Trump indictment #4: 2020 election RICO conspiracy [Fulton county GA]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fulton-county-trial-live-stream/
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Trump co-defendant Scott Hall pleads guilty in Georgia RICO case under condition that he testify against co-defendants
"Conditions of your probation in this sentence is that you testify truthfully at any further court proceedings..."
https://thepostmillennial.com/trump...ndition-that-he-testify-against-co-defendants
{Sara Higdon | 02 October 2023}

On Friday, bail bondsman Scott Hall, one of 18 co-defendants charged alongside former President Donald Trump on election interference charges in Georgia, pleaded guilty.

Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of an election. He was sentenced to five years probation and agreed to testify in the court hearings of his co-defendants.

During the plea hearing in front of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, the Fulton County District Attorney's office asked Hall, "Do you understand that conditions of your probation in this sentence is that you testify truthfully at any further court proceedings to include trials of any co-defendants that is listed on the original indictment in which you were charged?"

He responded, "Yes, ma'am."

According to the Daily Mail, Hall was initially accused of unlawfully breaching voting machines in Coffee County in early 2021 to access voter data in an attempt to back up claims of election fraud made by Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

On August 14, Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, Jenna Ellis, Ray Smith III, Robert Sheeley, Michael Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Still, Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, Trevian Kutti, Sidney Powell, Cathleen Latham, Scott Hall, and Misty Hampton on charges relating to the 2020 election.

The list of charges includes a violation of the Georgia RICO Act, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, criminal attempt to commit filing false documents, conspiracy to commit filing false documents, criminal attempt to commit influencing witnesses, influencing witnesses, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, and perjury.

The indictment in Georgia was the second that former President Trump is facing in connection to the 2020 presidential election. The first is in federal court for allegedly attempting to prevent the certification of the election on January 6, 2021 [see this thread - OB].

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges that have been brought against him.
 
THREAD: Sidney "Release the Kracken" Powell Pleads Guilty

Two down, many more to go.

Sidney Powell, an attorney who was a key figure in former President Donald Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts after reaching an agreement with prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia.

Powell appeared in the Superior Court of Fulton County in Atlanta on Thursday, where a prosecutor laid out the terms of the plea deal. In exchange for her pleading guilty, Powell was sentenced to six years on probation and must pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia. Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case, signed off on the agreement at the hearing.

Powell is also required to testify "truthfully against any and all co-defendants in this matter," McAfee said...

Court documents filed in Fulton County Superior Court showed Powell pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. All six counts were related to a scheme in which Powell coordinated with a data company, SullivanStrickler, to access election data from Coffee County, Georgia.

"The purpose of the conspiracy was to use Misty Hampton's position to unlawfully access secure elections machines in Coffee County, Georgia," Assistant District Attorney Daysha Young explained at the hearing, referring to the elections director in the county who has also been charged. The objective was to "willfully tamper with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines" and remove voting data from elections systems. Powell entered into a contract with SullivanStrickler to travel to Coffee County to obtain the data.

Powell is also barred from communicating with "co-defendants, witnesses and media until this case has been completely closed against all defendants." She is required to hand over documents to prosecutors and wrote an apology letter to Georgia citizens as part of the deal...

Powell is the second defendant to plead guilty in the sprawling case. Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, became the first when he changed pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts at the end of September. He was sentenced to five years probation, a $5,000 fine and 200 hours of community service.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sidney-powell-pleads-guilty-georgia-2020-election-case-fulton-county/

It'll be interesting to see if the conviction leads to her disbarment.
 
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THREAD: GA judge dismisses several charges against Trump

Judge dismisses some charges against Trump in the Georgia 2020 election interference case

https://apnews.com/article/georgia-election-interference-2020-trump-46e0b68c25719c404130f7e6eab69dcd

BY KATE BRUMBACK AND ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

Updated 11:15 AM GMT-5, March 13, 2024

ATLANTA (AP) — The judge overseeing the Georgia 2020 election interference case on Wednesday dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump and others, but the rest of the sweeping racketeering indictment remains intact.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee quashed six counts in the indictment, including three against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. But the judge left in place other counts — including 10 facing Trump — and said prosecutors could seek a new indictment to try to reinstate the ones he dismissed.

The ruling is a blow for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who already is facing an effort to have her removed from the prosecution over her romantic relationship with a colleague. It’s the first time charges in any of Trump’s four criminal cases have been dismissed, with the judge saying prosecutors failed to provide enough detail about the alleged crime.

The sprawling indictment charges Trump and more than a dozen other defendants with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The case uses a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
 
[bold emphasis added]​
[...]

