When Michigan’s 16 fake electors were charged with multiple felonies Tuesday, it marked the first time any member of a state’s sham elector slate faced criminal prosecution. It might not be the last.
The charges against the fake electors in Michigan on Tuesday underscored the legal peril for some members of the Georgia phony slate as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis nears her decision on whether to seek charges against former President Donald Trump and his allies.
At least eight of Georgia’s fake electors have accepted immunity deals in exchange for cooperating with investigators. Willis can’t pursue charges against another, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, due to a potential conflict of interest.
But others could still be in hot water, most notably former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer, who helped orchestrate the sham Trump slate, well after Trump lost the state. Shafer has long maintained the group did nothing wrong and was simply working to “preserve” Trump’s rights.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she reopened the state investigation based on new documents released by the U.S. House committee that investigated the violent Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
A state affidavit shows how Michigan fake electors were “asked to keep silent” about the plot and take other steps to keep the meeting secret.
That echoes what took place in Georgia, where the fake electors were told to act with “complete discretion in this process” and to mislead state Capitol security guards and the news media, who learned about the meeting anyway.
It’s doubtful that Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr is considering a similar step as Michigan’s, particularly with Willis’ office on the verge of its announcement. We reached out to the Republican Carr for comment, and his spokeswoman politely declined.
Meanwhile, our AJC colleague James Salzer reported that newly filed campaign disclosures show the state GOP has already paid $600,000 in legal fees this year, including money spent defending the fake electors. The sum is expected to grow.
“I’d imagine the breaking news that fake electors are being charged in Michigan could lead to more GOP legal fees here in Georgia,” quipped Democratic state Sen. Elena Parent of Atlanta.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
LISTEN UP. The AJC’s Tamar Hallerman joins the Politically Georgia podcast this morning to get us up to speed on the breaking legal developments in former President Donald Trump’s cases, from special counsel Jack Smith’s January 6th investigation to Michigan’s new elector charges, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ looming decision.
Later, our Washington Insider Tia Mitchell helps break down the latest federal financial disclosures to see who’s raising a bundle and who’s not.
Listen at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.
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STATE FARM FOOTAGE. Speaking of the Jack Smith investigation, Tamar Hallerman has an exclusive report this morning that federal investigators in that probe sought surveillance video from Atlanta’s State Farm Arena from election night on Nov. 3, 2020.
That is the video that captured Fulton County election workers counting ballots late into the evening. Former President Donald Trump and his allies have wrongly said it shows workers hiding fake ballots “in suitcases.” In reality, the video shows the ballots, which were real, being stored in official ballot storage containers.
Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The footage also features election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who testified to the House Select Committee on January 6th that Trump’s lies about them based on the video had destroyed their lives and livelihoods.
The Georgia Elections Board recently dismissed Trump allies’ charges of election fraud against Freeman and Moss, declaring the allegations “false and unsubstantiated.”
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Credit: Zurab Kurtsikidze via AP
Credit: Zurab Kurtsikidze via AP
PAYBACK? Tucked into a blizzard of recent Gov. Brian Kemp executive orders was a brief one-page notice that ousted a longtime political powerbroker from the board of the Department of Natural Resources.
The governor’s July 6 order ruled that Nick Ayers can no longer sit on the board because the law allows only two members from each congressional district. With recent redrawing of the political map, the board had three members from Atlanta’s 5th Congressional District.
The order does not specify how Ayers was chosen over the other two members for removal. But he infuriated Kemp World in 2022 for his close allegiance to former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, whose Donald Trump-backed primary challenge of the governor went down in a 52-point defeat and left plenty of friendships in the rubble.
Shed no tears for Ayers, who was also chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence and an adviser to Sonny Perdue, Trump and plenty of other prominent GOP movers-and-shakers.
Ayers recently co-founded EveryLife, which bills itself as an anti-abortion diaper maker. And he’s on the board of EveryLife’s parent company, PublicSq. The online marketplace for conservative-friendly “patriotic businesses” inked a sponsorship deal with Tucker Carlson earlier this week.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
WHAT SHE SAID. We told you in Monday’s Jolt that U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had delivered a fiery speech at last weekend’s Turning Point Action conference where she railed against President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.
Well, Biden took notice, too, and he liked what he heard.
The president cut an ad that edited portions of Greene’s speech, turning her intended digs into a celebration of his achievements in office.
“I approve this message,” Biden said in a tweet with the spot attached, which quickly raked up tens of millions of views.
The Rome Republican responded to Biden by posting a different clip from her same speech where she accused him of “killing the American dream.”
“This is really what Joe Biden approves,” she wrote.
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JILL BIDEN IN GEORGIA. First lady Jill Biden visited Augusta Technical College on Tuesday to tout “Bidenomics” and make the case that President Joe Biden’s economic agenda is supporting blue collar communities across the country.
“He understands the middle class, because he’s from the middle class,” Jill Biden said of her husband. “And that’s why he’s strengthening communities like Augusta.”
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
The White House named Augusta as one of five “workforce hubs” across the country, a designation for communities capable of training advanced manufacturing and clean energy workers, the AJC’s Zachary Hansen tells us.
It’s no surprise a Georgia city made the list, given the wave of electric vehicle investment here and Georgia’s swing-state status. The White House often notes that companies have committed $33 billion in investments across the state during the Biden-Harris Administration, most of which relates to the EV ecosystem.
But Gov. Brian Kemp argues that those investments were in the works long before Biden was president and if anyone deserves credit, it’s Republicans and their policies, not Democratic green energy credits. Kemp argues those incentives and the flush of federal cash from Washington are picking economic “winners and losers.”
The first lady on Tuesday also made stops at workforce hubs in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- Israeli President Isaac Herzog will deliver a speech during a joint meeting of Congress.
- The U.S. House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing hearing on the IRS’s tax treatment of Hunter Biden.
- The Senate could take votes to advance the National Defense Authorization Act.
- President Joe Biden will host the annual congressional picnic at the White House for lawmakers and their families.
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Credit: YouTube
Credit: YouTube
TRANSGENDER CARE TRIAL. A federal judge has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 10 to determine whether she’ll temporarily block a state law that bans doctors from providing certain treatments to transgender minors.
U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty held a brief scheduling hearing earlier this month after several families of transgender minors filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s new law, saying it takes away the rights of parents to make health care decisions for their children.
The law took effect July 1.
Geraghty asked attorneys on both sides of the issue to work together to come up with a reasonable timetable for the trial.
Georgia’s law, Senate Bill 140, bans health care professionals from giving hormones like estrogen and testosterone to transgender minors. Doctors also are not allowed to perform surgeries on children seeking to align with their gender identity.
Federal judges have stopped similar laws from taking effect in other states, including Alabama and Florida, while the cases make their way through the court process.
Attorneys representing the families had asked the judge to stop the law from taking effect when they filed the lawsuit less than two days before its effective date.
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Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. A lesson we stress here at The Jolt is that yes, we can all get along.
So on that note, it’s time to meet Balto (left) and Itsy Romman, two of the four four-legged friends who live with state Rep. Ruwa Romman, D-Duluth. Reilly, a fluffy white Samoyed dog and Olive, another cat, round out the group but are not pictured here.
When they aren’t waiting for Romman to come home from the Capitol, they are either flopping on the ground for treats, walking on her keyboard, barking at strangers or sunbathing. But no matter their differences, they all agree that Romman is their person.
Send us your dogs of any political persuasion and cats on a cat-by-cat basis to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
