Closing summary
Hello again, US politics live blog readers. It’s been a very interesting day, especially in terms of a certain election-related criminal racketeering case in Georgia … This blog will be back on Wednesday for all the political news during the day but also live coverage of the first Republican debate of the 2024 election campaign in the evening. Do click join us then, but for now, this blog will close. You can read the separate story on Mark Meadows that has just launched on our site here.
Here’s where things stand:
Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff to Donald Trump, filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement in Georgia.
The majority of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said they believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll.
Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman, two of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump, entered bond agreements, for $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, attempted to clarify conspiracy-tinged remarks he made earlier this week about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump hoping to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official, and David Shafer, one of the Georgia fake electors, who were charged with Donald Trump in the election subversion case in the state, filed to move the case from state to federal court.
Shawn Still, who was also charged in the state’s election subversion case, reached a $10,000 bond agreement with prosecutors.
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy will stand center stage at Wednesday night’s first Republican presidential nomination debate, according to a lineup released by the Republican National Committee.
You can read our latest full report here:
Updated
Biden issues statement on extreme weather, climate change
Joe Biden was briefed earlier today on the extreme weather that is affecting many parts of the US, according to the White House. The US president also talked to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the topic and was warned of the peak of the hurricane season that is approaching.
Now Biden has issued a statement and unequivocally linked the severity of the weather to the climate crisis:
Across the country, people are experiencing the devastating impacts of extreme weather worsened by climate change. As peak hurricane season approaches, my administration continues taking action to bolster the country’s preparedness, and support response and recovery efforts.
I continue to be briefed on Tropical Storm Harold and its potential impacts on South Texas.
Biden said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) was deploying. Our latest story on Tropical Storm Harold is here.
Biden’s statement also said:
I have also been briefed on Tropical Storm Franklin, and I directed FEMA to pre-deploy personnel and resources to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
Updated
Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega is highly unimpressed with the efforts of Mark Meadows’ legal team in trying to stave off the prospect of arrest of the former chief of staff to Donald Trump if he doesn’t surrender to be booked in the Georgia election subversion case.
There has been some frantic correspondence between Meadows’ team and Fulton county DA Fani Willis.
Wow. Meadows' attorneys digging their hole deeper and deeper. This letter does not even merit a response from DA Willis. She has made her position clear. https://t.co/7eKazn7Sxm
— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) August 22, 2023
And this:
Meadows' attorneys don't understand that the more heavy-handed their approach with DA Fani Willis, the less likely it is they will get what they want. They're not helping their client one bit right now. https://t.co/Ow60kMeRya
— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) August 22, 2023
Meanwhile, Jewel Wicker’s recent profile of Willis is a good read, here.
Updated
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis doesn’t mince her words.
Fani Willis to Mark Meadows' lawyers: "Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction." pic.twitter.com/NnqnfQ7umO
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) August 22, 2023
There are some choice reactions from legal experts.
Meadows' atty, George Terwilliger, is used to having clout with prosecutors in fed'l cases because he's been around so long. But he has no clout with DA Fani Willis. He has underestimated her and the gravity of her case against Meadows. He should drop the air of entitlement. https://t.co/DkeFJ8ThPT
— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) August 22, 2023
And there was this before the latest request, after Meadows asked for his Georgia case to be moved to federal court.
Unfortunately for Mark Meadows' motion, I haven't been able to find the federal law or constitutional provision that made interfering in a lawful election a part of his job in the White House.
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) August 22, 2023
Updated
Trump and 18 co-defendants face Friday surrender deadline in Georgia
Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants face a Friday deadline to surrender after being charged in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case.
The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday, 25 August, for Trump and his co-defendants to voluntarily turn themselves in to be booked.
On Monday, Trump said he plans to surrender to authorities on Thursday to face charges including criminal conspiracy, filing false documents and violating the Georgia Rico Act.
The first two co-defendants have already surrendered today – Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall and former Trump lawyer John Eastman.
Updated
In the court filing, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pointed to the Fulton county court’s plans to hold a hearing on Monday on his request that his case be moved to federal court.
