attorney pleads guilty in a case you both are charged in. Even less positive? If three of them do so.
Unfortunately for one Donald J. Trump, that’s exactly what’s happened over the course of the last week, with lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis all admitting to their roles in the plot to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. On Tuesday, in Fulton County, Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. Through tears, she told the court: “If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these postelection challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.” She also seemed to throw Rudy Giuliani under the bus, saying she’d relied on information from other attorneys, including some “with many more years of experience than I.” (As The Washington Postnotes, “Ellis traveled the country with Giuliani after the 2020 election, speaking to legislators in hopes of getting states to overturn their results”; she also “participated in other meetings and phone calls with Giuliani and key state figures, as well as the infamous Nov. 19, 2020, news conference with Giuliani and Powell.”)
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In exchange for her plea, Ellis was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to perform community service and pay $5,000 in restitution. She was also required to write an apology letter to the people of Georgia. Most crucially, she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against her codefendants—a list that includes Trump—should they go to trial.
Ellis’s guilty plea comes days after Powell and Chesebro admitted to committing misdemeanors and a felony, respectively, while trying to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. (If you’ve buried late 2020/early 2021 deep inside the recesses of your mind, Powell is the one who made bonkers election-fraud claims and attended a wild Oval Office meeting with Trump, during which the topic of invoking martial law reportedly came up; Chesebro was one of the architects of the fake-elector plot in Georgia.) In addition, Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, pleaded guilty late last month.
Over the weekend, Trump claimed Powell was never actually his attorney (despite having announced her as his attorney to millions of people). He does not appear to have commented on the Ellis news, but when he does, perhaps he’ll similarly claim to have never worked with her.
MyPillow CEO and 2020 election denier Mike Lindell suffered a setback in using his monitoring devices at polling stations, which he claims will make elections secure, after Kentucky officials reportedly said using them is illegal.
Kenton County election officials on Friday, October 20, allegedly said that using Lindell’s Wireless Monitoring Device (WMD) at polls is illegal, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.
“These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night,” Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe said at the board of elections meeting.
She added that the devices, which Lindell said reveal whether voting machines are online when they should not be, might unlawfully identify voters and were possibly small enough to get inside polling stations without being detected.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in Warren, Michigan, on October 1, 2022. Lindell’s Wireless Monitoring Device may be illegal to use in polling stations under Kentucky law. Getty
The Kenton County board of elections, comprised of four people, unanimously voted that poll station workers would not allow people to use the device.
Kenton County Sheriff Charles Korzenborn, a Republican who also sits on the board of elections, said deputies would arrest anyone breaking the law at the polls, according to the Enquirer.
Newsweek was not able to immediately verify the veracity of the report and has contacted Lindell and the Kenton County Clerk’s office for comment via email.
According to Kentucky state law, voting machines must not be connected to the internet and it is a felony to connect one online.
Donald Trump-aligned Lindell unveiled the WMD at his Election Summit in Springfield, Missouri, in August and challenged the claim that the voting machines were not connected to the internet.
“I’ve been telling you all, we’ve been told a lie over years now that the machines are not on the internet,” Lindell told audience members.
“What if there was a device that showed you ‘Hey, there’s a device on my network, there’s a device online,’” he continued. “And then you could tell what the device was, where it was at, what the name of it was[…]and you knew the second it went online.”
Michon Lindstrom, director of communications for Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams allegedly said in a statement obtained by the Enquirer: “These devices appear to be nothing more sophisticated or dangerous than a simple cell phone, which can detect a Wi-Fi signal. The presence of Wi-Fi in a building does not mean that ballot scanners are connected to the internet. State law prohibits that and we do not certify ballot scanners for use if they have any capacity for connectivity.”
The outlet reported Summe, who has not seen or inspected the WMDs, had claimed that while it is impossible for voting machines to connect to the internet due to not being built with a modem, Wi-Fi signals will be present at polling stations as they are located at schools, community centers, and other sites with internet connections.
“So, what is the true purpose of this? Is it going to interfere with what happens on election day? Is it going to modify something? Is it designed to come out with a specific result to prove something? I’m not sure what they want to prove by it,” the newspaper reported Summe as saying.
Lindell has been facing numerous legal and financial troubles after he made unfounded claims that Trump won the 2020 election and that companies who provided voting machines conspired to rig the result against him.
He faces defamation lawsuits brought by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, who argue their reputations were significantly damaged by Lindell’s claims. The MyPillow CEO has also said he faces several IRS audits.
“I feel like we’re in this major battle, which we are, but we’re getting through it,” Lindell previously said on his channel The Lindell Report, broadcast via the video network FrankSpeech. “There’s light at the end of these attacks, and we are going to win.”
Attorney Neal Katyal explained on Saturday that the “most significant” fact about Donald Trump‘s ex-attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who recently both pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case, is that they were both handed no jail deals.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‘ investigation into the former president’s alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia continued on Friday with Chesebro, one of the 19 defendants named in the case, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit filing false documents. This comes after Powell, who frequently repeated unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen via widespread voter fraud, pleaded guilty to reduced charges on Thursday. Trump, meanwhile, maintains his innocence in the case.
While appearing on MSNBC‘s The Saturday Showwith Jonathan Capehart, the legal analyst shared his reaction to Trump’s former lawyers pleading guilty, while adding what he thought was the most significant fact about their respective deals.
“To me, what’s most significant about both of these deals is that they are no jail deals. So one, Sidney Powell pleads guilty to some misdemeanors and Chesebro to a felony, but neither of them are serving jail. The only reason you would ever agree to that as a prosecutor is if they are providing evidence against higher ups,” Katyal, the former acting solicitor general of the United States during the Obama administration, said.
Former President Donald Trump is seen at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on August 24. Attorney Neal Katyal explained that the “most significant” fact about Trump’s ex-attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who recently both pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case, is that they were both handed no jail deals. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Katyal continued to explain that with these no jail deals, Trump is on the receiving end of “incredibly bad news” as these were his handpicked lawyers who have now seemingly been flipped and will testify against him.
“This is incredibly bad news for Donald Trump and not news, Jonathan, that he can spin…these are his handpicked MAGA [Make America Great Again], Kraken, whackjob lawyers,” he added.
Both Powell and Chesebro will also have to testify truthfully against their co-defendants—including Trump—as part of the plea deal. In addition, not only does Chesebro have to testify, he will also be required to provide documents and evidence—including text messages and emails—to state prosecutors to be used in their case.
Katyal is not the only legal expert who weighed in on what these plea deals could mean for Trump as former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi previously told Newsweek that the plea deal marks “another bad day” for the former president.
