Closing summary
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
A special purpose grand jury in Georgia that investigated Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election for nearly two years recommended bringing criminal charges against 21 people who ultimately were not charged, including the US senator Lindsey Graham, former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, as well as the influential conservative figure Cleta Mitchell.
Senator Graham said he was “totally surprised” to learn that a special grand jury recommended he face charges in the Georgia election subversion case. Speaking after the special purpose grand jury’s final report was unsealed, Graham defended his actions which he said were “consistent” with his job as a US senator.
Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has lost his bid to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court, according to a court filing. Meadows faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer.
Former House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she will be seeking re-election in 2024. The 83-year-old Democrat’s announcement comes amid several politically delicate moments on Capitol Hill, particularly as Democrats prepare to take back control of the House of Representatives.
The trial in the New York attorney general Letitia James’ $250m civil fraud case against Donald Trump and his family business will last nearly three months, the judge presiding over the case said. Trump overstated his net worth by as much as $3.6bn between 2011 and 2021, James said in a court filing on Friday.
Supreme court justice Samuel Alito rejected calls by Senate Democrats to have him recuse from a tax case that involves an attorney who interviewed him for a newspaper article and helped him “air his personal grievances”.
A federal appeals court stopped a lower court order that required Texas to remove a line of floating buoys that were placed in the middle of the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing the US-Mexico border. The temporary stay puts on hold a ruling that would have required Texas to relocate the controversial buoys, currently near the city of Eagle Pass, to an embankment on the Texas side of the river.
US district judge Steve C Jones, rejecting Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia election interference case to federal court, wrote:
This Order addresses a relatively narrow question: Has Meadows carried his burden of demonstrating that removal of the State of Georgia’s criminal prosecution against him is proper under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)?
Having considered the arguments and evidence, the Court concludes that Meadows has not met his burden.
Updated
Judge rejects Mark Meadows' bid to move Georgia election case to federal court
Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has lost his bid to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court, according to a court filing.
Meadows faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer. But he has argued that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.
Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment last month.
Georgia report reveals jury called for criminal charges against 39 people: who are they?
A special purpose grand jury in Georgia that investigated Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election for nearly two years recommended bringing criminal charges against 39 people in total.
Only 19 people were ultimately charged last month in Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’ indictment. They are:
Donald Trump
Mark Meadows
Rudy Giuliani
John Eastman
Kenneth Chesebro
Jeffrey Clark
Jenna Ellis
Sidney Powell
Ray Smith
Robert Cheeley
David Shafer
Shawn Still
Misty Hampton
Cathy Latham
Scott Hall
Stephen Lee
Trevian Kutti
Harrison Floyd
In addition, Trump campaign official Mike Roman, who was not mentioned in the special grand jury report, was also charged.
The 21 people who the special purpose grand jury also recommended indicting but were not charged are:
David Perdue
Lindsey Graham
Kelly Loeffler
Cleta Mitchell
Michael Flynn
Boris Epshteyn
Jacki Pick
Burt Jones
Lin Wood
William Ligon
Kurt Hilbert
Alex Kaufman
Joseph Brannan
Vikki Consiglio
Carolyn Fisher
Gloria Godwin
Mark Hennessy
Mark Hennessy
John Downey
Brad Carver
CB Yadav
Trump civil fraud trial expected to take three months, says judge
The trial in the New York attorney general Letitia James’ $250m civil fraud case against Donald Trump and his family business will last nearly three months, the judge presiding over the case said.
“The trial is scheduled to begin on October 2, 2023 and to end by December 22, 2023,” judge Arthur F Engoron wrote in an order on Friday.
In the civil fraud suit, James is suing Trump, his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump and the Trump Organization alleging they had overstated their worth by billions in financial statements to banks and insurers. Trump’s net worth was exaggerated by between $1.9bn and $3.6bn, James wrote in a filing.
Earlier this week, Judge Engoron denied a Trump attempt to delay the trial which he said was “completely without merit”.
