ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is accusing the estranged wife of a special prosecutor she hired of trying to obstruct her criminal election-interference case against former President Donald Trump and others by seeking to question her in the couple’s divorce proceedings.

A motion filed last week by a defense attorney in the election case alleges that Willis was involved in a romantic relationship with attorney Nathan Wade. A lawyer for Willis wrote in a filing Thursday that lawyers for Wade’s wife, Joycelyn Wade, served a subpoena to the district attorney last week.

The filing says that the subpoena is being sought “in an attempt to harass and damage” Willis’ professional reputation and accuses Joycelyn Wade of having “conspired with interested parties in the criminal Election Interference Case to use the civil discovery process to annoy, embarrass, and oppress” the district attorney.

The attempt to question Willis is “obstructing and interfering” with an ongoing criminal case, lawyer Cinque Axam wrote in the court filing Thursday seeking to quash the subpoena.

Andrea Hastings, a lawyer for Joycelyn Wade, said they want to help her “resolve her divorce fairly and privately” and that any response to Willis’ motion will come in a filing with the court.

Willis was served with the subpoena the same day that defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide Michael Roman, filed a motion alleging an inappropriate relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade. She asserted that their alleged actions created a conflict of interest and led to Willis profiting personally from the prosecution. The motion seeks to have the indictment thrown out and to have Willis and Wade removed from the case.

Willis’ office has said they will respond to Merchant’s motion in a court filing but have not provided a timeline for that. Her filing on Thursday in the divorce case does not address whether she and Wade have been romantically involved.

The district attorney’s lawyer wrote that Nathan and Joycelyn Wade have been separated for more than two years and are involved in “an uncontested no-fault divorce” and there is an “absence of any relevant basis” to question Willis.

Merchant has not provided any solid proof to support her allegations of an inappropriate relationship. She mentioned “sources close” to Willis and Wade without elaborating.

Merchant’s motion also mentions that filings in Wade’s pending divorce are sealed but that she has filed a motion to unseal them. A coalition of news organizations, including The Associated Press, filed a motion Tuesday to gain access to those filings.

“Ms. Willis alleges that her deposition is being sought in an attempt to harass and damage her professional reputation. Why would her truthful testimony risk damaging her reputation?” Merchant wrote in an email Thursday.

She accused Willis of trying “to create a conspiracy where none exists,” noting that she filed her motion on the deadline for pretrial motions in the election case.

“We believe her filing in Cobb County is just another attempt to avoid having to directly answer the important questions Mr. Roman has raised,” Merchant wrote.

Merchant wrote in her motion last week that Wade has been paid large sums and has used some of his earnings to take Willis on vacation to Napa Valley, Florida and the Caribbean. She said that amounts to the pair “profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.”

Merchant said she can find no evidence that Wade — whose law firm website touts his experience in civil litigation, including car accident and family law cases — has ever prosecuted a felony case. She questioned his qualifications to try this case.

Willis defended her hiring of Wade and his qualifications during an address at a church in Atlanta on Sunday but has not commented publicly on the allegation of a romantic relationship. Among other things, she cited Wade’s 10 years of experience as a municipal court judge and 20 years in private practice.

“Because the parties agree that the marriage is irretrievably broken and the concept of fault is not at issue, there is no information that District Attorney Willis could provide that might prove relevant to granting or denying the divorce,” the filing says.

Also Thursday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set a Feb. 15 hearing on Merchant’s motion and ordered prosecutors to file their response by Feb. 2.

Trump and Roman were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury in August along with 17 others. They’re accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to try to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four of those charged have already pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump, Roman and the others who remain have pleaded not guilty.

Roman was the director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign and also had worked in the White House.

Prosecutors say he helped coordinate an effort to contact state lawmakers on Trump’s behalf to encourage them to “unlawfully appoint presidential electors.”

He is also alleged to have been involved in efforts to have Republicans in swing states that Trump lost, including Georgia, meet on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign certificates falsely saying Trump had won their states and that they were the electors for their states. He was in touch with local Republican officials in several states to set up those meetings.

