THE SHOW NOTES: The Lawyers Went Down to Georgia
Welcome! Only 25% of Maui has been searched following the devastating wildfires.
JUST SO YOU HAVE PERSPECTIVE: Judge Ural Glanville is the Chief Judge of Fulton County Superior Court. He has been picking a jury since January 2 in the YSL gang case. That’s a criminal RICO case that started with about 17 defendants. There are still about six jurors left to pick. Each defense attorney gets to vet the jurors. Once Judge Glanville gets the jury seated, District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to use 350 witnesses and expects to take six months for the trial. Judge Glanville is both Chief Judge and has been on the bench since 2005. The judge assigned to the Trump case, Scott McAfee, has been on the bench less than 6 months. There is no way the Trump trial moves quickly, particularly with three other indictments ahead of it. Likewise, because the DA indicted both Donald Trump and Jeffrey Clark, who were both members of the executive branch of the federal government at the time, both men could argue the case must be removed to federal court. All of this is going to take a lot of time. Again, it has taken eight months to pick a jury in the young thug trial in Fulton County. Good luck moving faster in this case.
DATA: More Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments.
HEADLINE: Biden's plan to forgive student debt for over 800,000 borrowers upheld by judge - Axios
OUCH: Karine Jean-Pierre just had her worst press conference ever.
WHAT: 'Blind Side' subject Oher alleges Tuohys made millions off lie - ESPN
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Indictment Number Four
A Fulton County grand jury is charging 19 individuals in Trump’s orbit with a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election through a myriad of actions in shocking news late Monday night.
Who: The major names in the 96-page indictment brought by District Attorney Fani Willis include Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell.
What’s happening: The DA is using an antiracketeering law - known as RICO - to tie together multiple actions in order to bring charges against the former President and his inner circle. The indictment alleges 161 unique acts were taken as part of a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 Georgia election.
Rumors: Multiple people in Trump’s orbit are circulating rumors that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has the power to pardon Donald Trump and fire District Attorney Fani Willis. This is simply not true. As I wrote this morning, pardoning Trump would require a constitutional amendment passed by two-thirds of both chambers while firing Willis would require her to be indicted for a felony.
But wait: The Trump team claims a recent Georgia law allows Kemp the discretion to remove prosecutors at will, however, this only applies when a prosecutor is blatantly failing to perform their duties and then requires a panel of prosecutors to investigate before any action is taken.
China: Bad To Worse
Following months of record youth unemployment, the Chinese government announced it would no longer publish the data depriving the outside world of a key metric for tracking the health of the Chinese economy. As a Financial Times reporter noted on Twitter, this is nothing new. Since 2020, China has reported a decreasing number of metrics as its domestic economy continues to slide.
Context: The news comes as China reported another disappointing month of economic growth that has sparked fresh international fears of a Chinese recession. In response, the Chinese central bank shocked investors by cutting the benchmark lending rate by the largest margin since 2020 in order to help the sputtering economy.
Big picture: China has an economy that is seemingly contracting by the day. Exports and imports are down, youth unemployment hit a record high, deflation is happening, foreign investment is drying up, and a domestic real estate crash appears to be well underway.
Government response: Seven well-regarded economists told the Financial Times that the Chinese government is forbidding economists from speaking negatively about the Chinese economy.
LA Times: Replace Feinstein with Kamala
President Biden has a problem. So does Vice President Kamala Harris. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is a problem. There’s a solution for all of this.
Biden’s problem is Harris. She’s a burden — a drag on his reelection prospects.
This is noteworthy because it comes from The LA Times. Go read the full story here.
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