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Trump on Trial - Episode 2 |OT| The One with the Perfect Phone Call in Georgia (Fulton County)

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phisheep

phisheep

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes
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Oct 26, 2017
4,910
State of Georgia v Donald J Trump and 18 others

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Case details
Court: Georgia Superior Court, Fulton County
Judge: Scott McAfee (appointed Jan 2023, previously AUSA and ADA)
Case#: 23sc188947 DOCKET
Prosecution: Fulton County DA Fani Willis

Indictment
The full document is here
My lists of 19 defendants, 41 charges, 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 161 overt acts
The relevant laws are all linked here.

Events
There was a whole Special Grand Jury before indictments. Archived here. Report here.
14 Aug 2023 - INDICTMENT handed up
14 Aug 2023 - Fani Willis announcement (youtube link)
16 Aug 2023 - DA motion for pretrial scheduling
17 Aug 2023 - Jeffrey CLARK opposition to pretrial schedule
23 Aug 2023 - Ken CHESEBRO demands a speedy trial and a bunch of other motions
24 Aug 2023 - DA Willis motion to set trial for 23rd October 2023 !!
24 Aug 2023 - TRUMP moves to sever case from CHESEBRO
24 Aug 2023 - Judges SETS SCHEDULE for CHESEBRO speedy trial
25 Aug 2023 - Sidney POWELL demands a speedy trial
25 Aug 2023 - DA Willis notice of initial discovery
6 Sep - Arraignments, everybody waived appearance and entered not guilty pleas

Fulton Schedule (CHESEBRO POWELL speedy trial)
6 Sep - MOTIONS HEARING (Youtube: severance/scheduling CHESEBRO POWELL)
19 Oct - Sidney POWELL pleads guilty - 6 years probation
20 Oct Ken CHESEBRO pleads guilty - 5 years probation on felony conspiracy to file false documents
so, no trial here

Fulton Schedule (everyone but CHESEBRO/POWELL) (per scheduling ORDER, as revised)
17 Nov 2023 - DA motion to set trial date, (for 5 Aug)
6 Oct 2023 - initial discovery by State
4 Dec 2023 - initial discovery by Defendants
8 Jan 2024 - pretrial motions (except motions in limine)
8 Jan 2024 - Trump motion to dismiss for supremacy clause immunity
8 Jan 2024 - Trump motion to dismiss for due process
8 Jan 2024 - Trump motion to dismiss for constitutional and statutory double jeopardy
8 Jan 2024 - Trump motion to compel discovery
8 Jan 2024 - Michael ROMAN's motion to disqualify Fani Willis and get the entire case chucked out for misconduct, Trump adoption 25 Jan, GA response 2 Feb, Roman response 2 Feb, Trump reply 7 Feb, hearings 15 Feb 27 Feb, closing 1 Mar, GRANTED IN PART 15 Mar, Nathan Wade resigned 15 Mar
13 Mar 2024 - ORDER quashing some charges for vagueness (solicitations of violation of oath)
4 Mar 2024 - ORDER denying motion to dismiss on First Amendment grounds

rest to be determined

District Court NDGA (judge Steve Jones)
Mark MEADOWS removal to federal court filed 15 Aug, opposed 23 Aug, hearing 28 Aug, DECLINED 8 Sep, appealed 8 Sep
(also tried for emergency removal, administrative stay, injunction against arrest, dismissal of all charges, ALL DENIED)
Jeffrey CLARK removal to federal court filed 21 Aug, opposed 8 Sep, hearing 18 Sep, DECLINED 29 Sep, appealed 10 Oct
(also tried an emergency stay and administrative stay, both DENIED)
David SHAFER removal to federal court filed 21 Aug, opposed 7 Sept, hearing 20 Sept, DECLINED 29 Sep, appealed 6 Oct
Shawn STILL removal to federal court filed 24 Aug, opposed 5 Sep, hearing 20 Sep, DECLINED 29 Sep, appealed 6 Oct
Cathy LATHAM removal to federal court filed 25 Aug, opposed 7 Sep, hearing 20 Sept, DECLINED 29 Sep, appealed 6 Oct

Federal Appeals Court 11th Circuit
Mark MEADOWS removal to federal court filed 8 Sep, brief 18 Sep, opposition 25 Sep, reply 28 Sep, hearing 15 Dec, District Court AFFIRMED 18 Dec
- 3 Nov 2023 - Meadows' supplementary brief, state's supplementary brief 3 Nov
- 2 Jan 2024 - Meadows' petition for rehearing en banc, DENIED 28 Feb
- 7 Mar 2024 - remanded to District Court
Jeffrey CLARK removal to federal court filed 10 Oct, brief 19 Dec 18 Jan, response due 21 Mar, ... (extended after Meadows ruling)
David SHAFER Shawn STILL Cathy LATHAM removal to federal court filed 6 Oct, brief 19 Dec 18 Jan, response due 21 Mar ...


