ATLANTA – A Fulton County Superior Court judge Wednesday dismissed six counts of a 41-count indictment charging former President Donald Trump and multiple co-defendants with interfering in Georgia’s 2020 president election.
Judge Scott McAfee declared the six charges legally defective – including a count charging Trump in the infamous January 2021 phone call urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 additional votes he needed to carry the Peach State over Democrat Joe Biden.
However, the nine-page ruling did not address a motion to disqualify Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis from the case because of an alleged conflict of interest stemming from a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to pursue the charges.
Two of the other five counts McAfee quashed charge Trump directly, including a count accusing him of asking then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston to unlawfully appoint an alternate slate of presidential electors during a special session of the General Assembly.
Another count the judge dismissed charged then-Trump personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump campaign lawyer Ray Smith with soliciting members of the Georgia House of Representatives to unlawfully appoint “fake” electors.
Then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was charged along with Trump in the phone call to Raffensperger. Two counts list only “multiple defendants.”
In each instance, McAfee declared the counts defective because of a lack of detail.
“As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited,” the judge wrote.
“They do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”
The dismissal of the three counts against Trump mean he still faces 88 criminal indictments in Georgia, Washington, D.C., Florida and New York.
McAfee has indicated he expects to rule on the motion to disqualify Willis by the end of this week.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s Democratic Primary voters put President Joe Biden over the top Tuesday, giving him enough delegates to win renomination when Democrats hold their convention this summer in Chicago.
Former President Donald Trump also won big in Georgia but was still short of the delegate total needed to capture the Republican nomination. Trump was expected to clinch the nod later Tuesday night after GOP voters in Mississippi and Washington state cast their primary ballots.
With 65% of precincts reporting as of 10 p.m., Biden had racked up more than 95% of the vote. Author Marianne Williamson lagged far behind with 2.8% of the vote, and U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., was last at less than 2%.
On the Republican side, Trump had won more than 84% of the vote in a field that was still crowded, although every other GOP candidate had dropped out of the race. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – the last also-ran to end her candidacy – was second with less than 14% of the vote.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had captured just 1% of the vote, while the other eight Republicans on the primary ballot were being held below 1%.
The end of the primary season sets up the first repeat matchup of presidential candidates since 1956, when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower won reelection by defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson for the second consecutive time.
The last time a former president ran for the White House was in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt mounted an unsuccessful third-party candidacy against incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, with Wilson winning the White House.
Democratic former President Grover Cleveland ousted Republican President Benjamin Harrison in 1892, the last time in U.S. history that an ex-president challenged an incumbent president.
With the outcomes in Tuesday’s primaries clear ahead of time, voter turnout in Georgia was low. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Tuesday afternoon that he expected only about 10% of the state’s registered voters would head to the polls.
ATLANTA – Cases of COVID-19, RSV, and influenza have declined significantly as winter moves into spring, State Epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek reported Tuesday.
On the fourth anniversary of the first reported death from coronavirus in Georgia, Drenzek told members of the state Board of Public Health the vast majority of patients hospitalized with the virus had not been vaccinated.
“There are still deaths and hospitalizations due to COVID,” she said. “But they’re drastically lower than they have been.”
In fact, cases of COVID-19 have fallen so much that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new recommendations early this month aligning strategies for preventing COVID-19 with those for RSV and the flu.
Those testing positive for COVID-19 no longer need to isolate themselves for five days, Drenzek said. Instead, those patients are advised to wait until their fever has gone away for at least 24 hours and/or until the symptoms improve before venturing outside, she said.
The CDC also has recommended that those who have been vaccinated with the most recent COVID booster get a second dose.
Drenzek said cases of flu are down significantly in Georgia after peaking in January.
“About 5% of outpatient visits are due to influenza-like illness,” she said.
Flu season this winter has been similar to the 2019-20 flu season, when the virus peaked in January and peaked again during the spring, Drenzek said.
“Whether we have another spring flu peak remains to be seen,” she said.
Drenzek said the highest number of outpatient visits by flu patients are occurring in school-age young people ranging from the ages of 5 to 24.
“School settings and university settings are high-risk areas for flu and other respiratory viruses as well,” she said.
RSV cases in Georgia have fallen to the point of being “virtually minimal,” Drenzek said. She said RSV season started early, peaking last October before falling off.
Almost all hospitalizations for RSV have occurred among infants less than a year of age, she said.
Meanwhile, two cases of measles cropped up in Georgia in January for the first time since one case was reported in 2020. The Peach State saw 18 cases in 2019 of a disease the CDC declared in 2000 had been eliminated in the United States.
Both of this year’s cases of measles occurred in a pair of siblings from metro Atlanta who had traveled internationally, Drenzek said.
“Our containment efforts were successful,” she said.
ATLANTA – Legislation legalizing sports betting in Georgia that the state Senate passed last month got its first hearing Tuesday in the state House of Representatives.
Under Senate Bill 386, the Georgia Lottery Corp. would oversee sports betting, awarding licenses to 16 sports betting providers, Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the House Higher Education Committee.
Five licenses would go to Atlanta’s professional sports teams: the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, Dream and Atlanta United. The Augusta National Golf Club, the Professional Golf Association (PGA), and the Atlanta Motor Speedway would receive one license each.
The other seven “untethered” licenses would be open to sports betting providers through a bidding process. The lottery corporation also would receive one license.
The bill would dedicate 20% of the adjusted gross revenues derived from sports betting to Georgia’s HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs.
