REBOOT — The Gang Land 19

As things get flippy am rebooting this report on the details of the defendants charged in Georgia

***Rebooting this report in light of Powell and Chesebro flipping.—Originally published August 17, 2023.***

Another week, another Indictment. Please take advantage of the weekend flash sale and join us! You’ll receive invites to our weekly events, and access to all archives and podcasts.💘🇺🇸

“I voted for you. I worked for you. I campaigned for you. I just won’t do anything illegal for you.”—Rusty Bowers, Act. 95, Fulton County Indictment

Every reporter who normalized the Trump Crime Syndicate has blood on their hands — Covid losses, Insurrection and stochastic terrorism deaths — hateful rhetoric instigated real world violence.

Trump told us who he really was, and corporate media still awaits the imaginary pivot — as if the pivot would wash the blood away.

On Monday, Trump and 18 members of his syndicate were charged in violation of the RICO Act in Georgia — charged with scheming to illegally overturn the 2020 election loss.

The indictment, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is the fourth criminal case brought against Trump. Willis said the defendants must surrender to authorities by Aug. 25.

The charges reveal a coordinated and sinister plot to keep Trump in power.

What follows are some noteworthy details about the Gang Land 19:

DONALD TRUMP: In my Biggest Loser report, I followed the metrics to prove that Trump’s cult is shrinking.

The Biggest Loser and Unstable Non-Genius: Donald J. Trump

Trump, like a US Yanukovych, was so desperate to remain in power — where he believed he was above the law — the 95-page indictment reveals the desperate lengths the defendants went to help him cheat to stay in power.

Allegedly and by his own admission in a recorded phone call to coerce Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to scare up imaginary votes, Trump knew he lost and along with racketeering, members of the Gang Land 19 are charged with violating the oath of a public officer, forgery, and false statements.

More on Trump’s extraordinary criminal history here:

RUDY GIULIANI: As retired IRS criminal investigator Martin Sheil told our members during Bette’s weekly Happy Hour, Giuliani used to be sharp when he worked with him in the ‘80s. Since then, he’s fallen a very long way — like a lawyer who flew too close to the sun and cognac. Among recent lowlights, Giuliani has had his law license suspended in New York and DC for perpetuating the Big Lie, he’s being sued for sexual assault; he’s being sued for defamation by two voting systems — Dominion and Smartmatic — in relation to election lies; he allegedly farted on camera — twice — while lying about election fraud in Michigan; and he famously was caught on tape with hair dye dripping down the side of his face — creating a Hitchcockian level horror image. Then there’s the press conference adjacent to the dildo shop. His name is all over the Georgia indictment — ass deep in the fake electors scheme — and unless he and Trump hop a plane to Moscow — like Yanukovych did with 40 of his best corrupt bastards — I do not see how he gets out of any of this. The Hail Mary is Trump getting reelected, but it’s worth noting, Giuliani, who in the sexual assault lawsuit was also accused of offering to sell pardons for two million a pop, did not receive one himself.

JOHN EASTMAN: A former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, a twice failed candidate, and a former clerk for disgraced grifter Clarence Thomas, Eastman famously plotted for Mike Pence to not certify the election, based on a kaka-mamie koncept that Pence had the constitutional authority to block the certification of Biden’s victory, and included a plan to install fake electors in seven states — including Georgia. He also tried to reboot the racist birther trope by writing that Kamala Harris could not be VP because she wasn’t an American citizen — a lie.

MARK MEADOWS: Scrolling during a violent Insurrection, according to White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Meadows is charged with being an accessory to this attempted coup. But I like to think of him as the Tea Party congressman who shut down the government in 2013 — the same year he also voted against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, and as Trump’s Chief of Staff during the Covid pandemic, who didn’t disclose he had Covid thus putting others at risk for infection. We can thank him for encouraging Trump not to wear a mask, which likely lost him the 2020 election. His policy record on gays, guns, and climate puts him to the far right of Beelzebub. He’s also a birther, who tried to walk his comments back.

SIDNEY POWELL: Mike Flynn and Enron lawyer Sidney Powell is woven throughout the 98-page Fulton County document, named in six of the 41 criminal indictments. Like Giuliani, Powell was sued for defamation by Dominion and Smartmatic voting systems. In Fulton County, Powell was charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, trespass, and invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state of Georgia. She is also believed to be one of six unnamed co-conspirators in the federal indictment connected to the attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Powell has frequently promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory and was called a “nut” by rightwing extremist Tucker Carlson, according to internal documents from the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.