“Whenever two attorneys that are part of your legal team have pleaded guilty to criminal charges, that is never a good day. The two attorneys who have pleaded guilty could be very powerful witnesses against Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and the others charged,” he said in a Friday phone interview.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment via email.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Donald Trump just became his own hypeman in the trials he faces for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The ex-president promised yet again on Friday to produce irrefutable evidence in court that he got robbed of a victory after lying about his election loss for three years.
“Massive information and 100% evidence will be made available during the Corrupt Trials started by our Political Opponent,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We will never let 2020 happen again. Look at the result, OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED. MAGA!!!”
Trump even threw in what many people identified as thinly veiled racism.
“Does anyone notice that the Election Rigging Biden Administration never goes after the Riggers, but only after those that want to catch and expose the Rigging dogs,” he said.
Following a similar statement about “riggers” in August, critics, including his former communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin, accused the ex-president of using a racist dogwhistle to appeal to bigots. “Riggers,” of course, is just a letter away from a heinous slur.
We’ve been here before with Trump and his promises to verify his baseless claims of a stolen election. He recently announced a press conference to present a “CONCLUSIVE” report that would lead to “a complete EXONERATION.” But he canceled it.
Trump can’t really cancel a trial, so maybe we’ll see that purported evidence after all. Promises, promises.
In the meantime, potential legal jeopardy mounted for the autocratic ex-president and current Republican presidential front-runner. Trump’s co-defendants Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro both pleaded guilty in the Georgia election conspiracy case and agreed to testify against their alleged accomplices, which would include Trump.
Republicans are still seeking revenge for their 2020 election losses. In Wisconsin, they’ve put a target on the back of Meagan Wolfe, the state’s nonpartisan elections chief, who they’re apparently still mad at for refusing to take Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud more seriously. Wolfe called the 2020 election “an incredible success that was a result of years of preparation and meticulously, carefully following the law.” Nevertheless, state Republicans heeded Trump’s election lies, launching a review of the 2020 results, which was led by a former right-wing judge—who attended a symposium on election fraud headed by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell. The investigation cost taxpayers over $1.1 million and ultimately, in 2022, reported no evidence of fraud. Unsatisfied, and still without a smoking gun, Wisconsin Republicans have made Wolfe a scapegoat. Nearly a year from the 2024 election, it looks like they want to fire her, subject to a possibly illegitimate confirmation hearing last week. Wolfe’s future as elections administrator remains in limbo.
The power struggle playing out around her post serves as a portent of the machinations to come in 2024—when it’s highly possible Trump will once again be on the ballot. It also comes as Democratic secretaries of state are sounding the alarm of continued and emergent threats facing American democracy. Trump allies are already deploying the same playbook as they did in 2020.
“The attack on democracy has not stopped—very specifically Trump’s efforts to undermine American democracy have not stopped,” Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold tells Vanity Fair.
The breadth of Trump’s election denialism was thrust back into focus last month, when Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis released a damning indictment laying out an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in not only Georgia, but in other states including Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Mexico. “It is sort of a roadmap in a sense. It gives us an idea about what to expect and what to guard against,” Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon said of the indictment. “If there’s a similar plot or scheme by anyone in 2024, they won’t necessarily follow the same roadmap as in 2020. But it does give us an idea about what the pressure points are.”
Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes—who served as the election recorder for Maricopa County, one of the fiercest battlegrounds, in 2020—points out that Trump continues to push election disinformation. Trump was “mildly inciting folks to violence” in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Fontes said, referring to the ex-president saying that his political opponents were “savage animals; they’re people that are sick,” and entertaining Carlson’s suggestion that the former president could be assassinated. The indictments haven’t stopped Trump from pushing election denialism and engaging in dangerous hyperbole. And at the state level, his supporters are following suit with organized attacks on the system, such as that against Wolfe. Both Fontes and Griswold said they regularly receive death threats, as do other elections officials.
As Democratic secretaries of state are sounding the alarm ahead of the 2024 presidential election, some Republican officials are amplifying Trump’s unfounded claims. For instance, as the Associated Press reported, secretaries of state in Ohio, West Virginia, and Missouri—three states Trump won—have supported increased voter restrictions, which appears to buy into the former president’s false rhetoric that Biden stole the presidency, despite being the very individuals tasked with ensuring election integrity. In a recent interview, West Virginia secretary of state Mac Warner summed up the balance he and other Republicans are trying to strike. “I will admit Biden won the election, but did he do it legitimately? Or did that happen outside the election laws that legislatures in certain states had put in place? That’s where I balk and say no,” he said. As Republican officials continue to engage in election denialism, they are only adding to the confusion and challenges ahead of next year’s election.
As 2024 approaches, there is a real fear of what Griswold described as “insider threats” to the system—something she experienced firsthand in Colorado. Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peterswas indicted in 2022 in a breach of Mesa County’s election system; she was accused of allowing an unauthorized individual access to the voting system in search of evidence to support Trump’s claims of election fraud (Peters pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial). Griswold says Conan Hayes, who has also been identified in media reports as individual 27 in Georgia’s Coffee County indictment for accessing election data, and, as the Times reported, was associated with Peters, was the one to physically compromise the voting equipment in Mesa County. A second breach occurred in Colorado when an Elbert County clerk, Dallas Schroeder,gained unauthorized access and made copies of the county’s election system. (Schroeder did not face charges.) In legal filings, Schroeder said he had help from an individual named Shawn Smith, who leads pro-Trump election denial groups and has been associated with John Eastman, the former Trump attorney behind the 2020 fake electors scheme, and one of the central figures of the Georgia indictment. Griswold recalls, “Eastman was on the stage as a far-right militia called for me to be hung.” (Smith said onstage at an event in February 2022, where Eastman was reportedly in attendance: “I think if you’re involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.”)
After the 2020 election, Colorado governor Jared Polissigned into law new legislation aimed to protect against “insider threats” and impose greater protections for election workers against harassment and intimidation. “Every state needs to pass that legislation immediately because it’s a tremendous risk for the ’24 election,” Griswold told VF.
The secretaries of state who spoke with VF described an ongoing game of whack-a-mole when it comes to election denialism and disinformation. “I always make a distinction between disinformation and disagreement. Disagreement is welcome and normal and a sign of health, I think for a democracy for people to disagree on issues. But I’m not talking so much about what the election system ought to be as what it is. Let’s agree on what it is, whether you like what it is or isn’t,” Simon said. But, “There are some people who are pushing election disinformation knowing that it’s false and doing it for political purposes.”
