Much of the attention on Georgia’s processing of Trump’s co-conspirators in advance of the former President’s glorious fourth arrest on Thursday has been focused on the high profile perps: John Eastman turned himself in and issued a statement repeating his conspiracy theories, all so he could return in timely fashion to California for further disbarment hearings. Fani Willis informed Mark Meadows’ lawyers, “Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction.” Jeffrey Clark based his request for an emergency stay of his self-reporting in Fulton County on the risk that, “Mr. Clark [would be] required to book a flight to Georgia under such extreme time pressure.”
Another charged co-conspirator turned himself in yesterday as well, one whose role continues to be understated: Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman.
In the indictment, Hall is charged just in the RICO charge and the Coffee County tabulator conspiracies.
But he allegedly played a much more sustained role in the conspiracy, including in one way that has escaped much notice.
David Bossie’s brother-in-law’s conspiracies about the Georgia vote count
As Anna Bower describes in a superb chronicle of the Coffee County plot, after an initial hearing in Georgia, Hall reached out to Lin Wood with allegations of impropriety.
Hall, like Latham, believed that something nefarious had gone on in Georgia during the election. On Nov. 17, as Trump’s legal team prepared litigation in Georgia, Hall and his wife, Robin, reached out to [Lin] Wood, claiming that they had “proof” of voter fraud in Fulton County. “We watched them count boxes of mail-in votes that were 100% Biden and 0% Trump,” Robin wrote in an email to Wood obtained by Lawfare.
On the same day, an attorney named Carlos Silva sent an email to Wood and other lawyers working on Georgia election matters. “Just had a long conversation with Scott Hall,” Silva wrote in an email obtained by Lawfare. “He seems very knowledgeable when it comes to algorithms and other material information that he has on the Dominion voting system that was used in this election. He also has personal knowledge of the fraud that took place and is providing an affidavit.” In another email obtained by Lawfare, Silva wrote to Wood and others that he intended to meet Hall the next morning at the office of Ray Smith, an attorney also charged in the indictment for alleged crimes related to statements he made at Georgia legislative hearings.
Later that evening, Hall’s affidavit was filed as a part of a suit, Wood v. Raffensperger, which sought to halt certification of the presidential election in Georgia. In his sworn statement, Hall alleged that he had personally observed ballots that “appeared to be pre-printed with the selections already made.” “Hundreds of ballots at a time were counted for Biden only,” he wrote.
On November 20, then Georgia GOP Chair and now charged co-conspirator, David Shafer, asked Trump campaign worker Robert Sinners (known to be cooperating in investigations and described as co-conspirator 4 in the indictment) to help Hall chase down the names of absentee voters.
Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie.
David Bossie, of course, helped Trump win the 2016 election and has all sorts of ties to Republican rat-fuckery. Hall is reportedly Bossie’s brother-in-law.
Scott Hall ties Jeffrey Clark to Georgia
By January 2, Hall was coordinating with Jeffrey Clark. They spoke for over an hour on January 2.
On or about the 2nd day of January 2021, SCOTT GRAHAM HALL, a Georgia bail bondsman, placed a telephone call to JEFFREY BOSSERT CLARK and discussed the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia. The telephone call was 63 minutes in duration.
By order in the indictment, this call precedes Clark’s renewed effort to get his superiors at DOJ to write a letter to Georgia about “significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia,” suggesting that Hall’s allegations were one thing that triggered renewed pressure on Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue, which would lead in turn to the confrontation at the White House on January 3.
Today at 3PM, Fani Willis will have to respond in both the Meadows and Clark motions for removal, to explain why both men should have to come to Georgia and turn themselves in before their efforts to remove the proceedings. One challenge Clark has already raised is that he doesn’t have enough ties to Georgia to be prosecuted there.
Mr. Clark also possesses a substantial defense based on insufficient contacts with the State of Georgia to permit the assertion of personal jurisdiction over him under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We reserve that defense, however, for presentation by separate motion at the appropriate time.
Indeed, one reason he doesn’t want to turn himself in is to prevent Willis from “making the argument that he has voluntarily accepted that he is subject to the criminal jurisdiction of Fulton County, which Mr. Clark decidedly does not accept).”
Like Meadows’ bid, Clark’s bid to remove his prosecution is not frivolous, particularly given that (unlike Meadows) he is not alleged to have gone to Georgia during this period. Both Jack Smith and Fani Willis will have a challenge explaining why efforts Clark made on Trump’s orders were not part of his job, explaining why Trump’s choice to bypass DOJ contact guidelines to leverage Clark against his superiors at DOJ is proof of a conspiracy rather than just executive prerogative.
So this call with Hall, the content of which Willis may not know, could be a key part of proving jurisdiction over Clark.
The call between Clark and Hall also precedes, at least by order in the indictment, Trump’s call to Brad Raffensperger the same day.
David Bossie’s brother-in-law coordinates with the pressure campaign on Ruby Freeman
The part of the Georgia indictment that has largely escaped notice, however, is that Scott Hall also had a tie to the pressure campaign on Ruby Freeman.