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Chesebro, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents in a last-minute deal. His plea came a day after fellow attorney Sidney Powell, who had been scheduled to go to trial alongside him, entered her own guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts.

In Chesebro`s case, he was sentenced to five years’ probation and 100 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution, write an apology letter to Georgia’s residents and testify truthfully at any related future trial.

The two guilty pleas, along with a third for a bail bondsman last month, are major victories for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who obtained the indictment in August. They allow her to avoid a lengthy trial of just two defendants, which would have given those remaining a peek at her trial strategy, and to whittle down an unwieldy pool of defendants.

Chesebro, who lives in Puerto Rico, was initially charged with felony racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. The indictment alleges Chesebro coordinated and executed a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

For prosecutors, the plea deal assures that Chesebro publicly accepts responsibility for his conduct in the case and removes the uncertainty of a trial by a jury of his peers. It also compels him to testify about communications he had with Trump’s campaign lawyers and close associates, including co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Trump attorney.

Jury selection had been set to start Friday for the trial of Powell and Chesebro after each filed a demand for a speedy trial. Once Powell pleaded guilty, Chesebro had been set to continue to trial on his own.

As part of Powell’s deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, pleaded guilty last month to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

All of the other defendants, including Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors allege that Chesebro unlawfully conspired with Trump and lawyers associated with his campaign to have the group of Georgia Republicans sign the false elector certificate and to submit it to various federal authorities. He also communicated with Trump campaign lawyers and Republican leaders in other swing states won by Biden to get those states to submit false slates of electors as well, prosecutors alleged.

That included writing memos advocating for Republicans in those states to meet and cast electoral votes for Trump and providing detailed instructions for how the process should be carried out. In an email to Giuliani, he outlined strategies to disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, during which electoral votes were to be certified. He wrote that those strategies were “preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its terms.”

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ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will not seek to get his Georgia election interference case transferred to state court, his attorneys said in a filing Thursday, three weeks after a judge rejected a similar attempt by the former president’s White House chief of staff.

The notice filed in federal court in Atlanta follows a Sept. 8 decision from U.S. District Judge Steve Jones that chief of staff Mark Meadows “has not met even the ‘quite low’ threshold” to move his case to federal court, saying the actions outlined in the indictment were not taken as part of Meadows’ role as a federal official. Meadows is appealing that ruling.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including an alleged violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He was indicted last month along with Meadows and 17 others.

The notice, filed in state court in Atlanta by Trump’s defense attorney, expressed confidence in how Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will handle the trial, but may have also reflected the difficulties that other defendants have had in trying to move their cases to federal court.

“President Trump now notifies the court that he will NOT be seeking to remove his case to federal court,” the notice states. “This decision is based on his well-founded confidence that this honorable court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia.”

If Trump had gotten his case moved to federal court, he could have tried to get the charges dismissed altogether on the grounds that federal officials have immunity from prosecution over actions taken as part of their official job duties.

A venue change also could have broadened the jury pool beyond overwhelmingly Democratic Fulton County and meant that a trial that would not be photographed or televised, as cameras are not allowed inside federal courtrooms. A venue change would not have meant that Trump — if he’s reelected in 2024 — or another president would have been able to issue a pardon because any conviction would still happen under state law.

Several other defendants — three fake electors and former U.S. Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark — are also seeking to move their cases to federal court. Jones has not yet ruled on those cases.

Meadows testified as part of his bid to remove his case, although the others did not. Trump would not have been required to testify at his own hearing, but removal might have been difficult to win if he didn’t take the stand. That would have given prosecutors a chance to question him under cross-examination, and anything he said could have be used in an eventual trial.

Meadows had asked for the charges to be dismissed, saying the Constitution made him immune from prosecution for actions taken in his official duties as White House chief of staff.