The hope, Simon added, is that greater transparency into the election process will cut through the barrage of mis- and disinformation. But he added, “I’m not naive… It’s not a binary thing. It’s not that someone’s going to hear something and completely change their mind,” he said. However, “They might do some incremental changing.” The 2024 election is only poised to be more combustible, as it will likely happen in tandem with Trump’s multiple criminal trials. “We’re heading into a presidential election year, which always means more passion, more drama, more intensity,” Simon says. “It’s worth revisiting 2020 if for no other reason than to talk about the lessons learned and what we can do to stabilize democracy in America.”
“[Trump] is the sexy clickbait right now, but that’s not what this is about,“ Fontes told VF. “There are so many things that go into the day-to-day of election administration. It is 365 days a year that every once in a while something pops up like a new lawsuit, a new scandal, a new headline, a new indictment. Nowadays they’re coming fast and furious.”
You have probably heard about Donald Trump’s record-setting run of four indictments. It has, understandably, received wall-to-wall media coverage. You may well have heard about the Trump indictments from the ex-president’s fellow Republicans, loudly disputing the facts and attacking the prosecutors. Or from the Trump campaign, which is selling his mug shot on T-shirts. But you very likely have not heard much about it from the people with the most to gain from Trump going to trial: President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The asymmetry is striking, intentional—and possibly misguided, if the Democrats think that court action and press coverage will do a sufficient job of rallying key Biden voters in 2024. Since April, when Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg announced that his office was bringing fraud charges against Trump, alleging that he’d covered up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the former president’s allies have rushed to the microphones and keyboards every time Trump racks up a new indictment. Mississippi governor Tate Reeves: “They have proven they will do anything to ‘get’ Donald Trump.” Florida congressman Byron Donalds: “Nobody can take [the right to challenge election results] away from you, especially some rogue, knucklehead prosecutor out of the Department of Justice.”
The most prominent Democrats, however, have been determined to stay out of the headlines on the matter. Their statements about Trump, if any, are typically written and calculated to be “very muted, restrained,” one senior Democratic operative says. Biden has repeatedly refused to comment on his predecessor’s indictments, even shouting “No!” to a reporter’s request for comment after Trump’s Florida arraignment. Jill Biden, perhaps, has gone the furthest, telling a group of Democratic donors that it has been “shocking” to see so many Republicans still supporting Trump even after the indictments, per the Associated Press. Though those comments were apparently not meant for wide public consumption.
For Biden, the attempt to stay above the fray is a relatively easy choice. His brand is all about returning Washington to functioning normally, and the contrast he wants to draw is that he, unlike Trump, is a believer in the nonpartisan dispensing of justice. “I think the president has been clear on the issues that underlie all of these indictments, like the issues of democracy, of the rule of law, of having an independent justice department,” a Biden insider says. “The irony of people being like, Why won’t the president comment on the indictments? Part of what Trump is indicted for is weaponizing the Justice Department! And people want us, in some sense, to do the same thing? Why would we do that? Our guy stands for the opposite of that.” The ongoing federal investigation of the president’s son is also a disincentive: Biden commenting on the cases against Trump while Hunter Biden is still under scrutiny by a special counsel would give oxygen to Republican what-about-ism.
Beyond the White House, though, the prevailing silence is more nuanced and somewhat harder to understand. Six Senate Democrats have a solid reason: Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), and Jon Tester (Montana) are running for reelection in states Trump won in 2020; Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), and Jacky Rosen (Nevada) are running in states Trump barely lost. Bashing the former president could be counterproductive for them; better to focus their campaigns on local issues as they try to win over independents. But then there’s Hakeem Jeffries, House Democrats’ leader, whose job in the minority could arguably be entirely centered on attacking Trump’s candidacy and legal troubles. He, too, has been careful in his comments. “The Trump indictment and the facts that will continue to emerge from the legal process speak for themselves,” Jeffries told CNN in June.
At all levels, Democrats are following the old maxim that when an adversary is tripping over himself, you stay out of his way. For electeds not facing voters, staying quiet is seen as avoiding a Republican trap. “Our thinking is that Trump is going to inject politics into this no matter what,” the senior Democratic operative says. “So there’s no benefit to us making this a political issue because if there’s a conviction, we want people to have faith it was a fair process. We need to defend the legal process and the legal system, and not make the courts political.”
There’s also the reasoning that we’re still 15 months away from Election Day. Most voters aren’t paying attention, and by next November, it’s possible Trump could be both the Republican nominee and a convicted felon who is looking to be reelected in order to stave off jail—an unprecedented combination that would make Biden’s argument without Biden’s help. “You don’t really need to make this into an issue,” a Biden adviser says. “America knows that Donald Trump means chaos, that he lives in an alternate reality, and that he’s a demagogue. Sixty percent of general election voters believe he probably committed a crime. It has hurt him and it is going to continue to hurt him.” Indeed, a YouGov poll showed 66% agreeing that Trump had “definitely or probably” committed a crime—and that was back when the former president had only been indicted once. Whether that translates into votes for Biden, or against Trump, is a different question. The danger of a cautious approach toward the ex-president’s legal mess (particularly if Trump hasn’t yet gone to trial, or if he has and has been acquitted) is that it could calcify into complacency.
Rudy Giuliani may have spent the last several years giving off the impression that he is extremely drunk at all times (see: confusing Four Seasons Total Landscaping with the Four Seasons, shaving in the middle of a restaurant, and sweating out hair dye on live TV). But by numerous accounts, he actually was quite intoxicated on election night 2020. Why are we bringing this up now? Because the former mayor’s alleged inebriation—and what Donald Trump knew about it—may play a key role in the ex-president’s federal trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
Rolling Stonereports that investigators working for Special Counsel Jack Smith have “repeatedly grilled” witnesses about Giuliani’s drinking on and after Election Day, how drunk he allegedly was when he was giving the then president advice on how to stay in power, and what Trump’s awareness was of his attorney’s sobriety or lack thereof. Among other things, Smith’s team has reportedly asked witnesses “if Trump had ever gossiped with them about Giuliani’s drinking habits, and if Trump had ever claimed Giuliani’s drinking impacted his decision-making or judgment.” They’ve also reportedly inquired “about whether the then president was warned, including after election night 2020, about Giuliani’s allegedly excessive drinking,” or if Trump was told that Giuliani was giving him “post-election legal and strategic advice while inebriated.”