The filing reads:
District Attorney Fani Willis has made clear that she intends to arrest Mr Meadows before this Court’s Monday hearing and has rejected out of hand a reasonable request to defer one business day until after this Court’s hearing.
Absent this Court’s intervention, Mr Meadows will be denied the protection from arrest that federal law affords former federal officials, and this Court’s prompt but orderly consideration of removal will be frustrated.
Updated
Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows seeks emergency order from judge to protect him from arrest
Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement, according to court documents.
The filing by Meadows’ legal team comes after he was denied a request to delay the arrest while he tries to move his case to federal court.
Meadows claims that his alleged actions, including participating with Donald Trump in a phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, should be immune from state prosecution because they were performed in his capacity as a federal official.
Updated
John Eastman, the lawyer facing criminal charges for his alleged efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, made a statement to the press after turning himself in to the Fulton county jail earlier today.
Eastman, who has been charged with nine felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, solicitation, filing false documents and violating the Rico Act, said he would “vigorously” contest every count of the indictment in which he had been named.
He said he was “confident that when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated”.
Asked by a reporter if he still believed the 2020 election was stolen, Eastman replied:
Absolutely. No question in my mind.
Pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman — after his arrest in the Georgia election interference case — is asked if he still thinks the 2020 election was stolen:
— The Recount (@therecount) August 22, 2023
“Absolutely,” Eastman responds. “No question in my mind.” pic.twitter.com/Lb9cLgBZCr
In December 2020, Eastman reportedly helped orchestrate the plan for Georgia Republican electors to meet and sign a fraudulent certificate that said Trump won the election in what is now known as the fake electors scheme.
He also drafted a six-point memo that directed former vice-president Mike Pence to refuse to certify electoral votes on 6 January 2021.
Updated
Most Iowa Republican caucus-goers believe Trump won 2020 election – poll
The majority of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said they believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll.
The NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found that 51% of likely caucus-goers said they believe Trump’s claims that he won in 2020, despite no evidence of widespread election fraud, while 41% said they don’t, and 8% said they are not sure. The poll included both Republican and independent voters.
Of those who said they believed Trump’s claims were a majority of self-identified Republicans (60%), those making less than $70,000 a year (69%), evangelicals (62%) and those without college degrees (59%), the poll showed.
Of those who listed Trump as their first-choice candidate, 83% said they believe he won the 2020 election.
Two-thirds of respondents, or 65%, said Trump has not committed serious crimes, despite him being indicted four times over the past year.
Updated
Trump co-defendants Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman enter bond agreements
Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman, two of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump, have entered bond agreements in Fulton county, Georgia, for $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.
Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney and former Colorado prosecutor, spread multiple statements claiming voter fraud during the 2020 election and sent at least two memos advising Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states. She was ordered to appear before the special grand jury in 2022.
Earlier this year, the Colorado supreme court censured Ellis for making false statements and she acknowledged making misrepresentations as part of the agreement.
A former Trump campaign staffer, Roman was involved in the plot to deliver lists of fake electors to Pence on 6 January 2021 in a bid to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.
A former White House aide, he served as Trump’s director of election day operations and attempted to convince state legislators to unlawfully appoint alternate electors, according to the indictment.
From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:
MORE: Jenna ELLIS and Mike ROMAN have entered bond agreements in Georgia for $100,000 and $50,000, respectively. pic.twitter.com/GL5riy6BFD
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 22, 2023
Updated
The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, did not qualify for Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate in Milwaukee, after his performance in a series of polls fell short of requirements set by the Republican national committee.
Hurd has also refused to sign the party’s pledge to support its eventual nominee – another RNC requirement to take part in the debate.
Hurd is one of the few GOP candidates prepared to attack Donald Trump in strong terms, not least over scheduled trials that include civil cases over defamation and a rape allegation and investigations of his business affairs.
In a statement, Hurd said he was disappointed to be kept off the debate stage but said he would not be deterred.
I have said from day one of my candidacy that I will not sign a blood oath to Donald Trump. The biggest difference between me and every single candidate who will be on the debate stage in Milwaukee is that I have never bent the knee to Trump.
