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Judge Scott McAfee Orders Fani Willis to Get Rid of Nathan Wade
Judge Scott McAfee just ruled that either Fani Willis and her office have to step down from the Trump prosecution, or Nathan Wade must go.
Ultimately, dismissal of the indictment is not the appropriate remedy to adequately dissipate the financial cloud of impropriety and potential untruthfulness found here. See Olsen v. State, 302 Ga. 288, 294 (2017) (“Dismissal of an indictment is an extreme sanction, used only sparingly as a remedy for unlawful government conduct.”) (quoting State v. Lampl, 296 Ga. 892, 896 (2015)). There has not been a showing that the Defendants’ due process rights have been violated or that the issues involved prejudiced the Defendants in any way. Nor is disqualification of a constitutional officer necessary when a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available. The Court therefore concludes that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the State selects one of two options. The District Attorney may choose to step aside, along with the whole of her office, and refer the prosecution to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council for reassignment. See O.C.G.A. § 15-18-5. Alternatively, SADA Wade can withdraw, allowing the District Attorney, the Defendants, and the public to move forward without his presence or remuneration distracting from and potentially compromising the merits of this case.
He ruled that their relationship did not create an actual conflict of interest, but did create an appearance of one.
Whether this case ends in convictions, acquittals, or something in between, the result should be one that instills confidence in the process. A reasonable observer unburdened by partisan blinders should believe the law was impartially applied, that those accused of crimes had a fair opportunity to present their defenses, and that any verdict was based on our criminal justice system’s best efforts at ascertaining the truth. Any distractions that detract from these goals, if remedial under the law, should be proportionally addressed. After consideration of the record established on these motions, the Court finds the allegations and evidence legally insufficient to support a finding of an actual conflict of interest. However, the appearance of impropriety remains and must be handled as previously outlined before the prosecution can proceed.
The prosecution will go forward.
He also suggested he would entertain gagging Willis from any further public comment about the case, based on her comments at an Atlanta Church after the allegations were made public.
Here’s the link, via Anna Bower.
Update: Wade has now resigned from the case.
Mike Roman, Donald Trump’s Spy and Vote Fraud Fraudster
WaPo has an overdue profile of Mike Roman, the guy who threatens blow up the Fani Willis prosecution by exposing a romantic relationship between her and prosecutor Nate Wade.
It describes how the guy who recruited a bunch of the most prominent Republicans in swing states across the country to sign onto fraudulent certificates claiming Trump won had previously served as — basically — a spy, first for the Kochs and then for Trump.
As Mike Roman spoke to a gathering of fellow conservative activists in March 2022, he offered a glimpse of the intelligence-gathering skills he had honed over the previous decade working as an opposition researcher for Donald Trump and Republican megadonors.
“I show my wife this all the time when we go to a hotel,” Roman told the crowd in Harrisburg, Pa., according to an audio recording reviewed by The Washington Post. “She logs on to the Hilton WiFi, and I go on and I ‘tap, tap, tap,’ and I show her everybody else that’s on there and how we could get into their computer.”
But it fails to make a few key points clear. Consider what it means, for example, that this is the guy that the Koch brothers would use to pick Republican candidates to back.
Roman’s unit compiled a “Weekly Intelligence Briefing,” with information about political races and recommendations about where the network’s donors should contribute, according to a person who worked there with Roman and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the organization’s internal operations.
Or consider the real implications that Roman served in Trump’s White House in the guise of “vetting” candidates.
Roman was made a special assistant to the president and White House director of special projects and research, reporting to then-White House counsel Donald McGahn and earning $115,000 per year. Roman was a private investigator of sorts for McGahn’s office, responsible for vetting potentially controversial nominations, according to a former senior administration official.
“It would be like, ‘We’ve heard an appointee might have a shady business deal,’ or ‘Counsel is hearing something about a presidential nominee that could cause a huge problem for us. Can you figure it out?’” the former official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive White House work.
