Judge says Michael Flynn must testify in Ga. election probe
By CURT ANDERSON and KATE BRUMBACK
Today
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge on Tuesday said former national security adviser Michael Flynn must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that's looking into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
Sarasota County Chief Judge Charles Roberts ordered Flynn to testify before the panel on Nov. 22.
Attorneys for Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served briefly as national security adviser under Trump, had argued that the special grand jury's investigation was a civil matter, rather than a criminal one. For that reason, Flynn should not be compelled to testify, they argued.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who's overseeing the special grand jury, has said that the special grand jury's investigation is a criminal proceeding. He also certified Flynn as a “necessary and material witness.”
Roberts honored that, saying, “General Flynn is a material witness.” The judge also denied a motion by Flynn’s attorneys to stay his ruling in anticipation of an appeal.
“There’s no undue hardship,” Roberts said.
Flynn spoke only in response to the judge’s questions and did not answer reporters’ questions after the hearing. Because Flynn lives outside Georgia, Willis had to use a process to try to get a judge where he lives in Florida to order him to comply with her summons.
The investigation, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is seen as one of the most significant potential legal threats to the former president as he prepares to announce a third run for the presidency. Willis has sought the testimony of numerous high-profile Trump associates as witnesses in the investigation.
Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who's been told he could face criminal charges in the investigation, testified in August. Judges have also ordered former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to testify later this month. Gingrich on Monday initiated an appeal of his ruling.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Meadows, is expected to appear before the special grand jury Wednesday. In testimony in June before the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Hutchinson detailed what she saw and heard at the White House on that day and in the days preceding the insurrection, including discussions of how Trump's election loss could be overturned.
The special grand jury has also heard from high-ranking state officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr. Gov. Brian Kemp, who had tried unsuccessfully to avoid testifying but was allowed to delay his appearance until after last week's election, was seen leaving the courthouse Tuesday. All of those state officials received calls from Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
In an interview on a right-wing cable news channel in mid-December 2020, Flynn said Trump “could take military capabilities” and place them in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states,” Willis wrote in a petition seeking to compel his testimony before the special grand jury.
Flynn also met at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote.
And he attended meetings in November 2021 at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood. Willis wrote that Wood said in a television interview that they met to look into possible ways to influence the election results in Georgia and elsewhere. Wood told The Associated Press that he testified before the special grand jury last week.
Willis opened the investigation early last year, shortly after a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger was made public. In that call, the Republican president urged Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
The investigation's scope has broadened since then, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May, allowing Willis to compel testimony from people who might otherwise refuse. The special grand jury operates in secret with witness testimony closed to the public.
Special grand juries in Georgia are generally used to investigate complex cases with many witnesses. They can compel evidence and subpoena testimony from witnesses, but they cannot issue indictments. Once its investigation is complete, a special grand jury can recommend action, but it remains up to the district attorney to decide whether to then seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
___
Brumback reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed reporting.
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US Sen. Lindsey Graham questioned in Georgia election probe
By KATE BRUMBACK
Today
ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham testified Tuesday before a special grand jury that's investigating whether President Donald Trump and others illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia.
The South Carolina Republican's appearance before the panel came after a drawn-out legal fight that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court as Graham tried to avoid testifying. He had argued that his position as a senator shielded him from questioning. The courts rejected his assertion but did rule that prosecutors and grand jurors could not ask him about protected legislative activity.
Graham's office said in a statement that he spent just over two hours with the special grand jury and “answered all questions.”
“The senator feels he was treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy,” the statement said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation early last year. It is considered one of the most significant potential legal threats to the former president, who last week announced a third run for the White House. Graham is one of a number of high-profile Trump allies whose testimony has been sought.
When Willis filed paperwork in July seeking Graham’s testimony, she wrote that she wanted to ask him about a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger shortly after the election.
Raffensperger has said Graham asked whether he could reject certain absentee ballots, which the secretary of state said he interpreted as a suggestion to throw out legally cast votes. Graham has called that idea “ridiculous.”
Willis said in August that she hoped to be able to send the special grand jury home by the end of the year. But that timeline could be complicated by the fact that some of the testimony she's seeking is tied up in appeals.
For witnesses who live outside of Georgia, Willis has to rely on a process that involves getting a judge in the state where a potential witness lives to order that person to travel to Atlanta to testify.
Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served briefly as national security adviser under Trump, had been ordered to testify Tuesday, but a Florida judge issued a provisional stay of that order after Flynn appealed. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich had been ordered by a Virginia judge to testify Nov. 29, but that has been stayed pending appeal. And an appeal of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' order to appear on Nov. 30 is pending before the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously testified before the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, answered questions from the special grand jury last week.
Special grand jury proceedings are secret, but some related public court filings have shed light on the scope of the investigation.
From the start Willis has said she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger. The Republican president urged the state's top elections official to “find” the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
It has also become clear that she is interested in several other areas, including: the submitting of a fake slate of Republican electors from Georgia who falsely declared that Trump won the state; false statements about the election made by former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others to state lawmakers; efforts to pressure a Fulton County elections worker to admit wrongdoing; breaches of election equipment in rural Coffee County; the abrupt departure of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021.
Special grand juries in Georgia are generally used to investigate complex cases with many witnesses. They can compel evidence and subpoena testimony from witnesses, but they cannot issue indictments. Once its investigation is complete, a special grand jury can recommend action, but it remains up to the district attorney to decide whether to then seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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Court says Trump aide Meadows must testify in election probe
By KATE BRUMBACK
Yesterday
ATLANTA (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court says former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
The state high court on Tuesday affirmed a lower court ruling last month ordering Meadows to appear before the panel. The former Republican congressman is the latest Trump associate to lose a legal fight over a summons to testify.
The South Carolina Supreme Court opinion says the justices reviewed Meadows’ arguments and found them to be “manifestly without merit.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's leading the investigation, has said Meadows is an important witness. Because he doesn't live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involved getting a judge in South Carolina, where Meadows lives, to order him to travel to Atlanta to testify.
Meadows had originally been ordered to testify Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether that would be rescheduled.
In a petition seeking his testimony, Willis wrote that Meadows attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of Electoral College votes from Georgia and other states.”
The next day, Willis wrote, Meadows made a “surprise visit” to Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, where an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes was being conducted. He asked to observe the audit but wasn’t allowed to because it wasn’t open to the public, the petition says.
Meadows also sent emails to Justice Department officials after the election alleging voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere and requesting investigations, Willis wrote. And he took part in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump suggested that Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official and a Republican, could “find” enough votes to overturn the president’s narrow loss in the state.
An attorney for Meadows had argued that executive privilege and other rights shield him from testifying. He previously invoked that privilege in a fight against subpoenas issued by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meadows has been fighting investigations into the violent 2021 insurrection since last year and has so far avoided having to testify about his role and his knowledge of the former president’s actions. He turned over thousands of texts to the House Jan. 6 committee before eventually refusing to do an interview.
Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments. Instead, they can gather evidence and compel testimony and then can recommend further action, including criminal charges, in a final report. It is ultimately up to the district attorney to decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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Michael Flynn appears before grand jury in Georgia election probe By Holly Bailey December 08, 2022 at 13:25 ET ATLANTA — Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, appeared Thursday before a special grand jury in Atlanta investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results. Flynn arrived at the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday. He exited about an hour later, accompanied by his attorneys and under heavy security, including police officers who carried automatic rifles. In response to questions about his appearance and whether he had answered the jury’s questions, Flynn did not reply, even as reporters followed him to a nearby parking garage. Flynn’s appearance came after a Florida appeals court this week rejected his latest effort to quash a summons from prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., who have called him a “necessary and material witness” in the grand jury investigation into alleged election interference by Trump and his allies. A lawyer for Flynn did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s office also did not respond to a request for comment. The special grand jury is considering whether Trump and his allies violated Georgia law when they spread rumors about alleged election fraud in the state and pressured state officials to undertake efforts that would change the results of the state’s presidential election, which Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes. In a court filing, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis listed four areas of interest that she wanted Flynn to testify about, including a December 2020 appearance he made on Newsmax suggesting Trump could use “military capabilities” to rerun elections in states, including Georgia.
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Ginni Thomas says she regrets post-election texts to Meadows
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and LISA MASCARO
Yesterday
WASHINGTON (AP) — Virginia Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, says she regrets sending texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election, telling the House Jan. 6 committee that “I would take them all back if I could today.”
Thomas — known as Ginni — is a longtime conservative activist. In a transcript of the interview released by the panel on Friday, she told investigators she was “emotional” after the election when she sent several texts to Meadows urging him to stand firm with then-President Donald Trump as he falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the election.
In the texts, she bemoaned the state of American politics and called the election a “heist.” Thomas told the panel she still feels there were election irregularities, but she does believe that Joe Biden is the president of the United States.
“You know, it was an emotional time,” Thomas told the committee. “I’m sorry these texts exist.”
The nine-member panel sought Thomas’s interview, and she appeared voluntarily. While Thomas urged Meadows to act, and she is married to one of nine Supreme Court justices who were at the time reviewing Trump’s election challenges, investigators did not believe she played a major role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election or his inaction as the violent insurrection unfolded. Her name does not appear once in the committee’s final report released last week.
Still, the committee sought to speak to her as it built a comprehensive account of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the weeks beforehand. The committee’s chairman and vice chairwoman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said the panel wanted to speak to her after her name came up in communications with other witnesses.
Thomas’ attorney Mark Paoletta said in a statement Friday that her absence from the report was a conclusion that “was obvious from the beginning" and that her post-election activities were “minimal and mainstream.”
In the interview, Thomas characterized herself as an “instigator” of Groundswell and other conservative advocacy groups that have met weekly as a coalition for years. She and her husband are longtime associates of conservative lawyer John Eastman, an architect of the scheme to have several 2020 battleground states send alternative electors for Trump, rather than Biden.
Thomas said that while she was interested in pursuing claims of voter fraud, she had largely stepped aside during the aftermath of the election because she felt her presence as the wife of Justice Thomas often “chilled” the discussion. She insisted she operated separately from her husband.
“It’s laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence,” she said. “The man is independent and stubborn.”
Thomas said throughout the interview that she still had concerns about election fraud, but offered little evidence. Pressed by the investigators about her post-election efforts to challenge the election results, Thomas demurred.
When the panel told her that Trump-aligned attorney Cleta Mitchell testified under oath that Thomas had asked her about potential fraud in Georgia’s elections, Thomas said she could not recall the conversation.
“I don’t have any memory of it,” Thomas told investigators. “Anything I was doing was looking for fraud and irregularities in the election, not to overturn it.”
Multiple times, the lawmakers delved more pointedly into Thomas’s responses — and she had few specifics to offer in return.
“I think I understood you to say you never saw any list of fraud or irregularities,” Cheney asked her at one point.
“Right,” Thomas responded. “I know. I wasn’t very deep.”
“But you’re confident there was fraud and irregularities?” Cheney continued.
“I was hearing it, Congresswoman, from a lot of people I trust,” Thomas said.
Cheney asked Thomas if she was aware that Trump’s own advisers, attorney general and others had told him there was no fraud that would change the outcome of the election.
“That was news to me, Congresswoman,” Thomas replied.
Cheney asked when she became aware of that.
“I think sometime after this committee started its work,” Thomas replied.
But Thomas said even if she had been aware, it wouldn’t change her views. “I just think there’s still concerns,” Thomas said, while also acknowledging that Biden is the president.
Over and again, the panel confronted Thomas with her own words, including a text to Meadows a week after the election in which she suggested attorney Sidney Powell “will help the cavalry come and fraud exposed and America saved.” Powell was behind some of the most outrageous claims by Trump's allies, including that foreign countries were hacking voting machines.
Thomas explained to investigators that at the time she didn’t really know Powell, and as she learned more in the weeks to come, “I kind of got off that train.”
She also told investigators she reached out to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as she tried to encourage the defeated president’s team to investigate potential voter fraud after the 2020 election.
“I was trying to buck him up and encourage him to stand firm until all the evidence is in,” Thomas told investigators she wrote to Kushner in an email.
At one point, she did elicit sympathy from the investigators.
“I think it might be a unanimous view of everyone on this call and in this room that I don’t know how many of you would want your texts to become public on the front page of The Washington Post," Thomas said, referring to the first reports of her communications.
“I understand that,” said California Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the committee. “And I’m sure you’re right, no would like to see their personal texts in the newspaper.”
__
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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Someone’s opinion as to whether or not it would sway a judge’s is irrelevant. Judge’s routinely recuse themselves in situations where there would even be the perception of possible bias.
Trump campaign staff on 2020 election lies: ‘fan the flame’
By SCOTT BAUER
Yesterday
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A newly released audio recording offers a behind-the-scenes look at how former President Donald Trump’s campaign team in a pivotal battleground state knew they had been outflanked by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election. But even as they acknowledged defeat, they pivoted to allegations of widespread fraud that were ultimately debunked — repeatedly — by elections officials and the courts.
The audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden's win.
The Wisconsin political operatives in the strategy session even praised Democratic turnout efforts in the state's largest counties and appeared to joke about their efforts to engage Black voters, according to the recording obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump's campaign in the state.
“Here’s the deal: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.
Audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden's win. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump's campaign in the state.((AUDIO AS INCOMING))“Here’s the deal: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.
Iverson is now the Midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee. He deferred questions about the meeting to the RNC, whose spokesperson, Keith Schipper, declined comment because he had not heard the recording.