Updated
Indicting US senators could have raised constitutional questions, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. He wrote in an email:
Some of the legislators have constitutional immunity issues where they can’t be tried for actions they took in their capacity as lawmakers. So, jurors might understandably think something they did was fishy but it doesn’t rise to anything prosecutable.
“A second issue might be immunity deals or other cooperation negotiations that may have foreclosed an indictment,” he added.
And a third is practical: is there insufficient evidence or would indicting a 20th or 21st co-conspirator unnecessarily burden an efficient prosecution for little benefit in the interest of justice? Prosecutors always must use their discretion because resources and political capital are finite.
J Tom Morgan, the former district attorney in DeKalb county, which neighbors Fulton county, said that in nearly 40 years of practicing law, he had never seen a grand jury report publicly released that recommended charges without an accompanying indictment.
He said in an interview:
It kind of puts the DA in a bind that she now has to justify why these people were not indicted. Could there be special plea deals or negotiations between some of these people that she’s not ready to reveal?
Ultimately, it’s her decision and her decision alone whether to go forward with any or all of those recommendations.
He added that he believes the names of those who were not ultimately indicted should have been redacted.
“I’m not commenting on whether or not these people should be indicted. That’s for the DA to decide. But what you’ve got is a report naming all these people who should be indicted and now they’re not indicted and they have no way to defend themselves,” he added
You’ve got a grand jury saying, ‘Hey these people committed crimes. But since they’re not indicted, they don’t have a chance to prove their innocence in a court of law.
Supreme court justice Samuel Alito rejected calls by Senate Democrats to have him recuse from a tax case that involves an attorney who interviewed him for a newspaper article and helped him “air his personal grievances”.
Alito, in a statement attached to a routine order issued by the court in the case, Moore v United States, said, “There is no valid reason for my recusal in this case.” Individual justices make recusal decisions for themselves.
The Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, and nine other Democrats on the panel on 3 August sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts asking him to ensure Alito recuses in the case involving plaintiffs Charles and Kathleen Moore. One of the Moores’ attorneys, David Rivkin Jr, helped interview Alito for articles that appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section – including on 28 July when he said Congress lacks the power to regulate the court.
The senators stated:
Mr Rivkin’s access to Justice Alito and efforts to help Justice Alito air his personal grievances could cast doubt on Justice Alito’s ability to fairly discharge his duties in a case in which Mr Rivkin represents one of the parties.
Alito, one of six conservative justices on the court, said in his statement:
When Mr Rivkin participated in the interviews and co-authored the articles, he did so as a journalist, not an advocate. The case in which he is involved was never mentioned; nor did we discuss any issue in that case either directly or indirectly.
“We have no control over the attorneys whom parties select to represent them,” he added.
Updated
Ex-Georgia senator Loeffler says 'no apologies' after report reveals grand jurors voted for her indictment
Georgia’s Republican former senator Kelly Loeffler decried “a two-tiered system of justice” after the special grand jury report released today showed a majority of those on the panel believed she should face charges for her involvement in Donald Trump’s efforts to meddle in the state’s elections three years ago.
According to the report, jurors believed the Loeffler broke the law over “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”, but the vote was somewhat close: 14 jurors thought she should face charges, six disagreed, and one abstained. The former senator was ultimately not among the 19 people Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis brought charges against last month.
Here’s the statement from Loeffler, a close ally of Trump during her brief stint in the Senate, which ended after Georgia voters replaced her with Democrat Raphael Warnock the day before the January 6 insurrection:
My statement: pic.twitter.com/vkVnV83g77
— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) September 8, 2023
Loeffler was also the co-owner of the Atlanta Dream WNBA, whose players actively campaigned for Warnock’s victory.
Updated
A federal appeals court stopped a lower court order that required Texas to remove a line of floating buoys that were placed in the middle of the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing the US-Mexico border.