Trump in no way eschewed “appointees [with] a shady business deal.” His Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce had fairly astounding shady business deals, as did Trump’s son-in-law (though he was never going to be subject to vetting). The culmination of Don McGahn’s tenure as White House Counsel was installing Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, and the rape allegations against Kavanaugh obscured further problematic allegations still further.
If Mike Roman was in charge of vetting, he let a lot of epically corrupt people through his “vetting” process.
So yeah, as I noted the moment the Fani Willis scandal broke and this story confirms, it was no surprise that any vulnerabilities Fani Willis had were discovered by Mike Roman.
Going on the offense against the prosecutor was a trademark Roman tactic, according to the former senior official on Trump’s 2020 campaign. “This is a classic Mike Roman move,” the former official said. “When I saw the filing, I said, ‘That’s Mike.’ It’s a good one.”
But once you understand that Roman’s focus has traditionally been trained on Republicans at least as much as Democrats, a lot else begins to make sense.
Update: As someone noted to me on Twitter, Roman had actually gone to RNC by the time Kavanaugh was nominated.
Update: Here’s Fani Willis’ response to Roman’s allegations. She doesn’t deny a personal relationship but says it post-dates when she hired Nate Wade. I’m not going to wade [sic] through it, but will link credible analysis when I see it.
11th Circuit Adopts DC Logic that Mark Meadows and Trump’s Campaigning Is Not an Official Act
The 11th Circuit just ruled that Mark Meadows cannot remove his prosecution in the Georgia case to Federal court. The primary basis for the ruling is a technicality: That removal only applies to current federal officials, not former ones.
But the court, in an opinion by Chief Judge William Pryor, also explained that they wouldn’t have approved the removal in any case because Meadows (and by extension, Trump) had no authority over state elections and electioneering of Meadows (and by extension, Trump) was not in their official duties.
This passage, for example, adopts the logic of Amit Mehta’s opinion in Thompson, which was in turn adopted in Sri Srinivasan’s opinion in Blassingame, but does so to the criminal context.
Electioneering on behalf of a political campaign is incontrovertibly political activity prohibited by the Hatch Act. Campaigning for a specific candidate is not official conduct because the office of the President is disinterested in who holds it. See Thomspson, 590 F. Suppl. 3d at 82. Indeed, the political branches themselves recognize that electioneering is not an official federal function.
Elsewhere, Pryor’s opinion solidly debunks Meadows argument — adopted by Trump’s in his own filings — that the Take Care Clause gave him basis to intervene.
Meadows argues that the Take Care Clause, U.S. CONST. art. II, §3, empowers the President with broad authority to “ensure that federal voting laws are enforced.” But he concedes that the President has no “direct control” over the indidviduals — members of Congress and state officials — who conduct federal elections. And tellingly, he cites no legal authority for the proposition that the President’s power extends to “assess[ing] the conduct of state officials.” We are aware of no authority suggesting the Take Care Clause empowers federal executive interference with state election procedures based solely on the federal executive’s own initiative, and not in relation to another branch’s constitutionally-authorized act.
These are precisely the issues that the DC Circuit or, if it accepts Jack Smith’s appeal, SCOTUS, will be reviewing in weeks ahead. And by the time whoever reviews it does so, a very conservative judge will have backed the same logic coming out of DC.
Cautions on ABC’s Huge Mark Meadows Scoop
For more than six months, access journalists in DC have been trying to confirm how much Mark Meadows cooperated with Jack Smith.
Today, ABC has a huge scoop reporting that Meadows testified at least three times, one time — before a grand jury — with immunity.
Former President Donald Trump’s final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Click through to read the details — ABC has earned the clicks.
But I caution against concluding too much about what the testimony means. Most importantly, there’s no hint that Meadows has flipped. Meadows has testified (which a past ABC scoop made clear). But giving immunized testimony is not flipping, and the two ABC stories raise far more questions about the story Meadows has told.
I say that for several reasons. First, ABC doesn’t describe the dates for any of his interviews. I’ll return to that, but it’s important that ABC doesn’t reveal whether Meadows’ testimony to Jack Smith precedes or postdates the Georgia indictment and subsequent failure to get the Georgia indictment removed to Federal courts. An earlier big ABC scoop describes April grand jury testimony, and it’s not clear that this would be a different time frame or grand jury appearance.
