Closing summary
It is now 4pm in Washington DC. Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Colton Moore, a Republican state senator in Georgia, has moved to impeach the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis. Moore wrote a letter to Governor Brian Kemp in which he called for an emergency review of Willis’s actions, after Willis delivered a 41-count indictment against former president Donald Trump and his operatives on state racketeering and conspiracy charges over efforts to reverse Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss in the state.
Fulton county DA Fani Willis has faced a wave of racist abuse online since the indictment, including from Trump, who used a thinly veiled play on the N-word on Truth Social. “They never went after those that Rigged the Election,” Trump wrote. “They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”
Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges against Trump were made public on Monday night. The names, photographs and home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the Fulton county grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 of his co-defendants this week are circulating on social media.
US district judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case against Trump, has canceled tentative plans to hold a hearing on 25 August on a protective order for classified evidence.
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, needs to “take a sledge-hammer” to his GOP rival Vivek Ramaswamy and “defend” Donald Trump during the first Republican presidential primary debate next week, allies of DeSantis have urged in a memo.
The New York mayor turned Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani made a largely fruitless visit to Mar-a-Lago to plead for help paying “ballooning” legal fees arising from work for the former president, according to a CNN report. Trump, “who is notoriously strict about dipping into his own coffers, didn’t seem very interested” and only “verbally agreed” to help pay some bills and to support fundraisers for his ally, the report said.
Donald Trump’s legal advisers have urged the former president not to hold a press conference next week in response to his latest indictment, according to an ABC report.
Updated
Georgia’s Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has attacked Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis over her indictment of Donald Trump and 18 other co-defendants, criticizing her for her “communist style persecution”.
“They want to silence President Trump so he can’t campaign and they are committing election interference. This is a conspiracy by Biden and the Democrats coordinating from the Federal DOJ all the way to State DA’s!” Greene tweeted on Thursday.
“We can not allow this to happen! Republicans must act in our capacity to stop this. Otherwise our country is over,” she added.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis wants March 4th as the court date to begin her communist style persecution of President Trump for simply saying his election was stolen.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) August 17, 2023
That is the day BEFORE Super Tuesday!!
They want to silence President Trump so he can’t campaign and they are…
Updated
Donald Trump and the 18 co-defendants charged in the 41-count indictment over racketeering and crimes for conspiring to subvert the 2020 presidential election are set to be booked at a jail in Fulton county, Georgia.
Mary Yang reports:
Trump and his co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for the ex-president and former New York City mayor, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, can “turn themselves in at any time” since the jail is open 24/7, the sheriff’s office said.
But the sheriff’s office added that “due to the unprecedented nature of this case, some circumstances may change with little or no warning”.
In Georgia, the booking process – which typically includes fingerprinting, collecting personal information and taking a booking photo (AKA mugshot) – is separate from the arraignment process. The presiding judge, Scott McAfee, who was appointed to the bench in February, can dictate whether defendants can appear virtually for their arraignments, where they can plead guilty or not guilty.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
Law enforcement 'aware that personal information of Georgia grand jury being shared online'
Law enforcement officials were aware of the personal information of special grand jury members being shared online, according to the Fulton county sheriff’s office.
The purported names and addresses of members of the grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and 18 of his co-defendants this week have been circulating on social media, as we reported earlier.
A statement from the local sheriff’s office said:
As the lead agency, our investigators are working closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to track down the origin of threats in Fulton County and other jurisdictions.
Updated
The Super Pac backing GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie has responded to a debate memo written by allies of Ron DeSantis urging the Florida governor to defend Donald Trump if Christie attacks him during next week’s Republican primary debate.
the super pac supporting @ChrisChristie responds with some sly--maybe too sly--trolling of @RonDeSantis: https://t.co/uarJPpkdMj pic.twitter.com/q3znb8ZWbK
— chris smith (@chrissmithnymag) August 17, 2023
The federal judge presiding over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case against Donald Trump has canceled tentative plans to hold a hearing on 25 August on a protective order for classified evidence.
