Report: Trump May Be Hit With Multiple Criminal Charges Over His Effort to Overturn the Election in Georgia – Vanity Fair

In the year 2021, its basically a full-time job keeping up with the many lawsuits, civil inquiries, and criminal probes against Donald Trump, which, if you can believe it, surpass the number of times a human woman has agreed to marry him. On the lawsuit front, as of March, the ex-president was facing more than two dozen, which normal people who havent spent their entire lives suing or being sued thousands of times consider a lot. When it comes to civil cases, the New York attorney general is currently looking into whether the Trump Organization manipulated the value of its assets for loans and tax breaks, and recently won a major victory in court. Then of course there are the criminal investigations, which are probably at the top of Trumps mind considering they could result in his going to prison. Obviously, theres the one being led by the Manhattan District Attorneys Office, which has already produced numerous charges against Trumps business and longtime CFO, with more indictments expected. On top of that, hes also under criminal investigation by the D.C. attorney general for inciting the attack on the Capitol, while in Fulton County, Georgia, the D.A.s office is looking at his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. And according to legal experts, the latter situation may end very badly for him!

In a new 109-page report, D.C. think tank the Brookings Institution analyzed publicly available evidence concerning Trumps and his allies efforts to pressure Georgia officials to change the lawful outcome of the election, concluding that the 45th president could be charged with multiple crimes. Obviously, one of the least helpful things Trump has going for him is his infamous phone call to Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger on January 3, during which Trump told the guy tofind 11,780 votesto overturn Joe Bidens win in the state. Theres no way I lost Georgia, Trump said numerous times throughout the call, though of course he did. Theres no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.

The report also notes that Trump both publicly pressured and personally contacted a number of Republican officials in the state, including Attorney General Chris Carr and Governor Brian Kemp, to get their help in declaring him the victor. (The men did not go along with the plot, which might explain why Trump pretended to endorse Stacey Abrams for Georgia governor over the weekend.) The report, penned by Norman Eisen, Joshua Matz, Donald Ayer, Gwen Keyes Fleming, Colby Galliher, Jason Harrow, and Raymond P. Tolentino, notes that the then president called Carr and Kemp in December to beg them to go along with his increasingly desperate plans to decertify his loss. The authors warn that criminal liability could extend to Trump allies as well, including Rudy Giuliani.

Among the charges Trump himself could be hit with, the authors believe, are criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; intentional interference with performance of election duties; conspiracy to commit election fraud; criminal solicitation; and state RICO violations, in addition to violations of more than a dozen other Georgia state statutes. We conclude that Trumps post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes, the report states.

Referencing the fact that Trump would likely claim that everything he did was just part of his job as president, the report declares: Stated simply, soliciting and then threatening senior state officials to alter the outcome of a presidential election does not fall within any reasoned conception of the scope of presidential power.

A spokesman for Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that the investigation is active and ongoing but declined to reveal any details. Prosecutors have reportedly appeared before a grand jury seeking subpoenas for witnesses and documents; hiredthe states top experts on racketeering and conspiracy laws; interviewed at least four of Raffenspergers closest advisers; and started coordinating with the congresspeople probing the events surrounding January 6.

Trumps advisers have reacted to the Georgia probe exactly how one would expect if one paid attention for the last five years. This is simply the Democrats latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it, Jason Miller said in a statement following the launch of the investigation in the spring.

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Nothing to see here, just the governor of South Dakota seemingly abusing her position of power to get her daughter a real estate license

Given that she refuses to do anything about COVID-19, Kristi Noem has lots of time on her hands for such pursuits. Per the Associated Press:

Just days after a South Dakota agency moved to deny her daughters application to become a certified real estate appraiser, Governor Kristi Noem summoned to her office the state employee who ran the agency, the womans direct supervisor, and the state labor secretary. Noems daughter attended too. Kassidy Peters, then 26, ultimately obtained the certification in November 2020, four months after the meeting at her mothers office. A week after that, the labor secretary called the agency head, Sherry Bren, to demand her retirement, according to an age discrimination complaint Bren filed against the department. Bren, 70, ultimately left her job this past March after the state paid her $200,000 to withdraw the complaint.

According to the AP, Peters applied to become a certified residential appraiser, which would result in a substantial increase in earnings, in September 2019; in late July 2020, the program that Bren directed moved to deny the license, which reportedly occurs when an applicants work samples dont meet minimum compliance with national standards.On July 26, Bren received a text telling her to be at the governors office the following morning to discuss appraiser certification procedures.

Besides Noem and Peters, Bren said the meeting included Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman; Brens supervisor; the governors general counsel; and, participating by phone, the governors chief of staff and a lawyer from the states Department of Labor and Regulation.

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Report: Trump May Be Hit With Multiple Criminal Charges Over His Effort to Overturn the Election in Georgia - Vanity Fair