horrifying news considering there are normally massive amounts of pollen in the air in georgia this time of year. this is absolutely happening because of the climate crisis but it's also partly caused by the destruction of large segments of the Weelaunee Forest in the past few years - a lot of the pollen is tree pollen which would normally be captured by some of the trees that were cut down. there's about to be a major storm, too, and considering how storms have gone in recent years there will absolutely be worsening flooding - the flooding was bad enough before they cut those trees down and started building on a crucial floodplain and the more they raze and pave the area the worse it's going to get for the surrounding neighborhoods (which have mostly Black, low income residents).
for more context about Cop City and the many other reasons why it should never be built, check out these links:
The movement to stop Cop City was one of the most important social struggles of the Biden era. Its trajectory tells us a lot about the chall
an autonomous movement for the future of South Atlanta
This guy is being cute. He knows that security was heightened for the Biden inauguration because the January 6 riot had happened just two weeks earlier, but he believes that the rioters represented the will of the people, proving---in his mind---that Joe Biden was not popular and had absolutely stolen the election.
This guy is a genuine moron.
(Some might argue that if the first one is true then the second one is automatically also true. 🤔)
It would be a state indictment and could be the most significant out of all the indictments since someone can only be pardoned on federal ch
Many people in Fulton County are preparing for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to announce an indictment against former U.S. President Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election in Georgia.
This would be Trump's fourth indictment this year.
An Atlanta-area lawyer tells 11Alive he believes Willis could indict Trump this coming week. It would be a state indictment and could be the most significant out of all the indictments since someone can only be pardoned on federal charges.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have."
That infamous phone call between the then president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger happened on January 2, 2021. Almost three years later, bright barriers surround the perimeter of the Fulton County Courthouse in preparation for Trump's possible indictment for election interference in Georgia.
“We've never had this happen before, so no one quite knows what's going to happen," attorney Darryl Cohen said.
Cohen is a former Fulton County assistant district attorney and said while there's a lot we don't know, there's certain things that are likely to happen.
“There are going to be Trump supporters that love him. There’s going to be Trump haters that hate him, and we don't know if they're going to be together or if they're going to clash," Cohen said. "We don't know how many people are going to turn out, so this could all be the beginning of a story that we cannot begin to understand until it unravels.”
Normally someone goes to Fulton County Jail after an arrest, but Cohen believes that's unlikely for the former president.
“I think that he will be mug shot and fingerprinted at the Fulton County Courthouse. We have a serious, really serious security problem," Cohen said.
Cohen said if Willis announced an indictment against Trump, it would be assigned to a Fulton County superior judge.
“There will be several assistant district attorneys that'll be working on this case from the beginning after the indictment, until the conclusion of whether it's concluded in a trial, a verdict of guilty or not guilty, a mistrial, whatever it is," Cohen said.
Trump Attorney John Lauro spoke NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday and detailed what would be a likely defense.
“Under the First Amendment, he had a right to petition governments around the country, state governments, based on his grievances that election irregularities had occurred," Lauro said.
“Well said by his lawyers. I don't believe that's accurate," Cohen said.
Congressman Jamie Raskin served on the January 6th Committee and worked for 25 years as a Constitutional law professor. He also joined moderator Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press."
“His lawyers up there saying, oh, that's just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights, that's deranged. That is a deranged argument," Raskin (D-Md.) said.
“This is a legal game that's about to unfold to all of us, not only in Fulton County, but in the State of Georgia and in the United States and actually internationally as well," Cohen said.
Cohen said it normally takes three months to a year and a half for cases to be heard in Fulton County Superior Court. He thinks it would take years for Trump's case to go to trial and believes his lawyers would likely try to postpone it until after the 2024 Presidential Election.
Last year, the GAGOP paid two law firms that are defending 11 of the 16 fake electors in the Fulton County 2020 election investigation.
The Georgia Republican Party paid at least $220,000 last year to two law firms defending fake presidential electors who could face charges as part of a Fulton County investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 loss.
According to recently filed campaign disclosures, the state party paid Strickland Debrow of Newnan, GA, about $170,000. Atlanta-based Pierson Law LLC, received roughly $52,000 from the Georgia GOP.
The disclosures come as outgoing state party chair David Shafer, one of the 16 phony electors, announced last week that he wouldn't run for another term. In his farewell letter, Shafer revealed that the party paid the elector's legal expenses.
"Thankfully, our State Executive Committee voted to ratify their acts and pay (the elector's) legal expenses," he wrote. "I have raised the money to honor that commitment so that none of them have had to pay a penny out of pocket."
A spokesperson for the Georgia Republican Party didn't respond to questions before publication. Representatives for Strickland Debrow declined to comment for this story. Holly Pierson of Pierson Law told 11Alive that none of the electors "did anything wrong."
"It’s incredibly frustrating that any of the Republican electors were put in the position of having to obtain counsel when it is so abundantly clear legally that none of them did anything wrong," Pierson said. "Recognizing that fact, the Georgia Republican Party voted to step up and protect its membership, which was the principled and courageous thing to do. The Republican electors recused themselves from the vote to ratify their actions and cover their legal expenses, which was otherwise unanimous."
Sixteen Georgians served as phony electors for Trump. They are:
• Shafer
•Joseph Brannan
•James "Ken" Carroll
•Vikki Townsend Consiglio
•Carolyn Hall Fisher
•Burt Jones
•Gloria Kay Godwin
•David G. Hanna
•Mark W. Hennesy
•Mark Amick
•John Downey
•Cathleen Alston Latham
•Daryl Moody
•Brad Carver
•Shaw Still
•C.B. Yadav
The two firms paid by the Georgia GOP represented 11 of the electors — Amick, Brannan, Carver, Consiglio, Downey, Fisher, Godwin, Latham, Shafer, Still and Yadav.
Fulton County prosecutors honed in on the electors as part of their investigation to determine if the former president and his allies violated state law after the 2020 Presidential election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a July 2022 court filing that the electors could face charges.
A Fulton County Superior Court Judge ruled last year that Willis couldn't prosecute Burt Jones, who currently serves as Georgia's Lieutenant Governor, because Willis hosted a fundraiser for Jones' Democratic opponent ahead of the November election. The Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia will determine if Jones should be investigated by a special prosecutor.
Legal experts previously told 11Alive that the electors may face fraud or forgery charges for the documents they submitted to state authorities and the National Archives. The 16 Republicans said that they were the duly elected presidential electors, and they falsely claimed that Trump won the election.
The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury finished its eight-month investigation last month. The panel heard from 75 witnesses. Three portions of the jury's report was released Thursday. Jurors expressed concern that at least one of the witnesses may have lied during testimony. Key sections of the report remain secret.