I have said from day one of my candidacy that I will not sign a blood oath to Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/lxMN7NJzza
— Will Hurd (@WillHurd) August 22, 2023
Chris Christie, the Republican former New Jersey governor and outspoken critic of Donald Trump, was in Florida last week arguing his own case for the party’s presidential nomination.
“I do know that you have a couple of candidates. I have been advised that there’s a couple of guys running for president who actually call Florida home,” Christie joked to his audience at a Cuban restaurant in Miami, referring to rivals Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
“Some people would say, why bother coming to Florida if two of the other candidates already live here? What’s the chance of doing well in Florida? I’m here because we need to talk … I’m not conceding that conversation to Ron DeSantis. And you can be sure I’m not conceding that conversation to Donald Trump.”
Here’s our report of Christie’s visit, and why he faces an uphill battle winning over voters in the sunshine state:
Ramaswamy tries to walk back conspiracy-tinged remarks
The biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, attempted to clarify conspiracy-tinged remarks he made earlier this week about the events of 9/11 and the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
“I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers,” Ramaswamy said, in a profile published by the Atlantic on Monday.
Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.
Ramaswamy was condemned for the remarks. The events of 9/11 – and the absence of any US government plot – were established by an official commission, a bipartisan group which published its final report in July 2004.
In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, he said:
I am not questioning what we – this is not something I’m staking anything out on. But I want the truth about 9/11.
Updated
Interim summary
It’s been a lively day of political news so far, much of it centered on Fulton county, Georgia, where accused co-conspirators of former president Donald Trump, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, surrendered to authorities.
John Eastman, Trump’s former personal lawyer alleged to have orchestrated the fake electors scheme to keep him in power, was the first, followed by Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman.
Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official and one of the Georgia co-defendants, filed to move the case into federal court. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had already filed a similar notice of removal.
A Fulton county judge banned Trump from contacting his co-defendants or witnesses in the Georgia case, including making posts on social media.
Fox News, hosts of Wednesday’s first debate of Republicans seeking the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, announced stage positions. Florida governor Ron DeSantis and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will stand center stage, with former vice president Mike Pence and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley alongside.
There’s plenty more come, please stick with us.
Updated
Democratic former congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell will challenge incumbent Republican Rick Scott for his senate seat in Florida, she announced on Tuesday.
Mucarsel-Powell, who was born in Ecuador, was the first South American immigrant elected to Congress in 2018, but lost her re-election bid in 2020 to Republican Carlos Giménez, the former mayor of Miami-Dade county.
Scott, a former Florida governor, is seen by Democrats as vulnerable. His ousting of three-term senator Bill Nelson in 2018 was by only 10,033 votes from 8.2m cast, and Scott has since fallen out with Republican senate leadership.
“It will take all of us working together to defeat him, but that’s when we’re at our best; and everywhere I go I can feel this desire for change,” Mucarsel-Powell said in her campaign launch statement.
Updated
Donald Trump’s decision to skip tomorrow’s Republican primary debate means his surrogates will not be able to access the post-debate “spin room”, according to reports.
A Fox News memo obtained by the Hill and Axios shows the network informed campaigns that only surrogates of candidates who attend the debate will receive a credential to the spin room, where campaigns tout their candidate and blast their political enemies.
Trump senior aides who had indicated they would be in the room will be able to enter only if they’re guests of media organizations, according to the memo.
On Monday, Donald Trump Jr said he would travel to Wisconsin this week to serve as a surrogate for his father at the GOP presidential primary debate. The Trump campaign confirmed Trump Jr would be in Milwaukee as a surrogate.
Trump co-defendants seek to move Georgia case to federal court
Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official who was charged with Donald Trump in the Georgia election case, has filed to move the case into federal court.
In a filing in federal court on Monday, Clark argued that his notice of removal as well as the notice of removal filed by co-defendant Mark Meadows has the effect of moving the entire state court case to federal court.
Lawyers for Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff under Trump, filed a petition last week to go from state to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, arguing for the switch based on the idea that the charges stem from Meadows conduct in his capacity as an officer of the federal government.