I offer cautions, as well, because virtually all of ABC’s reporting says that Meadows was asked not about what Trump did on a given day, but whether Meadows believed what Meadows had said publicly. Here’s an example.
Sources told ABC News that Smith’s investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office — a book that promised to “correct the record” on Trump.
Again, click through to see how much of the rest is of the same sort.
As I noted in my post on that prior big ABC scoop, there are still loads of details — especially about January 6 — missing from the public timeline that Meadows surely knows.
There’s a lot that’s missing here — most notably Meadows’ coordination with Congress and any efforts to coordinate with Mike Flynn and Roger Stone’s efforts more closely tied to the insurrection and abandoned efforts to deploy the National Guard to protect Trump’s mob as it walked to congress. Unless those actions get added to charges quickly, Meadows will be able to argue, in Georgia, that his actions complied with federal law without having to address them. If and when they do get charged in DC, I’m sure Meadows’ attorneys hope, his criminal exposure in Georgia will be resolved.
Importantly, that earlier ABC scoop served to signal co-conspirators how Meadows changed his testimony after prosecutors obtained proof his claims about his ghost-writers — the same ghost-writers whose book remains at the center of ABC’s scoop! — were proven wrong by further evidence.
That story suggested Meadows was only going to be as truthful as evidence presented to him required him to be.
And this story is of the same type. It describes how, as he did in the stolen documents case, Meadows said he didn’t believe what he wrote when it was legally necessary.
Finally, that post also lays out that the narrative told in the DC indictment, while useful for Jack Smith, is different than the narrative told by Fani Willis, where Mark Meadows has not given cooperative testimony. The right column (his story to Jack Smith) in this table is helpful for Jack Smith, but probably not true; the left column (where he didn’t cooperate) is more damning.
Meadows team recites the alleged Georgia acts as Judge Jones has characterized them on page 19 and then directly quotes the references to Meadows in the federal indictment on page 26. It helps to read them a table together:
There’s an arc here. The early acts in both indictments might be deemed legal information gathering. After that, in early December, Meadows takes two actions, one alleged in Georgia and the other federally, both of which put him clearly in the role of a conspirator, neither of which explicitly involves Trump as charged in the Georgia indictment. Meadows:
- Asks Johnny McEntee for a memo on how to obstruct the vote certification
- Orders the campaign to ensure someone is coordinating the fake electors
The events on December 22 and 23, across the two indictments, are telling. Meadows flies to Georgia and, per the Georgia indictment, attempts to but fails to access restricted areas. Then he flies back to DC and, per the federal indictment, tells Trump everything is being done diligently. Then Meadows arranges and participates in another call. Both in a tweet on December 22 and a call on December 23, Trump pressures Georgia officials again. For DOJ’s purposes, the Tweet is going to be more important, whereas for Georgia’s purposes, the call is more important. But with regards his argument for removal and dismissal, Meadows would argue that he used his close access to advise Trump that Georgia was proceeding diligently.
On December 27, Meadows calls and offers to use campaign funds to ensure the signature validation is done by January 6. This was not Meadows arranging a call so Trump could make the offer himself, it was Meadows doing it himself, likely on behalf of Trump, doing something for the campaign, not the country.
On January 2, Meadows participates in the Raffensperger call, first setting it up then intervening to try to find agreement, but then ultimately pressuring state officials not so much to just give Trump the votes he needs, which was Trump’s ask, but to turn over state data.
Meadows: Mr. President. This is Mark. It sounds like we’ve got two different sides agreeing that we can look at these areas ands I assume that we can do that within the next 24 to 48 hours to go ahead and get that reconciled so that we can look at the two claims and making sure that we get the access to the secretary of state’s data to either validate or invalidate the claims that have been made. Is that correct?
Germany: No, that’s not what I said. I’m happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to my him, here’s, based on what we’ve looked at so far, here’s how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
Meadows: So what you’re saying, Ryan, let me let me make sure … so what you’re saying is you really don’t want to give access to the data. You just want to make another case on why the lawsuit is wrong?