US district judge Aileen Cannon said she would hold a hearing sealed from the public at “a designated time and place to discuss sensitive, security-related issues concerning classified discovery”. She did not say where and when that hearing will take place.
Cannon said Trump and his co-defendants in the case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, did not have to attend the hearing.
From Lawfare’s Roger Parloff:
In USA v Trump (MaL), Judge Cannon will hold sealed hearing on CIPA protective order. Cancels public hearing for 8/25. pic.twitter.com/UKEo5ajOu6
— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) August 17, 2023
In Georgia on Monday, Rudy Giuliani was indicted on 13 counts, including under anti-racketeering “Rico” laws he famously used to target mobsters when he was the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan.
Speaking to Newsmax, Giuliani lamented “a ridiculous application of the racketeering statute”, saying:
There’s probably no one that knows it better than I do.
Ken Frydman, a former Giuliani press secretary, told the New York Post: “You couldn’t invent such irony.” But plenty of observers were happy to delight in it in public.
Under the headline “Wiseguys Rejoice at Seeing NYC Mafia Buster Rudy Giuliani Indicted on Trump Rico Charge”, the Messenger spoke to lawyers who have represented figures in organised crime.
Murray Richman, a “veteran mob lawyer”, said he had discussed Giuliani’s charge with “several of my clients”. “You can quote me to say, ‘They’re fucking thrilled,’” Richman said.
Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented John Gotti Jr, said:
All of my clients who had the misfortune of being prosecuted by him are laughing now. As am I … It’s not just an ironic result but it’s a just result. He was a horribly dishonest prosecutor and the wheel of karma is about to crush him.
Ron Kuby, who represented Stephen “Sigmund the Sea Monster” Sergio, said:
It is just delightful to watch the guy who expanded Rico prosecutions well beyond their original intent, and did so grasping for the biggest headlines … be indicted by the very law that he championed.
Speaking to CNN, an unnamed source noted that Trump’s reluctance to help Giuliani may prove unwise. “It’s not a smart idea,” the source said, noting how Trump’s relationship with a previous lawyer, Michael Cohen, deteriorated to the point that Cohen “flipped”, testifying against Trump in Congress and in court.
On social media, Cohen told Giuliani:
I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you. He didn’t pay you for your previous services (not that you accomplished anything other than make an asshole out of yourself). You have a better chance to raise the money from your ex-wives. I warned you!!!
The New York mayor turned Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani may have had reason to hope that Donald Trump will offer to help pay his “ballooning” legal fees arising from work for the former president.
Last year, a biographer, Andrew Kirtzman, reported that when Giuliani experienced problems with drinking and depression stoked by his failed presidential run in 2008, Trump gave him refuge at Mar-a-Lago, including the use of private tunnels to avoid press attention.
Giuliani now faces proliferating legal difficulties and expenses arising from work including searching for dirt on Trump’s political enemies, which stoked Trump’s first impeachment, and challenging election results in states lost to Joe Biden.
Giuliani’s own attorney, Adam Katz, this week told a judge in a case brought by a voting machines company, Smartmatic:
These are a lot of bills that he’s not paying. I think this is very humbling for Mr Giuliani.
The former mayor has put his New York apartment up for sale.
Georgia state senator moves to impeach Trump prosecutor Fani Willis
A Georgia state senator took the first step towards impeaching 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.
Republican state senator Colton Moore sent a letter to Georgia governor Brian Kemp requesting an emergency session to conduct an investigation into the actions undertaken by Willis.
“As a Georgia State Senator, I am officially calling for an emergency session to review the actions of Fani Willis,” Moore wrote in a post on Twitter.
America is under attack. I’m not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically target political opponents.
As a Georgia State Senator, I am officially calling for an emergency session to review the actions of Fani Willis.
— Sen. Colton Moore (@realColtonMoore) August 17, 2023
America is under attack. I’m not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically TARGET political opponents. pic.twitter.com/gpzg2l5uIU
Ron DeSantis allies post debate memo urging him to defend Trump and take 'a sledge-hammer' to Ramaswamy
Florida governor Ron DeSantis needs to “take a sledge-hammer” to his GOP rival Vivek Ramaswamy and “defend” Donald Trump during the first Republican presidential primary debate next week, allies of DeSantis have urged in a memo.