The Georgia Court of Appeals had until May 16th to grant or deny the review-certified appeal. [...] On May 8th, they decided to grant the appeal. Now that they've granted it, the appeal will be heard in the August 2024 term, which begins August 5th and ends November 18th. Their decision must be made on or before March 14th of 2025. This means it is quite unlikely that the trial will continue (with or without a disqualification of Willis) - let alone arrive at a verdict - before the U.S. general election (November 5th). [...]

Donald Trump’s effort to oust Fani Willis from case | What happens next?
Georgia Court of Appeals will rule on Trump’s request to remove Fulton DA from historic indictment.
https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/20...ust-fani-willis-indictment-what-happens-next/
{Tim Darnell | 08 May 2024}

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Now that the Georgia Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal from former President Donald Trump over Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ continuing participation in his historic indictment, what happens next?

The Georgia Court of Appeals’ docket for case number A24I0160, also known as DONALD JOHN TRUMP ET AL V. THE STATE, said the appeal will be heard during the court’s August 2024 term. Per the court’s website, all cases docketed to this term must be decided by March 14, 2025.

The August term ends on Nov. 18, 2024. The court’s argument calendar for August, September and October does not yet list a date for Trump’s appeal.
“President Trump looks forward to presenting interlocutory arguments to the Georgia Court of Appeals as to why the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct in this unjustified, unwarranted political persecution,” Steve Sadow, one of the former president’s lead Georgia attorneys, said immediately after the court’s announcement on May 8, 2024.

On April 1, Trump and the remaining defendants in Georgia’s historic racketeering indictment formally appealed Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling. That appeal came after McAfee gave the green light to allow such an appeal over his decision. The appeal was signed by all of the attorneys representing the remaining co-defendants who have not already settled the case in Fulton County Superior Court.

However, the appeals court denied hearing a similar appeal from Harrison Floyd, one of the remaining co-defendants and the only person indicted who actually spent time in jail after not posting bail.

In March, McAfee rejected defense efforts to remove Willis and her office over her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, but he did give the defendants permission to seek a review of his decision from the appeals court. In his ruling, McAfee wrote Willis must remove Wade from the racketeering indictment if she were to remain on the case. Wade resigned just hours after that ruling.

Willis herself has engaged in a continuing war of words with her opponents who say they want to hold her accountable over her prosecution and indictment of the nation’s 45th president.

During a May 7, 2024, news conference in which she announced the endorsement of several prominent Black faith leaders in Atlanta, Willis said she would not honor any subpoena issued by a state Senate committee investigating her use of public funds in her Trump investigation.

“First of all, I don’t even think they have the authority to subpoena me, but they need to learn the law,” Willis said Monday. “I will not appear to anything that is unlawful, and I have not broken the law in any way. I’m sorry folks get pissed off that everybody gets treated evenly.”

After her remarks, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones - a likely candidate for governor in Georgia’s wide-open 2026 gubernatorial race - said on X (formerly known as Twitter), “If subpoenaed by the Committee, she will be required to appear or she will be in violation of Georgia law. This is what treating everybody evenly looks like, even if DA Willis doesn’t like being held accountable.”

Last week, state Sen. Bill Cowsert (R-Athens), who chairs the committee investigating Willis, said he would subpoena the Democratic district attorney if she doesn’t agree to appear before his committee.

“She’s a key part of the investigation that her viewpoints are valued by us,” Cowsert said after the committee’s most recent hearing. “We need to hear what she has to say and her explanation of what she thinks are the appropriate rules ought to be going forward so we don’t have this kind of scandal give Georgia a black eye.”

On Friday, the committee reconvened after state lawmakers earlier this year charged it to determine if Willis engaged in any financial misconduct in her investigation and subsequent historic indictment of Trump.

At the heart of the Senate committee’s investigation is Willis’ hiring of Wade and the timing of when their relationship turned romantic. The committee is also looking into allegations that Willis misused state and federal funds.

The move to disqualify Willis began in early January after Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, and Ashleigh Merchant, Roman’s attorney, accused Willis and Wade of having an improper relationship. Both Willis and Wade have since acknowledged a romantic relationship.

The allegations that Willis had improperly benefited from her romance with Wade upended the case for weeks. Intimate details of Willis and Wade’s personal lives were aired in court in mid-February. Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, accused of illegally trying to overturn his narrow 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia.

Trump himself has already become the first ex-president in American history to stand trial on criminal charges, as witness testimony continues in his hush money trial. Trump is going on trial on 34 felony counts that he falsified his company’s business records in an attempt to cover up a hush-money payment to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the criminal cases that have been filed against him since he left the White House in 2021, including those filed by Willis.

The Atlanta-based district attorney indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023 on charges of engaging in a criminal, racketeering-like attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election. That election saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to carry Georgia or any other deep Southern state.

McAfee has also rejected arguments from Trump and his attorneys that the actions of the nation’s 45th president are protected by the First Amendment.
 