The former campaign official and Republican operative who provided a copy of the recording to the AP was in the meeting and recorded it. The operative is not authorized to speak publicly about what was discussed and did not want to be identified out of concern for personal and professional retaliation, but said they came forward because Trump is mounting a third attempt for the White House.
In response to questions about the audio, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “The 2024 campaign is focused on competing in every state and winning in a dominating fashion. That is why President Trump is leading by wide margins in poll after poll.”
Wisconsin was a big part of Trump's victory in 2016, when he smashed through the Democrats' so-called “Blue Wall” in the upper Midwest, and his campaign fought hard to keep the swing state in his column four years later before his loss to Biden.
Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, a result that has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and recounts in the state's two largest and Democratic-leaning counties.
Yet, two days after the election, there was no discussion of Trump having won the state during the meeting of Republican campaign operatives.
Instead, parts of the meeting focus on discussions about packing up campaign offices and writing final reports about how the campaign unfolded. At one point on the recording, Iverson is heard praising the GOP's efforts while admitting the margin of Trump's defeat in the state.
At one point on the recording, Andrews Iverson is heard praising the GOP's efforts while admitting the margin of Trump's defeat in the state.((AUDIO AS INCOMING - ADULT LANGUAGE))“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”
“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”
The meeting showcases another juxtaposition of what Republican officials knew about the election results and what Trump and his closest allies were saying publicly as they pushed the lie of a stolen election. Trump was told by his own attorney general there was no sign of widespread fraud, and many within his own administration told the former president there was no substance to various claims of fraud or manipulation — advice Trump repeatedly ignored.
In the weeks after the election, Trump and his allies would file dozens of lawsuits, convene fake electors and pressure election officials in an attempt to overturn the will of the voters and keep Trump in office.
It’s unclear whether the staff in Wisconsin coordinated their message directly with campaign officials in Washington.
Parts of the Nov. 5 meeting also center on Republican outreach efforts to the state's Black community.
At one point, the operatives laugh over needing “more Black voices for Trump.” Iverson also references their efforts to engage with Black voters.
“We ever talk to Black people before? I don’t think so,” he said, eliciting laughter from others in the room.
Another speaker on the recording with Iverson is identified by the source as GOP operative Clayton Henson. At the time, Henson was a regional director for the RNC in charge of Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. They give a postmortem of sorts on the election, praising Republican turnout and campaign efforts while acknowledging the Democrats' robust turn-out-the-vote campaign.
Henson specifically references Democratic turnout in Dane County, which includes Madison, the state capital, and is a liberal stronghold in the state. A record-high 80% of the voting-age population cast ballots in 2020 in the county, which Biden won with 76% of the vote.
“Hats off to them for what they did in Dane County. You have to respect that,” Henson said. “There's going to be another election in a couple years. So remember the lessons you learned and be ready to punch back.”
Henson, reached by phone Thursday, said, “No thank you” when asked to comment about the meeting.
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Trump campaign paid researchers to prove 2020 fraud but kept findings secret By Josh Dawsey February 11, 2023 at 14:29 ET Former president Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter. The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court. About a dozen people at the firm worked on the report, including econometricians, who use statistics to model and predict outcomes, the people said. The work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, before the Jan. 6 riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol. [The attack: The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event] Trump continues to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen despite abundant evidence to the contrary, much of which had been provided to him or was publicly available before the Capitol assault. The Trump campaign’s commissioning of its own report to study the then-president’s fraud claims has not been previously reported. “They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted,” said a person familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private research and meetings. “Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.”
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Trump election probe grand jury believes some witnesses lied
By KATE BRUMBACK
1 hour ago
ATLANTA (AP) — A special grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia says it believes "one or more witnesses" committed perjury, and it's urging local prosecutors to bring charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” according to portions of the special grand jury's final report that were released on Thursday.
The sections that were made public are silent on key details, including who the panel believes committed perjury and what other specific charges should be pursued. But it marks the first time the grand jurors' recommendations for criminal charges tied to the case have been made public. And it's a reminder of the intensifying legal challenges facing the former president as he ramps up his third White House bid amid multiple legal investigations.
Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for holding classified documents at his Florida estate.
The former president never testified before the special grand jury, meaning he is not among those who could have perjured themselves. But the case still poses particular challenges for him, in part because his actions in Georgia were so public.
Trump and his allies made unproven claims of widespread voter fraud and repeatedly berated Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp for not acting to overturn his narrow loss to President Joe Biden in the state.
Willis has said since the beginning of the investigation two years ago that she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested to Raffensperger that he could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. “Because we won the state.”
Trump has said repeatedly that his call with Raffensperger was “perfect,” and he told The Associated Press last month that he felt “very confident” that he would not be indicted.
State and federal officials, including Trump’s attorney general, have consistently said the election was secure and there was no evidence of significant fraud. After hearing “extensive testimony on the issue,” the special grand jury agreed in a unanimous vote that there was no widespread fraud in Georgia's election.
The special grand jury, which was requested by Willis to aid her investigation, was seated in May and submitted its report to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Dec. 15. The panel does not have the power to issue indictments. Instead, its report contains recommendations for Willis, who will ultimately decide whether to seek one or more indictments from a regular grand jury.
Over the course of about seven months, the special grand jurors heard from 75 witnesses, among them Trump allies including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Top Georgia officials, such as Raffensperger and Kemp, also appeared before the panel.
Graham told reporters Thursday that he has not been contacted by authorities regarding his testimony. “I’m confident I testified openly and honestly,” he said.
The partial release of the grand jury's report was ordered Monday by McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury. During a hearing last month, prosecutors urged him not to release the report until they decide on charges, while a coalition of media organizations, including the AP, pushed for the entire report to be made public immediately.
McBurney wrote in his Monday order that it’s not appropriate to release the full report now because it’s important to protect the due process rights of people for whom the grand jury recommended charges.
While there were relatively few details in Thursday's release, it does provide some insight into the panel's process. The report’s introduction says an “overwhelming majority” of the information that the grand jury received “was delivered in person under oath.” It also noted that no one on the panel was an election law expert or criminal lawyer.
“The majority of this Grand Jury used their collective best efforts,” the report said, “to attend every session, listen to every witness, and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained.”
Based on witnesses called to testify before the special grand jury, it is clear that Willis is focusing on several areas. Those include:
— Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election.
— A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
— False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020.
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Trump election probe grand jury believes some witnesses lied
By KATE BRUMBACK
1 hour ago
ATLANTA (AP) — A special grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia says it believes "one or more witnesses" committed perjury, and it's urging local prosecutors to bring charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” according to portions of the special grand jury's final report that were released on Thursday.
The sections that were made public are silent on key details, including who the panel believes committed perjury and what other specific charges should be pursued. But it marks the first time the grand jurors' recommendations for criminal charges tied to the case have been made public. And it's a reminder of the intensifying legal challenges facing the former president as he ramps up his third White House bid amid multiple legal investigations.
Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for holding classified documents at his Florida estate.
The former president never testified before the special grand jury, meaning he is not among those who could have perjured themselves. But the case still poses particular challenges for him, in part because his actions in Georgia were so public.
Trump and his allies made unproven claims of widespread voter fraud and repeatedly berated Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp for not acting to overturn his narrow loss to President Joe Biden in the state.
Willis has said since the beginning of the investigation two years ago that she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested to Raffensperger that he could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. “Because we won the state.”
Trump has said repeatedly that his call with Raffensperger was “perfect,” and he told The Associated Press last month that he felt “very confident” that he would not be indicted.
State and federal officials, including Trump’s attorney general, have consistently said the election was secure and there was no evidence of significant fraud. After hearing “extensive testimony on the issue,” the special grand jury agreed in a unanimous vote that there was no widespread fraud in Georgia's election.
The special grand jury, which was requested by Willis to aid her investigation, was seated in May and submitted its report to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Dec. 15. The panel does not have the power to issue indictments. Instead, its report contains recommendations for Willis, who will ultimately decide whether to seek one or more indictments from a regular grand jury.
Over the course of about seven months, the special grand jurors heard from 75 witnesses, among them Trump allies including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Top Georgia officials, such as Raffensperger and Kemp, also appeared before the panel.
Graham told reporters Thursday that he has not been contacted by authorities regarding his testimony. “I’m confident I testified openly and honestly,” he said.
The partial release of the grand jury's report was ordered Monday by McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury. During a hearing last month, prosecutors urged him not to release the report until they decide on charges, while a coalition of media organizations, including the AP, pushed for the entire report to be made public immediately.
McBurney wrote in his Monday order that it’s not appropriate to release the full report now because it’s important to protect the due process rights of people for whom the grand jury recommended charges.
While there were relatively few details in Thursday's release, it does provide some insight into the panel's process. The report’s introduction says an “overwhelming majority” of the information that the grand jury received “was delivered in person under oath.” It also noted that no one on the panel was an election law expert or criminal lawyer.
“The majority of this Grand Jury used their collective best efforts,” the report said, “to attend every session, listen to every witness, and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained.”
Based on witnesses called to testify before the special grand jury, it is clear that Willis is focusing on several areas. Those include:
— Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election.
— A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
— False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020.
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Georgia prosecutor fights back against Trump attempt to remove her from election probe
By KATE BRUMBACK
2 hours ago
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor who's investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state fought back Monday against the former president's attempt to remove her from the case and exclude certain evidence.
Trump's Georgia legal team in March asked the court to toss out the report of a special grand jury that had been seated in the case and to prevent prosecutors from using any evidence or testimony stemming from the panel’s investigation. They also asked that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office be barred from continuing to investigate or prosecute the case.
Willis responded in a filing Monday that the Trump's motion is “procedurally flawed” and advances “arguments that lack merit.”
For more than two years now, Willis has been investigating the actions Trump and others took in the wake of the 2020 election. She took the unusual step last year of asking for a special grand jury to aid the investigation, saying the panel's subpoena power would allow her team to compel the testimony of people who might not otherwise cooperate.
The special grand jury, which did not have the power to issue indictments, was seated last May and dissolved in January after hearing from 75 witnesses and submitting a report with recommendations for Willis. Though most of that report remains under wraps for now according to a judge's order, the panel's foreperson has said without naming names that the special grand jury recommended charging multiple people.
Trump lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg argued that the special grand jury “involved a constant lack of clarity as to the law, inconsistent applications of basic constitutional protections for individuals being brought before it, and a prosecutor’s office that was found to have an actual conflict, yet continued to pursue the investigation.”
They also asked that their claims be heard by a judge other than Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury.
Cathy Latham, one of 16 Georgia Republicans who met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, last month joined Trump’s motion. It has become clear during the investigation that Willis is interested in the actions of the fake electors, and at least eight of them have secured immunity deals in the case.
In her motion Monday, Willis asked that McBurney retain supervision of the matter and urged that Trump and Latham's motions be dismissed or denied without holding a hearing.
Willis wrote that the arguments put forth in the motions fail to meet the “exacting standards" for disqualifying a prosecutor and they also fail to prove their claims that their own due process rights have been violated or that the grand jury process was “tainted” or the law governing it unconstitutional.
Trump and Latham “are not content to follow the ordinary course of the law,” Willis wrote.
“The State's reply was primarily procedural in nature and failed to address several of the critical substantive issues which were discussed at length in our brief and exhibits,” Trump's lawyers said in a statement, adding that they plan to ask the court for time to file a response.
A coalition of news organizations, including The Associated Press, also filed a motion Monday objecting to Trump’s request that the special grand jury report be “quashed and expunged from the record.”
“Not only is such a remedy unsupported by any legal basis, it would also be starkly at odds with the fundamental principles of this Nation and State,” the media lawyers argued. “The Report is a matter of the utmost public concern, and it should be released to the public in its entirety.”
Willis last month sent letters to local law enforcement leaders advising them to prepare for “heightened security” as she intends to announce charging decisions in the case between July 11 and Sept. 1. To secure an indictment, she needs to bring the case before a regular grand jury.
The Georgia investigation is one of several that threatens the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House in 2024. A Manhattan grand jury in March indicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, federal grand juries in Washington are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election and the potential mishandling of classified documents by Trump at his Florida estate.
And a federal jury in New York last week found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million.
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Georgia probe of Trump broadens to activities in other states By Amy Gardner and Josh Dawsey June 02, 2023 at 6:00 ET An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by former president Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in Washington, D.C., and several other states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe — a fresh sign that prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws. Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signaled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme. In recent days, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the investigation. At least one of the firms has been subpoenaed by Fulton County investigators. Willis’s investigation is separate from the one at the Department of Justice being led by special counsel Jack Smith, but the two probes have covered some of the same ground. Willis has said she plans to make a charging decision this summer, and she has indicated that such an announcement could come in early August. She has faced stiff criticism from Republicans for investigating the former president, and the ever-widening scope suggests just how ambitious her plans may be.
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To Watch a Trump Town Hall on Fox Is to Enter an Entirely Different World
June 2, 2023
By David French
Opinion Columnist
Every now and then, it’s important to watch Fox News in prime time. No, not because the programs are particularly good or because the hosts tell their audience the truth. Fox is writing Dominion Voting Systems a $787.5 million check for very good reasons, and it still faces a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Smartmatic over the channel’s election reporting. But to watch Fox News is to begin to understand millions of your fellow Americans. And there was no better time to start understanding the 2024 Republican primary contest than Thursday night, during Donald Trump’s town hall in Iowa, hosted by Sean Hannity.
To watch the town hall was to start learning the answer to a key question: After everything, how can Republicans still be so loyal to Trump? But that word, “everything,” is loaded with different meanings in different American communities.