The temporary stay issued by the fifth circuit court of appeals puts on hold a ruling that would have required Texas to relocate the controversial buoys, currently near the city of Eagle Pass, to an embankment on the Texas side of the river.
The Wednesday ruling by federal judge David Ezra had marked a tentative win for the Biden administration after the justice department sued the state. The Biden administration had argued in a legal challenge that the barrier illegally disrupts navigation and was installed without necessary permission from the US army corps of engineers.
The stay granted by the appeals court on Friday allows the barrier to remain in the water while the legal challenge continues.
Updated
Donald Trump is seeking to move a Colorado lawsuit aimed at blocking his name from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state to federal court.
It comes after a watchdog group earlier this week sued to remove Trump from the ballot, saying he violated the constitution and is disqualified from holding future office. The lawsuit claimed the former president violated section 3 of the 14th amendment, also known as the Disqualification Clause, with his involvement in the January 6 US Capitol attack.
In a response, lawyers for Trump argued the lawsuit relies on a federal law and therefore should be handled in federal court. The filing states:
This case arises under the 14th Amendment. Although Plaintiffs have drafted their Verified Petition in a manner that ostensibly relies on state claims, in fact every state claim — indeed every effort to bar Trump from running for President — relies solely on the application of U.S. Const. 14th Amend, Sec. 3.
The lawsuit by the watchdog group filed on Wednesday marks one of the strongest challenges to Trump’s eligibility to seek re-election.
Donald Trump’s allies are reportedly worrying over his lead in the key state of Iowa, and have called for a wake-up call for the former president’s lagging operation as the stretch run to the Iowa caucuses begin.
Trump supporters are scrambling to fill roles in the campaign’s Iowa operation with more experienced hires, as they prepare for months of battle against GOP presidential opponents who have built better machinery to find and secure votes, according to a NBC report, which interviewed Trump campaign allies and state and local officials in Iowa.
One source claimed Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, worried about a lack of experience on the campaign’s Iowa team and said multiple times that they need “an adult in the room” in a phone call.
Trump Jr was concerned “that they were running from behind in getting things going, and that there was concern about that at the highest levels”, the report cited the source as saying.
A former Trump adviser in Iowa told the network the campaign’s current efforts were cause for concern and may lead to problems down the line.
I know there’s an operation. I’m hearing that there’s something going on. But it’s hard to see it.
Trump holds significant and stable leads in the polls, both nationally and in key early-voting states, including Iowa. But his closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has invested major resources and efforts in the state.
DeSantis has recruited organizing chairs in all 99 counties, which will be a force multiplier in the latter stages of the campaign, Iowa state senate president and DeSantis supporter, Amy Sinclair, told the report.
I think that former President Trump is not coming and mobilizing the people who support him. Will they even show up to a caucus? I think he’s making a bad choice.
Updated
Here are some images from the newswires of Joe Biden’s visit to New Delhi, where he met with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi after arriving in the capital today.
The two leaders held closed-door talks for nearly an hour at Modi’s residence, Reuters reported.
Trump overstated net worth by up to $3.6bn, says New York attorney general
Donald Trump overstated his net worth by as much as $3.6bn between 2011 and 2021, the attorney general of New York state said in a court filing – a $1.4bn increase on a previous filing that put the top amount at $2.2bn.
In the new filing, CNBC said, the attorney general, Letitia James, said she was “still [making] a conservative estimate” about by how much Trump’s net worth was overstated in annual financial statements.
Trump’s net worth was exaggerated by between $1.9bn and $3.6bn, the filing said.
In the civil fraud suit, James is suing Trump, his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization for $250m. The state is also seeking stringent professional penalties. Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, was dropped from the suit this year.
In the new filing on Friday, prosecutors said valuations experts arrived at the new figure for Trump’s overestimations of his worth by applying financial methods “market participants would consider when determining estimated current value”, ABC News reported.
Prosecutors added:
After factoring in these and other fundamental considerations that any informed buyer and seller in the marketplace would take into account, Mr Trump’s net worth would be further substantially reduced by between $1.9bn to $3.6bn per year, which is still a conservative estimate.
