President Donald Trump slammed Georgia’s election system in a speech at the White House on Nov. 5, 2020. (White House video)
ATLANTA – Former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty in Fulton County Superior Court Thursday to conspiring to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Powell is the most high-profile defendant among the 19 charged in the case – including Republican former President Donald Trump – to admit to her role in trying to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia over Trump. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties for her role in tampering with election equipment in Coffee County in January 2021.
According to court records, Powell traveled from Fulton County to the city of Douglas to illegally copy election data from a computer. Under the plea agreement, she will pay a $6,000 fine, $2,700 in restitution, write an apology letter, and testify truthfully at future court hearings.
The only defendant to plead guilty so far in the racketeering case is bail bondsman Scott Hall of Atlanta, who admitted his role in the Coffee County incident last month.
The 41-count indictment charges Trump and his co-defendants under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act with participating in a criminal enterprise that tried to convince high-ranking state and federal officials – including then-Vice President Mike Pence – to throw out the Electoral College results in favor of Biden in Georgia and a half dozen other swing states and declare Trump the winner of the electoral votes in those states.
Trump also has been indicted in Washington, D.C., for his alleged role in inspiring the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, in Florida for keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence after leaving office, and in New York on charges of paying hush money to a former porn actress during the 2016 campaign to cover up a sexual relationship.
Besides the Coffee County case, the Georgia indictment accuses three of the defendants of participating as “fake” electors and casting their electoral votes for Trump even though Biden carried the Peach State.
Other defendants – including former Trump lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – allegedly lied to members of Georgia’s General Assembly at two hearings in December 2020. The charges also involve harassing and intimidating two rank-and-file Fulton County election workers and committing perjury to cover up the conspiracy.
Both Powell and co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, another former Trump lawyer, were the only defendants in the case to ask for a speedy trial. Powell has avoided a trial with her guilty plea, but Chesebro is still due to go on trial starting Monday.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate rose slightly last month to 3.4% from 3.3%, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Still, joblessness in the Peach State in September was four-tenths of a percentage point lower than the national average.
“In the face of Georgia’s resilient, opportunity-filled economy, we find ourselves at a pivotal crossroads, navigating the delicate balance between surging industry demands and an available workforce,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Bruce Thompson. said Thursday.
“As job numbers continue to outpace available talent, it will require all hands on deck to help maintain Georgia’s decade-long reign as the No.-1 place to do business.”
Jobs were up by 17,100 over the month and up by 96,100 over the year to an all-time high of more than 4.9 million.
Record job numbers were posted in the private education and health services sector at 670,100. Leisure and hospitality reported 529,600 jobs, followed by financial activities with 284,600.
The construction sector achieved a remarkable milestone, reaching 225,000 jobs and surpassing the prior peak set in March 2007.
The labor force was up by 17,272 last month to an all-time high of more than 5.3 million. Georgia’s labor force participation rate increased to 61.5 %, up from 61% since the beginning of the year.
The number of employed rose by 12,355 in September to a record of more than 5.1 million.
First-time unemployment claims declined by 17% last month to 20,965. For the year, initial claims were down by 3%.
There were 96,000 job listings posted last month on the labor department’s website. The top five occupations listed included health care with 17,375 jobs; sales with 12,375; and hospitality, food and tourism with 8,925.
ATLANTA – Georgia Power is expanding its coal ash beneficial reuse program to Plant Branch near Milledgeville, the Atlanta-based utility announced Wednesday.
Working in partnership with Pennsylvania-based Eco Material Technologies, Georgia Power expects to start construction later this year on an ash processing facility at Plant Branch, a coal-fired power plant the company retired back in 2015.
The facility is expected to be online in 2026 and will process ash that is excavated from the onsite ash ponds. Once fully operational, it will produce about 600,000 dry tons of marketable ash each year.
In total, throughout the project’s 15-year duration, more than eight million tons of ash will be excavated and processed to be used in the concrete ready-mix market. Coal ash has been found to add strength and durability to concrete.
“At Georgia Power … we work every day to be innovators in the industry, reduce our environmental impact, and find ways to deliver additional value for our customers,” said Jennifer McNelly, vice president of environmental affairs for the utility.