Meadows was pressuring a Georgia official, sure, but to do something other than what Trump was pressuring Raffensperger to do. His single lie (he was charged for lying on the call separately from the RICO charge), one Willis might prove by pointing to the overt act from the federal indictment on December 3, when Jason Miller told Meadows that the number of dead voters was not 10,000, but twelve, is his promise that Georgia’s investigation has not found all the dead voters.
I can tell you say they were only two dead people who would vote. I can promise you there were more than that. And that may be what your investigation shows, but I can promise you there were more than that.
But even there, two is not twelve. Meadows will be able to challenge the claim that he lied, as opposed to facilitated, as Chief of Staff, Trump’s lies.
Finally, in an overt act not included in the Georgia indictment, Meadows is among the people on January 6 who (the federal indictment alleges) attempted to convince Trump to call off the mob.
There’s a lot that’s missing here — most notably Meadows’ coordination with Congress and any efforts to coordinate with Mike Flynn and Roger Stone’s efforts more closely tied to the insurrection and abandoned efforts to deploy the National Guard to protect Trump’s mob as it walked to congress. Unless those actions get added to charges quickly, Meadows will be able to argue, in Georgia, that his actions complied with federal law without having to address them. If and when they do get charged in DC, I’m sure Meadows’ attorneys hope, his criminal exposure in Georgia will be resolved.
Of what’s included here, those early December actions — the instruction to Johnny McEntee to find some way to obstruct the January 6 vote certification and the order that someone coordinate fake electors — are most damning. That, plus the offer to use campaign funds to accelerate the signature match, all involve doing campaign work in his role as Chief of Staff. For the federal actions, Jack Smith might just slap Meadows with a Hatch Act charge and end the removal question — but that might not help him, Jack Smith, make his case, because several parts of his indictment rely on exchanges Meadows had privately with Trump, and Meadows is a better witness if he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Aside from those, Meadows might argue — indeed, his lawyers may well have argued to Jack Smith to avoid being named as a co-conspirator — that his efforts consistently entailed collecting data which he used to try to persuade the then-President, using his access as a close advisor, to adopt other methods to pursue his electoral challenges. Meadows’ lawyers may well have argued that several things marked his affirmative effort to leave the federally-charged conspiracies. In this removal proceeding, I expect Meadows will argue that his actions on the Raffensperger call were an attempt, like several others, to collect more data to use his close access as an advisor to better persuade the then-President to drop the means by which he was challenging the vote outcome.
The point being, that before Fani Willis indicted Mark Meadows, Meadows had found a story that was going to work. And now, that story doesn’t work anymore.
Which is why the timing of Meadows’ immunized testimony to a grand jury and the timing of this scoop matters. His January 6 testimony seems to conflict with what Willis knows. This paragraph, from today’s big ABC scoop, is even less credible than stuff in the indictments.
However, according to what Meadows told investigators, Trump seemed to grow increasingly concerned as he learned more about what was transpiring at the Capitol, and Trump was visibly shaken when he heard that someone had been shot there, sources said.
If the two versions of Meadows story have started to obviously conflict, he’s may be doing some soul searching about whether he wants to go the way of Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, who sent 350 texts with Meadows.
And before he does that soul searching, he’s going to want to signal to others what he has said, to test how valuable it is for him to continue to say it.
Release the Kraken: Sidney Powell Pleading Guilty
Sidney Powell is pleading guilty to six counts of conspiring to interfere with election administration in Fulton County. These will be misdemeanors treated under the First Offender Act. She will be sentenced to six years of probation.
She is required to testify against any and all co-defendants in the case.
“JIM IS COMING FOR YOU:” Aspiring Speaker Jordan’s Stochastic Lynching as Oversight
[GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING]
Because the way Capitol Hill beats work, the prospect of a vote that could put Jim Jordan second in line to the Presidency has focused on horserace.
To be sure, given the narrow margins and the historic incapability of Republican men to count votes, the horserace will be determinative. For example, to succeed, Jordan would not only have to win the support of most of the 55 people who voted against him last week in a secret ballot where he had no challenger, but if only 205 Republicans vote — as reportedly happened in that poll — then Hakeem Jeffries would be elected Speaker with the 212 Democrats expected to show up and vote for him.