David Shafer, one of the state’s fake electors, also filed a notice of removal on Monday. Shafer reached a $75,000 bond agreement with prosecutors at Fulton county today.
Clark and Shafter argued their charges must be moved because of their status as federal officers at the time when they engaged in the alleged activities that led to the charges.
Where do the Republican primary candidates stand on voter issues?
Republicans vying for the 2024 party nomination are set to take the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night for the first debate of the primary season.
The candidates will certainly throw punches at each other and at Donald Trump, who has a significant lead in polls but is skipping the debate. But it’s also a chance for each candidate to present their policy agenda and voice their stance on key voter issues such as abortion and aid to Ukraine.
Here’s where each candidate in Wednesday’s debate stands on key voter issues such as abortion, immigration, the economy and continued aid to Ukraine.
Michael Cohen turned on Donald Trump after he was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses including tax fraud and lying to Congress.
Becoming a leading Trump critic, he has testified against Trump in court. Last month, Cohen reached an undisclosed settlement with the Trump Organization over his own unpaid fees.
Regarding Trump’s bond in Georgia, Cohen told CNN: “At the end of the day, $200,000, he’ll have no problem with raising the money. Worse comes to worse, he’ll go to his stupid supporters to do it and they’ll just pony up to one of his various” fundraising committees.
But I find it ironic or comical that I had to post a $500,000 bond for another man having an affair and [me] receiving back the money … and his is $200,000 for trying to overturn a free and fair election. I just don’t see the correlation, but it is what it is.
Cohen suggested Rudy Giuliani would be wise to “flip” on Trump. “Allegedly from Rudy’s own mouth, he claims that he has a smoking gun, information about Donald,” Cohen said.
Well, if that’s true … I don’t have to suggest anything to Rudy. He’s the one that basically came up with this concept of strong-arming when he was head of the southern district of New York. He’s going to need to speak and he’s going to need to speak before everybody else does.
Giuliani’s work for Trump also included digging for political dirt in Ukraine, efforts which contributed to Trump’s first impeachment.
Cohen said:
The job that Rudy did for Donald, I don’t know if I would pay either. But at the end of the day, when your life is basically hanging on the line once again, you just don’t really want to throw another lawyer under the bus.
Donald Trump is an “idiot” for not paying legal expenses incurred by his attorney the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani in the Georgia election subversion case, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said.
“Donald’s an idiot,” Cohen told CNN of the former president. “Let me just be very clear when it comes to paying money, he is truly an idiot.
He has not learned yet that [there are] three people you don’t want to throw under the bus like that: your lawyer, your doctor and your mechanic. Because one way or the other, you’re going to go down the hill and there’ll be no brakes.
Trump faces 13 charges in Georgia, including racketeering and conspiracy. With bond set at $200,000, he has said he would turn himself in at an Atlanta jail on Thursday.
Eighteen Trump allies were also charged. Giuliani faces 13 counts including racketeering, an irony widely noted given his past as a crusading US attorney in New York, cracking down on organised crime.
CNN reported last week that Giuliani in April went to Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, to ask for help paying mounting bills also concerning other work while Trump was in the White House. Giuliani was largely rebuffed, CNN said.
Cohen was long close to Trump, his work including making the hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels that are now the subject of 34 criminal charges against Trump in New York state.
Co-defendant David Shafer agrees $75,000 bail
David Shafer, one of the 18 co-defendants charged with Donald Trump, has also reached a $75,000 bond agreement with prosecutors at Fulton county.
Chairperson of Georgia’s Republican party since 2019, Shafer was one of the fake electors who falsely claimed Trump won in Georgia.
The Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney ruled last year that Shafer played an outsized role in organizing the signatures and thus could not be treated the same as the other electors indicted in the case.
Updated
Shawn Still, one of three named Georgia fake electors, reaches $10,000 bail agreement
Shawn Still, who was charged in the state’s election subversion case, has reached a $10,000 bond agreement with prosecutors.
Still, now a Republican Georgia state senator, is one of three named fake electors – along with David Shafer and Cathy Latham – in the sprawling indictment. He served as the finance chair for the Georgia Republican party in 2020.
From Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Tamar Hallerman:
New: State Sen. Shawn Still's bond being set for $10,000. He served as an "alternate" elector in Dec. 2020. pic.twitter.com/Zf6dOGHp5f
— Tamar Hallerman (@TamarHallerman) August 22, 2023
Updated
Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump and 18 other allies over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, was spotted by ABC News’ Olivia Rubin walking through the lobby of the courthouse.
Willis was noticeably smiling as she made her way through the hall, flanked by a half a dozen armed guards, Rubin writes.
Spotted: Fulton County DA Fani Willis was just seen walking through the lobby of the courthouse. She was noticeably smiling as she made her way through the hall, flanked by a half a dozen armed guards.
— Olivia Rubin (@OliviaRubinABC) August 22, 2023
"Good morning, morning, morning," Willis said.@wsteaks
Willis has faced a flurry of racist online abuse since the charges against the former president were made public.
Earlier this month, Willis wrote to Fulton county commissioners and judges to warn them to stay vigilant in the face of rising tensions ahead of the release of the indictment. She told them that she and her staff had been receiving racist threats and voicemails since she began her investigation into Trump’s attempt to subvert the election two years ago.
Updated
Fulton county judge limits Donald Trump's social media use
A Fulton county judge signed an order on Monday banning Donald Trump from contacting his co-defendants or witnesses in the Georgia case accusing him and his allies of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
In a court document posted online on Monday, bond amounts for the 13 charges against the former president ranged from $10,000, for counts including criminal conspiracy and filing false documents, to $80,000, for a violation of the Georgia Rico Act, often used against organised crime.
Terms included a prohibition of “act[ing] to intimidate any person known to … be a codefendant or witness in this case”. The order says:
The above shall include, but are not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media.
Authorities in Georgia are investigating threats made to grand jurors that indicted Trump and 18 of his allies earlier this month, after private information about jurors was published online.
The Fulton county sheriff’s office announced last week that it was “aware that personal information of members of the Fulton county grand jury is being shared on various platforms” and was working to track down the origins of the threats in Fulton county, where Atlanta is located, and other jurisdictions.
As the second-place candidate in the Republican primary race, Florida governor Ron DeSantis will likely withstand the bulk of attacks on Wednesday night’s GOP debate stage as he hopes to re-establish himself as the main contender to Trump and give his campaign a much-needed boost.
The challenge facing DeSantis is how to convince Republican primary voters to pick him without attacking Donald Trump, who is the clear frontrunner in national and early state polls, according to a Politico report.
Nick Iarossi, a Florida-based lobbyist who is close to the DeSantis campaign but not advising him on debate preparations, told the news site that the goal is to “consolidate the anti-Trump Republican support”.
It’s still clearly a two-man race, and that’s why Trump keeps attacking DeSantis, but on Wednesday night he has to demonstrate to everybody that he’s clearly the guy to take on Trump.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will stand center stage at Wednesday night’s first GOP presidential nomination debate, according to a lineup released by the Republican national commitee.
Standing alongside DeSantis and Ramaswamy at the Milwaukee stage will be former vice president Mike Pence and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Fox News reported.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and South Carolina senator Tim Scott will stand in the number five and six positions.
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum will stand on the wings of the debate stage.
Breaches of the Coffee county voting machines appear to have happened at least two additional times. On 18 January 2021, they were accessed on a second occasion when elections supervisor, Misty Hampton arrived with Doug Logan, the CEO of elections security firm CyberNinjas, and a retired federal employee named Jeffrey Lenberg.
The pair spent at least four hours that afternoon inside the elections office, and then returned the following day for another nine hours. Lenberg then again gained access to the elections office every day for four days starting on 25 January 2021.
What Lenberg did inside remains uncertain. But in a subsequent podcast interview, Lenberg said he and Logan went to Coffee county after hearing about the Senate runoffs incident because they wanted to see if they could replicate the error but “didn’t touch” the machines themselves.
The day after the Capitol attack in Washington, on 7 January 2021, surveillance video picked up Eric Chaney, a member of the Coffee county elections board, arriving at the county’s elections office around 11am. The Coffee county GOP chair, Cathy Latham, also arrived at the office around an hour later.