So when can we expect criminal indictments for this (or even just a few scapegoat demotions)? /rhetorical

Election fortification achievement unlocked.

File under "Elections, Most Secure Ever"

Texas Voting Machines UNMASK Voters
https://odysee.com/@actualjusticewarrior:2/texas-voting-machines-unmask-voters:1
{Actual Justice Warrior | 23 May 2024}

In this video I discuss a troubling report from Current Revolt that highlights a lawsuit against the Texas Secretary Of State about election security. According to the complaint many Texans detailed voting records are now accessible by the public with minimal effort due to a total failure in security at in person voting locations.

Sources:
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8x8vw4gwpo

Georgia court dismisses two more charges against Trump

A court in Georgia has dismissed two of the 10 criminal charges against Donald Trump and one other charge against his allies for alleged attempts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ruled on Thursday that the southern state did not have the authority to bring the specific charges related to the alleged filing of false documents in federal court.

Judge McAfee allowed the rest of the case to move forward, including eight charges against Trump, out of the original 13.

Three other charges against Trump were dropped earlier this year after the same judge ruled that the charges lacked detail.


Steven Sadow, a lawyer for Trump, praised the ruling, saying: "President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again."

Judge McAfee on Thursday said that the two dropped charges fell under federal jurisdiction, rather than under Georgia state law.

The dropped charges against Trump include conspiracy to commit false documents and conspiracy to commit forgery, according to court documents.

Two of his co-defendants had their charges of forgery dropped as well.

According to the indictment filed in August 2023 by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Trump conspired with 18 other defendants to interfere in the election result.

Judge Scott McAfee: The young jurist handling Trump's Georgia trial
The group "refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump".

Part of the alleged plot included Trump's phone call to Georgia's top election official, in which he pleaded with him to "to find 11,780 votes" - the margin in which he lost to Mr Biden.

Trump - and 14 co-defendants - have pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other state charges related to alleged efforts to overturn the former president's loss in Georgia.

Four others have pleaded guilty.

The case has largely been put on hold since June, after Ms Willis was found to have had a romantic relationship with one of the lead prosecutors in the case.

A Georgia appeals court is currently considering whether Ms Willis must step aside from the case due to the allegations of misconduct presented by defence lawyers.
 
Ex-Trump Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro’s Law License Suspended


by Ella Lee
10/31/2024


Ex-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who helped devise the Trump campaign’s alternate electors strategy in 2020, has been suspended from practicing law in New York following his conviction for a “serious crime.”

A panel of judges on the Appellate Division — New York’s midlevel appeals court — ruled Thursday that Chesebro is barred from practicing law in the state, “effective immediately,” following his guilty plea in Georgia’s 2020 election interference case against former President Trump and his allies.


Chesebro admitted to one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents, narrowly avoiding becoming the first of dozens of defendants to go to trial over his alleged efforts to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election in the state.


He was initially accused of seven felony counts, including a state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charge.

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“Upon an attorney’s conviction for a felony — that being either a felony offense committed in New York or a crime committed outside of New York that would constitute a felony if committed in this state — the attorney ceases to be competent to practice law,” the panel wrote.


Chesebro helped craft the so-called fake electors scheme pushing to certify slates of Trump-supporting electors in battleground states instead of the true electoral votes cast for Biden. Fake electors allegedly convened in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin, claiming without basis that they were “duly elected” electors from their states.



More here:

https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...neth-chesebro-law-license-suspended-new-york/


 
GA Court of Appeals has disqualified Fani Willis & Fulton county GA DA's office from prosecuting this case:

Georgia appeals court disqualifies Fulton County DA Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/19/politics/fani-willis-donald-trump-georgia/index.html
{Katelyn Polantz, Hannah Rabinowitz & Sara Murray | 19 December 2024}

A Georgia Court of Appeals on Thursday disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the case against President-elect Donald Trump and his alleged co-conspirators over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The long-awaited decision, in a state criminal case against Trump that was already on hold, raises questions about whether the case can move forward in court. The appeals court found that Willis’ office can’t prosecute the case, so a new special prosecutor would need to be appointed for the case to continue.

The appeals court found that a “significant appearance of impropriety” was enough to potentially taint the case in the public eye. The appellate court decided, however, it wouldn’t dismiss the sprawling racketeering conspiracy case entirely.

“While we recognize that an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the court wrote in Thursday’s opinion.

The court added: “We cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment.”

Willis will continue to fight to stay on the case, as her team has asked the state’s Supreme Court to review the appeals court’s decision. CNN has reached out to her office for comment.

Trump and some of his co-defendants have been trying to get Willis, a Democrat, disqualified from the case because of a romantic relationship she had with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to help handle the case. The defendants argued that Willis financially benefited from the relationship with Wade, who defense attorneys say covered several vacations for the pair.

[...]
 
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