  Friday, August 25, 2023

TODD ZWILLICH

Deputy DC Bureau Chief, VICE News

Washington, D.C. Bureau
@toddzwillich

Former U.S. President Donald Trump poses for his booking photo at the Fulton County Jail on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. (Fulton County Sheriff's Office / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Glower power

There's a ton of movement on the criminal indictments of Donald Trump and his many co-conspirators, including but not limited to the movement of his very-oversized-for-the-cameras motorcade to the Fulton County Jail for processing last night. I want to get right to the big developments from Fulton, Mar-a-Lago, and DC, so just a brief word on where we're at:

Republicans with institutional power in the House are once again attempting to interfere in a criminal indictment. Republicans with messaging power are once again threatening civil war if Trump is held accountable.

Republican base voters who've been indoctrinated by Trump's claims of victimization will tolerate no substantive discussion of the merits of the cases against Trump, nor the potential political liability he—and they—represent to their party.

That blinkered demand all but guarantees the right will be blindsided when general election voters very much care about the charges, and any guilty verdicts that might follow. Which in turn will make them all the more eager for Trump, aka booking number P01135809, to lie to them about what went wrong.

Enough of that… let's get down to cases.

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WHAT'S HAPPENING

Personal news: I'll be a guest on PBS's Washington Week this eve, talking indictments and the GOP primary debate. Tune in!

Also, I guest-hosted 1A on NPR on Monday and Tuesday and the talk was right over Breaking the Vote's plate. Check out the shows for really good discussions about the Georgia indictments and the role of cable news in forming and deforming our democracy. If you're here because you heard about the newsletter on the air, welcome! We accept you, one of us!

BREAKING THE VOTE LAW

Motional intelligence

Two big hearings in Trump indictment world are coming up Monday. In the Fulton County indictment, Mark Meadows goes before a judge in his attempt to remove his case to federal court. Meadows, along with Jeffrey Clark (of "make me AG and I'll use DOJ to help you lie about the election" repute), tried to get out of arrest and booking this week by claiming his federal status exempted him from Fulton County's criminal procedures. Both guys were denied.

The hearing is a big deal because it could signal whether Meadows, Clark, and especially Trump might succeed in moving their cases to more favorable jury pools in the federal Northern District of Georgia. But it could also give us a glimpse of some of the evidence Fani Willis plans to use against Meadows for his part in the alleged conspiracy.

Georgia Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger and three other witnesses are subpoenaed to appear at Monday's evidentiary hearing, so we're bound to hear a lot about the Jan 2, 2021 phone call ("I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have"), which Meadows facilitated. At issue: Was any of this in Mark Meadows' scope of work as a federal employee, or was he just a guy doing illegal things to advance his boss's personal political interests?

Also on Monday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan holds a scheduling hearing to set a trial date in the four-count federal coup case against Trump. Jack Smith has requested a January 2, 2024 trial date. Trump's lawyers countered with a proposed April, 2026 date—aka safely in Trump self-pardon territory.

Fulton prison blues

There was a lot to take in during the cavalcade of co-conspirators getting booked at the Fulton County Jail on Rice St. The most remarkable for me, besides Trump, was Rudy Guiliani. What started just four days after the 2020 election with a conspiracy-filled press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, across from a sex shop in North Philly, ended at A 2nd Chance Bail Bonds next to the jail, where Rudy and his eight-times-a-felon buddy Bernie Kerick stepped in for a bail bond after Rudy's arrest and mugshot. The how-it-started, how-it's-going of it all just really hits you.

Just Security keeps hitting home runs in keeping all the charges straight, including this super-helpful quick-reference guide on who's charged with what. Use it as alleged co-conspirators start to flip, try to move their cases to federal court, or otherwise sever their fates from Trump's.

How it started, how it's going: Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media at a press conference held in the back parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping on November 7, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images) / Rudy Giuliani poses for his booking photo on August 23, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Fulton County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)

Swap team

Speaking of severance! Donald Trump yesterday parted ways with defense attorney Drew Findling, the "Billion dollar lawyer" who repped him throughout the grand jury investigation and indictment stages in Fulton County. Trump's new lawyer is Steven Sandow, an experienced criminal defense attorney with an aggressive courtroom rep.

Why change lawyers now? It's unclear, though Sandow does have experience defending clients in RICO cases in Fulton County. That includes rapper Gunna, who Sandow currently represents in the YSL RICO case also being prosecuted by Fani Willis.

Findling once told VICE's Greg Walters that he'd quit if Trump ever asked him to do anything unethical. You'll know more if we hear more.

More like Speedbro

Fani Willis yesterday filed a request to start her RICO trial against Trump and 18 co-defendants on October 23. That's crazy fast, but if granted it would mean Willis's case would jump to the front of the line before the federal coup case Jan. 2, 2024 (for now), and the Manhattan hush-money case on March 25, 2024.

At least one defendant looks ready to go by October 23. A judge granted a request from Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro (pictured here with Alex Jones at the Capitol on Jan. 6), for a speedy trial for his seven-count indictment in the fake-electors section of the conspiracy.