“With this latest beneficial reuse project at Plant Branch, we are doing just that. In addition to reducing the amount of ash going to a landfill and complementing our closure plans, projects such as this bring additional jobs and positive economic impact for the local community.”
The Plant Branch coal ash reuse project is the third for Georgia Power. In 2020, the company announced its first reuse project at Plant Mitchell near Camilla.
As of July, about 500,000 tons of ash had been removed from the site to help create Portland cement, with about two million tons planned for removal during the next several years.
Last year, Georgia Power announced a beneficial reuse project at Plant Bowen near Cartersville, which remains one of the largest of its kind in the United States. Significant construction has been completed since September 2022, with the project expected to start removing ash for use in ready-mix concrete next year.
The coal ash reuse projects stem from Georgia Power’s plan to close all 29 of its ash ponds. Ash is to be excavated and removed from 19 of those ponds, while the other 10 are due to be closed in place.
Environmental advocates have complained that some of the ponds that will remain contain coal ash in contact with groundwater in violation of a 2015 federal rule.
However, Georgia Power officials say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has authorized Georgia’s coal ash permit program to operate separately from the federal program, one of only three states authorized to do so.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s electric membership corporations (EMCs) received a $250 million federal grant Wednesday for a series of grid improvement and clean energy projects.
The award to Oglethorpe Power, Georgia Transmission, Georgia System Operations, and Green Power EMC will go toward an estimated investment of $507 million and is part of a $3.5 billion nationwide investment U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced Wednesday at a ceremony in Locust Grove.
“Extreme weather events fueled by climate change will continue to strain the nation’s aging transmission systems, but President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will ensure America’s power grid can provide reliable, affordable power,” Granholm said.
“Today’s announcement represents the largest-ever direct investment in critical grid infrastructure, supporting projects that will harden systems, improve energy reliability and affordability — all while generating union jobs for highly skilled workers.”
The Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA), which partnered with the EMCs in the grant application, is planning grid projects to benefit rural, underserved communities across Georgia.
The projects include investments in battery storage, local microgrids and grid reliability, as well as new transmission lines to link communities and advanced grid control systems to improve system resilience.
“Georgia’s continued growth and prosperity depends on reliable and affordable energy,” GEFA Executive Director Hunter Hill said Wednesday. “We are committed to doing our part to help make that happen. This public-private partnership will help build a resilient energy future for Georgia.”
Oglethorpe Power, Georgia Transmission and Georgia System Operations serve 38 not-for-profit EMCs across Georgia that provide retail electric service to more than 4.4 million residents. Together, these cooperatives generate power, transmit and distribute electricity across Georgia’s electric grid and monitor and manage operation of the system.
Green Power EMC serves the same 38 EMCs and sources renewable generation for the cooperative energy portfolio.
Wednesday’s ceremony officially launched the federal Grid Resilience and Innovative Partnerships (GRIP) program, which is being funded through the bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress passed two years ago. It will include 58 projects in 44 states.
ATLANTA – A three-judge federal court panel has rejected a bid by the state of Georgia to prevent a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s redrawn congressional map from moving forward.
Several Georgia voters represented by several civil rights and voting rights groups sued the state last year claiming congressional redistricting maps the General Assembly’s Republican majorities approved nearly two years ago were gerrymandered in a way that makes it difficult for Black Georgians to elect congressional representatives of their choice.
Specifically, the lawsuit targets Georgia’s 6th, 13th, and 14th congressional districts, currently represented by U.S. Reps. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee; David Scott, D-Atlanta; and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome.
“Having fair maps makes elected politicians responsive to the needs and wants of the people by having elections where voters make the calls,” Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said following Tuesday’s ruling. “We deserve better, and the law demands better, than the current voting maps that prevent Georgia’s communities on the margins of society from having a meaningful say in the halls of Congress.”
“We are pleased the court rejected Georgia’s attempt to avoid a trial and accountability,” added Jack Genberg, senior staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “At trial, we look forward to presenting the considerable evidence that the General Assembly racially gerrymandered Georgia’s congressional districts.”
Kara Richardson, spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, declined to comment on the ruling, citing pending litigation. The case will go to trial next month.
If the state loses the case, it could force Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to call a special session of the legislature to draw another congressional map that would pass muster with the court.
Meanwhile, other lawsuits are pending challenging both the congressional and legislative redistricting maps the General Assembly passed in November 2021.