Denying wrongdoing, Trump claims political persecution by James, a Democrat. The trial is set to begin on 2 October.
Updated
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Donald Trump lashed out at the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, after a Georgia grand jury report revealed it had recommended charges for several Trump allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham.
Trump wrote:
The Georgia Grand Jury report has just been released. It has ZERO credibility and badly taints Fani Willis and this whole political Witch Hunt. Essentially, they wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time. It totally undermines the credibility of the findings, and badly hurts the Great State of Georgia, whose wonderful and patriotic people are not happy with this charade of an out of control ‘prosecutor’ doing the work of, and for, the DOJ. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
Here’s more from South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who said he was “totally surprised” to learn that a special grand jury recommended he face charges over the attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result.
Speaking to reporters, Graham defended his actions which he said were “consistent” with his job as a US senator. He said:
This is troubling for the country. We can’t criminalize senators doing their job when they have a constitutional requirement to do […] We’re opening up Pandora’s box here.
He added that he believed “the system in this country is getting off the rails. We have to be careful not to use the legal system as a political tool.”
Graham said he continued to stand by Trump, who he described as being “a handful at time, but I thought he was a good president”.
“Nothing happened. What I did was consistent with my job…But it was just not me. 3 United States senators. We're opening up Pandora's Box.”
— The Recount (@therecount) September 8, 2023
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reacts to a grand jury report that recommended he be charged for his role in Georgia election interference pic.twitter.com/AGoHPqgc9y
Updated
While we’re on the subject of Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor has reportedly been unhappy with a powerful operative at the center of his 2024 presidential effort.
DeSantis has privately complained about Jeff Roe, a lead strategist at his Super Pac Never Back Down, sources told the Washington Post in a story published today.
The GOP presidential hopeful was also “apoplectic” after a pre-debate strategy memo was posted on a website of Roe’s firm, Axiom, the report said. The memo, which was posted ahead of the first GOP primary debate last month, revealed DeSantis was advised to not attack Donald Trump and to “take a sledgehammer” to Vivek Ramaswamy.
The report goes on:
Top DeSantis aides have said they regret the extent of Roe’s influence over DeSantis’s 2024 operation, according to a person familiar with the comments, and several other people echoed that some campaign staff and donors have been upset with Roe, particularly after the debate memo and leaked recordings of a donor briefing by Roe and other super PAC officials held the day of the debate in Milwaukee.
A Super Pac backing Ron DeSantis for the GOP presidential nomination used the Florida governor’s controversial promise to leave suspected drug traffickers “stone-cold dead” at the US-Mexico border in a new ad.
DeSantis has faced fierce criticism for using violent language about illegal immigration during his campaign, and in an August interview vowed “to authorize the use of deadly force against the cartels”.
The new advert by DeSantis’s Super Pac uses a clip from the Florida governor’s talking points in which he discusses what his administration would do to suspected drug traffickers who cross the border:
We’re going to use force and we’re going to leave them stone cold dead, no excuses. We will get the job done.
a DeSantis PAC is now using his "stone cold dead" line in an ad pic.twitter.com/tnU735u48u
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2023
Updated
The day so far
A report authored by the special grand jury tasked with investigating Donald Trump and his allies’ attempts to disrupt Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia was released, and offered new details of the steps that led Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis to charge the ex-president and 18 others with racketeering-related crimes last month. In particular, the report revealed that the panel recommended charges against 20 additional people, including Georgia’s former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and the senator Lindsey Graham, who currently represents South Carolina. He commented briefly on the report, saying he was “totally surprised” by their conclusion.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Nancy Pelosi said she will run for another two-year term in the House, ending speculation over whether the veteran San Francisco lawmaker would remain after stepping down as the chamber’s top Democrat.
Ron DeSantis went out of his way to insult an audience member who accused him of policies that put Black people at risk.
