A big, big day in Trump conspiracy fraud legal news today, not one, not two, but three big stories. First, former Georgia Republican state Sen. Jen Jordan is on the list for Fulton County DA Fani Willis's grand jury.
Former Georgia Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan received subpoenas to testify before a Fulton County grand jury later this month, she told CNN.
The subpoenas to Jordan and independent journalist George Chidi are the strongest indication yet that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis intends to seek indictments in her criminal probe into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Two grand juries with the power to issue indictments meet regularly in Fulton County, and Willis is expected to go before one of them this month to present her case. The presentment will likely take two days, according to people familiar with the matter.
The witnesses are expected to shed light on different aspects of Willis’ case. While Chidi can share information about the fake GOP electors that convened in Georgia, Jordan witnessed the election presentation Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies made before Georgia state lawmakers in 2020.
On December 3, 2020, Jordan was at the Georgia Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about election integrity during which Giuliani, then a Trump lawyer, and other supporters of the former president spread conspiracy theories about widespread irregularities and fraud in the state.
At the hearing, Trump’s team presented a video of what they claimed was evidence of fraud from election night ballot tabulating in Fulton County, allegations that were investigated by the FBI, Department of Justice and state election officials – and proven to be erroneous.
The subpoenas for grand jury testimony call on the witnesses to appear before the grand jury during the month of August and state that witnesses will get 48 hours notice when they are required to appear.
As Willis warms up the band in Georgia, the state of Michigan is making its move in its own elector fraud conspiracy case against Mango Mussolini and friends.
A former Republican attorney general candidate and another supporter of former President Donald Trump have been criminally charged in Michigan in connection with accessing and tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election, according to court records.
Matthew DePerno, a Republican lawyer who was endorsed by Trump in an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general last year, was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy, according to Oakland County court records.
Daire Rendon, a former Republican state representative, was charged with conspiracy to commit undue possession of a voting machine and false pretenses. A lawyer listed on court documents as representing Rendon could not be immediately reached for comment by phone.
Both were arraigned remotely Tuesday afternoon, according to Richard Lynch, the court administrator for Oakland County’s 6th Circuit.
A special prosecutor, D.J. Hilson, has been reviewing the investigation and considering charges since September. He convened a grand jury in March to determine whether criminal indictments should be issued, according to court documents.
In a statement, Hilson said the charges were authorized by “an independent citizens grand jury,” and that his office did not make any recommendations.
Those charged in Michigan are the latest facing legal consequences for alleged crimes committed after embracing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
Now, if this was all the bad news Trump's legal team got today, it would still be a hell of a bad way to start the month.
A grand jury indicted former president Donald Trump on Tuesday for a raft of alleged crimes in his brazen efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election — the latest legal and political aftershock stemming from the riot at the U.S. Capitol two and a half years ago.
The four-count, 45-page indictment accuses Trump of three distinct conspiracies, charging that he conspired to defraud the U.S., conspired to obstruct an official proceeding and conspired against people’s rights.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment charges, saying Trump unleashed a blizzard of lies about purported mass voter fraud, and then tried to get state, local, and federal officials to act to change the vote results.
“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue — often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts — and he deliberately disregarded the truth,” the indictment states.
“The attack on our nation’s capitol on Jan. 6 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy," special counsel Jack Smith said in announcing the indictment. "It was fueled by lies, lies by the defendant.”
Smith also praised the law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol, saying they “did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and a people.”
In broad strokes and particular conversations with officials around the country, the indictment recounts much of what was already known about Trump’s efforts to stay in the White House despite losing the election. But the indictment frames that conduct as a destructive criminal conspiracy that attempted to demolish a bedrock function of American democracy.
While no one else is charged alongside Trump, the indictment describes six unnamed and so far uncharged co-conspirators, who also appear to be in significant legal jeopardy. Some of the individuals are easily identifiable, such as Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer.
Giuliani and a number of the other uncharged co-conspirators are identifiable based on details in the indictment and previous reporting by The Washington Post and other outlets. Co-conspirator 2, described as “an attorney who devised an attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding” is John Eastman, a law professor.
The indictment describes co-conspirator 3 as an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud Trump himself said sounded “crazy” — and the description of that person matches Trump ally Sidney Powell. Co-conspirator 4 is described as a then-Justice Department official who “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations." Other details of that person’s actions match Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump considered appointing as attorney general in the final days of his administration.
Co-conspirator 5 is described in the indictment as a lawyer who tried to implement a plan "to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding,” — a reference that appears to match Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump attorney who worked on the scheme to enact false presidential electors.
Lawyers for the uncharged co-conspirators did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
All the ketchup just hit the walls at Mar-a-Lago tonight. Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and Kenny Chesebro are all going down with him.
It will only get worse for Trump from here.
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