{"id":1595921,"date":"2022-08-09T08:03:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T12:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1595921"},"modified":"2022-08-09T08:04:57","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T12:04:57","slug":"georgia-prosecutor-targeting-trump-bases-court-filing-on-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/georgia-prosecutor-targeting-trump-bases-court-filing-on-fake-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Prosecutor Targeting Trump Bases Court Filing On Fake News"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgeorgia-prosecutor-targeting-trump-bases-court-filing-on-fake-news%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1595921&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A Georgia county prosecutor falsely claimed in a federal court filing last week that Donald Trump requested the Georgia secretary of state \u201c\u2018find 11,780 votes\u2019 in the former President\u2019s favor.\u201d This falsehood exposes the Fulton County district attorney\u2019s \u201cgrand jury\u201d investigation and her targeting of Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and other Republicans as a sham.<\/p>\n<p>In the response brief she filed last Thursday in support of the special purpose grand jury\u2019s subpoena of Graham, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told a Georgia federal court that \u201ca central focus\u201d of her investigation into the 2020 election \u201cis former President Donald Trump\u2019s January 2, 2021, telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger requesting that the Secretary \u2018find 11,780 votes\u2019 in the former President\u2019s favor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With that opening paragraph, the Fulton County Democrat revealed the hoax of an investigation she is running. Trump did not request that Raffensperger \u201cfind 11,780 votes.\u201d Period. It never happened.<\/p>\n<p>Rather, during the January 2, 2021, telephone conversation between Trump\u2019s legal team and the secretary of state\u2019s office, Trump\u2019s lawyer explained to Raffensperger that \u201cthe court is not acting on our petition. They haven\u2019t even assigned a judge,\u201d and that \u201cthe people of Georgia and the people of America have a right to know the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During that call, Trump and his lawyers ticked off the numerous categories of illegal votes of which they had concrete evidence\u2014some 25 categories. Trump had challenged those votes in the petition referenced by his attorney, but the court delayed the proceedings, which is why the legal team asked the secretary of state\u2019s office to investigate the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Further, as the transcript of the conversation confirmed, Trump\u2019s legal team told Raffensperger that it had solid evidence of illegal votes easily exceeding the official margin of Biden\u2019s victory of 11,779. Under Georgia election law, if the \u201cevidence establishe[s] that there are more illegal or irregular votes than the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election,\u201d which is why Trump focused on his need to find 11,800 votes throughout his conversation with Raffensperger.<\/p>\n<p>Trump repeated that refrain several times during the call, stating, \u201cI have to find 12,000 votes and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state.\u201d Not once during their conversation did Trump ask Raffensperger \u201c\u2018to find 11,780 votes\u2019 in the former President\u2019s favor.\u201d Rather, Trump spoke of his own desire \u201cto find 11,780 votes,\u201d and did so in the context of highlighting the tens of thousands of illegal votes for which his legal team had ample evidence and they asked merely that the secretary of state review their evidence of illegal voting.<\/p>\n<p>That appeal to the secretary of state came because Fulton County Chief Judge Chris Brasher failed to appoint a judge eligible to hear Trump\u2019s election contest for a month. Ironically, the same Judge Brasher had authorized Willis\u2019s special purpose grand jury investigation, with Willis claiming the January 2, 2021, telephone call to Raffensperger\u2014necessitated by Judge Brasher\u2019s delay tactics\u2014represents \u201ca central focus\u201d of her investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Willis\u2019 \u201cspecial purpose grand jury,\u201d however, is one in name only, lacking the power to indict and instead only authorized to issue a report. Nonetheless, the county prosecutor proceeded to seek subpoenas for several big-name Republicans in addition to Graham, including Trump\u2019s election lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, and Cleta Mitchell.<\/p>\n<p>The Fulton County prosecutor also targeted many top Georgia Republicans including state Sen. Burt Jones, the current Republican candidate for the 2022 general election for lieutenant governor. A state court judge <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/27\/georgia-democrat-prosecutor-has-been-slapped-down-by-two-courts-now-but-its-not-enough\/\">ruled<\/a> late last month, however, that Willis and her \u201cspecial prosecution team may no longer investigate Senator Jones\u201d given the prosecutor\u2019s public support of Jones\u2019s Democrat opponent.<\/p>\n<p>Willis suffered a second setback when a federal court ruled questioning of Republican Rep. Jody Hice before the special purpose grand jury would be checked by both the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution and the \u201chigh-ranking official\u201d doctrine. Those doctrines \u201cmay operate to prevent the Fulton County District Attorney\u2019s Office from obtaining answers to certain questions from Congressman Hice before the Special Purpose Grand Jury,\u201d a federal court <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/27\/georgia-democrat-prosecutor-has-been-slapped-down-by-two-courts-now-but-its-not-enough\/\">ruled<\/a> in late July.<\/p>\n<p>Graham likewise challenged Willis\u2019s special purpose grand jury, filing a Motion to Quash the subpoena with a federal court in Georgia, arguing that the Speech or Debate Clause, the high-ranking official doctrine, and sovereign immunity all prevent the county district attorney from hauling the South Carolina senator into Fulton County for questioning. Graham\u2019s legal team <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/29\/political-hackery-of-georgia-dem-harassing-sen-graham-would-have-framers-spinning\/\">presented<\/a> a hard-hitting rejoinder to the subpoena by highlighting how, with the Speech or Debate Clause, the Framers sought to prevent precisely the political warfare in which Willis is engaging.<\/p>\n<p>But Willis\u2019s response filed on Thursday proves even more damning to her attempts to interrogate Graham, with her court filings revealing the investigation is a sham because the \u201ccentral focus\u201d of that investigation rests on a lie\u2014that Trump asked Raffensperger \u201cto find 11,780 votes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This provable falsehood should prompt the closing of Willis\u2019s investigation, but it likely won\u2019t given Fulton County politics. That falsehood represents another reason the Speech or Debate clause <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.gand.305825\/gov.uscourts.gand.305825.18.0.pdf\">protects<\/a> Graham from Willis\u2019s political witch hunt: to \u201cprevent intimidation by the executive and accountability before a possibly hostile judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Further, as Graham\u2019s attorneys stressed in their reply brief filed on Friday, while a prosecutor may have more leeway in forcing testimony by a legislator as part of a criminal investigation, Willis\u2019s \u201cspecial grand jury,\u201d which cannot indict, qualifies under Georgia law as a \u201ccivil investigative body.\u201d As such, Willis\u2019 reliance on case law that allows a grand jury investigating \u201cthird-party crimes\u201d to subpoena a legislator is misplaced.<\/p>\n<p>While true, the bigger problem for Willis is that the supposed \u201cthird-party crime\u201d she is investigating never happened. Since the transcript of Trump\u2019s call with Raffensperger has been public for more than one year, the Fulton County prosecutor should know that fact. She likely doesn\u2019t care, however.<\/p>\n<p>The question now is whether presiding federal judge Leigh Martin May, a Barack Obama appointee, will care about Willis\u2019s transparent political targeting of Graham and other Republicans.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Georgia county prosecutor falsely claimed in a federal court filing last week that Donald Trump requested the Georgia secretary of state \u201c\u2018find 11,780 votes\u2019 in the former President\u2019s favor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}