The indictment accuses 19 members of a criminal enterprise
Wake Up First: The Upbeat Perspective on Race, Identity and Public Works in the U.K. The Murder of a Grand Jury in Atlanta
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A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump late last night for his role in failed efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. The 41-count indictment also names 18 others, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. All 19 defendants are accused of violating the RICO Act.
This essay is written by Leila Fadel, who hosts Morning Edition and Up First. She was previously an NPR national correspondent covering race and identity and prior to that an international correspondent based in Cairo.
Up First Briefing: Trump’s Georgia Indictment; DA Fani Willis; Microbes and Kimchi Fermentation
As a child, the advocate was raised as a girl. They were not aware of the true reason they didn’t get a period. They didn’t know the real reason doctors operated on them throughout their childhood. They didn’t know that the painful and invasive surgeries weren’t actually necessary.
The truth was found by mistake in a college freshman class. They were having sex. It upended Pagonis’ world. They were put on the path of activism because it changed their understanding of their past. The book gives the reader a description of the journey that Pagonis took. It has heartbreak, healing, and triumph. But after this book, they say they’re done telling the story of their past. They’re only looking forward now. You can hear it here.
Source: Up First briefing: Trump’s Georgia indictment; DA Fani Willis; microbes and kimchi
Why do some foods become better with age? How to grow a superfood and how to cook it for an Asian family of Asians like Pien Huang and Patrice Cunningham
Why do some foods improve with age, while others spoil? NPR’s Pien Huang set out to find the answer by spending time with Chef Patrice Cunningham to learn how to make kimchi. After the process, Huang was able to appreciate the tiny organisms that turn cabbage into Kimchi, milk into yogurt, soy sauce and so many other delicious things.
It’s an appreciation that also unites me and my fiancé. Kimchi is a big part of my diet as an Asian American, and his German family introduced me to sauerkraut. Listen to learn the science behind and health benefits of the wonder-inducing process of fermentation. You can read the story here.
Several individuals who allegedly participated in that plan are also facing charges, including former Coffee County Election Supervisor Misty Hampton and Cathy Latham, a former Republican Party official in Coffee County.
“All the prosecutors need to show in order to bring a RICO charge is that these individuals were acting with a common purpose and that they engaged in a pattern of illegal activities in order to achieve that common illegal purpose,” he tells Morning Edition.
It could pose significant logistical challenges to an already complicated case if the 19 defendants are tried together.
Defendants could choose to petition the court to argue that they won’t get a fair trial as a group and ask for their cases be separated from some or all of the others, according to NBC News.
Stephen Gillers, a professor emeritus at the New York University School of Law said they could try to get the case moved to federal court.
Gillers thinks a change in venue would benefit the defendants, since a jury from a more conservative area would be more receptive to their case. Plus, he adds, it could delay the case for several months.
He predicts there will be a real fight between federal court and the state court in the next two months.
They would be indicted, and then taken to a court where they would have to enter a plea, take pictures of their mugshots, and hear the charges against them. The defendants could be arraigned individually or together.
Three reasons Trump’s latest charges could be hard for Trump to shake: An insight from a former New Jersey governor who allegedly tried to overturn an election
Legally, they may be trickier for the former president to wiggle out of, and politically, they pose fresh narrative challenges, even for a candidate who has a solid grip on the GOP primary race.
This is not a case of one person allegedly trying (and failing) to overturn an election; prosecutors are saying Trump used his influence to organize a network of false claims and potentially illegal action.
One of Trump’s Republican rivals broke with the pattern he’s stuck to for the previous three indictments as the news of these charges spread.
Instead of using the moment to take a full swipe at Trump, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he thought the indictment was “unnecessary” because Trump has already been indicted on the federal level for his efforts to overturn the election.
That’s true for both the potential consequences Trump faces (a president cannot pardon himself from state charges, for example) — and for the narrative he could offer.
In the U.S., the states administer all elections, including the vote for president. And in Georgia, it was a slate of Republican office holders — from Gov. Brian Kemp to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — who pushed back against his election fraud claims.
It will be harder for Trump to pin his favorite scapegoat, the Democrats, for biased politicians in the state, than it might be.
There is video of Trump loyalists falsely trying to convince Georgia lawmakers they have the right to choose the state’s presidential victor. There are fake documents from Republicans claiming to be presidential electors.
The Need for Simple Evidence in the Court of Public Opinion: Is There a “Need for Sound Evidence?” Or Does It Matter What We Have Learned?
If anything will move the needle in the court of public opinion, it could be this sort of straightforward, accessible evidence. Sound bites are easier to digest than novel-length, jargon-dense indictments, even if they are starting to pile up.