When I look back on the Trump years, I see a dark time of division, corruption and social decay. After all, when he left office, the murder rate was higher, drug overdose deaths had increased, and the abortion rate had gone up for the first time in decades. America was more bitterly divided, and deficits increased each year of his presidency. His early Covid lies helped fuel an immense amount of confusion and almost certainly cost American lives. And his entire sorry term was capped by a violent insurrection fueled by an avalanche of lies.
If you watched the town hall, however, you entered an entirely different world. According to Trump’s narrative, everything he did was good. His term was a time of economic prosperity, energy independence, fiscal responsibility, a rejuvenated military, a locked-down border and fear and respect from foreign regimes. The only things that marred his four years were a stolen election and his unjust persecution by the corrupt Democratic Party and its allies in the F.B.I.
In Trumpworld, the Trump past is golden, and the Trump future bright, but the present is a time of misery and darkness. It is President Biden, not Trump, who mishandles classified documents. It is Biden’s family, not Trump’s, that corruptly profits off foreign regimes. Trump would have prevented the Ukraine war. Trump would have withdrawn from Afghanistan more smoothly. As for Biden himself, he’s an object of derision and pity — far too physically and mentally impaired to be president of the United States.
False narratives are often sustained by a few kernels of truth, and so it is in MAGA America. The economy was strong before Covid, and there were fewer southern border crossings each year during Trump’s presidency than there have been during Biden’s. The ISIS caliphate fell. And I don’t know a single Republican who isn’t pleased with Trump’s judicial nominees.
Moreover, not all of Trump’s opponents possess the cleanest of hands. There were, in fact, Department of Justice excesses during its investigation of his campaign’s possible ties to Russia. A special counsel is investigating Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Hunter Biden is under criminal investigation, and his overseas business dealings are indeed unsavory, even if there is not yet proof of criminal wrongdoing. The withdrawal from Afghanistan turned into a chaotic and bloody rout of allied forces. Inflation remains too high.
In short, there is enough truthful criticism of the Biden administration to make it vulnerable to an election loss. And there remains sufficient false Trump administration nostalgia to make Trump the G.O.P. nominee. Put both realities together, and the nation is facing RealClearPolitics polling averages that show Trump to be the overwhelming favorite for the G.O.P. nomination and a slight leader in a potential general election matchup against Biden.
Given these facts — and Thursday night’s peek at MAGA America — my colleague Frank Bruni’s warning to Democrats on Thursday was timely and important: Democrats should not hope to face Trump in 2024. Rooting for him isn’t just dangerous; it’s based on misunderstandings. All too many Trump opponents — in both parties — have spent so long building their voluminous cases against him that they’ve forgotten how he looks to the other side. They can’t conceive of a coherent case for his candidacy.
The two most telling moments on Thursday came from Trump’s audience. First, they booed Mike Pence at the very mention of his name. Second, they shouted derisively at Hannity at the mere thought that Trump should perhaps tone down his rhetoric. Both moments emphasized the ferocity of their support for Trump. When you see that public response, you can begin to see his opponents’ dilemma. Given the size of Trump’s base, a winning Republican rival will have to peel away at least some members of audiences like Thursday’s — the very people who see him as a persecuted hero.
That challenge is compounded by every event like Thursday’s town hall, in which a relaxed Trump was “questioned” by a supine host in front of an adoring crowd. Hannity’s performance was quite a contrast to Kaitlan Collins’s pointed challenges to Trump during last month’s CNN town hall. Yet both events advanced Trump’s narrative. CNN’s tough questions reminded MAGA of his alleged persecution. Hannity’s coddling reminded MAGA of Trump’s alleged triumphs. Both ultimately helped Trump deepen his bond with the people who love him the most.
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SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge on Tuesday said former national security adviser Michael Flynn must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that's looking into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
Sarasota County Chief Judge Charles Roberts ordered Flynn to testify before the panel on Nov. 22.
Attorneys for Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served briefly as national security adviser under Trump, had argued that the special grand jury's investigation was a civil matter, rather than a criminal one. For that reason, Flynn should not be compelled to testify, they argued.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who's overseeing the special grand jury, has said that the special grand jury's investigation is a criminal proceeding. He also certified Flynn as a “necessary and material witness.”
Roberts honored that, saying, “General Flynn is a material witness.” The judge also denied a motion by Flynn’s attorneys to stay his ruling in anticipation of an appeal.
“There’s no undue hardship,” Roberts said.
Flynn spoke only in response to the judge’s questions and did not answer reporters’ questions after the hearing. Because Flynn lives outside Georgia, Willis had to use a process to try to get a judge where he lives in Florida to order him to comply with her summons.
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The investigation, led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is seen as one of the most significant potential legal threats to the former president as he prepares to announce a third run for the presidency. Willis has sought the testimony of numerous high-profile Trump associates as witnesses in the investigation.
Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who's been told he could face criminal charges in the investigation, testified in August. Judges have also ordered former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to testify later this month. Gingrich on Monday initiated an appeal of his ruling.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Meadows, is expected to appear before the special grand jury Wednesday. In testimony in June before the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Hutchinson detailed what she saw and heard at the White House on that day and in the days preceding the insurrection, including discussions of how Trump's election loss could be overturned.
The special grand jury has also heard from high-ranking state officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr. Gov. Brian Kemp, who had tried unsuccessfully to avoid testifying but was allowed to delay his appearance until after last week's election, was seen leaving the courthouse Tuesday. All of those state officials received calls from Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
In an interview on a right-wing cable news channel in mid-December 2020, Flynn said Trump “could take military capabilities” and place them in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states,” Willis wrote in a petition seeking to compel his testimony before the special grand jury.
Flynn also met at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote.
And he attended meetings in November 2021 at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood. Willis wrote that Wood said in a television interview that they met to look into possible ways to influence the election results in Georgia and elsewhere. Wood told The Associated Press that he testified before the special grand jury last week.
Willis opened the investigation early last year, shortly after a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger was made public. In that call, the Republican president urged Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
The investigation's scope has broadened since then, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May, allowing Willis to compel testimony from people who might otherwise refuse. The special grand jury operates in secret with witness testimony closed to the public.
Special grand juries in Georgia are generally used to investigate complex cases with many witnesses. They can compel evidence and subpoena testimony from witnesses, but they cannot issue indictments. Once its investigation is complete, a special grand jury can recommend action, but it remains up to the district attorney to decide whether to then seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
___
Brumback reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed reporting.
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ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham testified Tuesday before a special grand jury that's investigating whether President Donald Trump and others illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia.
The South Carolina Republican's appearance before the panel came after a drawn-out legal fight that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court as Graham tried to avoid testifying. He had argued that his position as a senator shielded him from questioning. The courts rejected his assertion but did rule that prosecutors and grand jurors could not ask him about protected legislative activity.