The judge ruled that the actions at the heart of prosecutors’ charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign “with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”

Trump, who is facing three other criminal cases, has so far been been unsuccessful in seeking to have a state case in New York, alleging falsified business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor, transferred to federal court. He asked a federal appeals court to reverse a judge’s opinion keeping the case in state court.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Three of the Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming that then-President Donald Trump won the state in 2020 were not fake electors, their lawyers argued Wednesday, but instead were a “contingent” slate in case the original election results were tossed out by a court.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones heard arguments on why David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathy Latham believe the case against them should be tried in federal court rather than in Fulton County Superior Court. They, along with Trump and 15 other people, have pleaded not guilty to charges accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia.

Lawyers for Shafer, Still and Latham argued their status as electors means they were acting as federal officials and were performing the duties required by federal law. The three defendants were not in court Wednesday.

“By federal law, these people were not fake, sham or impersonators,” said Craig Gillen, an attorney for Shafer. “They were contingent federal electors when they went and did their duty on Dec. 14, 2020.”

Prosecutors rejected that notion, alleging that Shafer, Still, Latham — and the other Georgia Republicans who participated in the plan — “falsely impersonated” electors. Related state charges against them include impersonating a public officer, forgery, false statements and writings, and attempting to file false documents.

“These private parties did not transform themselves into public actors by a criminal act,” prosecutor Anna Cross said.

Part of the overarching scheme, the indictment alleges, was the casting of false Electoral College votes by 16 Georgia Republicans and the transfer of documentation of those votes to the president of the U.S. Senate, the National Archives, the Georgia secretary of state and the chief judge of the federal court in Atlanta. Those documents were meant to “disrupt and delay” the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to “unlawfully change the outcome” of the election, the indictment says.

Republicans in six other battleground states that Trump lost also met and signed similar certificates. Michigan’s attorney general in July brought criminal charges against the group there.

Lawyers for Shafer, Still and Latham argued in court that a challenge to the state’s election results was pending at the time and that lawyers told the gathered Republicans that it was necessary to have an alternate slate of GOP electors in case the challenge was successful.

The lawyers asserted that that pending legal challenge meant the state had failed to meet the “safe harbor deadline,” which dictates that states can protect their electoral votes against challenges in Congress by completing certification of the results and any state court legal challenges by that date.

The failure to do so meant that both the Republican and Democratic elector slates were “contingent” and that it was up to Congress to determine which should be counted, the lawyers said.

Prosecutor Donald Wakeford argued that meeting the safe harbor deadline was “a super shield or protection” for a state and rejected the claim that the Republican slate of electors was equal to the Democratic slate that was certified by the governor.

“The distinction is not obliterated because the safe harbor deadline is not met,” he said.

Lawyers for Shafer, Still and Latham cited the example of the 1960 presidential election when Republican Richard Nixon was initially certified as the winner in Hawaii. Supporters of Democrat John F. Kennedy filed a legal challenge that was still pending on the day the state’s presidential electors were to meet.

That day, the certified electors for Nixon and uncertified elector nominees for Kennedy met at the state Capitol to cast votes for their candidates and sent them to Congress as required by the Electoral Count Act. Kennedy ultimately won the challenge and was certified the winner, and Congress counted the votes of the Kennedy electors.

Cross argued that the Hawaii case was different “for a lot of reasons” and noted that the slate of electors that was chosen for Hawaii was the one that had most recently been certified by the state’s governor. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, certified the Democratic slate, not the GOP slate.

Even if the Trump campaign’s legal challenge to the election results had been successful, Cross argued, the only solution a court could impose would be a new election, not a substitution of the Republican slate. Holly Pierson, another attorney for Shafer, argued that the law does allow a judge to declare someone elected after hearing the allegations and evidence in an election challenge.

At the time of the actions alleged in the indictment, Shafer was the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, Latham was the chair of the Coffee County Republican Party and Still was the finance chair for the state Republican Party. Still was elected to the state Senate last year and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.

The judge asked Cross whether performing a federal function makes someone a federal official. She said it does not. She also argued that the Republicans who signed the certificate were acting in their own personal interest and in the interest of Trump’s losing campaign.

“They were fake electors. They were impersonating electors,” she said, adding that there was no evidence they believed Trump had actually won.