Joe Biden toured the renovated White House situation room before heading to India to meet with the leaders of G20 countries.
Updated
Graham says 'totally surprised' by special grand jury charging recommendation in Georgia election subversion case - report
South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham says he was “totally surprised” to learn that a special grand jury recommended he face charges over the attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia, HuffPost reports:
Graham says he was "totally surprised" by grand jury recommendation he be charged in 2020 election case.
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 8, 2023
"It's over for me. You had 3 US senators caught up in this special grand jury, again, you gotta be careful where we go as a nation here," he says in SC
Graham on call with Raffensberger: "I thought I made it pretty clear my phone call was about what I should be doing as a senator..I never said anything other than trying to find how the mail-in ballot system worked."
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 8, 2023
"I did my job, I wouldn't change anything I did"
Graham was ultimately not named when Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis last month unveiled a racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 co-defendants.
Just yesterday, Politico published a lengthy article on Nancy Pelosi’s future, which opens with the House veteran and fixture of San Francisco politics dodging questions about whether they’ll seek another term:
Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi was riding through Chinatown here last month when she seemed to make the case for why she should run again and extend her emeritus status another term.
We were discussing her ailing colleague and Pacific Heights neighbor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and how Feinstein’s pending retirement would shape Pelosi’s thinking — namely whether the ailing city they’ve both represented for over three decades could afford for them to leave Congress at the same time.
“I don’t know,” Pelosi said with a chuckle, “everybody has an opinion, you can be sure.” Then she tried to change the subject, but unintentionally found a metaphor. “There’s Nancy’s Fashion right there and it’s closed,” she said, pointing out the window of her Capitol Police Suburban toward a once-familiar storefront on Stockton Street.
I tried again and seemed to have more success.
“Well let’s just go back about six years and we had Dianne, we had Barbara, we had Jackie Speier, now Jackie is gone, so we’ll see,” Pelosi said, laying out the rationale for another run by invoking the three veteran Bay-area lawmakers who’ve retired or are retiring: Feinstein, former Sen. Barbara Boxer, who stepped down in 2017, and former Rep. Jackie Speier, who left Congress at the start of this year.
It was a striking moment of candor, when the text of our conversation (Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco) finally met the subtext of it (Nancy Pelosi’s future in San Francisco).
Yet it was only a moment. Pelosi grew characteristically elusive again — and harder to believe. “I haven’t been thinking much about it — yet,” she said, “but I will. When I need to, I will.”
Just over 24 hours after the piece was published, Pelosi announced that she would indeed run again.
I just spoke with J Tom Morgan, a former district attorney in DeKalb county, Georgia, about the special purpose grand jury’s report that was issued today.
He told me that in 40 years, he’s never seen a publicly released special grand jury report like it, one that recommended charges without an indictment.
“It kind of puts the DA in a bind that she now has to justify why these people were not indicted. Could there be special plea deals or negotiations between some of these people that she’s not ready to reveal?,” he told me. “Ultimately, it’s her decision and her decision alone whether to go forward with any or all of those recommendations.”
Morgan added that he believes the names of those who weren’t ultimately indicted should have been redacted.
“I’m not commenting on whether or not these people should be indicted. That’s for the DA to decide. But what you’ve got is a report naming all these people who should be indicted and now they’re not indicted and they have no way to defend themselves,” he added.
“You’ve got a grand jury saying ‘hey these people committed crimes. But since they’re not indicted, they don’t have a chance to prove their innocence in a court of law.”
Updated
Here’s Nancy Pelosi’s tweet announcing her intention to stand for another two-year term in the House:
Now more than ever our City needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery. Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for ALL. That is why I am running for reelection — and respectfully ask for your vote.…
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) September 8, 2023
Pelosi represents heavily Democratic San Francisco, and is unlikely to have any trouble winning the general election.
