Category Archives: Georgia

Mark Meadows testifies in bid to move Georgia election case to federal court

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Trump’s White House chief of staff argues he acted in capacity as federal officer and that case should be moved to federal court

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, has testified for nearly three hours in a hearing to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court on Monday.

Meadows was charged alongside Trump and 17 other defendants for conspiring to subvert the 2020 election in a Georgia superior court. He faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer.

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Biden jokes Trump is ‘handsome guy’ after being asked about mugshot; Harrison Floyd denied bail – as it happened

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This blog has now closed

Mugshots define eras.

Bugsy Siegel peering malevolently from beneath his fedora in a 1928 booking photo summed up the perverse romance of gangsters in the prohibition age.

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Trump ‘shakes up legal team’ before surrender; Meadows booked at Georgia jail – live

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Ex-president changes lawyers hours before being expected in Georgia; Mark Meadows surrenders after agreeing $100,000 bond payment

Full report: Trump ‘shakes up legal team hours before surrender’

In a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they think the climate change is a major factor in the extreme heat that the US has experienced recently, compared with 85% of those who lean Democratic. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Americans who experienced extremely hot days said climate change was a major factor.

Young Republican voters, however, seem increasingly concerned about the climate crisis. A 2022 Pew poll found that 73% of Republicans aged 18-39 thought climate change was an extremely/very or somewhat serious issue.

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Trump to surrender at Georgia jail on charges he sought to overturn 2020 election

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Fulton county prosecution is the fourth criminal case against Trump since March, and booking is expected to include a mugshot

Donald Trump was expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, yielding to the criminal justice process in Georgia that will involve him being processed like any other defendant.

The former president’s arrival in Georgia follows a presidential debate featuring his main rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, a race in which Trump remains the overwhelmingly dominant frontrunner despite his many legal troubles.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘My name is on a list’ of Trump vice-president picks

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Far-right congresswoman from Georgia tells the Guardian she ‘would be honored’ if chosen for the role

Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia “knows” her name is “on a list” of possible picks as vice-president to Donald Trump should he win the Republican nomination next year, the far-right congresswoman and conspiracy theorist told the Guardian on Wednesday.

“I’d have to think about it and consider it,” Greene said, in Milwaukee ahead of the first Republican presidential debate.

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Rudy Giuliani surrenders at Georgia jail in Trump election subversion case

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Giuliani’s surrender on racketeering charges marks a low point for the former prosecutor who made a name with racketeering cases

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, surrendered to authorities at the Fulton county jail on Wednesday on charges that he helped lead a racketeering enterprise and conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.

The surrender in Atlanta marks a jarring moment for Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor who made his name with aggressive racketeering cases, now facing a racketeering charge himself.

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Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows asks judge to block his arrest in Georgia

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Former White House chief of staff is among 19 defendants charged in the Georgia election interference case

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, has asked a federal court to block his arrest in an emergency motion, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.

Meadows, a named defendant in the sweeping election interference case against Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton county, Georgia, has requested the case be moved to federal court, saying the charges concern his actions as an officer of the federal government.

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Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows seeks emergency order to protect him from arrest in Georgia – as it happened

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The Fulton county district attorney has advised several of Donald Trump’s co-defendants that they should surrender at the jail around 3am ET if they want a quick turnaround on their booking because it could take hours during the day, per people familiar.

Expect some surrenders in early hours.

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Georgia sheriff pleads guilty to groping TV judge

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Kristopher Coody pleads guilty to sexual battery over groping of Glenda Hatchett last year and sentenced to year on probation

A Georgia sheriff pleaded guilty on Monday to groping TV judge Glenda Hatchett, who recalled being so stunned that she froze when the lawman grabbed and squeezed her breast at a hotel bar last year during a law enforcement conference.

Bleckley county sheriff Kristopher Coody pleaded guilty in Cobb county state court to a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery and was sentenced to a year on probation, news outlets reported. He also resigned from the office he had held since 2017.

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‘It baffles me’: what drew a mild lawyer with a liberal past into Trump’s election plot?

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Kenneth Chesebro – low-profile, bright, seemingly decent – is not your average Trump guy. So how did he become the architect of the election subversion scandal?

One individual stands out among the 18 Donald Trump acolytes who were indicted in Georgia this week over their participation in the former president’s alleged racketeering enterprise to overturn the 2020 election.

He is distinct not for his chutzpah and braggadocio – those qualities are trademarked by Trump. Instead he stands out for the opposite characteristics: his demure, scholarly demeanor that has left those who have known him utterly baffled by his eruption from a left-leaning attorney working in relative obscurity into a key figure in the glaring lights of a historic criminal prosecution.

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Georgia school board fires teacher who read book on gender fluidity to class

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Vote on party lines punished Katie Rinderle for reading book to her fifth-grade class in violation of vaguely worded policy

A Georgia school board voted along party lines on Thursday to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth-grade class.

The Cobb county school board in suburban Atlanta voted 4-3 to fire Katie Rinderle, overriding the recommendation of a panel of three retired educators. The panel found after a two-day hearing that Rinderle had violated district policies but said she should not be fired.