Graham's office said in a statement that he spent just over two hours with the special grand jury and “answered all questions.”
“The senator feels he was treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy,” the statement said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation early last year. It is considered one of the most significant potential legal threats to the former president, who last week announced a third run for the White House. Graham is one of a number of high-profile Trump allies whose testimony has been sought.
When Willis filed paperwork in July seeking Graham’s testimony, she wrote that she wanted to ask him about a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger shortly after the election.
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Raffensperger has said Graham asked whether he could reject certain absentee ballots, which the secretary of state said he interpreted as a suggestion to throw out legally cast votes. Graham has called that idea “ridiculous.”
Willis said in August that she hoped to be able to send the special grand jury home by the end of the year. But that timeline could be complicated by the fact that some of the testimony she's seeking is tied up in appeals.
For witnesses who live outside of Georgia, Willis has to rely on a process that involves getting a judge in the state where a potential witness lives to order that person to travel to Atlanta to testify.
Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served briefly as national security adviser under Trump, had been ordered to testify Tuesday, but a Florida judge issued a provisional stay of that order after Flynn appealed. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich had been ordered by a Virginia judge to testify Nov. 29, but that has been stayed pending appeal. And an appeal of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' order to appear on Nov. 30 is pending before the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously testified before the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, answered questions from the special grand jury last week.
Special grand jury proceedings are secret, but some related public court filings have shed light on the scope of the investigation.
From the start Willis has said she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger. The Republican president urged the state's top elections official to “find” the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
It has also become clear that she is interested in several other areas, including: the submitting of a fake slate of Republican electors from Georgia who falsely declared that Trump won the state; false statements about the election made by former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others to state lawmakers; efforts to pressure a Fulton County elections worker to admit wrongdoing; breaches of election equipment in rural Coffee County; the abrupt departure of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021.
Willis has notified Giuliani, who testified before the special grand jury in August, and the Georgia fake electors that they could face criminal charges in the investigation.
Special grand juries in Georgia are generally used to investigate complex cases with many witnesses. They can compel evidence and subpoena testimony from witnesses, but they cannot issue indictments. Once its investigation is complete, a special grand jury can recommend action, but it remains up to the district attorney to decide whether to then seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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ATLANTA (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court says former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
The state high court on Tuesday affirmed a lower court ruling last month ordering Meadows to appear before the panel. The former Republican congressman is the latest Trump associate to lose a legal fight over a summons to testify.
The South Carolina Supreme Court opinion says the justices reviewed Meadows’ arguments and found them to be “manifestly without merit.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's leading the investigation, has said Meadows is an important witness. Because he doesn't live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involved getting a judge in South Carolina, where Meadows lives, to order him to travel to Atlanta to testify.
Meadows had originally been ordered to testify Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether that would be rescheduled.
In a petition seeking his testimony, Willis wrote that Meadows attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of Electoral College votes from Georgia and other states.”
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The next day, Willis wrote, Meadows made a “surprise visit” to Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, where an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes was being conducted. He asked to observe the audit but wasn’t allowed to because it wasn’t open to the public, the petition says.
Meadows also sent emails to Justice Department officials after the election alleging voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere and requesting investigations, Willis wrote. And he took part in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump suggested that Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official and a Republican, could “find” enough votes to overturn the president’s narrow loss in the state.
An attorney for Meadows had argued that executive privilege and other rights shield him from testifying. He previously invoked that privilege in a fight against subpoenas issued by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meadows has been fighting investigations into the violent 2021 insurrection since last year and has so far avoided having to testify about his role and his knowledge of the former president’s actions. He turned over thousands of texts to the House Jan. 6 committee before eventually refusing to do an interview.
The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoena, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute.
Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments. Instead, they can gather evidence and compel testimony and then can recommend further action, including criminal charges, in a final report. It is ultimately up to the district attorney to decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
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By Holly Bailey
December 08, 2022 at 13:25 ET
ATLANTA — Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, appeared Thursday before a special grand jury in Atlanta investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results.
Flynn arrived at the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday. He exited about an hour later, accompanied by his attorneys and under heavy security, including police officers who carried automatic rifles. In response to questions about his appearance and whether he had answered the jury’s questions, Flynn did not reply, even as reporters followed him to a nearby parking garage.
Flynn’s appearance came after a Florida appeals court this week rejected his latest effort to quash a summons from prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., who have called him a “necessary and material witness” in the grand jury investigation into alleged election interference by Trump and his allies.
A lawyer for Flynn did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.
The special grand jury is considering whether Trump and his allies violated Georgia law when they spread rumors about alleged election fraud in the state and pressured state officials to undertake efforts that would change the results of the state’s presidential election, which Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes.
In a court filing, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis listed four areas of interest that she wanted Flynn to testify about, including a December 2020 appearance he made on Newsmax suggesting Trump could use “military capabilities” to rerun elections in states, including Georgia.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Virginia Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, says she regrets sending texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election, telling the House Jan. 6 committee that “I would take them all back if I could today.”
Thomas — known as Ginni — is a longtime conservative activist. In a transcript of the interview released by the panel on Friday, she told investigators she was “emotional” after the election when she sent several texts to Meadows urging him to stand firm with then-President Donald Trump as he falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the election.
In the texts, she bemoaned the state of American politics and called the election a “heist.” Thomas told the panel she still feels there were election irregularities, but she does believe that Joe Biden is the president of the United States.
“You know, it was an emotional time,” Thomas told the committee. “I’m sorry these texts exist.”
The nine-member panel sought Thomas’s interview, and she appeared voluntarily. While Thomas urged Meadows to act, and she is married to one of nine Supreme Court justices who were at the time reviewing Trump’s election challenges, investigators did not believe she played a major role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election or his inaction as the violent insurrection unfolded. Her name does not appear once in the committee’s final report released last week.
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Still, the committee sought to speak to her as it built a comprehensive account of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the weeks beforehand. The committee’s chairman and vice chairwoman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said the panel wanted to speak to her after her name came up in communications with other witnesses.
Thomas’ attorney Mark Paoletta said in a statement Friday that her absence from the report was a conclusion that “was obvious from the beginning" and that her post-election activities were “minimal and mainstream.”
In the interview, Thomas characterized herself as an “instigator” of Groundswell and other conservative advocacy groups that have met weekly as a coalition for years. She and her husband are longtime associates of conservative lawyer John Eastman, an architect of the scheme to have several 2020 battleground states send alternative electors for Trump, rather than Biden.
Thomas said that while she was interested in pursuing claims of voter fraud, she had largely stepped aside during the aftermath of the election because she felt her presence as the wife of Justice Thomas often “chilled” the discussion. She insisted she operated separately from her husband.
“It’s laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence,” she said. “The man is independent and stubborn.”
Thomas said throughout the interview that she still had concerns about election fraud, but offered little evidence. Pressed by the investigators about her post-election efforts to challenge the election results, Thomas demurred.