The tapes then show Latham greeting data experts from SullivanStrickler, a firm that specializes in “imaging”, or making exact copies, of electronic devices, and Scott Hall, a bail bond business owner with ties to the local Republican party hunting for evidence of election fraud.
What happened inside the elections office is only partially captured on surveillance video, but records show the SullivanStrickler team imaged almost every component of the election systems, including ballot scanners, the server used to count votes, thumb drives and flash memory cards.
The company believed it had authorization to collect the data, SullivanStrickler’s director of data risk Dean Felicetti later said in a deposition, and suggested that Hampton and Latham had given their approval.
Most of the imaging work apparently took place off camera, though tapes from the lobby of the Coffee county elections office show Latham, the elections supervisor, Misty Hampton, and Chaney with the SullivanStrickler experts as they bend over to look at computer screens and walk around elections equipment.
Lawyers for Latham and Hampton did not respond to requests for comment. But Latham’s previous lawyer has told the Washington Post that she did not authorize the copying and had “not acted improperly or illegally”. Hall and Chaney also did not respond to requests for comment.
The next day, according to text messages, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – who helped organize the clandestine operation and paid for it through her non-profit – was informed that SullivanStrickler would post the data it had gathered on to a password-protected site from where it could be downloaded.
Larry Elder to sue RNC after being excluded from first Republican debate
Larry Elder, the rightwing radio host who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said he plans to sue the Republican national committee (RNC) to halt the party’s first presidential primary debate on Wednesday, after he was excluded from participating.
The RNC announced that eight candidates for tomorrow’s primary debate in Milwaukee, but that three candidates had fallen short: Miami mayor Francis S Suarez, businessman Perry Johnson, and Elder. All three had claimed to have met the donor and polling threshold.
In a statement, Elder said:
I said from the beginning that it appeared the rules of the game were rigged, little did we know just how rigged it is. For some reason, the establishment leaders at the RNC are afraid of having my voice on the debate stage. Just as I had to fight to successfully be on the ballot in the California recall election, I will fight to be on that debate stage because I fully met all of the requirements to do so.
I intend to sue the RNC to halt Wednesday's presidential debate.
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) August 22, 2023
I said from the beginning that it appeared the rules of the game were rigged, little did we know just how rigged it is. For some reason, the establishment leaders at the RNC are afraid of having my voice on the… pic.twitter.com/PX5fnD1Rkn
Updated
John Eastman, who has surrendered to authorities in Georgia, was charged with orchestrating the so-called fake electors scheme designed to keep Donald Trump in office after his election loss.
A central part of Trump’s strategy to reverse his defeat, the fake electors scheme was called that because Republican electors in seven key battleground states signed certificates falsely declaring themselves “duly elected and qualified” to affirm Trump won the 2020 election.
Eastman, a former law professor at Chapman University in California, drafted legal memos suggesting then vice-president Mike Pence could refuse to accept electoral votes from several swing states when Congress convened to certify the 2020 vote count. Pence rebuffed his arguments, saying he did not have legal authority.
Eastman was also referenced – but not explicitly named – as an unindicted co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election subversion case against Trump.
Former Trump lawyer John Eastman surrenders to Georgia authorities
John Eastman, a former personal lawyer to Donald Trump charged with helping the former president’s fake elector scheme, said he will surrender to Fulton County prosecutors today.
In a statement, Eastman said:
I am here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought. It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. As troubling, it targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something attorneys are ethically bound to provide and which was attempted here by “formally challeng[ing] the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means.” – An opportunity never afforded them in the Fulton County Superior Court.
Each Defendant in this indictment, no less than any other American citizen, is entitled to rely upon the advice of counsel and the benefit of past legal precedent in challenging what former Vice President Pence described as, “serious allegations of voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law” in the 2020 election. The attempt to criminalize our rights to such redress with this indictment will have – and is already having – profound consequences for our system of justice.