Asked by Judge Jones at what point they should have known Trump had lost, Cross said they should have known “at every point.”

Pierson contended that it was up to Congress: “We know who won when Congress tells us and not a moment before.”

Jones already rejected an effort by Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his case to federal court. Meadows has appealed that ruling. Jones held a hearing Monday on a similar bid by former U.S. Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and has yet to rule.

If any of the cases are moved to federal court, a jury would be drawn from a broader and potentially less Democratic pool than in Fulton County alone.

In addition to the charges related to the fake elector plan, Shafer is also accused of lying to investigators for the Fulton County district attorney’s office. Latham is accused of participating in a breach of election equipment in Coffee County by a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday and said he’ll skip a hearing next week in the case accusing him and others of illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.

That means he won’t have to show up for the arraignment hearing that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had set for next week. Trump’s decision to waive arraignment averts the dramatic arraignments that have accompanied the three other criminal cases Trump faces in which the former president has been forced amid tight security into a courtroom and entered “not guilty” pleas before crowds of spectators.

Trump and 18 others were charged earlier this month in a 41-count indictment that outlines an alleged scheme to subvert the will of Georgia voters who had chosen Democrat Joe Biden over the Republican incumbent in the presidential election.

Several other people charged in the indictment had already waived arraignment in filings with the court, saving them a trip to the courthouse in downtown Atlanta. Trump previously traveled to Georgia on Aug. 24 to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail, where he became the first former president to have a mug shot taken.

The case, filed under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, is sprawling, and the logistics of bringing it to trial are likely to be complicated. Legal maneuvering by several of those charged has already begun.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and the 18 people indicted along with him in Georgia on charges that they participated in a wide-ranging illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election have all turned themselves in to a jail in Atlanta before the deadline at noon Friday.

After Trump was booked Thursday evening — scowling at the camera for the first- ever mug shot of a former president — seven co-defendants who had not yet surrendered did so Friday morning. All but one of those charged had agreed to a bond amount and conditions with Fulton County District Fani Willis ahead of time, and they were free to go after booking.

Next, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is expected to set arraignments for each of the defendants in the coming weeks. That’s when they would appear in court for the first time and enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, though it is not uncommon for defendants in Georgia to waive arraignment.

The case filed under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, is sprawling, and the logistics of bringing it to trial are likely to be complicated. Legal maneuvering by several of those charged has already begun.

At least five of them are trying to move their cases to federal court. Two are former federal officials: former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former U.S. Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark. The other three — former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer, Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still and Cathy Latham — are among the 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

A judge is to hear arguments on Meadows’ request Monday and on Clark’s on Sept. 18. There has been speculation that Trump will also try to move to federal court.

One defendant, lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who prosecutors say worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, has filed a demand for a speedy trial. That requires his trial start by the end of the next court term, in this case by early November. The day after he filed that request, Willis — who has said she wants to try all 19 defendants together — proposed starting the trial for everyone on Oct. 23. The judge issued an order Thursday setting an Oct. 23 trial for Chesebro alone.

Lawyer Sidney Powell, accused of making false statements about the election in Georgia and helping to organize a breach of voting equipment in rural Coffee County, also filed a speedy trial demand Friday.

Trump attorney Steve Sadow on Thursday filed an objection to the proposed broad October trial date and a March date that Willis had previously suggested. He asked that Trump`s case be separated from Chesebro and any other codefendant who files a speedy trial demand.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani has conceded that he made public comments falsely claiming two Georgia election workers committed ballot fraud during the 2020 presidential race but is arguing that the statements were protected by the First Amendment.

That assertion by Giuliani, who as part of Donald Trump’s legal team tried to overturn results in battleground states, came in a filing Tuesday in a lawsuit by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. Their lawsuit from December 2021 accused the former New York City mayor of defaming them by falsely stating that they had engaged in fraud while counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

The lawsuit says Giuliani repeatedly pushed debunked claims that Freeman and Moss — mother and daughter — pulled out suitcases of illegal ballots and committed other acts of fraud to try to alter the outcome of the race.