Obviously, being tipsy or even shit-faced is not necessarily a crime—and the Feds are not actually interested in Giuliani’s drinking in and of itself. Rather, as attorneys and witnesses familiar with the matter told Rolling Stone, “Smith and his team are interested in this subject because it could help demonstrate that Trump was implementing the counsel of somebody he knew to be under the influence and perhaps not thinking clearly. If that were the case, it could add to federal prosecutors’ argument that Trump behaved with willful recklessness in his attempts nullify the 2020 election.” Given that Trump’s current legal team reportedly plans to argue that Trump had just been taking his lawyers’ advice after the election, evidence that he knew Giuliani was three sheets to the wind would likely undermine such an argument.
“In order to rely upon an ‘advice of counsel’ defense, the defendant has to, number one, have made full disclosure of all material facts to the attorney,” Mitchell Epner, a former assistant United States attorney, told Rolling Stone. “That requires that the attorney understands what’s being told to them. If you know that your attorney is drunk, that does not count as making full disclosure of all material facts.”
As for the question of whether or not Giuliani was, in fact, drunk on election night and the days that followed, the answer seems to depend on who you ask: Rudy Giuliani or anyone else. The former mayor has denied advising Trump while drunk, insisting in since-deleted tweets last year that he “REFUSED all alcohol” on election night and that his “favorite drink [is] Diet Pepsi,” and in a statement, Ted Goodman, a political adviser advisers to Giuliani, said: “One should always question a story that is completely reliant on anonymous sources. This false narrative by nameless sources has been contradicted by on-the-record witnesses.” Yet advisers to Trump told the January 6 committee that the ex-mayor was indeed plastered, with one saying Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” while talking to Trump on the evening of November 3, 2020.
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In addition to that testimony, Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Ruckerwrote in their book I Alone Can Fix It that observers believed Giuliani had had too much to drink on election night, while author Michael Wolfftold MSNBC of the evening: “Rudy was incredibly drunk, weaving this way and that way…. Trump’s aides were obviously, or rightly, concerned about what Giuliani was saying to the president about the election and giving him misinformation, but they were also concerned that he was going to break [priceless artifacts]” in the White House’s China Room.
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Former President Donald Trump surrendered to law enforcement officials in Fulton County, Georgia, on Thursday after a grand jury there indicted him on 13 felony charges related to his effort to steal the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.
Trump is facing felony charges for racketeering, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath of office, making false statements and conspiring to impersonate a public official, committing forgery, and committing and making false statements to public officials. The charges in Georgia come on top of three other indictments, two in federal court and one in New York. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the cases.
The racketeering charges are perhaps the most serious, as they charge Trump, along with 18 co-defendants, under the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law used to indict participants in a criminal conspiracy. RICO has often been used to prosecute the mob or drug gangs, and has most recently made news in the Atlanta prosecution of the rapper Young Thug. Now, its use in an alleged political conspiracy is unique and makes the Georgia case stand out from the other three criminal cases against Trump.
The Georgia case also raises important constitutional issues related to presidential immunity that courts have not debated before. On Aug. 15, Trump’s former chief of staff and current Georgia co-defendant Mark Meadows filed to move the trial from state court to federal court. To win a removal, Trump will need to argue to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he was acting in his capacity as a federal officer ― and not a political candidate ― when he committed the acts Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges are crimes. He will also need to show that he has a credible federal defense, like an argument that as president, he is immune from prosecution for his official actions.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced the 13 charges former President Donald Trump received after a Georgia grand jury indicted him on charges for interfering with Georgia’s election results in 2020.
Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Notably, all these issues are first impression issues — meaning, this will be the first time they are coming before a court. Not only is there no precedent to draw on, but whatever the courts decide now will set a standard for the myriad questions that may come next.
These are complicated issues. Ahead of Trump surrendering himself in Fulton County, I asked Georgia State University College of Law professor Eric Segall, who specializes in constitutional law and the federal courts, to help explain them and game out how this case could play out in the courts.
Trump has now been indicted four times ― two of those indictments, in D.C. and in Fulton County, relate to his efforts to overturn the election. What are the big differences in the case in Fulton County compared to the one in federal court?
Four letters: RICO. It’s really important that this is a RICO case. There are a lot of reasons for that, legal and non-legal reasons. First of all, by using RICO, Willis was allowed to bring in all the bad stuff that happened in Pennsylvania. And that’s a huge deal because, assuming that gets admitted in evidence and under RICO in any trial, it shows that what Trump allegedly did in Georgia, he also did in Pennsylvania.
Imagine you’re trying somebody for murder, and they had allegedly murdered someone else in Pennsylvania, you can’t get that into evidence usually. But with RICO, you can. And so it makes for a much stronger case. Not only did they do these things here, but they did those things there. That’s one reason.
The second reason, it has a mandatory minimum sentence. Once we get through all the legal motions, if Donald Trump really finds himself on trial, whether in Georgia or federal district court, there’s a five year minimum sentence looking at him in the face. That’s something.
And then, third, is John Floyd, the lawyer who’s in the picture with the DA on the front page of the Atlanta paper. I’ve known John Floyd for 40 years, and he might be the most knowledgeable RICO attorney in the country. If I was being charged with RICO, he’s the very last person I’d wanna see across from me, and he’s clearly helping the DA. They’re not hiding that fact, and it’s a huge deal.
So those are three big differences between this case and all the other cases. If the case stays in Fulton County — it’s a big if, but if it does — that jury pool is heavily anti-Trump. Trump repeatedly maligned this district when the late Rep. John Lewis, who represented it, was alive. Trump criticized Lewis and said he lived in a crime-infested, terrible, dirty district ― all racial signaling. So, if he gets a Fulton County jury, he’s looking at a five year mandatory minimum ― that’s why he is gonna fight so hard to get out of Fulton County.
So on that question of the requests Trump has made to remove his case from state court to the federal courts, what is the process for that? What do you think is the likelihood of it happening, and how long could it drag out?
What the American people don’t want to hear, but which is true, is we are in completely new territory here. Completely new. No former president has ever been arrested like this. No former president has been charged in four different courts.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump gather outside of the Fulton County Jail ahead of Trump’s surrender on Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia.
Now, I’ve looked at the law, and I don’t think Trump meets the requirement of engaging in official conduct when he was acting as a candidate to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Despite that, it’s very difficult to predict what the federal judiciary is gonna do these days ― especially a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court ― on cases like this, politically charged cases that affect the whole country. Anyone who predicts that is being foolish.
He turns himself in on Thursday. There are these requests to remove to federal court already pending. What happens after that? What’s the process after he surrenders? And what should the public expect?
All the defendants who want to remove have to file to remove within three days. And then, I believe, the government gets 20 days to respond to that in the brief. Then there will almost certainly be some kind of evidentiary hearing.