Democrats hope to retake control from the GOP in next year’s election, where Republicans will be defending their slim control of the House. Pelosi, however, has handed over duties as her party’s leader to New York’s Hakeem Jeffries who, as minority leader, is positioned to be House speaker if the Democrats retake the majority.
Pelosi says she will run for another term in House - reports
Democratic former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says she will stand for re-election in the House of Representatives, according to media reports.
Confirmed: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today she’s running for another term in Congress, her office tells @Axios
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) September 8, 2023
Pelosi, 83, has represented San Francisco since 1987, and served as House speaker from 2007 to 2011, and from 2019 till the start of this year, the first woman ever to hold the position, which is second in line to the presidency.
She has remained in the chamber as speaker emerita after Kevin McCarthy and his Republican majority took office in January, and it had been unclear if she would seek another two-year term in the House.
Back on the presidential campaign trail, Ron DeSantis has often dodged questions about abortion, but as the Guardian’s Ava Sasani reports, Florida’s supreme court, dominated by judges he appointed, is hearing a case that could dramatically curtail access to the procedure in the state:
The Florida supreme court on Friday will hear arguments in a case that could drastically limit abortion access in the south-eastern United States.
Abortion providers in Florida filed a lawsuit to block the state’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
If the state’s high court upholds the 15-week ban, a separate, stricter law would take effect prohibiting abortion after six weeks, before most people know they are pregnant.
“It would be devastating for providers to have to turn even more folks away under a six-week ban,” said Whitney White, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “They’re already having to turn away patients under the current 15-week ban.”
Friday’s hearing is the culmination of Republican efforts to end Florida’s legacy as a safe haven for abortion seekers in neighboring states. Five of the seven justices on the current state supreme court were selected by the conservative governor, Ron DeSantis, fueling the concerns of Floridians who support abortion access.
After signing the six-week trigger ban into effect in April, Governor DeSantis said in a brief statement that he was “proud to support life and family in the state of Florida”. The Florida governor has been hesitant to discuss abortion on the campaign trial.
Here’s more from the Guardian’s Sam Levine on what we learned from the full report of the Georgia special grand jury tasked with investigating the attempt to overturn the state’s 2020 election results:
A special purpose grand jury in Georgia that investigated Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election for nearly two years recommended bringing criminal charges against several people who ultimately were not charged, including US senator Lindsey Graham, former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, as well as the influential conservative figure Cleta Mitchell.
Those recommendations were revealed on Friday when the special purpose grand jury’s final report was unsealed. A regular grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election last month. Those charged include Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and the former Georgia Republican party chairman David Shafer.
The special purpose grand jury recommended bringing charges against Graham, Perdue and Loeffler “with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election with efforts focused on Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia”.
Graham, a key Trump ally in the Senate, called Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger after the election and inquired about tossing aside legally cast mail-in ballots. Perdue reportedly pushed Georgia governor Brian Kemp to call a special session of the Georgia legislature in order to overturn the election results. Loeffler initially said she would vote against certification of Biden’s win in the US Senate before reversing course after the January 6 riot and voting in favor of certification.
Mitchell, who remains an influential figure on the right today, was on the infamous January 2021 phone call in which Trump asked Raffensperger to find votes in his favor. The special purpose grand jury unanimously recommended indicting her under several Georgia statutes.
The special purpose grand jury also recommended indicting Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and Boris Epshteyn, who remains a top Trump aide.
Updated
All told, the special grand jurors in Georgia recommended charges against 39 people for trying to overturn the state’s elections, but Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s indictment only targeted 19 people, Donald Trump among them.
Among those who were named in the report, but not charged:
Cleta Mitchell, a rightwing lawyer who has lately been calling on Republicans to find ways to keep college students away from the polls and crack down on same-day voter registration and absentee voting.
Boris Epshteyn, who has simultaneously been working as an attorney for Trump and an advisor to his campaign.
Michael Flynn, a former national security advisor who is now spending his time training rightwing poll workers.
David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were Georgia’s Republican senators, until both were ousted from office by the Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in elections held the day before the January 6 insurrection.