But almost no reporting has focused on how catastrophic a Jordan Speakership would be — the earliest death knells of democracy that the election of Trump, which a Jordan Speakership would primarily serve, would guarantee.
What reporting there has been has focused on Jordan’s role, 30 months ago, in Trump’s attempted coup, which the January 6 Committee summarized this way:
Representative Jordan was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts. He participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud. On January 2, 2021, Representative Jordan led a conference call in which he, President Trump, and other Members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session. During that call, the group also discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to “march to the Capitol” on the 6th.661 An hour and a half later, President Trump and Representative Jordan spoke by phone for 18 minutes.662 The day before January 6th, Representative Jordan texted Mark Meadows, passing along advice that Vice President Pence should “call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.” 663 He spoke with President Trump by phone at least twice on January 6th, though he has provided inconsistent public statements about how many times they spoke and what they discussed.664 He also received five calls from Rudolph Giuliani that evening, and the two connected at least twice, at 7:33 p.m. and 7:49 p.m.665 During that time, Giuliani has testified, he was attempting to reach Members of Congress after the joint session resumed to encourage them to continue objecting to Joe Biden’s electoral votes.666 And, in the days followingJanuary 6th, Representative Jordan spoke with White House staff about the prospect of Presidential pardons for Members of Congress.667
To be sure, in his role in the attack, Jordan exhibited utter contempt for democracy.
But what has gotten less attention is the degree to which Jordan has used his position chairing the Judiciary Committee and Weaponization Committee to serve the longer slow-moving attack on democracy.
A Jordan Speakership would undoubtedly escalate Jordan’s assault on rule of law generally and any prosecution of Donald Trump specifically. It would likely directly (by platforming Russian disinformation) and indirectly (by undermining further US aid) help Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Both would make it more likely Trump would win the 2024 election.
Indeed, that’s a telling aspect of Matt Gaetz’ comments when he first announced his (ultimately successful) attempt to depose Kevin McCarthy. Gaetz repeatedly complained that the House hadn’t yet subpoenaed Hunter Biden, and demanded that Republicans use “the power of the purse” to,
zero out the salaries of the bureaucrats who have broken bad, targeted President Trump, or cut sweetheart deals for Hunter Biden.
[snip]
Joe Biden deserves impeachment for converting the Vice Presidency into an ATM machine for virtually his entire family.
At least for Gaetz (who might well be rewarded with a gavel in a key committee, were Jordan to succeed), this is about shutting down investigations into Trump and fabricating investigations into Biden from the fumes of five year old dick pics.
There’s a specific aspect of Jordan’s actions, however, that deserves more attention in advance of tomorrow’s scheduled public vote: The degree to which Jordan has used the power of his gavel to engage in the same kind of stochastic terrorism that Trump uses to enforce his will.
I’ve already noted how the Gary Shapley media tour (in which Jordan cooperated with James Comer and Jason Smith) ended up getting the team of investigators, including ones still pursuing indictments of Hunter Biden, targeted. As Thomas Sobocinski — who continues to oversee FBI agents investigating Hunter Biden — explained in testimony in early September, the family members of his own team have been followed and AUSA Lesley Wolf has faced specific threats.
[T]his is affecting my employees. I now have FBI employees that names are out there. I have FBI employees and former FBI retired agents who’ve served for 20plus years whose parents are getting phone calls, whose photos with their girlfriends, who their children who are being followed. That is not something that we were prepared for, and I was concerned about having that continue or expand to other one of my employees.
[snip]
[W]ithout going into specifics, my office and the FBI have done things and initiated things to ensure that [Lesley Wolf] remains safe.
Again, some of these people are currently trying to indict Hunter Biden, and they’re getting swarmed by a mob teed up by Republican efforts.
In the recent Matthew Graves testimony, Graves repeatedly refused to name the members of his team because he knew the transcript would be made public, resulting in threats against prosecutors, on top of the ones DC prosecutors have already faced.
