The Devil Went Down To Georgia, Looking For The Rule of Law To Steal

Above: Photo by freelance photographer Samuel Corum as Trump hosted a roundtable meeting with Hispanic leaders in the White House (July 9, 2020).

Update to Trump Trying To Derail Georgia Investigation As D.A. Considers Georgia RICO Charge.

Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Laurence Tribe calls bullshit on Trump’s horseshit lawyers’ attempt to derail the special grand jury report in Fulton County Georgia, and to remove District Attorney Fani Willis and the presiding judge from the criminal investigation. “Fani Willis doesn’t have much to worry about in terms of the skill of her opposition” (Trump’s horseshit lawyers).

Professor Laurence Tribe joined MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss the “bizarre” filing by Trump’s lawyers in Georgia seeking to suppress evidence in the grand jury’s investigation shows “desperation” because it makes no sound legal arguments: “The whole thing is disgracefully made up out of whole cloth and eventually the courts are going to lose their patience.”

Lawless Republican legislators in the Georgia legislature and their lawless Republican governor will do anything to protect their crime boss “Dear Leader,” Donald Trump, from prosecution. They recently passed law, awaiting the governor’s signature, empowering the state legislature to remove elected county district attorneys from office with whom they disagree.

There’s an all-out attack on our court systems in the U.S, and Georgia isn’t exempt from this battle. Amee Vanderpool covers the latest attempt by the GOP legislature to control the state’s district attorneys. GOP In Georgia Wants Control Over DAs:

The latest attempt by the conservative legislative majority in Georgia seeks to remove any political opposition from the judicial arm of government by following an established GOP blueprint.

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicial in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” – James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788

In the midst of an ongoing investigation by Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis into whether Donald Trump and his allies tried to subvert the election process in Georgia in 2020, Republicans in the state have just passed a measure to evict prosecutors who they believe are “engaging in misconduct.”

The Georgia House has approved House Bill 231, which seeks to create a new state board that can punish or entirely remove duly-elected state district attorneys who are not complying with the demands of the Republican legislature. Likewise, Republicans in the Georgia State Senate are backing Senate Bill 92, a similar law that would create a commission to discipline or remove prosecutors for similar infractions.

Ultimately, a politically-aimed commission of this nature will create a chilling effect on prosecutorial independence, which will silence the voices of the voters who elected these legal officials. Under this kind of law, prosecutors whose work is policed by the electorate and the Georgia State Bar could now be forced to pursue inappropriate and unethical criminal charges at the whim of the conservative legislative majority.

Elected officials like Willis could also be threatened to drop certain investigations that Georgia Republicans do not support — a concept that would make the Georgia State Legislature and those who serve in the majority controlling this commission impervious to the law. This is the exact scenario that the Founding Fathers specifically sought to enjoin at the federal level with the Constitutional Doctrine of Separation of Powers.

In one of the grandest statements of irony ever made, Georgia State Senator Randy Robertson, the Republican sponsoring the bill, said the goal in this is to aim this bill at “somebody who says they can choose, not based on evidence, but on how they feel about their political leanings, who they can prosecute.” The Georgia Republican Legislative Majority is doing just that, only in reverse.

[O]ne thing has recently changed that is now making these Republican power-grab propositions all too easy to manifest. The massive number of conservative judges that have been added to federal and state courts under Donald Trump is now making these Republican strategies a very real threat. For states like Florida, the end of the legal line is a Florida Supreme Court made up of DeSantis lackeys. For the entire nation, a Court with a majority created by Donald Trump has the final say.

At the end of her Monday night show, Rachel Maddow welcomed Georgia lawyer Michael Moore to address the way in which Republicans in his state have been willing to change the laws just to protect Donald Trump from being indicted. Lawyer ‘goes off like a flame thrower’ on new Georgia law to remove prosecutors Republicans don’t like:

Fulton County has been at work for a year over those that attempted to overthrow the 2020 election in the state. While the grand jury operated for quite a while, only recently did Republicans figure out a way to act. The law hasn’t been signed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) yet, but the GOP legislators are already demanding that the Fulton County D.A. be fired.

“I really think [Trump’s lawyers] picked a boxing match with a ghost,” said Moore. “There is not much that can be said about special grand jury reports. Remember, we don’t use special grand juries very often in this state. We have to use criminal charges. The special grand jury allowed the district attorney to use subpoena power to bring reluctant witnesses in to talk to them to find out what was going on. But she didn’t have to do it. And so, essentially, the motion today says, well, let’s make her throw that report in the trash can. She can throw it in the trash can. She is not bound by it. It is no more a recommendation any more than it was written on a sticky note and stuck on her office door. She doesn’t have to do anything that the special grand jury recommended. In fact, she has complete discretion to look at the facts, to look at the law, to make decisions about which individuals she may want to bring charges against. And on what offenses.”

He said that there would be a lot more coming out of the case, including more pre-trial motions.

“Again, they sort of filed something meaningless,” said Moore. “And when they fall back and want to talk about vagueness and the constitutional provisions and that the law is not very clear, and maybe it was abused, they’re really taking a shot hoping that maybe they’ll catch some appellate judge’s ear somewhere. I don’t see much to come from it.”

At the hand-off from Maddow to Lawrence O’Donnell, the former said that Moore “goes off like a flame thrower” about the new Georgia law. When Maddow asked Moore about it, he called it “shameful.”

“But think about the history of what the Republican legislature has done,” said Moore. “I mean, when the lines for voting got too long, what did they do? hey passed a law that said people waiting in line couldn’t be given a drink of water. When the ballots got swept away that let them win the election, they passed a law that maybe we’re going to appoint our own special elections, which is ironic given Republicans are typically for local control. They decide where they would be able to take over the boards of election. So, now when there is a prosecution, and they lost an election, there is a prosecution and investigation into the possible theft of that election, they’re passing a law that says we don’t like the outcome of that, so we may want to take that over too with another prosecutor.”

He called it “racist,” but not because a Black female prosecutor is the one being targeted with it. He called it racist because it’s minimizing and decreasing the influence of minority voters in the state and refusing to allow them any power through their votes.

“And so I guess they’re making the decision somehow that those voters can’t select their own prosecutors. The district attorneys are constitutionally elected officers. They have discretion in what they’re going to do. I do notice that it’s interesting that the legislature has yet to pass a law that I’m aware of that says if we think some legislature is not doing what they should do, that we can remove them quite as easily as they want.”

Oh, if we only had a way to do that here in Arizona!

Trump’s lawyers are going to lose their motion filed solely for the purpose of delay, Trump’s modus operandi. It is important to note that District Attorney Fani Willis has not indicted Donald Trump, nor has a regular criminal grand jury issued a true bill of indictment for Donald Trump. The Special Grand Jury report is advisory only, it is not binding on the District Attorney, and is not an indictment. So this panic driven motion is premature.

Should an indictment of Donald Trump occur in Georgia, lawless Republicans in Georgia could use their new law to remove District Attorney Fani Willis for having had the courage to prosecute Donald Trump for his attempt to steal an election in Georgia. Several of these Georgia legislators were involved in the conspiracy to commit election fraud (fake GQP electors), so they would be interfering with an elected District Attorney to prevent their own prosecution as co-conspirators. This is “the very definition of tyranny,” as James Madison warned.