He made the same motion in New York, which was a frivolous motion. I would’ve considered sanctioning his attorneys for that motion because there’s no world where paying a porn star off is official conduct by the president of the United States. Georgia’s different. In Georgia, he’s gonna say, “I was trying to ensure the fairness and integrity of federal elections.”
Now I want you to consider a Democrat president who is running for reelection, and imagine Alabama, or Mississippi, literally having a bonfire, burning the votes for that person. And the president comes in with the National Guard and says, “You can’t do that.” Of course they can’t. And then he’s arrested in Mississippi on bogus charges — the charges in Georgia aren’t bogus, but I’m just keeping this hypothetical. Wouldn’t you and I want that case removed to federal court? Yes, we would. We’d want the case to be removed.
We have to remember that when we’re dealing with this issue today, because whatever the courts do here, it’s gonna matter. Now, I hope there’s no more presidents who are being arrested, but it’s not just presidents. Other federal officials may get arrested in the future, high level officers, and we need to have a procedure that’s fair. And like all Americans, Trump is entitled to due process and entitled to the presumption of innocence in a court of law.
So say Trump tries to claim immunity claiming he was acting as the president trying to protect the integrity of elections, as you said. How does that work?
If he was a president ensuring the impartiality of federal elections, they can’t arrest him for that. If he was a candidate trying to steal an election, or just a candidate, period, they can. But that is a first impression issue.
The removal issue is more statutory, but the supremacy clause immunity issue is a 100% constitutional issue of first impression.
As a constitutional law professor of 33 years and a federal jurisdiction professor of 33 years, I can tell you that my best reading of law and facts, which is that Trump — I’m not talking about the other defendants — should not win either the removal or the immunity motions. But that doesn’t mean he won’t.
Let’s say that the district court judge looks at the motion to remove and thinks like I do, which is, “Was he a candidate, or was he the president when he was doing the acts that the indictment claims were criminal?” What kind of hearing do you have? Normally it’s an evidentiary hearing, with these disputed issues of fact. But this is so circled by Trump’s subjective state of mind, and an objective question no court has answered to the best of my knowledge [when to determine whether a president acts as a president or as a candidate], I think you have to have something between an evidentiary hearing and a trial.
Former Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro poses for his booking photo on Wednesday in Atlanta, Georgia. Chesebro filed for a speedy trial after surrendering to law enforcement.
It sounds like there are a lot of complications that could lead to this being dragged out for quite some time.
Oh, yeah. Don’t expect a trial anytime in the near future in Georgia.
Willis is seeking a trial date in March 2024. You think that is way too aggressive? [Note: Shortly after this conversation, Willis made a new request to hold the trial in October.]
My on the record comment is almost no chance [that will happen].
It would not surprise me if the 11th Circuit doesn’t take a long time to make sure they make the right decision. These are first impression issues involving the possible jailing of the former president of the United States and the front-runner for the GOP nomination.
I assume either way this goes, it gets appealed further up, all the way to the Supreme Court.
You would think so. And if the district court judges in the 11th Circuit act quickly in the interest of justice, I think there’s every reason to believe there were four Supreme Court justices who will grant cert, agree to hear the case, and just wait it out for a pretty long time. Once they grant cert, everything stops. They could sit on it after the election if they wanted to. They really might do that.
One last question: We’re seeing different filings coming from the different defendants. Trump and others have filed for their cases to be removed to federal courts, but Kenneth Chesebro filed on Wednesday to request a speedy trial. How does that change things, and does that show that the other defendants may be pulled in different directions from Trump?
Katie Fang [of MSNBC] put that out on the internet [on Wednesday], and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Why would he do this? And my best guess as to why he’s doing that, is he must feel that he’s at odds with Trump on the merits.
And by the way, if I were him, I might think that because you don’t wanna be associated as a co-defendant with Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia. That’s the last thing anybody wants. Maybe he’s thinking Trump will get removed, or at least, he wants the trial to happen before the removal stuff is figured out. At least if he doesn’t wanna be associated with Trump.
Answers have been edited lightly for clarity and length.
As you’ve probably heard by now, things are not going swimmingly for one Rudy Giuliani. Already in a load of legal trouble stemming from his attempt to overturn the 2020 election on behalf of Donald Trump, the former mayor of New York City was criminally charged last week by the Fulton County district attorney’s office for his plot to overturn the results of the election in Georgia—and if convicted on just the racketeering count alone, he could go away for 5 to 20 years. On top of that, he’s also facing defamation lawsuits from Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, and two election workers, and on top of that, he is in such a bad way financially that he can’t pay his bills, per his attorney. And while Trump has reportedly refused to open his own checkbook to help out a guy who—let’s be honest—destroyed what little reputation he had left to try and steal him a second term, the ex-president has apparently decided to throw Giuliani a small-to-medium-size bone.
That bone has come in the form of a $100,000-per-plate fundraiser at Trump’s Bedminster golf course “in support of” Giuliani, which will take place on September 7. According to the invite, Trump will be present for a “roundtable” with the former mayor, and then he’ll take off before dinner.
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It’s not clear why Trump has suddenly decided to sort of step up to the plate to help out his friend/alleged coconspirator, though one possible explanation is that he’s trying to ensure Giuliani doesn’t flip on him, which an attorney who specializes in white-collar crime suggested this week was an outcome Trump was risking by leaving the 18 people also charged in Fulton County high and dry re: legal bills.
On Wednesday, the former mayor flew to Georgia to surrender to authorities and face charges brought by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. There, he was booked and had his mugshot taken:
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And while, as of yesterday evening, Giuliani was reportedly still struggling to find a lawyer necessary to negotiate his surrender, he was apparently feeling pretty good about his situation Wednesday morning, telling reporters, “I’m feeling very, very good about it.”
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Then he delivered a long speech that (1) appeared to reference the many stories that have been written over the last several years about how far he’s fallen (2) highlighted the work he did in—checks notes—the 1990s (3) falsely claimed that Trump had been “proven innocent several times,” and (4) repeated Trump’s go-to line about how Americans should be worried that they too could one day be charged for trying to overturn a federal election.
“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED by a Radical Left District Attorney, Fani Willis, who is overseeing one of the greatest Murder and Violent Crime DISASTERS in American History,” he wrote.
“In my case, the trip to Atlanta is not for ‘Murder,’ but for making a PERFECT PHONE CALL! She campaigned, and is continuing to campaign, and raise money on, this WITCH HUNT. This is in strict coordination with Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ. It is all about ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”
Fulton County prosecutors have charged Trump under Georgia’s racketeering and corrupt organizations statutes, accusing the Republican of hatching a scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election so he could remain in office.
The president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former law professor John Eastman also face multiple criminal charges.
Donald Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Aug. 13.