Though Giuliani is not disputing that the statements were false, he does not concede that they caused any damage to Freeman or Moss. That distinction is important because plaintiffs in a defamation case must prove not only that a statement made about them was false but that it also resulted in actual damage.

Moss told the U.S. House committee investigating the Capitol riot that her life was shattered by the false accusations. She said she received hateful and racist messages, some “wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother. And saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.'”

Freeman said in her testimony: “There is nowhere I feel safe.”

Giuliani`s statement was attached to a filing arguing that he did not fail to produce evidence in the case and should not be sanctioned as Freeman and Moss had requested.

“While Giuliani does not admit to Plaintiffs’ allegations, he — for purposes of this litigation only– does not contest the factual allegations,” the filing said.

Giuliani political adviser Ted Goodman said in an email Wednesday that the filing was made “in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss.”

Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer for Freeman and Moss, said in an emailed statement that Giuliani is conceding “what we have always known to be true — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law; and the allegations of election fraud he and former-President Trump made against them have been false since day one.”

Certain issues, including damages, still have to be decided by the court. Gottlieb said Freeman and Moss are “pleased with this major milestone in their fight for justice, and look forward to presenting what remains of this case at trial.”

Freeman and Moss filed a motion this month alleging that Giuliani had “failed to take any steps to preserve relevant electronic evidence.” They know such evidence exists because other people provided it to them, their filing says. They asked U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington to impose sanctions.

In the court filing, a lawyer for Giuliani argued that his client did not fail to preserve or destroy any electronic evidence “because all pertinent documents were seized by the government and were in their possession, custody, or control. “

The federal government had executed search warrants at Giuliani’s home and office in a separate case in New York and had seized his electronic devices.

The records that Moss and Freeman said were not produced “have not been in the possession of Giuliani since their seizure in April 2021,” according to the court filing, and therefore it is “physically impossible” for him to have destroyed the evidence.

Moss had worked for the Fulton County elections department since 2012 and supervised the absentee ballot operation during the 2020 election. Freeman was a temporary election worker, verifying signatures on absentee ballots and preparing them to be counted and processed.

Giuliani and others alleged during a Georgia legislative subcommittee hearing in December 2020 that surveillance video from State Farm Arena showed the election workers committing election fraud. As those allegations circulated online, the two women said, they suffered intense harassment, both in person and online. Moss detailed her experiences in emotional testimony before the members of Congress investigating the Capitol insurrection. The Jan. 6 committee also played video testimony from Freeman during the hearing in June 2022.

In a court filing that month, Giuliani asked the judge to toss the lawsuit, arguing the claims against him were barred by First Amendment protections for free speech. Howell rejected that request, allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results, have both shown interest in what happened to Moss and Freeman.

Smith`s team has subpoenaed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office for any Election Day video from State Farm Arena. Willis sought testimony about a curious episode in which prosecutors say a woman traveled from Chicago to Georgia in January 2021 and tried to pressure Freeman into falsely confessing to committing election fraud.

The defamation lawsuit originally named right-wing cable news channel One America News Network, its owners and its chief White House correspondent for also pushing the debunked claims. They were dismissed from the suit in May 2022 after reaching an undisclosed settlement with Moss and Freeman.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are asking Georgia’s highest court to prevent the district attorney who has been investigating his actions in the wake of the 2020 election from prosecuting him and to throw out a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. She has suggested that she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month.

Trump`s Georgia legal team on Friday filed similar petitions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court naming Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, as respondents. A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. McBurney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Trump’s legal team — Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg — acknowledged that the filings are unusual but necessary given the tight time frame. Willis has indicated she will use the special grand jury report to seek an indictment “within weeks, if not days.” Two new regular grand juries were seated this week, and one is likely to hear the case.

“Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the filings say. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because Petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”

The petitions seek to bar Willis and her office from continuing to prosecute the case. It also asks that the report produced by the special grand jury that had ben seated in the case be tossed out and that prosecutors be prevented from presenting any evidence from the panel`s investigation to a regular grand jury.