U.S. CONGRESS House Judiciary Committtee
24 Aug - Letter Jim Jordan to Fani Willis
7 Sep - Letter Fani Willlis to Jim Jordan
27 Sep - Letter Jim Jordan to Fani Willis
11 Oct - Letter Fani Willis to Jim Jordan
5 Dec - Letter Jim Jordan to Fani Willis

Reporting Links (links to court reporting, livestreams etc when we get them)
Anna Bower of Lawfare seems the best at following the details.
Lawfare article breaking down the indictment
Lawfare article on why it doesn't matter if Trump believed his own lies
Lawfare article on the shenanigans with voting machines in Coffee County
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has excellent local reporters, but I can't see it, not available in Europe


Background (there's lot of it!)
Dead people didn't vote, neither did underage people, nor out-of-state people. No votes were switched, swapped, found in suitcases or dumped in rivers.
3 Nov 2020 - Presidential Election, which Biden won. Then came the rumours of malpractice, then came the lawsuits.
4 Nov 2020 - In Re: Enforcement of Election Laws (dismissed 5 Nov for lack of evidence)
13 Nov 2020 - Wood v Raffensperger (dismissed, standing, 19 Nov) affirmed (11th Circuit 5 Dec) petition denied (SCOTUS 22 Feb 2021)
?? Nov 2020 - Senator Lynsey Graham called Georgia SoS Brad Reffensperger to get mail-in ballots chucked out. Brad refused.
18 Nov 2020 - completion of full hand audit, Biden still won.
20 Nov 2020 - Election results certified. Biden still won.
25 Nov 2020 - Pearson v Kemp (interloc. appeal to 11th circuit denied) (dismissed, standing, 7 Dec) appealed to SCOTUS 11 Dec (dismissed 19 Jan 2021)
30 Nov 2020 - Boland v Raffensperger (dismissed, standing) appeal denied by Georgia Supreme Court
1 Dec 2020 - Gabriel Sterling (GA election official) denounced threats to election workers. "This has gone too far."
4 Dec 2020 - Trump v Raffensperger (dismissed for not paying filing fee!) declined by Supreme Court of Georgia 12 Dec
8 Dec 2020 - the 'safe harbor' date when electoral college is conclusive
14 Dec 2020 - Electoral College votes cast, for Biden.
14 Dec 2020 - a bunch of fake Republican 'electors' also met and 'voted', for Trump of course.
23 Dec 2020 - Favorito v Fulton County (eventually dismissed, standing, 13 Oct 2021)
31 Dec 2020 - Trump v Kemp (injunction denied 5 Jan, "voluntarily" dismissed 7 Jan)

By January some of these cases were still, at least in theory, pending before various appeal courts including SCOTUS. The first week of January was kind of busy:
2 Jan 2021 - Trump called Raffensperger to pressure him into delivering enough votes to have him win the state. Raffenspurger taped it.
3 Jan 2021 - Washington Post published the recording.
4 Jan 2021 - Gabriel Sterling took down every one of Trump's fraud claims in a superb press conference.
5 Jan 2021 - Democratic candidates won both of Georgia US Senate runoffs.
6 Jan 2021 - We all saw what happened there.

And if that's not complicated enough, the same shit was happening in six other states.

Feb 10th the Fulton County DA Fani Willis launched a criminal investigation and in Jan 2022 requested a special Grand Jury which was empanelled in May and after hearing from 75 witnesses including Trump lawyers, US senators, former White House staff, and fake electors, issued a report recommending charges in Dec 2022. A redacted report was issued in February and a normal Grand Jury assigned to consider the recommendations which were then expected to be "imminent". That Grand Jury (if it is the one considering these cases) sits up to the end of April.

This will likely be quite a complicated case with multiple indictments.

