***Official Political Discussion Thread***



"The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office should be removed from the 2020 election interference case, a bombshell decision that will upend the last remaining criminal case against incoming President Donald Trump.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges, all GOP appointees, concluded that Willis’ onetime romantic relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted a conflict of interest that merited her dismissal from the case.

“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” wrote judges Todd Markle and Trenton Brown for the majority. A third judge, Benjamin Land, issued a strongly-worded dissent.

The majority opinion also rejected a push from several defendants in the case to dismiss the indictment.

The decision is a massive blow to Willis, one of the most recognizable prosecutors in the country who cruised to a second term earlier this month against a relatively inexperienced Republican opponent. It also could be the death knell for the fourth and final case that resulted in criminal charges against Trump after he left office in January 2021.

Willis is expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Georgia. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
 


It's too late for the media. They'll laugh and nod along and do the same thing tomorrow. I don't get it, but they're cooked. Even the occasional Lawrence O'Donnell outburst aint gonna cut it. They're going to watch America burn and just live tweet it.
 


Oprah Winfrey Omg GIF
 


"Republican NC Supreme Court candidate wants GOP-led high court to toss ballots after elections board rejects protest
WRAL
8–10 minutes

The Republican candidate for a contested North Carolina Supreme Court seat is now asking the high court to throw out more than 60,000 voters’ ballots from the 2024 elections — an action that could end with the court deciding whether to overturn the results in an election for one of its own members.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections rejected ballot challenges by the GOP candidate, Judge Jefferson Griffin, and several other Republican candidates last week, with board chairman Alan Hirsch saying the effort to throw out so many people’s votes “is anathema to the democratic system and simply cannot be tolerated.”

Griffin is now appealing to the state’s highest court to hold that ballots cast by people who failed to provide their drivers license number or social security number when they registered to vote, by people who represented they are a U.S. citizen but have never lived in the U.S. and by overseas voters who did not present a photo identification cannot be counted for the Supreme Court election. He claims the state elections board erred when it said Griffin’s opponent, incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs, won the race by fewer than 800 votes.

“The state [elections] board is an administrative agency that has knowingly broken the law and refused to do anything about it,” Griffin says in the filing, which was distributed by the state Republican Party. “Indeed, the Board has been breaking our election law for decades. This lawlessness was brought to the Board’s attention back in 2023, before the 2024 general election, but the Board refused to correct its errors. Now those chickens have come home to roost. In the 2024 general election, the Board’s errors changed the outcome of the election for the open seat on this Court.”

Pat Gannon, a spokesperson for the state elections board, didn’t immediately comment on the filing. Rather, he pointed to the board’s decision on the matter, which was filed late last week. “The board concluded that the protests … did not establish probable cause to believe that a violation of election law or irregularity or misconduct occurred in the protested elections,” the elections board wrote in its order.

Griffin’s filing is known as a “writ of prohibition” in legal parlance. It's an attempt to bypass the potential for a district court decision in Wake County. It raises the unusual possibility of the state Supreme Court ruling on its own membership.

The legal theory has already been rejected in federal court with a trial court judge and a federal appellate court ruling as recently as October that those voters were allowed to vote in this year’s elections. The appellate court also specifically ruled that this issue is not something state courts can rule on since the legal arguments involve federal law. Griffin disagrees and is hoping the state Supreme Court will hear his challenge regardless of those past rulings. The Supreme Court has a 5-2 Republican majority, and, in recent years, court rulings in political cases have frequently come down along party lines.

He is also asking that the court halt the elections board’s certification of the election for the Supreme Court seat and the requirement that Griffin file a petition for judicial review within 10 days of the board’s decision.

Griffin has previously told WRAL he wouldn’t comment on his campaign’s requests to throw out the ballots while those requests remain pending, since he’s a member of the state Court of Appeals.

“The State Board of Elections has not been fair or transparent, and it is by their actions alone we have no other choice than to take this step,” North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Jason Simmons said in a statement. “Judge Griffin has led efforts to seek accountability and restore integrity while the state board has been dragging its feet and ignoring the law."

Two recounts in the state Supreme Court race have reaffirmed that Riggs received more votes than Griffin. Riggs, who leads by 734 votes, has declared victory and called on Griffin to concede. He has not.

A spokesperson for Riggs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Griffin has refused to face reality and admit that he lost the Supreme Court race to Justice Allison Riggs," Anderson Clayton, the chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said in a statement. "Instead, he has wasted taxpayer dollars, tried to toss out the ballots of over 60,000 North Carolinians, and attempted to find any way to overturn the will of the people."

Clayton urged Griffin to concede and accused him of trying to get the GOP-controlled high court to "hand this seat to him."

It could be weeks or months before the election is resolved. What happens to Riggs’ seat in the meantime is unclear. Similar situations have been rare in state history."
 
Does he really need that many cops with him?
“The security around Mangione today is because of what they’ve been seeing in terms of the public support for him and their security worries about somebody not trying to attack him, but to try and free him from law enforcement.”
 
I have feelings. Like, I get it. I get the cultural moment. I get the look. I even knew someone in school who was clearly infatuated with criminal men even though we were taking a class ostensibly about prosecuting criminals and how crime is bad.

But it's kind of making me feel some type of way



Like they're putting this stuff up like it's a movie. Meanwhile, like Chuck said "How the hell do we get stuffed in the back of a cell on the isle? Aint it wild?"

It's wild. Understandable. Yeah I get it. But it's wild. Cops wearing Off Whites to his perp walks, pics like it's right out of a film....eh
 
Where was this energy when they dudes actually had a chance to do something

 
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