What I can tell you is, I’ve unfortunately had way too many instances of documents getting into the public domain that have our prosecutors’ names in them and me receiving what we call urgent reports about security concerns because of threatening or harassing behavior that they’re receiving … and that we’ve had to take steps for a number of people in our office to mitigate the risk.
Nevertheless, Jordan persisted, to his very last question to include those names in this transcript (I assume he’ll send out letters under their names, as he has with others involved in these investigations).
In the Tim Thibault interview, in which it became clear over time that Republicans had ruined the career and reputation of the guy who had led investigations into two Democratic members of Congress and single-handedly opened an investigation, in 2016, into the Clinton Foundation off of Clinton Cash based off the unsubstantiated claims of others trying to get payback, Thibault described not just how he was targeted — for which he accepted a good deal of the blame on account of his social media posts — but how others were impugned by association.
[T]hose two agents that worked on the Tony Bobulinski EC, I’m aware that they received significant backlash for only doing their job. Why? Because of my social media conduct and Mr. Bobulinski thinking I was a bad agent, that put them in a bad spotlight. Those are the guys that are the victims, the true victims. And no one came and spoke on their behalf. Right? They — they’re just line agents doing their darn job.
As one Democratic staffer noted, though none of 18 sources for such claims to Jordan’s committees have offered any corroboration for the claims, Jordan and his staffers nevertheless continued to push the claims to the media. “[T]he public push or allegations that were being sort of repeated by this committee never stopped.” Jordan is cultivating rumors about the FBI and other agencies to foster retaliation campaigns in the media.
His actions with Fani Willis are perhaps most telling. Jordan first started tampering in Willis’ investigation in August, though — perhaps having learned his lesson when he similarly tampered in Alvin Bragg’s case — he has chosen to send letters rather than subpoenas.
- August 24: Jordan to Willis
- September 7: Willis to Jordan
- September 27: Jordan to Willis
- October 11: Willis to Jordan
As is the norm for Jordan, his claims are based on conspiracy theories from biased sources. His most recent letter for example, dated to September 27, sources his claim that “there are credible reports” that Willis coordinated with Jack Smith to two articles, one ten months old.
Finally, there are credible reports that your investigation and indictment was coordinated with the Department of Justice and Special Counsel Jack Smith. 30
30 Josh Gerstein, Prosecutor in Trump documents case has history pursuing prominent politicians, POLITICO (June 13, 2023); Jerry Dunleavy, Trump special counsel Jack Smith was involved in Lois Lerner IRS scandal, WASHINGTON EXAMINER (Nov. 25, 2022). [links added]
Not even the propaganda outlet, Washington Examiner, supports Jordan’s claim. Neither of those stories even mention either Willis or Georgia.
Notably, Jordan doesn’t note that in his September 12 interview — an interview conducted just over two weeks before he sent this letter — Thibault denied interacting with Willis’ team four times: “No, ma’am. … Never. … Never. … No, ma’am.” Jordan doesn’t note that this particular conspiracy theory — which, even if true, would be squarely within the expectation that state and federal law enforcement can cooperate and share information — has not been substantiated by a guy who would have had firsthand visibility (though, because of the delay in predicating an investigation against the fake electors, only on the earliest parts of the DC investigation; Jordan did not, publicly at least, ask Steve D’Antuono this question during his June interview).
A far more important detail from these letters is in Willis’ first reply, dated September 7 (which she resent as part of her recent response). After laying out constitutional reasons why Jordan shouldn’t get involved and referring him, as a non-member of the bar, to where he could information on Georgia’s RICO law, she provides ways that the House Judiciary Committee could more usefully spend their time, such as on funding for victim-witness advocates.
She then notes that Jordan should show more concern about the safety of people involved in the criminal justice system — precisely the kind of people that Jordan has instead sown threats against.