Mike Stobe via Getty Images
Earlier on Monday, the Fulton County district attorney’s office set Trump’s bond at $200,000.
The pretrial release terms also bar Trump, who is a 2024 presidential candidate, from intimidating his co-defendants or witnesses, online or in person.
An order signed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee stated, “The Defendant shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a codefendant or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”
“The above shall include, but are not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media.”
Though Trump is facing criminal charges in four separate matters, the Fulton County case is the first of the four to set cash bail for the self-proclaimed billionaire.
He was released on personal recognizance after being booked in Miami for his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
In Washington, D.C., Trump was ordered not to communicate with witnesses and/or co-defendants in the federal election subversion case without his lawyer present.
He was instructed to use a lawyer if communicating with anyone involved in his New York City hush money case.
Last week, Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat said Trump and the co-defendants won’t be getting any special treatment when they show up for arraignment.
“It doesn’t matter your status. We have a mug shot ready for you. Unless someone tells me differently, we are following our normal practices,” he told NPR.
As reasonable people can probably all agree, plotting to overturn the results of a free and fair election is an extremely bad idea from a moral, reputational, and legal perspective. (Have you heard? You might actually go to jail for it!) On a practical level, it also turns out to be a really bad idea to try and overturn an election if you don‘t have the deep pockets of, say, a former reality-TV show host whose supporters seem all too happy to foot legal bills. Like if you’re a former New York City mayor turned national embarrassment now best known for confusing a five-star hotel with a landscaping business of the same name and having no choice but to see it through, shaving in the middle of a restaurant, and accidentally appearing in a Sacha Baron Cohen movie with your hand down your pants, you should take a cold hard look at your finances, realize they probably can’t withstand the risks of an attempted coup, and call it a day. Rudy Giuliani, for one, knows what we’re talking about.
CNN reports that the mayor turned Trump attorney is “staring down hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits in addition to the new criminal charges—related to his work for Donald Trump after the 2020 election.” How bad is the situation? So bad that in court on Monday, Giuliani said his legal situation has basically left him with no cash. So bad that in court on Wednesday, Adam Katz, at attorney for Giuliani said there “are a lot of bills that he’s not paying” as a result. So bad that he’s listed his Manhattan apartment for sale.* Is it so bad that he’s going to have to film more cigar and gold coin ads? That remains to be seen, but it’s probably getting close! Speaking about Giuliani’s financial situation, this week Katz said the former mayor does not have the funds to produce records in voting technology company Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News and others, including Giuliani. Katz added that the apparent cash crunch is “very humbling for Mr. Giuliani.” On Wednesday, a judge gave Giuliani two weeks to come up with the money necessary to generate the records for Smartmatic; if he can’t, he’ll be forced to pay some of the company’s legal fees (which he presumably does not have the money to cover, either.)
Of course, the lawsuit from Smartmatic is not the only legal issue facing Giuliani. He’s also being sued for defamation by, among others, Dominion Voting Systems and Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, who he has conceded he made false statements about concerning the 2020 election. Also, there are those pesky criminal charges, per CNN:
The criminal charges that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought against Trump, Giuliani and 17 others will undoubtedly add to the former mayor’s legal bills.
That prosecution is separate from the federal election subversion investigation that looms over Giuliani. He is “Co-conspirator 1” in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. While he has not been indicted, prosecutors continue to investigate, including speaking with Giuliani’s ally, Bernie Kerik, about what Giuliani did to prove that Trump actually won the election, among other things, Kerik’s attorney told CNN.
Giuliani is also being sued by former employee Noelle Dunphy, who has accused him of “sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct,” and is seeking $10 million in damages. (Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, disputed Dunphy’s claims to CBS News and insisted that “This was a consensual relationship.”)
Robert Costello, an attorney for Giuliani, declined CNN’s request for comment. After he was indicted in Georgia, the former mayor said, “This is a completely unjustified and disgusting act of retribution, as I had the temerity to unveil the biggest scandal in American history—and for that, my parents are proud of me, and I don’t give a damn about the rest.”
*Giuliani has obviously not publicly stated that he’s trying to sell the apartment because he needs money ASAP, and it’s possible he’s just looking for a change of scenery—but it also seems quite-to-very possible he’s doing it for the cash, given his financial situation. Maybe he’ll appear on an episode of Million Dollar Listing and let us know.
The special counsel has the ex-president’s DMs and drafts too—no thanks to Elon Musk. Per Politico:
Special counsel Jack Smith obtained an extraordinary array of data from Twitter about Donald Trump’s account—from direct messages to draft tweets to location data—newly unsealed court filings reveal. But it took a bruising battle with Twitter’s attorneys in January and February—punctuated by a blistering analysis by a federal judge, who wondered whether Elon Musk was attempting to “cozy up” to the former president by resisting the special counsel’s demands—before prosecutors got the goods.
Ultimately, US district judge Beryl Howell held Twitter (now known as X) in contempt of court in February, fining the company $350,000 for missing a court-ordered deadline to comply with Smith’s search warrant. But the newly unsealed transcripts of the proceedings in her courtroom show that the fine was the least of the punishment. Howell lit into Twitter for taking “extraordinary” and apparently unprecedented steps to give Trump advance notice about the search warrant—despite prosecutors’ warnings, backed by unspecified evidence, that notifying Trump could cause grave damage to their investigation.
On or about the 2nd day of January 2021, DONALD JOHN TRUMP committed the felony offense of FALSE STATEMENTS AND WRITINGS, in violation of O.C.G.A. § 16- 10-20, in Fulton County, Georgia, by knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully making at least one of the following false statements and representations to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs, and Georgia Secretary of State General Counsel Ryan Germany:
1. That anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia
2. That thousands of people attempted to vote in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia and were told they could not because a ballot had already been cast in their name
3. That 4,502 people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia who were not on the voter registration list
4. That 904 people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia who were registered at an address that was a post office box
5. That Ruby Freeman was a professional vote scammer and a known political operative
6. That Ruby Freeman, her daughter, and others were responsible for fraudulently awarding at least 18,000 ballots to Joseph R. Biden at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia
7. That close to 5,000 dead people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia
8. That 139% of people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Detroit
9. That 200,000 more votes were recorded than the number of people who voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Pennsylvania
10. That thousands of dead people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Michigan
11. That Ruby Freeman stuffed the ballot boxes
12. That hundreds of thousands of ballots had been “dumped” into Fulton County and another county adjacent to Fulton County in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia
13. That he won the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia by 400,000 votes
A Fulton County, Georgia grand jury handed up indictments stemming from an investigation into Donald Trump and his allies’ alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. The indictments remain sealed and presiding Judge Robert McBurney did not disclose the defendants or the specific charges.
