Georgia Republicans Give Huge Gift to Fulton County DA Going After Trump
The Georgia Senate Republican caucus voted Thursday to remove state Sen. Colton Moore over his efforts to initiate a special legislative session to review the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Last month, Willis charged former President Donald Trump with 13 felony racketeering charges in his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in the state of Georgia.
In an Aug. 17 letter to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Moore wrote that he was seeking the support of three-fifths of the state House and Senate to compel a special session to review Willis’ prosecution of Trump.
Moore posted a copy of the letter on X along with the caption, “I’m not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically TARGET political opponents.”
As a Georgia State Senator, I am officially calling for an emergency session to review the actions of Fani Willis.
America is under attack. I’m not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically TARGET political opponents. pic.twitter.com/gpzg2l5uIU
— Sen. Colton Moore (@realColtonMoore) August 17, 2023
Moore said that legislature’s first order of business should be to defund Willis’ office of Georgia state tax dollars.
“We have a rogue district attorney who is acting like a fascist,” he told WXIA-TV.
Kemp responded later in the month that he would not be calling a special session, though he said he shares concerns that Willis’ prosecution looks politically motivated.
“Let me be clear: We have a law in the state of Georgia that clearly outlines the legal steps that can be taken if constituents believe their local prosecutors are violating their oath by engaging in unethical or illegal behavior,” he said.
“Up to this point, I have not seen any evidence that DA Willis’ actions, or lack thereof, warrant action by the Prosecuting Attorney Oversight Commission,” Kemp added.
He likened Moore’s efforts to those seen in the state in the weeks after the 2020 election.
“These are the distractions that get you to lose elections,” the governor said. “The last time we were talking about special sessions here in the state of Georgia, just a few weeks later, the Republican majority lost two U.S. Senate races.”
The Georgia Senate Republicans issued a statement on their decision to indefinitely suspend Moore, saying during his “advocacy for his ill-conceived proposal,” the senator misled Georgians “causing unnecessary tension and hostility, while putting his Caucus colleagues and their families at risk of personal harm.”
The Republicans further charged him with not following caucus rules, and therefore the party’s leadership suspended him.
Statement Regarding the Indefinite Caucus Suspension of Senator Colton Moore#gapol pic.twitter.com/tPZhlYyiY0
— GA Senate Republicans (@GASenateGOP) September 28, 2023
Moore told Breitbart, “Today’s removal is a direct result of me calling on my Republican colleagues in the Senate to do their job and sign onto an emergency session to investigate Fani Willis.
“The Georgia Constitution clearly outlines the legislature’s power to call an emergency session to investigate a judicial officer. After urging my Republican Senate colleagues to join me — they responded by acting like children and throwing me out of the caucus,” the senator added.
“I stand by my Republican principles. I stand by the Republican platform. I will continue to serve as a Republican Senator from the great state of Georgia. Unfortunately, now I will be forced to refer to my colleagues, who ran on being ‘Trump conservatives,’ as the RINO caucus,” Moore said.
The lawmaker said he believes the people of Georgia are with him.
“This is the fight of our lifetime, and I will continue to double down to defend the rule of law and do what is right,” Moore said.
A Rasmussen Reports poll conducted from Sept. 8-11 among 1,061 likely Georgia voters found 62 percent of Republicans felt Trump was very likely being unfairly prosecuted by Willis, and an additional 20 percent thought it was somewhat likely.
So a combined 82 percent in the GOP camp believe that Trump is being politically targeted.
Trump supported Moore’s effort with a video the senator posted on social media in late August.
🚨 PRESIDENT TRUMP IS WITH ME!
He knows that my call for an emergency session to DEFUND the corrupt Fani Willis is the correct move.
Sadly, Georgia REPUBLICANS are blocking my efforts.
This is madness. No more empty promises. The people want ACTION…
TIME TO SIGN! pic.twitter.com/WYrb7ewTP3
— Sen. Colton Moore (@realColtonMoore) August 30, 2023
Willis “shockingly indicted your favorite president, me, for a perfect phone call. She is very bad for America,” Trump said. “She is very bad for Georgia.”
In a Jan. 2, 2020 phone call, the 45th president told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that he only needed to find 11,000 fraudulent votes for Democrat Joe Biden to flip the state to a Trump win.
“And if you check with Fulton County, you’ll have hundreds of thousands because they dumped ballots into Fulton County and the other county next to it,” Trump said in the call, according to the transcript.
An independent report contracted by the Georgia State Election Board and released in January 2021 identified many abnormalities in Fulton County’s handling of ballots in the 2020 general election.
“There were persistent chain of custody issues throughout the entire absentee ballot processing system,” the report stated.
It added that “the fact that ballots were delivered to State Farm Arena in unsecured mail carts is very concerning. … Protocol for securing ballots exists not only to protect the ballots themselves but also to ensure that no ballot box stuffing occurred.”
On election night, party observers and media at State Farm Arena, the Fulton County venue where votes were counted, were told counting had stopped, only for it to resume for nearly two more hours soon thereafter.
The election review concluded that “the truth about what happened on the night of November 3rd between 10:30PM and 11:52PM [at State Farm Arena] continues to be elusive … but if the [GOP] poll watchers are correct, then there is a serious problem.”
Fulton County registration chief Ralph Jones, who was present at State Farm Arena that night, resigned in August 2021 after coming under intense criticism for the county’s handling of the 2020 election. Raffensperger had called for his firing the previous month.
Fulton County’s continued failures have gone on long enough with no accountability. Rick Barron and Ralph Jones, Fulton’s registration chief, must be fired and removed from Fulton’s elections leadership immediately. Fulton’s voters and the people of Georgia deserve better.
— GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (@GaSecofState) July 15, 2021
Rick Barron, Fulton County’s elections director for the 2020 election, also announced his resignation in November 2021, which took effect at the end of the year, the Georgia Recorder reported.
So Trump had reasons to doubt the integrity of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Ejecting Moore from the GOP Caucus for saying what needed to be said is uncalled for.
Republican senators didn’t have to vote for his special session initiative, but removing him was extreme.
He should be reinstated immediately.
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