The special grand jury in Fulton county recommended that Perdue be charged “over the persistent, repeated communications directed to multiple Georgia officials and employees between November of 2020 and January of 2021” – the period when Donald Trump was trying to overturn his election loss. The vote was 16 jurors in favor, one against, and one abstention.
The jurors also recommended charges against both Loeffler and Perdue for “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”. However there was more dissent on this count. For Perdue, the vote was 17 in favor and four against, while for Loeffler, the vote was 14 in favor, 6 against, and one abstention.
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis ultimately did not indict either of the former lawmakers.
Updated
Lindsey Graham’s name appeared early as Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in the White House began shortly after his re-election defeat in November 2020.
Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger told the press that the South Carolina senator had called him to ask if it was possible to throw away mail-in ballots in counties crucial to Joe Biden’s win in Georgia. From the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino’s report at the time:
Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has said that Senator Lindsey Graham asked whether it was possible to invalidate legally cast ballots after Donald Trump was narrowly defeated in the state.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Raffensperger said that his fellow Republican, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, questioned him about the state’s signature-matching law and asked whether political bias might have played a role in counties where poll workers accepted higher rates of mismatched signatures. According to Raffensperger, Graham then asked whether he had the authority to toss out all mail-in ballots in these counties.
Raffensperger was reportedly “stunned” by the question, in which Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to throw out legally cast absentee ballots.
“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.
Graham confirmed the conversation to reporters on Capitol Hill but said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that he pressured Raffensperger to throw out legally cast absentee ballots. According to Graham, he only wanted to learn more about the process for verifying signatures, because what happens in Georgia “affects the whole nation”.
“I thought it was a good conversation,” Graham said on Monday after the interview was published. “I’m surprised to hear he characterized it that way.”
Trump has refused to accept results showing Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, falsely blaming rampant fraud and irregularities that election officials in both parties have dismissed as meritless.
Georgia special grand jury recommended charging Lindsey Graham and former US senators
The special grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results recommended bringing charges against the state’s former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as well as the current South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.
None of the three were named in the indictment Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis unveiled last month, which targeted Donald Trump and 18 others with racketeering charges related to their attempt to stop Joe Biden from collecting Georgia’s electoral votes despite his victory there.
According to the report, the jurors recommended the three senators be charged over “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.
Updated
Special grand jury's report in Georgia election subversion case released
The full report of the special grand jury whose investigation led to the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result has been released.
We’re digging into it and will let you know what it says.
The special grand jury report that was used in the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others in Georgia for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results is expected to be released any minute now.
While parts of it have already been unsealed, we will finally be getting a look at the full report by the jurors empaneled by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis. There are two main pieces of news expected from the report:
Whether the grand jurors recommended charges be brought against people who Willis ultimately opted not to pursue.
The vote counts for each person the jurors said should be indicted, and whether there were any significant splits within the panel.
Yesterday, Ron DeSantis had a testy exchange with an audience member who accused the Republican governor of backing policies in Florida that enabled violence against Black people – such as last month’s shooting by a racist gunman in Jacksonville:
“You have allowed people to hunt people like me”:
— The Recount (@therecount) September 7, 2023
A Black audience member gets into a back and forth with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) at a Jacksonville news conference after questioning state policies he says have led to violence against Black people. pic.twitter.com/7G99npsvZ8
Clearly smarting over the exchange, DeSantis later went on Fox News to call the questioner a “nutjob”:
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on critic at news conference who said his policies have led to violence against Black people:
— The Recount (@therecount) September 8, 2023
“We can have disagreements on issues ... be heated on issues. But to take some nutjob and to try to act like we were a part of that is absolutely absurd.” pic.twitter.com/M5wfO8gwLO
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While Joe Biden is in India for a meeting of G20 leaders, Republicans angling to replace him next year are continuing their campaigns, including Ron DeSantis – who may have done himself more harm than good by skipping a meeting with the president after a hurricane struck Florida. Here’s the story, from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe:
One reality of Florida politics is that a bad hurricane for the state traditionally blows good fortune for its governor. It was true for Rick Scott, elected a senator in November 2018, one month after guiding Florida through Category 5 Hurricane Michael; and again for Ron DeSantis, whose landslide re-election last year followed his much-praised handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
This year, however, DeSantis is struggling to shake the dark clouds of Hurricane Idalia, as his return to the national stage to try to rescue his flailing presidential campaign after an 11-day break has been further scarred by his “petty and small” snub of Joe Biden’s visit to Florida last weekend to survey the storm’s damage.