Previously on Resetera (recent highlights only)

WaPo - 'I just want to find 11,780 votes': In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia SOS to recalculate the vote in his favor
[January 3] The Hill: VP-elect Kamala Harris: Trump Georgia phone call is a 'voice of desperation, and it was bald, bald-faced bold abuse of power'
Trump Reportedly Pressured Georgia's Top Election Investigator to 'Find Fraud' in 2nd Possibly Criminal Call: "That's Obstruction—Any Way You Cut It"
Georgia Election Official Refutes Trump's Voter Fraud Claims
Trump's pick for U.S. attorney in Georgia dismisses election fraud
Trump & DOJ Loyalist Plotted to Oust Acting AG to Overturn Georgia Presidential Election Results
[February 8] Reuters: Georgia Secretary of State's office launches probe into Trump's election phone call, could lead to criminal investigation
NYT: Georgia Prosecutors Open Criminal Investigation of Trump Call
New recording reveals Trump called Georgia investigator leading signature match audit
Georgia criminal probe into Trump's attempts to overturn 2020 election quietly moves forward
Fulton County, Georgia, subpoenas Giuliani, Eastman, Graham, and more in Trump election meddling case

Sidney Powell aka The kraken pleads guilty in Ga election case, agrees to testify against other defendants.

PRESS/MEDIA WARNINGS

In most criminal cases, leaks to the press come mostly from the defense lawyers and are spun accordingly. Unless specifically attributed to the DA's office, anything like "Persons familiar ..." is likely from the Trump camp. Just bear that in mind, eh?

Also, be careful about expectations for sentencing. Too much of the press tend to just add up all the maximum sentences and set expectations way too high, so they can complain afterwards if that's not what the sentence is. Nearly nobody gets maximum sentences for anything. Just sayin'.

People who enjoyed this may also enjoy ...
E Jean Carroll v Donald J Trump (civil case for battery and defamation)
Trump on Trial - Episode 1 |OT| The One with the Porn Star
Trump on Trial - Episode 3 |OT| The One with the Bigliest Assets Ever (New York Civil Fraud)
Trump on Trial - Episode 4 |OT| The One with the Missing Documents
Trump on Trial - Episode 5 |OT| The One with the Insurrection
Trump on Trial - Episode 6 |OT| The One with the One Weird Trick (14th amendment ballot access)
Trump on Trial - Episode 7 |OT| The Ones with the Ku Klux Klan Act (Jan 6 civil cases)
 
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MasterYoshi

MasterYoshi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,105
Lifelong Georgia resident, here. I am so hopeful that my home state locks this criminal fuck up for what he did.
 
jelly

jelly

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Oct 26, 2017
33,841
Surely absolutely impossible to get out of this one with the phone calls and stuff.
 
Foffy

Foffy

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Oct 25, 2017
16,400
Hope this Episode drops soon, this is really the start of the Big Shit. Trump won't be punished for paying off people, but election interference? There's multiple calls of him doing this, and we've only publicly heard just one.

This format of making each major case an "Episode" for a thread helps keep the specific issues at hand in a more contained manner. Trump's a crook, and we can have 40 posts mentioning 40 different crimes, but narrowing it down to "Paying multiple porn stars" and "Calling multiple people to overturn the election in Georgia" are much more specific and keep us on track.

Feels like when this drops, it will be a political nuke. I'm expecting politicians and aides to be named as potential criminals besides Trump.
 
Sho_Nuff82

Sho_Nuff82

Member
Nov 14, 2017
18,525
Twitter is fucking useless for searching for actual news articles now. Searching for Fani Willis updates I see tons of posters referencing the NYT, but no nyt tweets pull up in the search, even with "NYT" included in the search terms.

Might be a bit premature to make this thread if the grand jury itself is still being litigated next month.
 
OP
OP
phisheep

phisheep

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Oct 26, 2017
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Sho_Nuff82 said:
Might be a bit premature to make this thread if the grand jury itself is still being litigated next month.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think it's the other way round: that the response deadline for the Grand Jury appeal has been specifically set for 1st May so that after indictments drop in April the judge can easily dismiss it as moot without having to get into the weeds of it. Otherwise the deadline would have been set much earlier.
 
Katamari

Katamari

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
1,127
So episode III is about Jan 6 and episode IV is the confidential documents at Mar-a-Lago? Will those investigations likely indict as well?
 