When the panel told her that Trump-aligned attorney Cleta Mitchell testified under oath that Thomas had asked her about potential fraud in Georgia’s elections, Thomas said she could not recall the conversation.
“I don’t have any memory of it,” Thomas told investigators. “Anything I was doing was looking for fraud and irregularities in the election, not to overturn it.”
Multiple times, the lawmakers delved more pointedly into Thomas’s responses — and she had few specifics to offer in return.
“I think I understood you to say you never saw any list of fraud or irregularities,” Cheney asked her at one point.
“Right,” Thomas responded. “I know. I wasn’t very deep.”
“But you’re confident there was fraud and irregularities?” Cheney continued.
“I was hearing it, Congresswoman, from a lot of people I trust,” Thomas said.
Cheney asked Thomas if she was aware that Trump’s own advisers, attorney general and others had told him there was no fraud that would change the outcome of the election.
“That was news to me, Congresswoman,” Thomas replied.
Cheney asked when she became aware of that.
“I think sometime after this committee started its work,” Thomas replied.
But Thomas said even if she had been aware, it wouldn’t change her views. “I just think there’s still concerns,” Thomas said, while also acknowledging that Biden is the president.
Over and again, the panel confronted Thomas with her own words, including a text to Meadows a week after the election in which she suggested attorney Sidney Powell “will help the cavalry come and fraud exposed and America saved.” Powell was behind some of the most outrageous claims by Trump's allies, including that foreign countries were hacking voting machines.
Thomas explained to investigators that at the time she didn’t really know Powell, and as she learned more in the weeks to come, “I kind of got off that train.”
She also told investigators she reached out to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as she tried to encourage the defeated president’s team to investigate potential voter fraud after the 2020 election.
“I was trying to buck him up and encourage him to stand firm until all the evidence is in,” Thomas told investigators she wrote to Kushner in an email.
At one point, she did elicit sympathy from the investigators.
“I think it might be a unanimous view of everyone on this call and in this room that I don’t know how many of you would want your texts to become public on the front page of The Washington Post," Thomas said, referring to the first reports of her communications.
“I understand that,” said California Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the committee. “And I’m sure you’re right, no would like to see their personal texts in the newspaper.”
__
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A newly released audio recording offers a behind-the-scenes look at how former President Donald Trump’s campaign team in a pivotal battleground state knew they had been outflanked by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election. But even as they acknowledged defeat, they pivoted to allegations of widespread fraud that were ultimately debunked — repeatedly — by elections officials and the courts.
The audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden's win.
The Wisconsin political operatives in the strategy session even praised Democratic turnout efforts in the state's largest counties and appeared to joke about their efforts to engage Black voters, according to the recording obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump's campaign in the state.
“Here’s the deal: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.
Audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden's win. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump's campaign in the state.((AUDIO AS INCOMING))“Here’s the deal: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need. Just be on standby if there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.
Iverson is now the Midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee. He deferred questions about the meeting to the RNC, whose spokesperson, Keith Schipper, declined comment because he had not heard the recording.
The former campaign official and Republican operative who provided a copy of the recording to the AP was in the meeting and recorded it. The operative is not authorized to speak publicly about what was discussed and did not want to be identified out of concern for personal and professional retaliation, but said they came forward because Trump is mounting a third attempt for the White House.
In response to questions about the audio, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “The 2024 campaign is focused on competing in every state and winning in a dominating fashion. That is why President Trump is leading by wide margins in poll after poll.”
Wisconsin was a big part of Trump's victory in 2016, when he smashed through the Democrats' so-called “Blue Wall” in the upper Midwest, and his campaign fought hard to keep the swing state in his column four years later before his loss to Biden.
Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, a result that has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and recounts in the state's two largest and Democratic-leaning counties.
Yet, two days after the election, there was no discussion of Trump having won the state during the meeting of Republican campaign operatives.
Instead, parts of the meeting focus on discussions about packing up campaign offices and writing final reports about how the campaign unfolded. At one point on the recording, Iverson is heard praising the GOP's efforts while admitting the margin of Trump's defeat in the state.
At one point on the recording, Andrews Iverson is heard praising the GOP's efforts while admitting the margin of Trump's defeat in the state.((AUDIO AS INCOMING - ADULT LANGUAGE))“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”
“At the end of the day, this operation received more votes than any other Republican in Wisconsin history,” Iverson said. “Say what you want, our operation turned out Republican or DJT supporters. Democrats have got 20,000 more than us, out of Dane County and other shenanigans in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Dane. There’s a lot that people can learn from this campaign.”
The meeting showcases another juxtaposition of what Republican officials knew about the election results and what Trump and his closest allies were saying publicly as they pushed the lie of a stolen election. Trump was told by his own attorney general there was no sign of widespread fraud, and many within his own administration told the former president there was no substance to various claims of fraud or manipulation — advice Trump repeatedly ignored.
In the weeks after the election, Trump and his allies would file dozens of lawsuits, convene fake electors and pressure election officials in an attempt to overturn the will of the voters and keep Trump in office.
It’s unclear whether the staff in Wisconsin coordinated their message directly with campaign officials in Washington.
Parts of the Nov. 5 meeting also center on Republican outreach efforts to the state's Black community.
At one point, the operatives laugh over needing “more Black voices for Trump.” Iverson also references their efforts to engage with Black voters.
“We ever talk to Black people before? I don’t think so,” he said, eliciting laughter from others in the room.
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Another speaker on the recording with Iverson is identified by the source as GOP operative Clayton Henson. At the time, Henson was a regional director for the RNC in charge of Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. They give a postmortem of sorts on the election, praising Republican turnout and campaign efforts while acknowledging the Democrats' robust turn-out-the-vote campaign.
Henson specifically references Democratic turnout in Dane County, which includes Madison, the state capital, and is a liberal stronghold in the state. A record-high 80% of the voting-age population cast ballots in 2020 in the county, which Biden won with 76% of the vote.
“Hats off to them for what they did in Dane County. You have to respect that,” Henson said. “There's going to be another election in a couple years. So remember the lessons you learned and be ready to punch back.”
Henson, reached by phone Thursday, said, “No thank you” when asked to comment about the meeting.
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By Josh Dawsey
February 11, 2023 at 14:29 ET
Former president Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm in a bid to prove electoral fraud claims but never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The campaign paid researchers from Berkeley Research Group, the people said, to study 2020 election results in six states, looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts. Among the areas examined were voter machine malfunctions, instances of dead people voting and any evidence that could help Trump show he won, the people said. None of the findings were presented to the public or in court.
About a dozen people at the firm worked on the report, including econometricians, who use statistics to model and predict outcomes, the people said. The work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, before the Jan. 6 riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
[The attack: The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event]
Trump continues to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen despite abundant evidence to the contrary, much of which had been provided to him or was publicly available before the Capitol assault. The Trump campaign’s commissioning of its own report to study the then-president’s fraud claims has not been previously reported.