The filings ask that the courts stop “all proceedings related to and flowing from the special purpose grand jury’s investigation until this matter can be resolved.”

In a previous filing in March, Trump`s lawyers made similar requests and asked that a judge other than McBurney hear their claims. Willis rejected the arguments as being without merit. McBurney kept the case and has yet to rule on the Trump team`s requests.

That has left Trump “stranded between the Supervising Judge’s protracted passivity and the District Attorney’s looming indictment” with no choice other than to seek action from the Supreme Court,” his lawyers wrote.

Willis opened her investigation shortly after Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021 and suggested the state’s top elections official could help him “find” the votes needed to overturn his election loss in the state. Last year, she requested a special grand jury, saying the panel`s subpoena power would allow her to compel the testimony of witnesses who might otherwise be unwilling to talk to her team.

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’s lawyers, in their March filing, argued the special grand jury proceedings “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.”

Willis argued in a response in May that those arguments failed to meet the “exacting standards” for disqualifying a prosecutor and failed to prove that due process rights had been violated or that the grand jury process was “tainted” or the law governing it unconstitutional.

In Friday`s filings, Trump`s attorneys said that Willis and McBurney had “trampled the procedural safeguards” for the rights of Trump and others who may be targeted by the investigation.

“The whole of the process is now incurably infected,” they wrote. “And nothing that follows could be legally sound or publicly respectable.”

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ATLANTA (AP) — A grand jury that was sworn in Tuesday in Atlanta will likely consider whether criminal charges are appropriate for former President Donald Trump or his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since shortly after Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early 2021 and suggested the state`s top elections official could help him “find 11,780 votes,” just enough needed to beat Democrat Joe Biden.

The 2 1/2-year investigation expanded to include an examination of a slate of Republican fake electors, phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the weeks after the 2020 election and unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud made to state lawmakers.

Willis, a Democrat, is expected to present her case before one of two new grand juries being seated Tuesday. She has previously suggested that any indictments would likely come in August.

Here’s how that process would work:

WAIT. WASN’T THERE ALREADY A GRAND JURY IN THIS CASE?

Yes. About a year into her investigation, Willis took the unusual step of asking for a special grand jury. She said at the time that she needed the panel`s subpoena power to compel testimony from witnesses who otherwise might not be willing to talk to her team. That special grand jury was seated in May 2022 and was released in January after completing its work.

It was essentially an investigative tool and didn`t have the power to indict. Instead, it issued subpoenas and considered testimony from about 75 witnesses, as well as other evidence, before drafting a final report with recommendations for Willis.

While part of that report was made public in February, the judge overseeing the special grand jury said any recommendations on specific charges for specific people would remain secret for the time being. The panel’s foreperson said in media interviews later that month that they recommended indicting numerous people, but she declined to name names.

Willis isn’t bound by the special grand jury’s recommendations.

WHO MIGHT WILLIS BE EYEING FOR POSSIBLE CHARGES?

Willis sent letters last summer warning certain people; including the state’s fake electors and former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that they could face charges in the case. Some of the fake electors have since reached immunity deals with Willis` team. While she hasn’t said one way or the other whether she would seek charges against Trump, Willis has repeatedly said no one is above the law.

Willis is a fan of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and there have been hints she’ll use it in this case. The RICO Act allows prosecutors to bring charges against multiple people that they believe committed separate crimes while working toward a common goal.

HOW COMMON ARE REGULAR GRAND JURIES?

Very. There are generally two grand juries seated in Fulton County in each two- month term of court. They usually meet every week, one on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other on Thursdays and Fridays. Their work takes place behind closed doors, not open to the public or to news media.

Grand jurors must be U.S. citizens who are at least 18 years old and must live in the county where they serve. Each grand jury is made up of 16 to 23 people and up to three alternates; at least 16 must be present for cases for the grand jury to hear any evidence or take any official action.

WHAT HAPPENED DURING GRAND JURY SELECTION?

A total of 96 potential grand jurors showed up at the Fulton County courthouse Tuesday. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney explained what a grand jury does and asked basic questions to the group to make sure everyone was eligible to serve.