OP
OP
phisheep

phisheep

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Katamari said:
So episode III is about Jan 6 and episode IV is the confidential documents at Mar-a-Lago? Will those investigations likely indict as well?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Wrong way round. I expect Episode 3 to be Mar-a-Lago documents, it's a far simpler case with no precursors and clear-cut charges and solid documentary evidence.

Jan 6th will be dependent on the outcome of the still ongoing DC cases and has a much more complicated nexus of facts, probably need to get some more people to flip to get Trump personally. I have that slated for the season finale.

I fully expect Federal indictments for both.

However, this Georgia case is super-important as being by far the biggest state-based thing, and so immune to Presidential pardon.
 
ErichWK

ErichWK

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Oct 25, 2017
3,572
Sandy Eggo
Plus georgia case is so vastly different from stormy that it will be good to keep em seperated so info doesnt get muddled in the discourse
 
OP
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phisheep

phisheep

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So, I've been rummaging through the Georgia Criminal Code to try to find what offences might be charged here. It's not easy.

Closest I can come up with for the Trump phone call, for example (all references to the GA Criminal Code) is this:

Conspiracy (16-4-8) to Criminal Solicitation (16-4-7) of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer (16-10-1).

There's a whole load of other things that might be involved in this nightmare of an investigation, like Perjury (at least 17 counts), false reporting of an offense, making false statements in a judicial proceeding and so on. Not all of them easy, and not all of them felonies (so may have timed out).

You'd think Racketeering would get a look-in, but it's quite tightly written to apply to money and personal and real property, so not really applicable.

Would love to get a view from a criminal lawyer in Georgia, if we've got one.
 
Kenai

Kenai

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,334
This is the most interesting to me because of the inability for Trump to be pardoned or exonerated or whatever term is applicable at the federal level, and of course setting the stage for the severity of blatant state election tampering going forward. However, it's also the one I know the least about.

Not that I am an expert on the others or anything, but I at least know that there could be Georgia-specific laws that could be applied to this case? Which might be hard to figure out at a glance even for law professionals if unfamiliar with those state laws from either side of the legal argument. Hoping for the worst for Trump obviously (and then worse than that for good measure)
 
RiOrius

RiOrius

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Oct 27, 2017
6,088
In the OP, you say you expect indictments in April, but apparently there's already an appeal against the grand jury report that won't get a response until May 1: how could there be an indictment while there's still an outstanding appeal?
 
OP
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phisheep

phisheep

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RiOrius said:
In the OP, you say you expect indictments in April, but apparently there's already an appeal against the grand jury report that won't get a response until May 1: how could there be an indictment while there's still an outstanding appeal?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

1) The judge has ordered a response to the appeal by 1st May, but he didn't put any stay on proceedings until then.
2) The appeal is only against the constitutionality of the Special Grand Jury, which was empowered to make a report, but not to indict.
3) Therefore, if a normal Grand Jury (one of the two currently sitting in Fulton County) issues indictments before 1st May, the appeal could simply be dismissed as moot.

I suspect that has been done on purpose. That's my theory anyway, and I tested it by tweeting the theory at a lawyer - got a like back. Besides, the appeal is before the same judge that has been running the Special Grand Jury - it's his baby. Will he find it uncontstitutional? No. If the appeal had any chance at all, he'd have put a stay on and ordered a response in a week, not a month.

If that doesn't happen we're down to new Grand Juries being empanelled fro May-June, but at least we'll have an appeal to mull over, not that it's a very interesting one, just the usual Trumpy bullshit.
 
Neodiablo22

Neodiablo22

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Oct 25, 2017
165
OP should have started at episodes 4, 5, and 6 so that there was room for the prequel sequels
 
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phisheep

phisheep

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Media have gone to appeal court to try and get the full Special Grand Jury report released. Fani Willis has responded suggesting they don't, as it could mess up the prosecution.

Still no idea what is happening behind the scenes here.
 
Version 3.0

Version 3.0

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Oct 27, 2017
11,325
phisheep said:
And if that's not complicated enough, the same shit was happening in six other states.
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Which begs the question: where are the other six investigations? IIRC, I read that Wisconsin kicked theirs up to the feds. Don't know that I've seen anything about any other state.

Anyway, excellent thread, OP, and thanks for taking the time to organize all of this, and for your interpretations when things get rolling.
 
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