Opponents seized on it as a partisan politicization of a climate disaster, contrasting the Republican Florida governor’s approach to a year ago after Ian, when DeSantis and Biden put their differences aside to praise each other and tour the worst-affected areas with their respective first ladies.
“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and a rival for the Republican presidential nomination, told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade.
“You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job,” added Christie, who was applauded by Democrats and savaged by Republicans for working closely with Barack Obama after superstorm Sandy mauled his state in 2012.
The Twitter/X account of Joe Biden, who is currently flying on Air Force One to New Delhi for a summit of G20 nations, just released video showing him touring the renovated situation room.
That’s the space in the White House where the president goes to handle emergencies or highly sensitive operations:
Folks, the newly renovated White House Situation Room is up and running.
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 8, 2023
My thanks to everyone who worked on this incredible facility. pic.twitter.com/81sEvKV5Ma
Perhaps the most famous appearance of a president in the situation room is Barack Obama’s from 1 May 2011, as he watched US soldiers kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. His photographer Pete Souza captured the scene:
Yesterday, Donald Trump indicated he may ask that his trial in the Georgia election subversion case be moved to federal court, which the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported could have a number of advantages for the former president:
Donald Trump’s lead defense lawyer notified a judge in Fulton county on Thursday that he could soon seek to remove to federal court the racketeering prosecution charging him with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
The unusual filing, submitted to the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee, said only that the former president “may seek removal of his prosecution”, stopping short of submitting a formal motion to transfer the trial venue.
Trump has been weighing for weeks whether to seek removal to federal court and, according to two people familiar with deliberations, is expected to make a decision based on whether his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his own effort.
The idea with waiting on a decision in the Meadows case, the people said, is to use him as a test. If Meadows is successful in transferring to federal court, the Trump legal team is intending to repurpose the same arguments and follow a similar strategy.
To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level.
The rationale to seek removal to federal court is seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.
Report could offer more details of investigation that led to Trump's indictment in Georgia
The Georgia special grand jury report that is expected to be released at 10am ET today could reveal whether the investigative panel thought anyone else besides Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants should face charges for meddling in the state’s election result three years ago.
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis convened the panel and used its subpoena power to compel witness testimony, and portions of its final report have already been released. The special grand jury did not indict Trump – that was done by one of the regular grand juries she convened in August.
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Georgia grand jury report on election subversion case to be released
Good morning, US politics live blog readers. It’s going to be another big Friday in one of the criminal cases against Donald Trump, while US president Joe Biden is in India for G20 and a crucial bilateral with the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Here’s some of what’s ahead:
The report of the special grand jury in Georgia that investigated Trump in the election subversion case – where the now-former president attempted to overturn the 2020 election in the swing state – is expected to be unsealed today.
Biden is due to touch down in New Delhi, India, in under two hours, a day before the start of the G20 summit there. He and Modi will hold a bilateral meeting shortly after the US president arrives. The specter of Russia’s war in Ukraine looms over the event.
Speaking of criminal cases against former US presidents, on this day 49 years ago Republican president Gerald Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former president Richard Nixon covering his entire term in office, the AP notes.
Trump will attend a rally tonight in South Dakota and the state’s rightwing governor Kristi Noem is expected to endorse his run for the 2024 Republican nomination for the White House. Noem is considered a vice-presidential hopeful.
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