Fulton 19 update: Lawmaker wants case tossed, Yeezy’s ex-publicist changes counsel

Caption

Booking photos from the Fulton County conspiracy case charging Donald Trump and allies with trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Credit: Photos from Fulton County Sheriff’s Office

The Fulton County 2020 presidential election interference case is pressing ahead with court hearings taking place for several of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the sweeping racketeering case.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee presided over proceedings last week involving a state lawmaker, a former Kanye West publicist and the ex-director of Black Voices for Trump, who have pleaded not guilty to charges alleging they conspired to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia’s 2020 election.

The hearings were the latest indication that normal court proceedings will continue in state court while the Georgia Court of Appeals is considering a motion to remove District Attorney Fani Willis from the case against Trump and 14 remaining co-defendants.

Attorneys for Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still, a Norcross Republican, argued on May 29 that several criminal charges against him should be tossed out due to flaws in the indictment.

Still has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts that include forgery and making false statements and writings connected to a Dec. 14, 2020 meeting where he served as a Republican alternative elector who voted to declare Trump the winner in Georgia’s presidential contest.

State prosecutors contend that Still was one of 16 GOP alternative electors who illegally impersonated a public officer in an attempt to circumvent the legally certified results declaring Joe Biden the winner in Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes.

A motion from Still argues that the indictment defining his role as “public officer” who forged false electoral certification documents is too ambiguous in state law.

Still began his first term in the legislature in January. The former Georgia Republican Party finance chairman was nominated as an elector nine months prior to the November 2020 election.

His attorneys argue that Still was acting on the advice of attorneys connected to Trump and the Republican Party who said the alternate slate of electors was necessary in case a court ruled in favor of lawsuits filed by the Georgia GOP chairman and Trump challenging Georgia’s election results. Trump’s multiple court challenges were all rejected or withdrawn.

Still’s lawyer, Thomas Beaver, said the meeting was videotaped, took place during an early afternoon inside the Georgia Capitol and was attended by various state Republican Party officials, attorneys working on behalf of the GOP and Trump and others.

“One can disagree with their politics, but it is hard to imagine a gathering of more solid citizens, if you will, than the ones who were assembled in that room that my client was present in that day,” Beaver said. “It’s not exactly the rounding up of the usual suspects for the commission of a crime or a fraud.”

Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Will Wooten argued that the appellate courts have used a threshold to define certain terms based on what they mean to someone of average intelligence.

“'Public officer' isn’t some complex arcane term. It’s something that I think most people would understand the meaning of,” Wooten said.

On Aug. 14, a Fulton grand jury indicted Trump and 18 other defendants on charges alleging that the former president, several members of the former president’s inner circle, and other supporters were involved in a multi-state conspiracy to interfere with the 2020 election.

Prosecutors have struck plea deals with four codefendants, including attorneys Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, and Sidney Powell and Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall.

Still’s hearing leads the Georgia Recorder’s latest installment of the Fulton 19 case roundup.

Trump New York conviction turns up attention in Georgia

An interesting twist in the Fulton saga occurred Thursday when Trump was found guilty of 34 hush-money charges in a New York court.

There are questions regarding how Trump’s felony conviction in New York could affect pending trials in Georgia and three other jurisdictions, but legal pundits note that Trump could face stronger legal consequences if he is found guilty in one of the other cases.

In January, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Wills filed a motion seeking to begin Trump’s trial and that of his co-defendants in August.

Trump’s attorneys have sought to delay trials in the nation’s capital and Georgia until after the November presidential election when Trump is expected to face President Biden in a rematch of the 2020 campaign.

Several other defendants have challenged that timeline, and the odds against a trial starting this year became even longer when a state appeals court agreed May 9 to review McAfee’s decision to reject a motion to disqualify Willis from the case after she admitted to a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor she hired to lead the probe.

Floyd wants to recount 2020 ballots

McAfee agreed last week to give the lawyer for Harrison Floyd until July before he holds the next hearing to consider the subpoena request to inspect a trove of election records. Floyd was the former head of Black Voices for Trump who is accused of intimidating Fulton County poll workers targeted by the former president’s supporters who falsely claimed they conspired to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia.

Former Kanye West publicist Kutti, Floyd, and Chicago pastor Stephen Cliffgard Lee are accused by Fulton prosecutors of attempting to illegally coerce former county election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss into falsely admitting they counted fraudulent ballots in the 2020 election.

The three defendants face multiple counts that include the overarching racketeering and conspiracy offense, conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, and influencing witnesses.

McAfee granted Floyd’s attorneys more time Tuesday to amend a subpoena with more specifics in order to streamline the production of evidence.

Floyd claims he should not have been charged in the racketeering case because his concerns about voter fraud and questions about the election results were legitimate and remain unresolved despited state election officials conducting multiple recounts and audits certifying Biden’s victory. The Maryland resident wants access to more than 500,000 Fulton County voter ballots from 2020 so he can try to prove discrepancies with the official election results.

Floyd’s lawyer Tuesday expressed frustration with the Fulton District Attorney’s office for not providing more information regarding the legal facts surrounding Floyd’s charges.

Fulton prosecutors countered that the current subpoena is so broad that it would require thousands of staff hours to complete.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said he found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 contest that included three separate counts of the ballots and investigating several hundred claims of voting fraud.

Floyd was the only defendant out of the 19 charged in the sweeping racketeering case who spent time in custody following the Aug. 14 grand jury indictments.

Social media alerts publicist of Fulton hearing

Tuesday’s Superior Court hearing wrapped up with Kutti announcing via Zoom video streaming that she’s hired new counsel to represent her.

Kutti informed McAfee that she was unaware that Tuesday’s proceeding was taking place until she began receiving a string of notifications on X, formerly known as Twitter, which alerted her that a status hearing was scheduled that afternoon.

Kutti said she has hired Albany attorney George Donaldson, who becomes the fourth lawyer defending Kuttt in the case. The three previous attorneys Darryl Cohen, Steve Greenberg, and Joshua Herman withdrew from the case in December. The lawyers did not provide a reason for leaving the case when they filed their motion.

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Georgia Recorder.