McBurney then called on members of the group one by one and asked them to say whether they were “ready to serve” or if they had a hardship that should prevent them from serving. Afterward, McBurney, Willis and members of her team began meeting privately with people who cited a hardship to decide whether they would be excused.

Then McBurney read out 26 names, 23 grand jurors and three alternates, to serve on Grand Jury A, which will meet Mondays and Tuesdays, and 26 names for Grand Jury B, which will meet Thursdays and Fridays. It’s unclear which one of those grand juries would hear Willis` election case.

The district attorney and her team then met with the grand jurors behind closed doors before McBurney returned to the room to swear in the grand jurors and give them instructions.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CASE IS PRESENTED TO THE GRAND JURY?

Georgia law requires an indictment from a grand jury to prosecute someone in most felony cases; things like murder, aggravated assault, robbery and other crimes. When prosecutors present a case, they’re trying to convince the grand jurors that there is probable cause that one or more people committed crimes and to get the grand jurors to sign off on bringing charges against them.

For each case, prosecutors read or explain the potential indictment and then call witnesses or present any other evidence. Any witnesses who testify must swear an oath to tell the truth.

Often in Georgia, the only witnesses the grand jury hears from are law enforcement officers, including investigators for the district attorney’s office. They can tell the grand jurors what they’ve learned in their investigation, including what suspects or witnesses have said and what other evidence they have.

Members of the grand jury are allowed to question witnesses.

In general, a person who is named as a defendant on the potential indictment cannot be called to testify before the grand jury.

HOW DO GRAND JURY DELIBERATIONS WORK?

After the case has been presented, only members of the grand jury can be in the room for deliberations. They discuss the case and vote on whether to return a “true bill” or a “no bill.” A “true bill” means the grand jurors have voted to indict because they think there is probable cause to believe that the person accused committed the alleged crimes. A “no bill” means the grand jurors don`t believe the person committed the alleged crimes or there isn`t enough evidence to indict.

At least 16 grand jurors must participate in the voting, and an indictment requires 12 of them to vote in favor of charges.

The grand juror oath in Georgia requires jurors to “keep the deliberations of the Grand Jury secret unless called upon to give evidence thereof in some court of law of this State.”

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER GRAND JURORS VOTE?

If a grand jury votes to bring charges, the indictment must be presented in open court by the grand jury or the sworn grand jury bailiff in a courtroom where a judge and the clerk are present. Then it is filed in the clerk`s office and is a public document. Soon after that, those charged will be booked and have their first court appearances.

If the grand jury votes against indicting anyone, prosecutors can present the case again to a different grand jury. But if two grand juries vote not to indict on the same charges, prosecutors generally cannot try again to get an indictment on those charges.

IF TRUMP IS INDICTED, CAN HE STILL RUN FOR PRESIDENT?

Yes. Neither an indictment nor a conviction would prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.

He has already been indicted twice this year in other cases. He faces 34 felony charges in New York state court accusing him of falsifying business records in a hush money scheme over allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. And he faces 37 felony charges in federal court in Florida accusing him of hoarding classified documents and refusing government demands to give them back.

In addition, a Justice Department special counsel is investigating his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in multiple states, as well as the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The post A grand jury sworn in Tuesday could decide whether Trump is charged over Georgia’s 2020 election appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.

ATLANTA (AP) – Critics of Georgia’s plan to wait until after next year’s presidential election to install a software update to address security flaws on the state’s voting equipment called that irresponsible, saying the machines would be left open to attack.

The vulnerabilities in the Dominion Voting Systems equipment were identified by an expert witness in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Georgia’s election system. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, last year published an advisory based on those findings that urges election officials to take steps to mitigate the risks ”as soon as possible.”

Georgia election officials say they’re doing just that. But the time and labor required to install the latest Dominion software makes it unrealistic to do it before the 2024 election cycle, they say. They insist the state’s elections are secure.

University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman spent 12 weeks examining the ImageCast X voting machines used statewide in Georgia and by at least some voters in more than a dozen other states. His report was filed with the court and kept under seal for nearly two years. A redacted version was made public Wednesday.