If Trump is a defendant, the Georgia grand jury’s indictments would be the fourth time the ex-president would be criminally charged since March, when a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him over various hush money payments he made prior to the 2016 election. In June, he was indicted by a federal grand jury for willfully retaining national defense information and conspiring to obstruct justice, and weeks later, he was indicted by a separate federal grand jury for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.
District Attorney Fani Willis first announced her investigation into Trump on February 10, 2021, just over a month after his infamous phone call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, during which the then president demanded the state official “find” him the exact number of votes he needed to beat Joe Biden there. “All I want to do is this,” Trump told Raffensperger. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.” Trump had also claimed that not coming up with said votes would be a “criminal offense,“ warning Raffensperger and the secretary of state’s general counsel, “You can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you.” (Raffensperger subsequently wrote in his book that he believed Trump was threatening him.) Trump also placed at least two additional phone calls to Georgia officials in his quest to overturn the election, one to David Ralston, who at the time was Georgia’s House Speaker, and one to Frances Watson, an investigator in Raffensperger’s office. (Trump wanted the former to convene a special legislative session to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia, and pressed the latter to expose “dishonesty” as she looked into absentee mail ballots.)
Willis’s investigation ultimately expanded to include the post-election activities of Trump and his allies in other states, and a scheme by a slate of “fake electors” to keep Trump in office.
Last year, a special grand jury was impaneled to investigate the case. It submitted a report in January that Trump’s attorneys attempted to quash (they also tried to get both Willis and the judge presiding over the inquiry thrown off the case). In February, when asked about the recommendations the special grand jury made regarding which individuals should be charged, jury forewoman Emily KohrstoldThe New York Times it was “not a short list.” Asked whether the ex-president was on it, she added: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.” Speaking to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March, another juror said of the group’s report: “A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later. And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”
As Donald Trump braces for yet another criminal indictment, this time in Fulton County, Georgia, even more detail has emerged about efforts by his team and allies to access sensitive voting machine software to prop up the former president’s lies about election fraud.
Fulton County prosecutors have emails and text messages showing Trump’s team was involved in the effort to breach voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia, CNN reported Sunday
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg: In at least three states, Trump’s allies breached voting machines in an effort to pursue conspiracy theories about voter fraud, and the same players have a habit of popping up in different states.
In Colorado, a former Mesa County clerk faces felony charges for allegedly allowing an unauthorized person to gain access to secure areas inside the clerk’s office. Digital images of the county’s election systems were posted online by a major figure in the QAnon conspiracy world shortly after.
In Michigan, three people, including a former Republican nominee for state attorney general, face felony charges over accusations they conspired to illegally access voting machines.
Digital images from voting machines in those states and others have repeatedly been shared online and at in-person events dedicated to “proving” Trump’s election lies.
Georgia
The Jan. 7, 2021, breach of Coffee County’s voting systems has multiple ties to other efforts around the country to provide fodder for Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
CNN reported Sunday on messages from an attorney working for Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell ― private attorneys who are both unnamed co-conspirators in the recent federal indictment against Trump for attempting to overturn the election ― inviting several others to examine voting equipment in Coffee County.
And we know that Republican activists did access that equipment: On Jan. 7, surveillance video showed employees of the computer forensics firm SullivanStrickler, which was working under Powell’s direction, accessing the county’s election software. Digital images of the software were subsequently uploaded online and viewed by a number of Republican political operatives and activists.
SullivanStrickler was also engaged to do similar work in Antrim County, Michigan, and in Nevada, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. (The firm has said it had “no reason to believe” the attorneys for whom it had worked would ask it to do something improper.)
In one notable crossover, Jim Penrose, a former National Security Agency official who had been at a planning session soon after the November 2020 election, reportedly asked SullivanStrickler to send the bill for the Coffee County, Georgia, work to Stefanie Lambert, an attorney who now faces four felony charges related to a similar scheme in Michigan.
The state replaced some of Coffee County’s voting equipment. Election security experts urged Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith to investigate. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation launched a probe into the matter, but as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in April, “so far, everyone involved in the scheme has escaped accountability.” A spokesperson for the GBI told HuffPost that the agency “doesn’t have any new updates to report.” A spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said separately that “this investigation has not been absorbed into the Fulton County matter.”
Michigan
In Michigan, three people face felony charges for allegedly conspiring to improperly access voting equipment: Lambert, former state attorney general nominee Matthew DePerno (R) and former state Rep. Daire Rendon (R). Lambert and DePernohave denied wrongdoing; an attorney for Rendon did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
A year ago, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office requested that a special counsel investigate DePerno, Lambert and Rendon for orchestrating what Nessel’s office called “a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators” from various counties in the state. According to that petition, DePerno was present while others “broke into the tabulators and performed ‘tests’ on the equipment.”
Lambert also has ties to Dar Leaf, the sheriff in Barry County, Michigan. Leaf sent a sheriff’s deputy and private investigator recommended by Lambert from township to township around his county to grill clerks about the 2020 election, leading several clerks to speak out publicly about the visits. Leaf was among those named in the petition from Nessell’s office on the alleged scheme to access voting machines, but he and others mentioned in the document weren’t ultimately charged.
In a related case in April, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found the Republican-majority government in its state’s Fulton County in contempt as part of an ongoing saga over a Michigan forensics firm’s improper access to the county’s voting machines. The court criticized Lambert, who represented the county for a time, for not disclosing disciplinary proceedings against her in Michigan that were related to litigation to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Though only three people ultimately faced charges, Nessel’s office indicated many more were potentially involved, including Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the firm that Arizona Republicans contracted to lead a sham “audit” of the 2020 election results in the Phoenix area. (Logan also visited the office in Coffee County, Georgia, surveillance footage showed, as did Jeffrey Lenberg, another person who the Michigan attorney general’s office said performed “tests” on the voting machines in that state.)
A Jan. 7, 2021, image from Coffee County, Georgia, security video appears to show Cathy Latham (center, in turquoise cardigan) introducing members of a computer forensic team to local election officials. Latham was the county Republican Party chair at the time. The computer forensics team was at the county elections office in Douglas to make copies of voting equipment in an effort that documents show was arranged by attorney Sidney Powell and others allied with Donald Trump.
Coffee County, Georgia via Associated Press
DePerno also worked on a local voter’s lawsuit alleging fraud in Antrim County, Michigan, after a clerk’s quickly resolved error showed the wrong results in the county. As part of that suit, a judge allowed DePerno to make a copy of the county’s voting software. As in Georgia, SullivanStrickler flew in for the job, again under Powell’s authorization.