My legal team and I will vigorously contest every count of the indictment in which I am named, and also every count in which others are named, for which my knowledge of the relevant facts, law, and constitutional provisions may prove helpful. I am confident that, when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated.
The Fulton county district attorney has advised several of Donald Trump’s co-defendants that they should surrender at the jail around 3am ET if they want a quick turnaround on their booking because it could take hours during the day, per people familiar.
Expect some surrenders in early hours.
The story about how a group of Donald Trump allies gained unauthorized access to voting machines – informed by deposition transcripts, surveillance tapes and other records – can be traced back to 2020, when the top elections supervisor for Coffee county came across the “adjudication” system for mail ballots within the machines.
In Georgia, mail ballots are marked by hand. If a ballot cannot be read by the machine, because of stray marks or other errors, it goes through an adjudication process whereby a bipartisan panel reviews the ballot and agrees on the voter’s intention before telling the machine how to count it.
The adjudication process became a point of controversy in local Republican party circles after the elections supervisor, Misty Hampton, said in a viral November 2020 video that the person entering the information could theoretically tell it to falsely count a ballot intended for one candidate for another.
Swapping a vote through the adjudication process would be straightforwardly illegal, and there is no evidence that such conduct took place during the 2020 presidential election. If it had, it would have been detected during the subsequent statewide hand count, experts have said.
On 5 January 2021, Georgia held runoff elections for the state’s two US Senate seats. That day, amid a fraught atmosphere, the Coffee county GOP chair, Cathy Latham, was the Republican member on the bipartisan adjudication panel.
As Latham later recounted in depositions in a long-running lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Good Governance, the ballot scanner in Coffee county repeatedly jammed as it tried to read mail-in ballots. And in Latham’s retelling, it appeared to jam more often for ballots marked for Republican candidates.
When Latham complained, the on-site Dominion Voting System technician advised her to wipe the ballot scanner with a cloth. Latham said in her statement that the wiping did not work, and it was only after the technician held his phone near the scanner that the problems were resolved.
According to Latham’s account, the suspicion was that the technician had downloaded something to the ballot scanner through his phone.
There remains no such evidence to date and the Georgia secretary of state’s office has affirmed the scanners have no wireless capability. But that bizarre episode appears to have been the trigger for a number of Trump allies to see if someone could have manipulated the election.
Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman who was charged in connection with the Coffee county election data breach, has been booked into the Fulton county jail, according to jail records.
Prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia have taken a special interest in the breach of voting machines in Coffee county by Trump allies because of the brazen nature of the operation and the possibility that Trump was aware that his allies intended to covertly gain access to the machines.
In a series of particularly notable incidents, forensics experts hired by Trump allies copied data from virtually every part of the voting system, which is used statewide in Georgia, before uploading them to a password-protected website that could be accessed by 2020 election deniers.
Updated
John Eastman, a former adviser to Donald Trump who was charged for his alleged role in helping the former president try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, will surrender to authorities at Fulton county on Wednesday, according to a filing.
Eastman, who is among Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case, faces nine counts, including one for violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as Rico.
He has also been facing discipline proceedings in the State Bar of California, in which he could lose his license to practice law in the state. CNN reported that a California judge said Monday night that Eastman would not be before her on Tuesday and Wednesday because of his forthcoming surrender in Fulton county.
Judge Yvette Roland wrote in a court order:
Based on the recent email exchanges between and with the parties, the court is willing to make certain changes in this week’s trial schedule in order to accommodate Dr. Eastman’s surrender in Fulton County, Georgia, which the court understands will take place on Wednesday, August 23rd.
In a “consent bond order” listed on the Fulton county court website on Monday, Eastman and prosecutors agreed to a $100,000 bond on the charges he is facing, which include racketeering, criminal conspiracy and filing false documents.
Under the terms of the order, Eastman “shall report to pre-trial supervision every 30 days”, and “shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a codefendant or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice”.
Updated
Bail bondsman Scott Hall is the first co-defendant of Donald Trump to surrender to authorities in Georgia to face charges over their alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.
Hall was given an inmate identification number on Tuesday and is currently detained, according to court records.
Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman who surrendered to the Fulton county jail, had reached a bond agreement with Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis after he was charged with racketeering and six criminal conspiracy counts relating to a scheme to access voting machines and data in rural Coffee county.
In a “consent bond order” listed on the Fulton county court website on Monday, Hall agreed to a $10,000 bond, that he will “report to pre-trial supervision every 30 days” and that is barred from communicating with the other 18 defendants in the case.
Hall, Cathy Latham and Misty Hampton “aided, abetted, and encouraged” employees from the data solutions firm SullivanStrickler to access voting equipment inside the Coffee county board of elections registration office, according to the indictment handed down by Willis.
First of Trump's co-defendants turns himself in to Fulton county jail
Scott Hall, one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case, has turned himself in to the Fulton county jail, according to the jail’s online database.
A Georgia bail bondsman and Trump supporter, Hall is charged with illegally seeking access to voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, to search for evidence they were rigged.
Updated
Donald Trump’s decision to spurn the debate on Fox News in favor of an online interview with Tucker Carlson marks a new level of hostility with the network.
The sit-down with Carlson would be particularly bruising for Fox given Carlson is still on contract and being paid by the network, despite having his show taken off the air after the network settled, for $787m, a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over 2020 election denial claims.
Fox News executives and hosts have reportedly been begging Trump to take part in the debate. Last month, the Fox News president, Jay Wallace, and CEO, Suzanne Scott, went to Bedminster to convince Trump to attend, and came away thinking he could still participate.
But Trump has been openly attacking Fox News since the launch of his presidential campaign, in part because of its positive coverage of his 2024 rival and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and has privately lashed out at the Fox Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch.
Updated
Donald Trump says he will surrender to Fulton county authorities on Thursday
Donald Trump says he will surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday to face charges in the case accusing him of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,” Trump wrote on his social media network on Monday night, hours after court papers said his bond was set at $200,000.
The Fulton county sheriff’s office said in a news release on Monday afternoon that when Trump surrenders there will be a “hard lockdown” of the area surrounding the main county jail.
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has set a deadline of noon on Friday for Trump and his 18 co-defendants to turn themselves in to be booked. The prosecutor has proposed that arraignments for the defendants follow during the week of 5 September. She has said she wants to try the defendants collectively, and bring the case to trial in March of next year, which would put it in the heat of the presidential nominating season.
In Fulton county, when defendants are not in custody, their lawyers and the district attorney’s office will often work out a bond amount before arraignment and the judge will sign off on it. The defendants will generally be booked at the Fulton county jail. During the booking process, they are typically photographed and fingerprinted and then they provide certain personal information. Since Trump’s bond has already been set, he will be released from custody once the booking process is complete.
Updated
Eight candidates qualify for first Republican primary debate
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Eight Republicans have officially qualified for the party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate, the Republican national committee announced on Monday night.
The eight candidates scheduled to appear on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night are: Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, the former vice-president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, North Dakota’s governor Doug Burgum, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina senator Tim Scott.
Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in national and early state polls, will not be there. Instead, the former president sat down for an interview with the former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, that is expected to be used as counter programming in an attempt to upstage the opening event in the party’s nominating contest.
Without Trump, much of the attention is expected to fall on his closest rival Ron DeSantis, who has polled consistently in second place but has remained stagnant while Trump’s lead has grown. The Florida governor will likely withstand the bulk of attacks on the debate stage as he hopes to re-establish himself as the main contender to Trump and give his campaign a much-needed boost.
Meanwhile, Trump said he will surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday to face charges in the case accusing him of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss. “Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,” Trump wrote on his social media network on Monday night, hours after court papers said his bond was set at $200,000.
In a court document posted online on Monday, bond amounts for the 13 charges against the former president ranged from $10,000, for counts including criminal conspiracy and filing false documents, to $80,000, for a violation of the Georgia Rico Act, often used against organised crime.
The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday for Trump and his 18 co-defendants to turn themselves in to be booked, and proposed that arraignments for the defendants follow during the week of 5 September. Willis has said she wants to try the defendants collectively, and bring the case to trial in March of next year, which would put it in the heat of the presidential nominating season.
Updated