Willis has said she wants to try all 19 co-defendants together. Former fed prosecutor Ryan Goodman says an early trial for Chesebro would certainly put more pressure on Trump if he's convicted, and on TV, no less. If he's acquitted, that's a bonus for Trump. Either way, the case would telegraph evidence and strategy for later trials.

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows poses for his booking photo on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Fulton County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)

The Full Cassidy

Let history never forget that former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson had a Trumpworld lawyer early her part in the January 6 committee investigation. Then she dumped him, got a new lawyer, and told the truth about what she'd seen and heard. Which brings us to Mar-a-Lago Employee 4, Yuscil Taveras. In filings this week. Special Counsel Jack Smith revealed that a Taveras, a key witness in the cover-up of the cover-up portion of the case, has done exactly the same thing.

This all goes back to Judge Aileen Cannon's insistence that Smith account for a second grand jury in Washington, D.C. investigating Mar–a-Lago-related events, even while the Miami grand jury had already indicted Trump and his alleged co-conspirators. Smith wanted to do that under seal, but Cannon refused. So it all came out in the open.

Turns out, Taveras initially lied to the grand jury when he was asked about deleting Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage after the feds subpoenaed it. But then, advised that he was under investigation for perjury, Taveras fired his Trumpworld lawyer, the one and only Stanley Woodward. With new counsel, a public defender, Taveras told the truth, is slated to testify, and is not charged in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Did Taveras get the sense that Woodward wasn't representing his interests to the best of his ability? It matters, because Jack Smith is currently pursing motions questioning whether Woodward's representing valet Walt Nauta and another Trump-supplied lawyer who is representing maintenance manager and co-defendant Carlos De Oliviera have irreconcilable conflicts of interest.

Here's a great explainer of how Smith may have out-maneuvered Cannon and Woodward to show Trump's co-defendants the luxurious benefits of a lawyer who looks out for your interests by counseling the truth.

Ouch, that Smarts-matic

A Delaware judge is allowing voting machine company Smartmatic to expand its defamation lawsuit against right-wing network Newsmax. The company's suit alleges a pattern of defamation as Newsmax broadcast a torrent of lies about Smartmatic's role in rigging the 2020 election against Trump. Now the judge is allowing 26 new instances of alleged defamation into the suit.

Smartmatic is also suing Fox for $2.7 billion.

Goodbye, Chef

Long before his plane mysteriously dropped out of the sky in eastern Russia, Yevgeniy Prigozhin was spearheading Vladmir Putin's campaign to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. Revisit, if you will, the Mueller Report, page 16, for the executive summary on how Prigozhin, a former caterer also known as "Putin's Chef," got indicted by Mueller for running the Internet Research Agency that interfered on Trump's behalf.

I SAID WHAT I SAID

"There's very little evidence of people being arrested for being armed that day."

— GOP presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, speaking about Jan. 6, where dozens of people have been charged for being armed, including at least three with guns.

ON OUR RADAR

That's unto Ward — Eleven Arizona Republicans signed fake elector forms in December, 2020. Now the state attorney general's criminal investigation into their activities is heating up. At the center—lately, anyway—appears to be former state GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward, who was already known to be a ringleader of the AZ fake elector plot. According to indicted Trump campaign lawyer Ken Chesebro, she was also super concerned that the whole thing was "treason."

Fake electors have already been charged in Michigan and, of course, Georgia. Recall that Ward fought to keep her phone records away from the January 6 committee, then took the Fifth when she appeared.

Dangerous liaisons — The US Secret Service was in regular contact with the Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes before the Jan. 6 attack that led to Rhodes and other Oath Keepers' convictions for seditious conspiracy.

Watchdog Group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a report detailing how an agent messaged other agents in 2020 that he was the "unofficial liaison to the Oath Keepers (inching towards official)." Rhodes said during his trial that he had been in regular touch with the Secret Service.

If you'd like to know more about what Secret Service agents might have said or known about the insurrection, it's really too bad that all the agents' text messages from Jan. 6 were deleted. But it's also good that Jack Smith said this week that he's got 3.1 million pages of USSS emails.

Mishandling doxx — As good as it is that Fani Willis put the attempted intimidation of two Fulton County election workers at the center of her case, the truth is law enforcement doesn't go after the vast majority of harassment like this. Now local law enforcement—and, notably, the FBI—say they're investigating threats to Fulton County grand jurors after Trump supporters posted their personal information online. There are three other criminal trials that will involve Trump, not to mention another election staffed by volunteers and officials. Protecting people under threat for doing their civic duty is only going to get more important as these cases go to trial.

Drawn out — Now that the newly GOP-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its own ruling to enable Republican gerrymandering, Dem Rep. Jeff Jackson realizes he's probably toast. So he's taking the opportunity for some real talk to his constituents (and anyone else on the internet) about the antidemocratic evils of partisan power-grabs.

Maybe don't riot — When people finally grok that political violence can mean jail.

Here's a story — Of a rule called Brady.