A firm associated with the main Super Pac backing DeSantis posted online hundreds of pages of blunt advice, research memos and internal polling to guide the Florida governor ahead of the 23 August debate in Milwaukee, according to a New York Times report.
“There are four basic must-dos,” one of the memos urges DeSantis.
1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.
DeSantis is urged to “take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake’", while separate documents show the multimillionaire entrepreneur surging in the polls in New Hampshire.
The debate-prep memo also recommends DeSantis to “defend Trump when Chris Christie attacks him”, with a specific suggestion for DeSantis to use against the former New Jersey governor:
Trump isn’t here so let’s just leave him alone. He’s too weak to defend himself here. We’re all running against him. I don’t think we want to join forces with someone on this stage who’s auditioning for a show on MSNBC.
Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is planning an “aggressive” media blitz to coincide with the first Republican primary presidential debate next week, according to the Hill.
The Biden campaign and the Democratic national committee (DNC) plan to run a paid media campaign, according to a campaign official, which will include a billboard campaign across Milwaukee, the site of the GOP debate, including three standing billboards and a billboard truck that will circle the debate venue.
Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond and DNC chair Jaime Harrison will host a press conference in a prepared rebuttal to the debate, the official said, and other officials will be on the ground in Milwaukee to meet with local leaders and key constituencies.
The campaign will also have “an aggressive war room run jointly by the Biden-Harris campaign and the DNC” that will coordinate responses to Republican candidates’ comments to hold them “accountable for the extreme MAGA views”, according to the report.
Donald Trump does not plan to take part in next week’s Republican presidential primary debate and has instead proposed counterprogramming to the event, according to a CNN report.
Citing sources, the report says Trump has not done any prep for the debate, which will take place on 23 August in Milwaukee.
The former president has been throwing out different ideas for his own counterprogramming during the debate, including sitting down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and calling into the different cable news shows, it says.
Trump has privately and publicly floated skipping either one or both of the first two GOP primary debates, pointing to his commanding lead in polls.
Donald Trump’s legal team is expected to argue that, as he attempted to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, he was acting in his official capacity as president, and thus the case is a federal issue.
Some of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Fulton case may attempt to make the same argument, as the statute also covers “any person acting under” a federal officer. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, filed a motion on Tuesday to have his case moved to federal court based on this legal doctrine.
A federal judge will be called upon to determine whether Trump’s case will remain in state court. If a judge rules in Trump’s favor, the case would move out of Fulton county, killing the possibility of a televised trial and significantly altering the legal stakes for the former president.
But there is warranted skepticism that Trump’s efforts to remove the case will prove successful. Trump’s lawyers attempted to make a similar argument in New York, where he is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records over his alleged role in a hush-money scheme to silence an adult film star who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the former president. The federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the argument, ruling that Trump’s alleged misdeeds did not qualify as acts under color of his office as president.
Of course, the New York and Georgia cases differ significantly in terms of their substance, which will affect Trump’s chances of success in Fulton county. Trump could theoretically make a stronger argument that questions of election administration fall under the umbrella of his presidential duties, a more far-fetched claim when it comes to his involvement in a hush-money scheme. But Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis will likely rebut that Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of a free and fair election, after he had already lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the results, do not qualify as official presidential duties.
Donald Trump complains Fox News using 'absolutely worst' pictures of his chin
Donald Trump attacked Fox News for using “the absolutely worst pictures” of him including “the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back”.
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump wrote:
Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot. They just won’t do it! Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big “orange” one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again…And then they want me to debate!
It’s not clear exactly which image Trump was referring to, but the former president has previously complained that Fox News uses “horrible” photos of him.
I'm not totally sure which photo Trump is referring to, but here's one that was displayed on Fox & Friends this morn pic.twitter.com/8zIrgnntAU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2023
Why is Trump desperate to move the Georgia trial to federal court?