“They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted,” said a person familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private research and meetings. “Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.”
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ATLANTA (AP) — A special grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia says it believes "one or more witnesses" committed perjury, and it's urging local prosecutors to bring charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” according to portions of the special grand jury's final report that were released on Thursday.
The sections that were made public are silent on key details, including who the panel believes committed perjury and what other specific charges should be pursued. But it marks the first time the grand jurors' recommendations for criminal charges tied to the case have been made public. And it's a reminder of the intensifying legal challenges facing the former president as he ramps up his third White House bid amid multiple legal investigations.
Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for holding classified documents at his Florida estate.
The former president never testified before the special grand jury, meaning he is not among those who could have perjured themselves. But the case still poses particular challenges for him, in part because his actions in Georgia were so public.
Trump and his allies made unproven claims of widespread voter fraud and repeatedly berated Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp for not acting to overturn his narrow loss to President Joe Biden in the state.
Willis has said since the beginning of the investigation two years ago that she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested to Raffensperger that he could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. “Because we won the state.”
Trump has said repeatedly that his call with Raffensperger was “perfect,” and he told The Associated Press last month that he felt “very confident” that he would not be indicted.
State and federal officials, including Trump’s attorney general, have consistently said the election was secure and there was no evidence of significant fraud. After hearing “extensive testimony on the issue,” the special grand jury agreed in a unanimous vote that there was no widespread fraud in Georgia's election.
The special grand jury, which was requested by Willis to aid her investigation, was seated in May and submitted its report to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Dec. 15. The panel does not have the power to issue indictments. Instead, its report contains recommendations for Willis, who will ultimately decide whether to seek one or more indictments from a regular grand jury.
Over the course of about seven months, the special grand jurors heard from 75 witnesses, among them Trump allies including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Top Georgia officials, such as Raffensperger and Kemp, also appeared before the panel.
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Graham told reporters Thursday that he has not been contacted by authorities regarding his testimony. “I’m confident I testified openly and honestly,” he said.
The partial release of the grand jury's report was ordered Monday by McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury. During a hearing last month, prosecutors urged him not to release the report until they decide on charges, while a coalition of media organizations, including the AP, pushed for the entire report to be made public immediately.
McBurney wrote in his Monday order that it’s not appropriate to release the full report now because it’s important to protect the due process rights of people for whom the grand jury recommended charges.
While there were relatively few details in Thursday's release, it does provide some insight into the panel's process. The report’s introduction says an “overwhelming majority” of the information that the grand jury received “was delivered in person under oath.” It also noted that no one on the panel was an election law expert or criminal lawyer.
“The majority of this Grand Jury used their collective best efforts,” the report said, “to attend every session, listen to every witness, and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained.”
Based on witnesses called to testify before the special grand jury, it is clear that Willis is focusing on several areas. Those include:
— Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election.
— A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
— False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020.
— The copying of data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County by a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies.
— Alleged attempts to pressure Fulton County elections worker Ruby Freeman into falsely confessing to election fraud.
— The abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021.
____
Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed reporting.
___
More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
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ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor who's investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state fought back Monday against the former president's attempt to remove her from the case and exclude certain evidence.
Trump's Georgia legal team in March asked the court to toss out the report of a special grand jury that had been seated in the case and to prevent prosecutors from using any evidence or testimony stemming from the panel’s investigation. They also asked that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office be barred from continuing to investigate or prosecute the case.
Willis responded in a filing Monday that the Trump's motion is “procedurally flawed” and advances “arguments that lack merit.”
For more than two years now, Willis has been investigating the actions Trump and others took in the wake of the 2020 election. She took the unusual step last year of asking for a special grand jury to aid the investigation, saying the panel's subpoena power would allow her team to compel the testimony of people who might not otherwise cooperate.
The special grand jury, which did not have the power to issue indictments, was seated last May and dissolved in January after hearing from 75 witnesses and submitting a report with recommendations for Willis. Though most of that report remains under wraps for now according to a judge's order, the panel's foreperson has said without naming names that the special grand jury recommended charging multiple people.
Trump lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg argued that the special grand jury “involved a constant lack of clarity as to the law, inconsistent applications of basic constitutional protections for individuals being brought before it, and a prosecutor’s office that was found to have an actual conflict, yet continued to pursue the investigation.”
They also asked that their claims be heard by a judge other than Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury.
Cathy Latham, one of 16 Georgia Republicans who met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, last month joined Trump’s motion. It has become clear during the investigation that Willis is interested in the actions of the fake electors, and at least eight of them have secured immunity deals in the case.
In her motion Monday, Willis asked that McBurney retain supervision of the matter and urged that Trump and Latham's motions be dismissed or denied without holding a hearing.
Willis wrote that the arguments put forth in the motions fail to meet the “exacting standards" for disqualifying a prosecutor and they also fail to prove their claims that their own due process rights have been violated or that the grand jury process was “tainted” or the law governing it unconstitutional.
Trump and Latham “are not content to follow the ordinary course of the law,” Willis wrote.
“The State's reply was primarily procedural in nature and failed to address several of the critical substantive issues which were discussed at length in our brief and exhibits,” Trump's lawyers said in a statement, adding that they plan to ask the court for time to file a response.
A coalition of news organizations, including The Associated Press, also filed a motion Monday objecting to Trump’s request that the special grand jury report be “quashed and expunged from the record.”
“Not only is such a remedy unsupported by any legal basis, it would also be starkly at odds with the fundamental principles of this Nation and State,” the media lawyers argued. “The Report is a matter of the utmost public concern, and it should be released to the public in its entirety.”
Willis last month sent letters to local law enforcement leaders advising them to prepare for “heightened security” as she intends to announce charging decisions in the case between July 11 and Sept. 1. To secure an indictment, she needs to bring the case before a regular grand jury.
The Georgia investigation is one of several that threatens the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House in 2024. A Manhattan grand jury in March indicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, federal grand juries in Washington are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election and the potential mishandling of classified documents by Trump at his Florida estate.
And a federal jury in New York last week found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million.
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By Amy Gardner and Josh Dawsey
June 02, 2023 at 6:00 ET
An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by former president Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in Washington, D.C., and several other states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe — a fresh sign that prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signaled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme.
In recent days, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the investigation. At least one of the firms has been subpoenaed by Fulton County investigators.
Willis’s investigation is separate from the one at the Department of Justice being led by special counsel Jack Smith, but the two probes have covered some of the same ground. Willis has said she plans to make a charging decision this summer, and she has indicated that such an announcement could come in early August. She has faced stiff criticism from Republicans for investigating the former president, and the ever-widening scope suggests just how ambitious her plans may be.
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To Watch a Trump Town Hall on Fox Is to Enter an Entirely Different World
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