KENNETH CHESEBRO: Attorney Chesebro is charged with executing a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s duly appointed “electors”. He was deemed the chief architect of the fake electors scheme, according to the January 6 Committee. He is believe to be “co-conspirator No. 5” in the latest Jack Smith indictment. A former Democrat who once worked for Laurence Tribe, Chesebro is one of eight lawyers indicted in Georgia. He also endorsed a fake elector scheme in Wisconsin in writings on his website. A self-proclaimed bitcoin millionaire, Chesebro changed his political registration in 2016 to “unaffiliated” the same year he began working with John Eastman on an amicus brief that called birthright citizenship a “vestige of feudal times.”

JEFFREY CLARK: A U.S. Justice Department official who touted Trump’s false claims of election fraud, Clark drafted a letter to push Georgia officials to hold a special legislative session on the election results, according to J6 Committee testimony. DOJ superiors thwarted him from sending the letter, and also threatened mass resignations when Trump floated appointing Clark to head the DOJ. A longtime pusher of the fossil fuel industry’s anti-regulatory agenda and a promoter of the debunked propaganda film 2000 Mules, he has also been identified as a co-conspirator in the federal prosecution of Trump. As his home was raided by federal authorities on June 22, 2022, the image below — for me — best summed up the fact that this was never a love story. Indeed, that point now underscored by racketeering charges.

JENNA ELLIS: Like Lindsey Graham, Ellis was a critic of Trump’s prior to him securing the 2016 GOP nomination, when she had a change of heart and began praising him in media appearances. The lawyer appeared with Giuliani at a December 3, 2020 garbage hearing held by Republicans at the Georgia Capitol where false election fraud accusations were made. Ellis wrote memos to Trump advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia,” according to court documents. In 2017, she began writing for the Washington Examiner, where she was accused of lying about being a professor of constitutional law at a Colorado university that doesn’t have a law school. In a self-published book, she wrote that the US Constitution should be interpreted through the bible, and revealed herself to be virulently homophobic. She earned $140,000 in legal fees from the Trump campaign in October 2020, according to Reuters.

The other defendants include:

• RAY SMITH: A Georgia lawyer involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the election results.

• ROBERT CHEELEY: A Georgia lawyer who showed video clips to state lawmakers of election workers that he falsely accused of fraud, according to prosecutors.

• MICHAEL ROMAN: A former White House aide charged with facilitating the fake electors scheme.

• DAVID SHAFER: Georgia GOP chairman and one of 16 state Republicans to sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won and falsely claiming they were the state’s “duly elected” electors.

• SHAWN STILL: Georgia GOP finance chair in 2020 and one of 16 to sign the false declaration that Trump won and falsely claim “duly elected” elector status.

• STEPHEN CLIFFGARD LEE: A pastor accused of harassing Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss — who were falsely accused of election fraud and whose testimony at the J6 Committee hearings revealed them to be heroes. According to court documents, Freeman was so frightened by Lee she called 911 three times.

• HARRISON FLOYD: Black Voices for Trump director, Floyd reportedly invited Lee to host a meeting with Ruby Freeman and defendant Trevian Kutti — a Chicago publicist accused of trying to pressure Freeman to falsely confess to fraud.

• TREVIAN C. KUTTI: According to court documents, Kutti allegedly pressured Freeman to confess to election fraud that she did not commit.

• CATHY LATHAM: One of the 16 Georgia Republicans who signed the certificate falsely claiming Trump the winner, Latham is accused of authorizing access to a forensics team to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment, which is illegal, according to state election authorities.

• SCOTT GRAHAM HALL: A bail bondsman swept up in the forensics scheme of Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton, according to court records.

• MISTY HAMPTON: The former elections director in Coffee County, Georgia, Hampton was also in the county elections office the day after the Insurrection when a forensics team illegally copied software and data from the county’s election equipment, according to court documents.

Recalling all my reports on the January 6 Committee hearings, I will never forget the dignity of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, and the sorrow I felt for what they had to endure — fear for their lives as Trump and Giuliani demonized them in public. It appears with each new indictment, Trump & Co. are absorbing some overdue karmic shock.

We are a multiracial democracy in the process of succeeding — never forget that.

We are fighting reality butchers, as I wrote earlier this week.

I write these reports so you have clarity, tools, facts, summaries, easy access to complex information.

You now know a bit more about the Gang Land 19.

May this only be the beginning of the mighty wings of justice collecting those who have brought profound harms and disgrace to the democratic functions of the United States of America.

****

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