“No grand conspiracies would be necessary to commit large-scale fraud, but rather only moderate technical skills of the kind that attackers who are likely to target Georgia’s elections already possess,” the report says. Even if no attack happens, Halderman wrote, the existence of vulnerabilities “is all but certain to be exploited by partisan actors to suppress voter participation and cast doubt on the legitimacy of election results.”

Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, dismissed Halderman’s claims as “theoretical in many ways.”

“We have to operate in the real world, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said. “We continue to act as responsibly as possible. We’re protecting our systems, protecting the voters.”

Nearly all in-person voters in Georgia use the voting machines, making it a more attractive target for an attack than many other places where the machines are used only for people who can’t physically complete a ballot by hand, Halderman wrote. Georgia also has become a pivotal swing state in recent elections.

Halderman has said there’s no evidence the vulnerabilities were exploited to change the outcome of past elections.

Dominion has filed numerous lawsuits over false claims about its machines by supporters of former President Donald Trump who allege that the 2020 election was stolen. The company maintains that its equipment is secure.

“While we are constantly working to offer the latest security features and innovations to our customers, the CISA advisory clearly states that exploitation of any of the issues raised can be mitigated by following standard procedural and operational security processes for administering elections,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Halderman called the revelation that Georgia wouldn’t install the software upgrade until 2025 “stunning.” That gives potential attackers time to plan and execute attacks in 2024 elections, he said.

Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines print a paper ballot with a QR code and a human-readable list reflecting the voter’s selections, and votes are tallied by a scanner that reads the QR code. Halderman wrote that in examining a Dominion ImageCast X voting machine and associated equipment, he “played the role of an attacker and attempted to discover ways to compromise the system and change votes.”

A longtime critic of electronic voting machines, Halderman advocates using hand- marked paper ballots read by scanners along with robust post-election audits. His findings mean Georgia voters cannot be confident their votes are secured and correctly counted or that future elections using the current system will be safe from attack and produce the correct result, the report says.

Malware could be installed on individual voting machines by people with temporary physical access, such election workers or voters, the report says. Halderman also said that by modifying certain files that election workers copy to voting machines before each election an attacker could spread malware to every voting machine in a county, or the whole state, without physical access to individual machines. The attacks would likely not be detected by Georgia’s current practices and protocols, the report says.

Last year, Dominion commissioned a report by the Mitre Corporation’s National Election Security Lab to assess the risks Halderman identified. In that report, which was also made public Wednesday, Mitre deemed the potential attacks “operationally infeasible.”

Mitre said it based its analysis on the difficulty and the technical skill and time required for the proposed attacks. Most would affect “a statistically insignificant number of votes on a single device at a time,” and the attack that could spread malware to many machines requires unrealistic access to Dominion software and machines, the Mitre report says.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger touted the Mitre report as proof that the state’s voting system is secure.

“Secretary Raffensperger’s claim that Mitre found no meaningful risk to voters is highly misleading,” said David Cross, a lawyer who represents some of the voters in the lawsuit challenging Georgia’s election system and who engaged Halderman to examine the machines. “Mitre didn’t even examine the voting equipment or software and was told to assume that bad actors can’t access Georgia’s voting system.”

Cross said that assumption was invalidated when a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies traveled to Coffee County in south Georgia in January 2021, was allowed to access voting equipment and copied software and data. Evidence shows that material was uploaded to a server and accessed by an unknown number of people.

The lawsuit that spawned Halderman’s report was initially filed in 2017 by individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election security. They originally challenged the outdated paperless voting machines Georgia used at the time but shifted to target the new system purchased in 2019, saying it is also vulnerable to attack.

U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, who’s overseeing the lawsuit, had resisted making Halderman’s report public, saying she was concerned it could be exploited by bad actors. But in an order last week instructing that it be made public, she noted that the parties and CISA had all agreed that proposed redactions provided appropriate safeguards against election security concerns.

The post Critics blast Georgia’s plan to delay software updates on its voting machines appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.