As it seems you have a personal interest in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, you should consider directing the USDOJ to investigate the racist threats that have come to my staff and me because of this investigation. For your information, I am attaching ten examples of threats this office has received. See Exhibits F through O. I am providing these examples to give you a window into what has happened to my staff and me as I keep the promise of my oath to the United States and Georgia Constitutions and do not allow myself to be bullied and threatened by Members of Congress, local elected officials, or others who believe lady justice should not be blind and that America has different laws for different citizens.
As noted, she included a number of the threats she and her office have received. We always hear about such threats, but only get to see what they include if they get charged.
The dripping racism of many of these threats is breathtaking.
Of particular interest are the two threats sent on the same day that Jordan first targeted Willis, on August 24, especially the one that echoes things Jordan included in his letter — such as the paragraph in which Jordan argues Willis should have charged this in 2021 and since she didn’t was obviously just trying to impact the election. Even more notably, this threat appears to invoke Jordan’s campaign against Willis explicitly.
To the Biggest liar of A DA ever, WE ARE COMING FOR YOU FANI….. YOU TOUCH ANYONE ATTACHED TO TRUMP AND WE WILL BURN YOUR CITY TO THE GROUND WITH YOU IN IT. YOU ARE GOING TO GET REMOVED FROM OFFICE. IF THIS WAS REALLY A CRIME YOU WOULDVE DONE IT IN 2021. YOU ARE FAKE AS HELL. A DEMOCRATS PUPPET. YOU ARE ONLY DOING THIS TO KEEP HIM FROM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. WELL WE ARE GOING TO FUCK YOU U P. DON’T GO OUT AT NIGHT YOU BLACK BITCH, WE ARE GOING TO SEPARATE YOU FROM YOUR CAR & DRIVER. JIM IS COMING FOR YOU. HALLELUJAH!!!!, BUT HE’S ONLY GOING TO FIND A BODY …. [bold mine, all caps and other punctuation original]
This is, quite simply, the language of the lynch mob.
And if the taunt, “Jim is coming for you,” is, indeed, indication that the person who sent this threat had read Jordan’s earlier letter to Willis, it means it took just hours for Jordan’s threats, posing as oversight, to translate into violent racist threats against Willis, her daughter (in the other threat sent that day), and the entire city of Atlanta.
This is not new. Jordan has been sowing threats against Donald Trump’s enemies for years, since the focus on Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
But even in his current position, Jordan is using his gavel as a means to tee up threats based on conspiracy theories, threats designed to make every single imagined opponent of Donald Trump worry about their careers, their safety, their life.
This week, Jordan will and already has been mobilizing similar mobs against his fellow Republican members of Congress in order to pursue even more power, an even bigger gavel.
Which is why all the stochastic threats Jordan has already mobilized deserve more attention.
Cleta Mitchell Skates
Judge McBurney has released the report from Fani Willis’ special grand jury.
The grand jury recommended charges against a number of people who weren’t charged. Most attention has focused on the recommendations to charge David Purdue, Kelli Loeffler, and Lindsey Graham. I had always thought that Lindsey wouldn’t be charged because he is protected by Speech and Debate (a judgment that may be supported by the DC Circuit’s still-sealed partial reversal of Beryl Howell’s ruling permitting DOJ to access some Scott Perry records from his phone). But it seemed there was less support for those charges, generally, than for others. On the main RICO charge, four grand jurors voted against charging Purdue, six voted against charging Loeffler, and seven voted against charging Graham. There was broad support for charging Purdue for pressuring GA officials, but one of the grand jurors who voted against charging the GA Senators believed they were simply pandering to their base. And the foreperson said that Lindsey was charming in his grand jury appearance.
Those votes may be a read of how an eventual grand jury would vote on these cases. Only the votes against charging the alternate electors was less supportive.
Which is why I find the Cleta Mitchell recommendations far more intriguing. By wide margins, the grand jury voted to charge Cleta in conjunction with the January 2 call to Brad Raffensperger, the fake electors plot, and the RICO charge. But she — a prominent Georgian — was not charged.
It’s possible that some of Willis’ ultimate decisions were influenced by her perception (or that of her prosecutors) of the political will for charging prominent Georgians. It’s possible she has made charging decisions that limit the amount of institutional GOP pushback. Or it’s possible that Cleta testified in a way that made other charges — potentially including Mark Meadows — viable.
