I hate to rain on the parade, but Trump’s indictment — even felony conviction — will not bar Trump from holding office. While I’ve reported on Trump as a one-man crime wave, the cold truth is, if convicted, it will be his first offense for low-level felony — so forget jail time. Other problems with New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case... The prosecutor has to prove that Trump INTENDED to hush up his affair to save his election — as opposed to saving him from the Wrath of Melania. This is nearly identical to the case of ex-Sen. John Edwards [D-NC] who paid off the girlfriend he got pregnant during his run for President and for Vice-President (as John Kerry’s running mate). The jury didn’t buy the line that hush money was a hidden campaign contribution. The case was then dropped. And let’s not sugar-coat the problems for prosecutors in Manhattan. Their two key witnesses are creeps: Michael Cohen, a convicted felon knuckle-breaker for Trump, and Stormy Daniels, a woman who blackmailed Trump into paying hush money. (On the other hand, Cohen and Daniels come off as sincere and contrite about their affairs with The Donald.) A similar problem arises with the case in Georgia, which will soon go to a new grand jury. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will have to PROVE that Trump KNEW he’d lost the election and KNEW that he was committing a crime by promoting a bogus slate of Electors to the Electoral College. When Trump said to the Sec. of State of Georgia, "find 11,780 votes," it was preceded by Trump’s crazy-town claims about illegal voters. Trump’s lawyers will argue, in the UNLIKELY case he’s indicted, that Agent Orange was relying on a legal memo by professor of law John Eastman. They’ll also claim that Trump truly believed the goofy BS about stuffed ballot boxes and illegal voters from grifter groups like True the Vote. Sorry to give you the bad news about the prosecutions. But that’s why they call it LAW school and not JUSTICE school.

Georgia is on our minds — again —this week on the Election Crimes Bulletin, with new GOP laws to eliminate absentee voting by dropbox (SB 221), to stop the use of (unfortunately) much-needed donations to support election administration (SB 222), and to create a new Georgia commission to restrict and remove prosecutors (SB 92). The later law is clearly aimed at curtailing the activities of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who’s investigating criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election by Donald Trump and his cronies, and is edging ever closer to indictments. Meanwhile the Biden Administration has joined Fair Fight, the voting rights organization founded by Georgia’s should-have-been-governor Stacey Abrams, in their legal action against True the Vote, the right wing "election integrity" organization that attempted to overturn the 2020 and 2022 elections with mass voter challenges. Earlier this month, US District Court Judge Steve C. Jones ordered True the Vote to stand trial in Atlanta. In his summary judgment, Judge Jones noted that even True the Vote’s so-called expert, Gregg Phillips, “candidly admits that there will be voters on the challenge list that are eligible to vote.” But it remains to be seen how far the Biden Administration will go to support Fair Fight’s action against True the Vote and its army of vigilante vote challengers, which we exposed before the 2022 election in on our film, Vigilante. Also in the news is Ginni Thomas, the wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who’s raised new ethics questions after it was revealed that Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty, a conservative think tank led by her, accepted anonymous donations totaling $596,000 in 2019. Much of the money, $400,000, came via Donors Trust, an organization that has long been on the radar of the Palast Investigations team. As a funnel for Koch funds, Donors Trust had a prominent role in our 2016 film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Learn all about this and more on the latest edition of the Election Crimes Bulletin with Dennis Bernstein and Greg Palast.

As things heat up for Donal Trump on the legal front, we take a look at the possible indictments heading his way from New York and Georgia. Though it looks like New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg might pip Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis to the post with his case involving Trump’s payoff to adult film star Stormy Daniels, it’s perhaps the possible Georgia indictment that’s proving to be more intriguing. Especially since this past week it was revealed that the Georgia Grand Jury was played a recording of a call Trump made in December 2020 to then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (who since died in November 2022) asking him to convene a special session of the state legislature to overturn Georgia's presidential election results. Meanwhile New York Attorney General Leticia James has revived the case Bragg controversially dropped in February 2022 involving faked financial documents. Though James’ action is civil rather than criminal, the case extends beyond the former-president to three of his children — Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump — and could see them all barred from doing business in New York.

“It’s in front of him” may be the words that finally send Donald Trump to the hoosegow.   The focus of Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis' Grand Jury investigation was on the scheme to present a fraudulent slate of Electors to Congress (which VP Mike Pence was supposed to select for the Electoral College). And, according to the January 6th Committee report, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel sent an "elector recap" memo to Trump summarizing the scheme, based on a phone call between McDaniel, lawyer John Eastman, and the then President. Crucially, a Trump aide told McDaniel, "It’s in front of him."   Years back, I was principal investigator on a major RICO conspiracy case in Georgia, where the state's racketeering law is tougher than federal law.  I cannot see how Trump avoids state RICO charges — as the instigator of the fraud who has, apparently, signed off on the plans for the Electoral vote heist.

