Fani Willis, the Fulton Country district attorney who opened a wide-ranging investigation into Donald Trump and his allies’ efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election result in Georgia, said she is on track to deliver a decision on charges by Sept. 1.
Willis initiated the probe in early 2021, following the disclosure of then-President Donald Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find 11,780 votes.”
“The work is accomplished,” Willis told Atlanta TV station 11Alive over the weekend. “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”
Willis will seek an indictment before Aug. 18 by a grand jury empaneled this month in Atlanta, The Associated Press reported on Monday.
Willis’ investigation has also looked at the fake elector scheme as well as baseless claims of election fraud made by Trump allies, including his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Willis told 11Alive she is prepared for her decisions to be unpopular with some Americans.
“Some people may not be happy with the decisions that I’m making,” she said. “And sometimes, when people are unhappy, they act in a way that could create harm.”
Last week, barricades were put up outside the Fulton County courthouse, raising anticipation that charging decisions are near...
Bring it on.
... While you were turning up the air-conditioning or trying to find an open city pool, the brain trust of the conservative movement — including key officials of Donald Trump’s disastrous 2017-21 presidency — were spending $22 million to craft a 950-page plan called Project 2025 that (among other things) is a blueprint for unconditional surrender in the war on climate change. The scheme drafted by the Heritage Foundation and other think tanks that have guided GOP administrations since Ronald Reagan wouldn’t just halt the desperately needed transition to clean energy and electric cars, but restore the unchecked hegemony of burning fossil fuels.
While Trump’s 45th presidency was a disastrous pause button on climate action in the world’s largest economy, these proposed policies for a Trump 47th presidency, or a like-minded GOP POTUS, are a total rollback that go much, much deeper. Given 2023′s unmistakable jolts of an already-here planetary crisis from Antarctica to Sicily to Phoenix, Project 2025 sounds utterly insane for those of us living in the hotter, reality-based world.
Some specifics: Blocking the expansion of the electrical grid to accommodate clean energy sources like wind and solar. Eliminating three offices within the Department of Energy promoting the renewable power transition. Wiping out funding for environmental justice work in the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection. Massive growth of the natural gas infrastructure such as pipelines. Ensuring that no other states win approval for the kind of strict electric car guidelines being implemented in California. The EPA and other key agencies would be radically downsized and placed under the care of right-wing pro-fossil fuel zealots. It even includes restrictions on new scientific research...
The Christofascist Republicans want to go from "afflicting the afflicted" to "afflicting the world."
At a moment of growing legal peril, Donald Trump ramped up his calls for his GOP rivals to drop out of the 2024 presidential race as he threatened to go after Republican members of Congress who fail to focus on investigating Democratic President Joe Biden.
Trump also urged a halt to Ukrainian military aid until the White House cooperates with congressional investigations into Biden and his family.
“Every dollar spent attacking me by Republicans is a dollar given straight to the Biden campaign,” Trump said at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night.
The former president and GOP front-runner said it was time for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others he dismissed as “clowns” to clear the field, accusing them of “wasting hundreds of millions of dollars that Republicans should be using to build a massive vote-gathering operation” to take on Biden in November. [snip]
In the meantime, Trump has embraced his legal woes, turning them into the core message of his bid to return to the White House as he accuses Biden of using the Justice Department to maim his chief political rival. The White House has said repeatedly that the president has had no involvement in the cases.
At rallies, Trump has tried to frame the charges, which come with serious threats of jail time, as an attack not just on him, but those who support him.
“They’re not indicting me, they’re indicting you. I just happen to be standing in the way,” he said in Erie, adding, “Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it actually a great badge of honor.... Because I’m being indicted for you.”
But the investigations are also sucking up enormous resources that are being diverted from the nuts and bolts of the campaign. The Washington Post first reported Saturday that Trump’s political action committee, Save America, will report Monday that it spent more than $40 million on legal fees during the first half of 2023 defending Trump and all of the current and former aides whose lawyers it is paying. The total is more than the campaign raised during the second quarter of the year... (our emphasis)
The desperation is just oozing from his orange, Putin-supporting pores. Because he sees everyone as disposable, he is happy to place as many of his cultists in harms way as long as it serves his interests. The fact that so many are willing to do so, and are actually paying for this "billionaire's" legal bills is shocking but not surprising. If his own PAC, using small donor funds, wasn't paying his enormous legal bills, it could be using the money to "go after" President Biden, as he whines his opponents aren't doing.
