Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her Atlanta office. | AP Photo/John Bazemore
GEORGIA IN MY HEAD – Following the Jan. 6 Special Committee hearings, there were many questions about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handling of the investigation into the events leading up to the US Capitol Siege. But the investigation of another prosecutor — Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia — has drawn increasing attention from national media and legal observers after a series of high-profile investigative moves that have put the office in direct conflict with some key participants in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overthrow the election.
The characters and many of the allegations are likely familiar to those who have followed Trump’s other litigation. Let’s explore what makes this probe unique:
What’s Willis’ office up to?
Prosecutors in Willis’ office have been conducting a criminal investigation since early last year that originated in “The Call” between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. There was little public investigative activity until last May, when a judge granted a bureau request for a special grand jury with subpoena powers to gather evidence and compel witnesses to appear. (Raffensperger, for example, appeared to have insisted on a subpoena to obtain his testimony.)
In recent weeks, the office has subpoenaed a number of figures close to Trump, including attorneys John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, who were reportedly instrumental in the former president’s lavish effort to fight the election results; Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), a Trump ally who Raffensperger says may have erroneously suggested that the state flout legitimate mail-in ballots to help Trump; and Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who reportedly worked with Trump’s team to try to prevent Joe Biden’s Jan. 6 victory from being certified.
The bureau also identified the 16 Republicans who served as Trump’s “alternate” electors in the state as “targets” of the probe. Earlier this week, however, a judge criticized DA Willis’ decision to host a fundraiser for the opponent of one of those voters — a Republican senator running for lieutenant governor. The judge concluded that Willis’ actions created “a simple — and actual and untenable — conflict” and that prosecutors should escalate any case against him to another agency in the state.
Which laws could it be?
Georgia has a variety of laws related to voter fraud that may be implicated by the behavior under investigation, as well as a comprehensive anti-extortion law that has attracted some attention.
How nervous should Trump be about that?
That remains unclear. It does not do well for a prosecutor to subpoena your lawyers and allies as part of an investigation into efforts to overturn the legitimate results of an election, especially when your own involvement has been captured in a record that has sparked national outrage and raised legal questions.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Willis has a clear path to impeach Trump himself.
Criminal investigations and prosecutions at the state level are often looser and less predictable than state criminal investigations, as the recent judgment against Willis has shown. Recalcitrant individuals in an investigation of this complexity can also make things difficult for prosecutors by fighting subpoenas, filing court challenges, and invoking privileges. This kind of effort can take some time before the courts come up with a solution.
The Washington Post also recently reported that “[t]There are no reported cases of appeal on the interpretation of the electoral laws, which prosecutors are likely to examine, while Georgia’s law against racketeering was not necessarily intended for cases of electoral interference.” It’s a kind of vacuum that could provide grounds for legal challenges if prosecutors eventually do so come to accuse people.
The general sentiment in some quarters of the media that the Willis office’s investigation is headed inexorably toward some sort of showdown with Trump may ultimately prove correct. Still, given recent history and the track record of many legal observers regarding Trump, some caution is warranted. In March of last year, for example, the hosts of a supposedly reputable legal podcast speculated that Willis could indict Trump within days – a prediction that, of course, didn’t come true. However, this claim inadvertently highlighted a fundamental fact of the anti-Trump legal commentaries, namely that there is generally no penalty for being wrong as long as one predicts Trump’s eventual death.
It wasn’t long ago, either, that many of the people now focusing on Willis’ investigation touted the Manhattan DA’s investigation into Trump’s finances, which seems to have fizzled out for now. A Brookings report author analyzing the Georgia investigation recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times praising Willis and touting “the vast body of relevant evidence of possible crimes in Georgia,” but after the prosecutor’s office of Manhattan had criminally indicted the Trump Organization and its CFO last summer, the same person predicted that the office was “on the brink of a much larger case against Trump and his companies.”
Of course, things didn’t work out that way. And Allen Weisselberg — whom some pundits confidently predicted would quickly turn against Trump — has yet to appear in court and has shown no signs of working together against Trump any time soon.
Willis’ investigation is worth watching closely, but as with all things when it comes to Trump and his litigation, it’s best not to assume that anyone knows the outcome for sure.
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– DOJ accuses Russian agents of conspiring with US groups to advance propaganda: The Justice Department today unsealed an indictment in Tampa accusing a Russian agent of conspiring to influence unnamed groups in Florida, California and Georgia to disrupt the US election and promote Russian propaganda. The DOJ accused Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov of working on behalf of the Kremlin for at least seven years to recruit and pay American groups to “publish pro-Russian propaganda.” Ionov is not currently in custody.
– Blinken and the Russian Foreign Minister discussed the proposal for Griner, Whelan: Foreign Minister Antony Blinken has urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to accept a “significant proposal” to bring home Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, Blinken told reporters today. Blinken would not characterize Lavrov’s responses or say whether an agreement was “more or less likely” after the call.
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– The Manchin Pressure Campaign: CEOs, Union Bosses and Bill Gates: After Joe Manchin bucked clean-energy stimulus in the Democrats’ spending bill two weeks ago, clean-energy makers helped orchestrate a 13-day effort to change his mind, more than 20 people involved in the effort told POLITICO — and eventually helped win his support for the $369 billion in stimulus in the rebranded Inflation Reduction Act. That push – which two stakeholders said included a call from Bill Gates, whose venture capital firm has backed a West Virginia-based battery startup – came in parallel with a campaign by other senators and economist Larry Summers to strip Manchin of the benefits to convince the bill.
DIRTY POOL — After the collapse of Mario Draghi’s coalition government, which plunged Italy into fresh turmoil, a troubling question hangs in the air: was the Kremlin involved?
Hannah Roberts writes that two incidents of contacts between right-wing party leaders and Russian diplomats have sparked a round of finger pointing in the Rome election campaign.
In the first incident, in May, a Russian embassy official asked a foreign policy adviser to Matteo Salvini – Meloni’s ally in the far-right Lega party – if he planned to pull his ministers out of Draghi’s coalition, according to La Stampa newspaper on Thursday. the intelligence reports quoted. The second incident revolves around Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister and longtime Putin ally. Berlusconi, who leads the centre-right party Forza Italia, spoke to the Russian ambassador on the day he withdrew his support for Draghi’s government, La Repubblica reported today.
At stake is Italy’s international standing and whether Rome will remain a solid and reliable part of the Western alliance against Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.
14 billion dollars
The amount of money the government can reap from closing carried interest loopholes, which allows private equity firms to tax a large portion of their performance gains at a lower rate of capital gains than regular income. That initiative — part of the deal between Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin — has drawn the ire of private equity firms scrambling to persuade Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to scrap the deferral.
Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz salutes his supporters. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
INVESTIGATION – The GOP establishment feels Dr. Dejected to Oz, write Holly Otterbein and Natalie Allison.
The Senate Republican campaign arm is privately sounding the alarm about Oz’s Senate bid in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania, while telling donors the party still has a way of winning the majority without the state.
At a donor call last week focused on Senate elections across the country, officials with the National Republican Senatorial Committee discussed Oz’s underperforming in polls, including his high unfavorable ratings, a person on the call said.
“It was an alarm bell,” the person said, adding that Oz’s poor image with voters “really freaks everyone out.”
The easiest way for Senate Republicans to retake the Senate is to keep outgoing Senator Pat Toomey’s seat in their column. But if NRSC executives determine that Oz is a losing case, they can target pickups in other states, including Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona. In addition to the Pennsylvania race, Republicans are defending hotly contested seats in Wisconsin and North Carolina.
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