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Georgia steps up investigation into threats against Trump grand jurors

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Private information about members of grand jury that indicted former president has been published online

Law enforcement officials in the US state of Georgia were on Friday intensifying their investigations into threats targeting members of the grand jury that indicted former president Donald Trump and 18 of his allies earlier this month, after private information about jurors was published online.

The Fulton county sheriff’s office announced that it was “aware that personal information of members of the Fulton county grand jury is being shared on various platforms” and was working to track down the origins of the threats in Fulton county, where Atlanta is located, and other jurisdictions.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

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Names and addresses of Georgia grand jurors posted on rightwing websites

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Sheriff’s office said investigators are working with local, state and federal agencies to track down origins of threats in Fulton county

Law enforcement officials in Georgia said they’re investigating threats targeting members of the grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies, after private information about jurors was published online.

On Thursday, the Fulton county sheriff’s office announced that it is “aware that personal information of members of the Fulton county grand jury is being shared on various platforms”.

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Trump indictment sparks fears of calls to violence as Georgia grand jury doxxed – as it happened

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This blog is now closed, but continuing coverage of Trump’s Georgia indictment can be found here and here.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dismissed the suggestion that she is running in the 2024 GOP presidential race in order to become the vice president.

In an interview with Politico, Haley said:

I think everybody that says, ‘She’s doing this to be vice president,’ needs to understand I don’t run for second.

That’s something that I hear all the time, and I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it.

Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.

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Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows files to move Fulton county election case to federal court – as it happened

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This live blog has closed. Read our analysis of the Georgia indictment here

After Joe Biden won the presidential race, Donald Trump and his associates immediately went to work challenging the legitimacy of the election results, as special counsel Jack Smith outlined in his own indictment filed earlier this month.

After dozens of his election lawsuits failed, Trump then attempted to pressure state leaders to overturn Biden’s wins in key battleground states.

This indictment should serve as a warning to future anti-voter politicians that the will and voices of Georgia voters cannot be silenced, and there is no place for election-denying conspiracy theorists in our democracy.

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Georgia indictment lays out Trump election plot in all its shocking detail

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Charging document, staggering in its breadth and ambition of its charges, may represent greatest legal peril for ex-president to date

There’s no other way to say it: the 98-page indictment handed down by a Fulton county grand jury on Monday represents the most aggressive effort to hold Donald Trump and allies accountable for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The document is staggering in its breadth and the ambition of its charges. The 41 counts of crimes in it, including 13 against Trump, detail the lies the former president and his co-defendants told the public about fraud to try and keep him in power. It doesn’t back away from charging Trump’s attorneys and inner circle with crimes for coordinating a plan to create slates of fake electors and to stop Congress from counting votes. Some of the state’s 16 fake electors themselves also face charges. And it also casts a wide net, not letting those who breached voting equipment and intimidated poll workers off the hook.

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Governor Brian Kemp tells Trump Georgia’s 2020 election ‘was not stolen’

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Republican says no one has produced evidence of fraud in court of law despite ex-president’s vow to present ‘irrefutable’ proof

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, insisted on Tuesday that the 2020 presidential election in his state “was not stolen” in an apparent defense of the latest criminal indictment of Donald Trump.

Kemp, who has clashed frequently with the former president over his false claim the election was rigged, responded on Twitter to an earlier post on Truth Social from Trump announcing a press conference next week at which he promised to present “irrefutable” evidence of fraud.

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Trump election investigation: Georgia grand jury witnesses called early as prosecutors ‘moving faster’ than expected – live

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Former Georgia Lt Gov Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi to testify on Monday; court publishes then removes docket of charges against Trump

Twice impeached and now arrested and indicted three times. Donald Trump faces serious criminal charges in New York, Florida and Washington over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

As Trump prepares for those cases to go to trial, the former president is simultaneously reeling from a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation toward writer E Jean Carroll. A New York jury awarded Carroll, who accused Trump of assaulting her in 1996, $5m in damages.

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Election-interference charges loom for Trump as docket posted then removed

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Georgia court appears to publish then take down key document, while ex-president lashes out against perceived persecutors

The indictment of Donald Trump over his attempted election subversion in Georgia loomed closer on Monday amid an apparent false alarm about charges being filed and a series of angry statements from the former president punctuating a day of prosecution presentations in court.

At about midday, a two-page docket report posted to the Fulton county court website indicated charges against Trump including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements. The appearance of the report set off a flurry of news media activity, but then the document vanished.

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Georgia DA summons former lawmaker and journalist in Trump election inquiry

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Fani Willis’s office will have former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi testify before a grand jury

The office of the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has issued summonses to former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and journalist George Chidi to testify before a grand jury on Tuesday regarding Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in that state.

The announcement of the summonses confirmed previous reporting by the Guardian that Willis’s office in Atlanta on Tuesday would present evidence to a grand jury weighing charges against the former president. Prosecutors could ask the grand jury to hand up charges on Tuesday as well, having completed an internal review of evidence in the case weeks ago.

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