You’ll recall there were several attempts to pressure Freeman into lying about fraud in Fulton County. In the first, minister Stephen Lee, traveled to her home on both December 14 and 15, in the guise of helping her, in an attempt to get her to admit to fraud that didn’t occur. Those efforts are charged as counts 20 and 21 of the indictment.
Lee coordinated on a second effort with Black Voices for Trump operative Harrison Floyd and Trevian Kutti, Kanye’s former publicist. Kutti met with Freeman, again feigning an attempt to protect her, and allegedly tried to get her to confess to fraud. Those efforts are charged as counts 30 and 31 of the indictment.
As described in the RICO conspiracy, that second effort started shortly after Lee’s first failed attempt, when he recruited Floyd, believing a Black man could win the trust of Freeman. On January 3, Floyd makes ten calls or texts, including several failed efforts to speak to Freeman. One of those calls is to unindicted co-conspirator 23, who may be the sole witness to the topic of these contacts.
The next day, Kutti traveled to Atlanta, reached out to Freeman, and ultimately met with her for an hour in a Cobb County police station (with Floyd calling in on the phone), offering her protection but still attempting to get her to confess to fraud.
According to public reports, Kutti told Freeman that people would come to her home in 48 hours if she didn’t confess.
According to the indictment, Ms Freeman met the publicist at a Cobb County Police Department precinct on 4 January 2021.
During the meeting, Ms Kutti allegedly asked Ms Freeman to confess to voter fraud and told her she was “in danger”.
Ms Kutti allegedly also warned people would come to Ms Freeman’s home in 48 hours if she didn’t confess.
On that day, Floyd seemingly reports in about all this to Shafer, the GOP Chair, at 8:10PM.
The day after Floyd seemingly checks in with Shafer, Robert Cheeley — a Georgia lawyer charged in the conspiracy count and on Trump’s side of the fake electors plot (Shafer is charged on the Georgia side) and Hall get involved with the Ruby Freeman plotters.
Act 127 of the RICO charge describes the following calls that it suggests (presumably based off testimony from CC23) are all connected:
- 11:32AM: Lee calls Kutti
- 12:14PM: The three Ruby Freeman plotters have a four-way call with CC23
- 12:19PM: Hall calls Cheeley
- 12:34PM: Hall calls Cheeley
- 1:07PM: Cheeley calls Hall
- 1:09PM: Cheeley calls Hall
- 2:30PM: Cheeley calls Floyd
- 2:45PM: Floyd calls Cheeley
- 3:59PM: Cheeley calls Hall
- 4:42PM: Lee calls Cheeley
- 4:50PM: Lee calls Floyd
- 5:05PM: Lee calls Floyd
- 7:19PM: Kutti calls Cheeley
- 7:48PM: Cheeley calls Kutti
- 8:27PM: Cheeley calls Kutti
- 8:49PM: Cheeley calls Lee
- 9:18PM: Hall calls Cheeley
- 9:31PM: Kutti calls Cheeley
- 10:14PM: Cheeley calls Lee
- 11:16PM: Cheeley calls Kutti
- 11:25PM: Hall calls Cheeley
- 11:35PM: Cheeley, Kutti, and Hall have a call
- 12:09AM: Kutti calls Cheeley
On January 4, Kutti allegedly told Freeman that people would be coming to her house in 48 hours if she didn’t confess to fraud (that didn’t occur).
Then, for over 12 hours on January 5, extending past the period when, in DC, Trump was riling up his mob and targeting Pence, Cheeley, Hall, and the charged Ruby Freeman conspirators exchange a series of over twenty calls.
Less than a day later, as Bowers lays out, Hall was focusing his attention on obtaining the code from the Coffee County election hardware.
At 4:17 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, the president of the United States belatedly tweeted out his video message to the mob that had forcibly disrupted the counting of electoral votes. “You have to go home now,” he finally said.
But even as Giuliani was keeping up pressure on senators to “slow it down,” Coffee County officials were undeterred.
Nine minutes after the president’s tweet, at 4:26 p.m. that afternoon, Hampton sent a text to Chaney: “Scott Hall is on the phone with Cathy about wanting to come scan our ballots from the general election like we talked about the other day,” she wrote.
The next morning, on Jan. 7, Latham texted Hampton to tell her that the SullivanStrickler forensics team had departed Atlanta and were on their way to Coffee County. Hall, she added, was flying in, too. “Yay!!!!” Hampton responded. These events are also mentioned in Acts 142-143 of Count 1 of the Fulton County indictment.
The Ruby Freeman pressure campaign has often been described as a separate track of the RICO conspiracy — first the fake electors, then the effort to dupe Freeman into confessing to fraud, and finally the effort to seize the Dominion data. But between Shafer, Cheeley, and Hall, they all overlap on those series of calls on January 4 and 5, with Shafer and Cheeley playing central roles in the fake elector plot and Hall playing a central role in the Coffee County plot.
So while we’re all awaiting the next mugshot of a high profile charged co-conspirator, the key to understanding how all these strands fit together may lie with the lower profile Georgia bail bondsman, released yesterday on bail himself.