ATLANTA – The Georgia Court of Appeals declared Wednesday that it will not move forward with an election interference prosecution of former President Donald Trump until after deciding whether to disqualify Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.
The one-page ruling came just two days after the appellate court set a hearing date of Oct. 4 on the appeal, virtually guaranteeing the case won’t go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election pitting Trump in a rematch against incumbent President Joe Biden.
Lawyers for Trump and eight of the co-defendants in the election interference case sought Willis’ removal after she admitted a prior romantic relationship with attorney Nathan Wade, who she hired to lead the prosecution. The relationship first came to light last January in a motion filed by Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer from Cobb County representing Republican political operative and Trump ally Mike Roman.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled in April that Willis could remain on the case but only if Wade stepped down, which he did several hours after the decision was handed down.
A Fulton grand jury indicted Trump and 18 codefendants last August, charging the Republican with participating in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to carry the Peach State in nearly 30 years.
With the Georgia case on hold, Trump’s conviction last week for falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money scheme appears to be the only one of four criminal cases against the ex-president likely to be tried before the election.
Two other cases charging Trump in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and with retaining classified documents after leaving office are moving through the legal system so slowly they also aren’t expected to go to trial before November.
ATLANTA – Former President Donald Trump holds a 5-point lead over President Joe Biden in Georgia, according to a poll Quinnipiac University released Wednesday.
The survey of 1,203 self-identified voters found Trump at 49% to 44% for Biden in a head-to-head matchup.
In a six-way hypothetical race that includes other candidates, Trump leads with 43% support to 37% for Biden, 8% for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 3% for Libertarian Chase Oliver, 3% for independent Cornel West, and 2% for the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
Trump’s conviction last week on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to an ex-porn star to cover up a sexual relationship appears to make little difference to the poll’s respondents, who were surveyed from May 30-June 3.
When asked how the guilty verdict would affect their vote, 22% said it makes them less likely to vote for Trump, but 23% said it makes them more likely to support the former president. Fifty-four percent said Trump’s conviction makes no difference in how they plan to vote. Half of the voters surveyed (50%) said they agree with the verdict, while 44% said they disagree.
Not surprisingly, Democrats backed Biden in large numbers, while Republicans did the same for Trump. Democrats also overwhelmingly agreed with last week’s verdict, while a slightly lower percentage of Republicans disagreed.
Independents were evenly divided among Biden and Trump in a head-to-head matchup, with 45% supporting each candidate.
Trump held a strong lead among men who responded to the poll, with 56% backing Trump to 37% supporting Biden. The president enjoyed a smaller lead over Trump among women, 50% to 43%.
When broken down by age, Biden leads only among voters between ages 50 and 64. Among that group, Biden drew support from 51% of those surveyed to 46% for Trump.
The former president dominated among those ages 35 to 49 and those age 65 and older, with double-digits leads over Biden in both cases. Trump held a 1-point lead among voters 18 to 34, within the poll’s margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.8 points.
Poll respondents also gave Trump the edge over Biden when asked which candidate would do a better job handling issues including responding to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, immigration, the economy, and preserving democracy in the United States. Biden only outpolled Trump on abortion, with 47% saying the Democrat would do a better job handling that issue to 45% for Trump.
ATLANTA – An Athens-Clarke County grand jury has indicted four members of a local street gang in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old boy, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced Wednesday.
Kyron Santino Zarco Smith was shot in the chest in March when a bullet came through his home at the Hallmark Mobile Home Park while he was watching television. His 9-year-old brother was wounded.
The indictment charges Julian Cubillos, Jayden Brown, Dakious Echols, and Desmontrez Mathis with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and violation of the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
The four are members of the gang “Everybody Eats,” or “EBE.” They are accused of going to the mobile home park to target a rival gang in order to maintain and increase their status within EBE.
Gang violence in Georgia is disproportionately victimizing lower-income minorities, Carr said Wednesday during a news conference at the state Capitol.
“All Georgians, no matter where they live, deserve to be safe,” he said.
The attorney general’s Gang Prosecution Unit worked on the case in partnership with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the FBI’s Atlanta office and the bureau’s Athens-area Middle Georgia Safe Streets Gang Task Force.
“Criminal street gangs continue to devastate communities and harm innocent victims,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said. “The GBI is dedicated to holding dangerous gang members accountable for their crimes.”
Since its creation nearly two years ago, Carr’s Gang Prosecution Unit has worked with Athens-Clarke police to indict 21 suspects in nine separate cases. Most are believed to involve an ongoing conflict between EBE and the Red Tape Gang.
The defendants are charged in connection with five shootings that took place in Athens between April 2022 and March of this year, four of which were fatal.
ATLANTA – Five Georgia school districts have been awarded federal grants to buy electric school buses.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will allocate $29.4 million in grant funding to the school districts in Brooks, Clayton, DeKalb, Douglas, and Jeff Davis counties through the agency’s Clean School Bus Rebate Program.
“Electric school buses produce zero tailpipe emissions, which means students and drivers are protected from the dangerous air pollution emitted by diesel or propane-burning buses,” said Dory Larsen, manager of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s Electric Transportation Program.
“This is vital for communities in Georgia, which are on the front lines of rising heat, sea levels, and catastrophic hurricanes. Reducing carbon pollution from our transportation sector is a double benefit for our environment and public health.”
In addition to the grants for electric school buses, school districts in five other Georgia counties – Atkinson, Baldwin, Hall, Madison, and Oglethorpe – will receive EPA grants to buy propane buses. While still dependent on the burning of fossil fuels, propane buses will help reduce air pollution in those communities compared to their current diesel buses.
The electric school buses also will also mean long-term savings for the grant recipients because the lifetime cost of operating them is significantly less than with diesel buses.
ATLANTA – The state is awarding more than $200,000 in grants to help 15 school districts improve the alignment of their technical education programs with local industry needs.
The districts will use the one-time-only grants to conduct in-depth reviews of workforce needs in their communities, working with the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and work to address gaps between those needs and their Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education (CTAE) programs.
“Preparing the next generation of hardworking Georgians to lead successful careers in all parts of our state is one of our top priorities,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “These grants will help schools connect their students with the thousands of opportunities available to them in fast-growing fields.”
“It’s our goal that every student in Georgia will graduate ready for their next step after high school,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods added. “The Georgia Works Alignment Grant will help us ensure graduates can pursue fulfilling, high-paying careers without having to leave home.”
The grants will go to the school districts in Chatham, Clarke, Clayton, Crisp, Effingham, Fulton, Harris, Jackson, Murray, Muscogee, Oconee, Peach, Tattnall, and White counties. and to the Marietta City school district. The funds were awarded through a competitive allocation process.
The Georgia Department of Education and the Vinson Institute released a toolkit last fall giving schools and school districts guidance in connecting education and industry. The project was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