Though the judge warned against sharing the data publicly, the Antrim County images were shared at a 2021 “Cyber Symposium” hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Some attendees immediately realized the severity of the situation: “I said, ‘I haven’t seen the Antrim image because I didn’t sign a protective court order to obtain a copy of the image, but I bet they have stolen court evidence here,’” Harri Hursti, a cybersecurity expert who attended the symposium, reflected later that year.
Similar data from Nevada, which, according to The Washington Post, was the scene of another SullivanStrickler arrangement, was also shared at the symposium. But it wasn’t very impressive, as it was apparently recorded from a public Wi-Fi system and didn’t contain any sensitive data, a Clark County spokesperson said. Also in 2021, a breach of a Lake County, Ohio, government office prompted state and federal investigations after data obtained from the office of the president of the county’s board of commissioners was shared at Lindell’s event.
Colorado
As in Michigan, a former public official is charged in Colorado with allowing improper access to a county’s voting machines.
Tina Peters was accused in an indictment of being part of a “deceptive scheme which was designed to influence public servants, breach security protocols, exceed permissible access to voting equipment, and set in motion the eventual distribution of confidential information to unauthorized people.” Peters has portrayed herself as a martyr, frequently appearing on far-right podcasts to echo Trump’s claims of widespread corruption among voting machine manufacturers and election officials.
Two others have pleadedguilty and agreed to cooperate in the case against Peters. As part of the scheme, Peters allegedly directed staff to turn off surveillance videos facing the voting equipment. She also allegedly instructed staff to make a fake government employee ID for an unauthorized person — reportedly the former pro surfer-turned-election conspiracy theorist Conan Hayes — and then allowed that person to be present during a required in-person software update, which granted the person access to the software.
Law enforcement became aware of the scheme after a major QAnon conspiracy theory figure, Ron Watkins, posted information from the voting systems online. This all led to a dramatic moment during Lindell’s Cyber Symposium when Peters announced that investigators had acted upon a search warrant and “raided” her office. At the same symposium, digital images of Mesa County’s voting system were shared with attendees.
Last year, FBI agents seized Lindell’s cellphone as he waited in line at a Hardee’s drive-thru; Lindell subsequently said he’d received a subpoena as part of a federal grand jury’s investigation of the Colorado breach. Lindell sued the Department of Justice over the phone seizure.
Peters pleaded not guilty to election tampering and has successfully sought to delay trial multiple times, though she was convicted of a separate misdemeanor related to her recording a court proceeding.
Peters and others, including former Trump attorney Giuliani, are set to speak at a Lindell-hosted event this week.
Damning emails and text messages connecting Trump’s legal team with a January 2021 voting system breach in Georgia have been discovered by Atlanta-area prosecutors, according to a bombshell CNN report published on Sunday.
The revelation comes as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to file indictments against former President Donald Trump and his allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which would bring the number of criminal indictments faced by the former president and current GOP frontrunner to four.
At the center of the scheme in Coffee County, a rural area where Trump carried 70% of the vote, is a local elections official named Misty Hampton, who claimed in a November 2020 elections board meeting that the state’s new Dominion-made voting machines could “very easily” be manipulated. That comment immediately piqued the interest of the Trump campaign, which asked Hampton for “as much information as possible.”
The November elections board meeting “set off an extraordinary sequence of events that plunged the GOP enclave into the middle of a multistate effort by prominent Trump allies to gain access to voting machines in search of purported evidence that the election was rigged,” The Washington Postreported last year. Those events culminated on January 7, when local election officials and GOP allies let pro-Trump operatives into the Coffee County elections office, where they “imaged every hard drive of every piece of equipment.”
But the extent of Trump lawyers’ involvement in the scheme has previously been unreported.
A key moment came on New Year’s Day, when a lawyer working with Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other Trump allies shared a “written invitation” provided by Hampton that purportedly gave them permission to examine the county’s voting systems. The lawyer also provided what she called the “Letter of invitation to Coffee County, Georgia” to Bernie Kerik, a former NYPD commissioner who was working with Giuliani to try to find evidence of voter fraud.
Previous reporting has linked the breach to Powell, but this latest revelation appears to tie Giuliani much more directly to the scheme. “Rudy Giuliani had nothing to do with this,” his attorney Robert Costello told CNN. “You can’t attach Rudy Giuliani to Sidney Powell’s crackpot idea.” CNN’s investigation cites text messages that contradict this defense. “Just landed back in DC with the Mayor huge things starting to come together!” an employee from Sullivan Strickler, a law firm hired by Powell to scrutinize Coffee County’s voting system, wrote in a group chat on January 1. (Messages in the group consistently referred to Giuliani as “the Mayor”.) “Most immediately, we were just granted access – by written invitation! – to Coffee County’s systems. Yay!” the text continued.
Trump himself was likely aware of at least some of what was going on in Coffee County. During a now-infamous December 18, 2020 meeting in the Oval Office, Trump was presented with a draft executive order to seize voting machines that explicitly cited Coffee County. In the meeting, Giuliani referenced a scheme to acquire “voluntary access” to Georgia voting systems.
Former President Donald Trump went after a reporter for a “wise guy question” after they asked whether he’d take a plea deal if he faces charges in the Georgia election interference case against him.
Trump, in comments to a reporter in Iowa, said he’d never “take a plea deal” as state prosecutors reportedly look to present the case to a grand jury on Tuesday.
“We did nothing wrong, we don’t ever take a plea deal, we don’t take plea deals. It’s a wise guy question, you’re a wise guy,” Trump told the reporter as he left the Des Moines International Airport on Saturday.
“We don’t take plea deals because I did nothing wrong, it’s called election interference. You know what that is?”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has been investigating the former president and his allies over attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
An indictment by a Georgia grand jury could hand Trump the fourth indictment against him in 2023.
Trump’s legal team filed a petition to trash the Georgia probe before the state’s Supreme Court rejected the effort last month.
The former president has also criticized Willis in a recent campaign ad, a move that the district attorney called on her staff to ignore last week.
Trump, on Saturday, pointed his finger at President Joe Biden as the cause of the indictments this year before claiming the Democrat “can’t even put two sentences together.”
“This is Joe Biden because he can’t win the election by himself, he can’t win the election based on votes, so what they did is they got the attorney general to do it,” claimed Trump, who went on to criticize the appointment of the special counsel in the Justice Department’s Hunter Biden investigation.
Trump continues to lead fellow GOP candidates by double digits in an average of national polls on the Republican primary, according to FiveThirtyEight.