But one of the most toxic Georgians skated on this prosecution.
Update: Corrected spelling of Willis’ first name.
Update: Anna Bower’s review of the report is typically excellent.
Trump Court Hearings For August 28, 2023
Alright, there are two hearings today, both at pretty much the same time. The first is in Prettyman Courthouse in DC and concerns trial scheduling for the J6 case of Jack Smith. It may get VERY contentious. As a preview, even Trump’s attorneys are at severe disagreement, with one saying no trial and must wait until 2026. Alina Habba, on the other hand says Trump knows everything and is ready to go. I’ve always considered Habba a bit of a dim bulb, but man did she prove it there.
Regarding the other simultaneous matter, it concerns ostensibly Mark Meadows’ motion to remove the Willis charges to federal court. It was filed, and will be heard, in the Northern District of Georgia.
“Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will lay out the first details of her sprawling anti-racketeering case against former President Donald Trump, his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and 17 other co-defendants at a federal court hearing on Monday morning.
This will be the first time that substantive arguments will be made in court about the four criminal cases brought against Trump this year.
The subject of the hearing, set to begin at 10 a.m., is Meadows’ motion to move his case to federal court and possibly have it thrown out, but it’s much more than that – it could end up acting as a mini-trial that determines the future of Fulton County’s case against the former president.”
I am not sure how much of a “mini-trial” this will really be. If so, that could take all day if evidence is to be presented and argued, which strikes me as unlikely. No cameras in either hearing so you will have to follow @Brandi Buchman and, I believe, @JoshGerstein for live updates. Via Rosalind, “Jordan Fischer – @JordanOnRecord on bird site – is also giving nice updates for the D.C. hearing.”
UPDATE: The Fulton County Judge has just set September 6 as the arraignment and plea date for all Fulton County defendants, including Trump. That is pointy to be a busy day for the court then. Unclear if some will be allowed to appear by video, but they sure our ht to be encouraged to do so.
Trump to Be Arraigned at 7:30 P.M. Thursday Eve [UPDATE-1]
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Trump announced in a rambling Truth Social post he would be arraigned this evening in Fulton County at 7:30 p.m. local time. He’s already left the Newark NJ airport.
Avoid I-85 between Georgia Tech and the airport, Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway between Maddox Park and the connector and Lowery Boulevard entirely if you can between 6:30 p.m. and roughly 9 p.m. We don’t how long the booking process will take, but Trump already has a bond agreement so he likely won’t spend any time in the Rice Street Jail. The former president should be in and out of Atlanta in a matter of hours.
Just stay off the roughly 14 miles of road between Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Fulton County Jail on 901 Rice St NW from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m.
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UPDATE-1 — 9:45 P.M. ET —
— Trump’s mugshot has been posted and shared widely. I’m sure you’ll see it soon if you haven’t already. I’m not sharing it here now because I’m already sick of looking at it.
Some folks are questioning if the image has been photoshopped because he has bags under his eyes and his skin doesn’t look quite right and his tie’s not the right goddamned shade of MAGA red. I can’t help ask if they’ve ever said any twaddle like that about a BIPOC person’s mugshot after arraignment. Stop feeling sorry for an old flabby-assed scofflaw who’s gotten away with so much criming over the years because the system has been built for him by people like him.
— Earlier today ABC News reported Trump had changed lawyers in Georgia. Drew Findling represented Trump in Georgia for the last two years; he’s being replaced by Steven Sadow.
— Foster Bail Bonds LLC of metro Atlanta will post Trump’s bond which has been set at $200,000.
And now for something fun:
emptywheel community member TooLoose LeTruck has won the 2023 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with their worst opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels in an category to remain confidential.
Contributing team member Peterr proposed “a completely unauthorized new category of January 6/2020 election theft entries.”
Offer your best worst in comments below, prefacing your entry with #BLFC-6JAN2020.
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This is an open thread. Bring all your off-topic idle chatter here while you wait for the anticipated arraignment photo and rant-y perp speech to follow.
Any future updates will appear at the bottom of this post.