After news broke on Monday night of Donald Trump’s indictment in Fulton county, Georgia, attention quickly turned to the possible spectacle of a trial unfolding on television as a former president attempts to rebut charges of racketeering and conspiracy over his efforts to overturn the results of an election.
But before the district attorney Fani Willis can have the opportunity to make her case against Trump with the cameras rolling, she must first clear a key procedural hurdle to keep the case in Fulton county.
Trump’s legal team is expected to rely on a little known legal statute to argue the case should be moved to federal court, and that jurisdictional question could delay a trial for months. The stakes of that procedural fight will be high, as a conviction in Fulton county would leave Trump facing years of prison time with no clear pathway to a pardon.
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, dismissed the suggestion that she is running in the 2024 GOP presidential race in order to become the vice president.
In an interview with Politico, Haley said:
I think everybody that says, ‘She’s doing this to be vice president,’ needs to understand I don’t run for second.
That’s something that I hear all the time, and I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it.
Updated
Trump's lawyers urging him to cancel press conference - report
Donald Trump’s legal advisers have urged the former president not to hold a press conference next week in response to his latest indictment, according to an ABC report.
Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that he would present a “report” to refute the allegations in the indictment handed up by the Fulton country district attorney’s office from his home in Bedminster, New Jersey.
But the press conference, originally scheduled for 11am Monday, is now very much in doubt, multiple sources told ABC.
Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.
Georgia grand jurors who indicted Trump doxxed on far-right internet
The names, photographs and home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the Fulton county grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and 18 of his co-defendants this week are circulating on social media.
The grand jurors’ purported addresses were posted on a fringe website that often features violent rhetoric, NBC reported on Wednesday.
The indictment issued on Monday includes the names of all the grand jurors who served on the 26-member panel in Fulton county, but not their addresses or other personal information.
Websites where the purported photographs, social media profiles and home addresses of the grand jurors included pro-Trump forums and sites that have previously been linked to violent extremist attacks, according to a CNN report.
In some cases, users have posted social media profiles of different people who have the same name as some of the grand jurors, while some addresses appear to be wrong, the report said.
The rightwing extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has not made up her mind about running for Senate in Georgia – in part because she hopes to be Donald Trump’s vice-president.
“I haven’t made up my mind whether I will do that or not,” Greene told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about a rumoured challenge to the current governor, Brian Kemp, in a Georgia Senate primary in 2026.
I have a lot of things to think about. Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?
Despite a string of controversies over voicing conspiracy theories, aggressive behaviour towards Democrats and progressives and recent squabbling with her fellow House extremist Lauren Boebert, and despite being “kicked out” of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, Greene remains influential in Republican ranks, close to the speaker, Kevin McCarthy.
She told the AJC she would consider it an “honour” to be picked as Trump’s running mate to take on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris next year. She would consider such an offer “very, very heavily”, she said.
Trump has encouraged Greene to harbour higher ambitions, saying in March he would “fight like hell” for her if she ran for Senate.
Rudy Giuliani made desperate appeal to Trump to pay his massive legal bills - report
Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, has personally appealed to the former president to pay his ballooning legal bills, according to a CNN report.
The former New York mayor traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in late April, along with his lawyer Robert Costello, where they had two meetings with Trump to discuss Giuliani’s seven-figure legal fees, the report said, citing a source.
Giuliani and Costello made several pitches about how paying Giuliani’s bills was ultimately in Trump’s best interest, but the former president did not seem interested, the source said.
The source said Trump verbally agreed to help with some of Giuliani’s bills but did not commit to any specific amount or timeline. He also agreed to attend two fundraisers for Giuliani, a separate source said.
Giuliani is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits related to his work for Trump after the 2020 election.
Updated
Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges against Donald Trump in the 2020 Georgia election subversion case were made public on Monday night.
The former president’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms including Gab and Patriots.win. Several Gab posts reproduced images of nooses and gallows and called for Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and grand jurors who delivered the charges to be hanged. And posts on Patriots.win combined the wordplay with direct calls to violence.
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.
I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe.
As Willis’s investigation approached its climax, Trump intensified his personal attacks on her through social media. He has accused her of prosecutorial misconduct and even of being racist herself.