The 800-page gorilla of a report from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the Capitol seems strangely silent on a few matters that, apparently, were a bit too uncomfortable for the Committee to take on. So, buckle up for a discomfiting ride with our investigative team that has been tracking the insurrectionists for years before the Insurrection in this Special Edition of the Election Crimes Bulletin with FlashPoints host Denis J. Bernstein, investigative journalist Greg Palast, and Palast Investigative Fund researcher and photojournalist Zach D. Roberts. For more on this, read our report: The Secret History of a Riot.

In the latest edition of the Election Crimes Bulletin, investigative journalist Greg Palast and FlashPoints News host Dennis J. Bernstein discuss the mainstream media’s fear of real news, and what's missing from their headlines on stories ranging from the George Santos scandal to the recently released transcripts from the January 6 Committee. Talking of huge stories the mainstream media fail to report... Our documentary, Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman, will be available online through New Year's Day. After that, for contractual reasons, we have to take it down. It’s free for these next couple of days – then gone! Go to: VigilanteMovie.com Watch it and pass on the link.

Finally. The Department of Justice has finally taken on ‘True the Vote’, the right-wing group behind the wrongful challenge of hundreds of thousands of legal Georgia voters. True the Vote challenges were the central subject of the film Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman created by the Palast Investigative Fund team. I know what you’re thinking: Why did Justice sue two weeks AFTER the Georgia runoff election? Luckily, the film and our related reports got out in Georgia before the election. We held special voter impact showings from Coffee County to Gwinnett to Valdosta. Crucially, we confronted and exposed True the Vote’s agents, every one a Republican official, scaring them away from further challenges. Watch Vigilante for no charge, through New Year’s Day at: VigilanteMovie.com

As control of the Senate hangs in the balance, once again, the balance of power may be decided in Georgia. And once again, as in 2020, Reverend Raphael Warnock [D] is headed for a runoff race — but this time the rules of the game have been changed. In March 2021, Brian Kemp signed a 98-page voter-suppression bill, SB202, which places severe restrictions on absentee ballots and dropboxes, and has unleashed an army of self-appointed GOP vote vigilantes, who are challenging voters en masse. Adding to the odds against a fair fight, convenient errors have come to light which affect thousands of voters. For example, in Cobb County, the ACLU found that 1,036 absentee ballots were never mailed. And under SB202, the rules for the runoff election itself have changed, with the time frame being shortened from 9 weeks to just 4, meaning the election will now be held on Dec 6, instead of in January as it was two years ago. This change may seem benign, but it will deny thousands of young and new voters, who may have wanted to vote in the runoff race, the chance to do so, since SB202 also requires voters to register at least 30 days before an election — and, in this case, the runoff election is one that voters only had 28 days notice of. As the head of the New Georgia Project, Kendra Cotton, said of democracy in Georgia: It’s death by a thousand cuts. On December 6th, we may find out if democracy in Georgia has already taken its final gasp.   For updates on the situation in Georgia, sign up to our newsletter at: GregPalast.com/subscribe

Vigilante voter strikes are not just happening in Georgia, where Greg Palast centered his new documentary, Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman. But the vigilantes are using different tactics in different states. In states with open carry laws, like Arizona, they’re actually showing up at early voting stations and dropbox sites with guns and masks to intimidate voters. Arizona may have an open carry law, but it’s still part of the United States of America, which means that the state is subject to the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was specifically says you cannot use any threat of violence to intimidate voters.   In this edition of the Election Crimes Bulletin, investigative journalist Greg Palast and FlashPoints News host Dennis J. Bernstein discuss this new wave of vigilante voter suppression.    The duo also delve into Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent ruling, which gives Lindsay Graham a temporary stay from having to testify before the grand jury in Atlanta which is investigating whether Trump and his allies tried to illegally influence and undermine the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Thomas knows even this Supreme Court will likely to overturn his ruling, but he’s given Graham a critical vacation from testifying until after the midterms. This is good news for Brian Kemp, who’s campaign might otherwise be in jeopardy if inconvenient truths about his conversations Graham were to come out before the November election.   Learn more at: GregPalast.com   Vigilante: Georgia’s Voter Suppression Hitman, exposes the most brazen, racist attack on voting rights yet.     Support our work by donating for a signed DVD of the film.     Or make a simple donation no matter how large or small to help us get the word out!

Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, signed a law saying you can’t teach Critical Race Theory. Why? As we revealed in the film, Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman, it was his family that first brought enslaved Africans to Georgia.   This was just before the Revolutionary War, when Georgia was a free territory. Slavery was prohibited in Georgia, and Georgia at that time included Alabama and Mississippi. Then the Kemp family cut a deal with the King of England to bring in Africans from the rice coast, because the English settlers had no idea how to grow rice. These Africans were the high tech workers of their time, they were the ones who knew how to grow rice. Rice was king before cotton in the South. So, the Kemp family's fortune, the Governor's fortune, comes from enslaving other people — that’s where the power of his family comes from, and that’s why he’s so keen to erase history.   Join me for a special, one-night only impact screening of Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman — narrated by Rosario Dawson — in Los Angeles on Weds, Oct 26 at 7PM. Entry is FREE with RSVP. Can't make the screening? Get a signed DVD with donation to support our work.