The original version of the Senate measure called for legalizing sports betting without a constitutional amendment that would put the issue before Georgia voters in a statewide referendum. But an amendment was added to the bill on the Senate floor requiring a constitutional amendment before sports betting could become law.
The Senate also has passed a sports betting constitutional amendment in a separate resolution. It differs from Senate Bill 386 in several respects, including a provision setting aside a portion of the tax revenue from sports betting for an education program on the dangers of problem gambling.
During Monday’s hearing on the bill, both committee members and lobbyists suggested changes to Senate Bill 386, including a provision that would add fantasy sports to the mix.
Stuart Wilkinson, director of government affairs for Atlanta-based PrizePicks, a fantasy sports operator, said adding fantasy sports could generate $40 million to $50 million a year in Georgia on top of the estimated $100 million sports betting could be expected to raise in the Peach State annually.
Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, said the House should consider limiting the number of wagers a bettor could make over a daily or weekly period as a way to address problem gambling.
“This kind of protection will go a long way to addressing problem gambling,” he said.
Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, said any funds put toward problem gambling should come from the sports betting operators, not out of the state’s share of the proceeds.
“I don’t think it should come out of the money the state is going to get,” he said. “It ought to come our of their hide.”
Representatives of several faith-based groups spoke out in opposition to legalizing sports betting. They argued sports betting is a particularly addictive form of gambling that tends to prey upon young men.
“This kind of gambling is nothing more than state-sponsored predatory gambling,” said Mike Griffin, public affairs representative for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.
Paul Smith, executive director of the Christian public policy organization Citizen Impact, said the odds in any referendum on sports betting would be stacked against the opponents of legalized gambling.
“If it does go to the voters … history tells us the gambling industry will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to convince Georgians this is good for Georgia,” he said.
The committee did not vote on the bill Tuesday. Committee Chairman Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, said lawmakers have a lot of work ahead to make sure Dixon’s bill jives with the language in Senate Resolution 579, the constitutional amendment passed by the Senate.
Georgia Commissioner of Economic Development Pat Wilson
ATLANTA – The state’s top economic development official expressed disappointment Monday with electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian’s decision to delay building a new plant east of Atlanta but said the company remains committed to Georgia.
“It stings,” Georgia Commissioner of Economic Development Pat Wilson told members of a state Senate budget subcommittee. “(But) this company has said they will live up to all their promises and commitments. … Until we hear otherwise, this is an active project.”
Rivian executives announced last Thursday a pause in the company’s plans to invest $5 billion in an EV plant near Covington that would create 7,500 jobs. Instead, Rivian will manufacture its new R2 midsize SUV model at an existing plan in Normal, Ill.
To land the deal, the state and the local development authority offered Rivian $1.5 billion in incentives including tax credits, a 25-year no-cost lease, and $198.1 million in site and road improvements on 1,978 acres.
Thus far, the state and the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton, and Walton Counties have spent $141 million to acquire the property, prepare the site and drain wetlands, Wilson said Monday.
For its part, Rivian has made two payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to the development authority totaling $3 million. Sixty percent of those payments will go to local school systems, he said.
“The payments don’t stop because they’re paused,” Wilson told the subcommittee. “The community is going receive a benefit even though there’s no active construction.”
Under an agreement Rivian signed off on in 2022, the company must fulfill at least 80% of its investment and jobs commitments by the end of 2030. Rivian has committed to maintaining those timelines.
“We’re under the obligation to allow them to live up to their commitment,” Wilson said.
Several senators said they were uncomfortable with letting the site sit empty potentially until the end of 2030 waiting for Rivian to fulfill its part of the deal.
Wilson said he expects Rivian’s intentions for the site likely will become clear well before 2030. If the company doesn’t come through on the project, the site is attractive enough that it won’t be hard to find another manufacturing tenant, he said.
“We would have no trouble at all filling that spot,” he said.
Committee members differed in their expectations for what will happen with Rivian.
“There is a distinct difference between a pause and a pullout,” said Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
But Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, was less hopeful.
“If they come back to Georgia and start making good on their promises, I’ll be the guy who says, ‘I’m surprised,’ ” he said.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation Monday aimed at “swatting,” false reports of criminal activity that send police to the homes or offices of targeted victims.
The bill, which passed 162-2, increases penalties for those found guilty of making swatting calls, mandating a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years and a fine of at least $25,000 upon conviction of a third offense. First and second offenses would require lesser prison terms and fines.
Incidents of swatting calls targeting politicians have been on the rise. During the last three months, three Republican state senators, a Democratic state senator, GOP Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, have been targeted by swatting calls.
“New techniques like AI (artificial intelligence) … have made swatting calls more of a headache for law enforcement,” state Rep. Deborah Silcox, R-Sandy Springs, said Monday.
Rep. Tyler Paul Smith, R-Bremen, said swatting calls typically cost law enforcement agencies – and, thus, taxpayers – $15,000 to $25,000.
The state Senate passed the bill unanimously late last month. The House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee added a section to the measure that creates the crime of drive-by shootings, punishable by a prison sentence of five years to 20.
The legislation clears up confusion over existing laws governing drive-by shootings, said Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, who carried Senate Bill 421 in the House.
“This makes it clear: Do not shoot at a dwelling. Do not shoot at a car,” he said.
A 3-year-old Athens boy was shot and killed during a drive-by shooting over the weekend while watching television in his home.
“Drive-by shootings are incredibly dangerous … often for bystanders,” said House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula. “Cleaning up the statute is necessary.”
Because of the changes made by the House, the bill must return to the Senate before gaining final passage.