Willis, who on Wednesday said she wants to take the case to trial in March 2024, has rebuffed Trump’s claims as “derogatory and false”.
Trump has also unleashed a barrage of vitriol against Jack Smith, the special counsel who earlier this month brought four federal charges against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump has referred to the prosecutor, who is white, as “Deranged Jack Smith”.
Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis faces racist abuse after indicting Donald Trump
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, is facing a flurry of racist online abuse after the former president attacked his opponents using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word.
Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump went on his social media platform Truth Social calling for all charges to be dropped and predicting he would be exonerated. He did not mention Willis by name, but accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets.
“They never went after those that Rigged the Election,” Trump wrote.
They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!
Willis is African American. So too are the two New York-based prosecutors who have investigated Trump, the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg who indicted him in April over alleged hush-money payments, and Letitia James, the state attorney general who is investigating Trump’s financial records.
Trump’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms including Gab and Patriots.win. The sites hosted hundreds of posts featuring “riggers” in their headlines in a disparaging context.
The word has also been attached to numerous social media posts to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. The two Black poll workers from Atlanta were falsely accused by some of the 19 defendants in the Fulton county case of committing election fraud during the 2020 vote count, and the indictment accuses Trump allies of harassing them.
US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion case, warned the former president last week to refrain from making statements that could intimidate witnesses or prejudice potential jurors.
Just a day before Abigail Jo Shry allegedly left a voicemail message threatening to kill Chutkan, Trump had posted on his social media platform, Truth Social: writing “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
Trump has specifically posted about Chutkan since she was randomly assigned to oversee his 2020 election case. On Monday, the former president said she “obviously wants me behind bars” and described her as “very biased and unfair”.
Chutkan has reportedly been assigned extra security by the US marshals service in recent weeks, and CNN reported observing more security detailed to the judge around the Washington DC federal courthouse.
Texas woman charged with threatening to kill judge in Trump election case
A Texas woman was arrested on charges that she threatened to kill US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the prosecution of former president Donald Trump on allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
Abigail Jo Shry, 43, of Alvin, Texas, called the federal courthouse in Washington DC on 5 August and left the threatening voicemail message, using a racist slur, according to court documents.
In the call, Shry told the judge: “You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” according to the documents. Prosecutors allege Shry also said: “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”
Investigators traced the phone number and Shry later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.
Shry is charged with Transmission in Interstate or Foreign Commerce of any Communication Containing a Threat to Injure the Person of Another. She is being held in detention pending trial, according to court documents, and a bond hearing has been set for 13 September.
Fears over rise in calls to violence after latest Trump indictment
Good morning, US politics blog readers. A Texas woman has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge presiding over former president Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington DC over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Abigail Jo Shry, 43, left a voicemail at US district judge Tanya Chutkan’s chambers on 5 August in which she used a racial slur and threatened her, saying “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, bitch”, according to a court document. She also allegedly threatened to kill “all democrats in Washington DC and all people in the LGBTQ community”, according to the court filing.
On the day before the threatening phone call, Trump had posted on his social media platform, Truth Social: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” The former president has intensified attacks against those individuals involved in the many indictment against him, including Chutkan and Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who is prosecuting him over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Hours after Willis had released the indictments on Monday night, Trump accused prosecutors of pursuing the wrong criminal targets using the word “riggers”, a thinly veiled play on the N-word. Trump’s allusion to the racial slur was immediately picked up by his supporters on far-right platforms, and Willis – who is African American – has faced a flurry of racist online abuse.
Calls to violence have proliferated across far-right sites since the charges were made public on Monday night. The purported names and addresses of members of the Georgia grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 of his allies were posted on a fringe website that often features violent rhetoric, NBC News reported.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
10am Eastern time: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
11.25am: Biden will leave for Andrews, where he will fly to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Airport.
12.35pm: Biden will travel to Avoca, Pennsylvania, where he will pay respects to the state’s former first lady Ellen Casey in advance of a viewing.
2.10pm: Biden will fly to Hagerstown, Maryland, for Camp David.
The House and Senate are out.
