Lawyer 'goes off like a flame thrower' on new Georgia law to remove prosecutors Republicans don't like
At the end of her Monday night show, Rachel Maddow welcomed Georgia lawyer Michael Moore to address the way in which Republicans in his state have been willing to change the laws just to protect Donald Trump from being indicted.
Fulton County has been at work for a year over those that attempted to overthrow the 2020 election in the state. While the grand jury operated for quite a while, only recently did Republicans figure out a way to act. The law hasn't been signed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) yet, but the GOP legislators are already demanding that the Fulton County D.A. be fired.
"I really think they picked a boxing match with a ghost," said Moore. "There is not much that can be said about special grand jury reports. Remember, we don't use special grand juries very often in this state. We have to use criminal garages. The special grand jury allowed the district attorney to use subpoena power to bring reluctant witnesses in to talk to them to find out what was going on. But she didn't have to do it. And so, essentially, the motion today says, well, let's make her throw that report in the trash can. She can throw it in the trash can. She is not bound by it. It is no more a recommendation any more than it was written on a sticky note and stuck on her office door. She doesn't have to do anything that the special grand jury recommended. In fact, she has complete discretion to look at the facts, to look at the law, to make decisions about which individuals she may want to bring charges against. And on what offenses."
He said that there would be a lot more coming out of the case, including more pre-trial motions.
"Again, they sort of filed something meaningless," said Moore. "And when they fall back and want to talk about vagueness and the constitutional provisions and that the law is not very clear, and maybe it was abused, they're really taking a shot hoping that maybe they'll catch some appellate judge's ear somewhere. I don't see much to come from it."
At the hand-off from Maddow to Lawrence O'Donnell, the former said that Moore "goes off like a flame thrower" about the new Georgia law. When Maddow asked Moore about it, he called it "shameful."
"But think about the history of what the Republican legislature has done," said Moore. "I mean, when the lines for voting got too long, what did they do? They passed a law that said people waiting in line couldn't be given a drink of water. When the ballots got swept away that let them win the election, they passed a law that maybe we're going to appoint our own special elections, which is ironic given Republicans are typically for local control. They decide where they would be able to take over the boards of election. So, now when there is a prosecution, and they lost an election, there is a prosecution and investigation into the possible theft of that election, they're passing a law that says we don't like the outcome of that, so we may want to take that over too with another prosecutor."
He called it "racist," but not because a Black female prosecutor is the one being targeted with it. He called it racist because it's minimizing and decreasing the influence of minority voters in the state and refusing to allow them any power through their votes.
"And so I guess they're making the decision somehow that those voters can't select their own prosecutors. The district attorneys are constitutionally elected officers. They have discretion in what they're going to do. I do notice that it's interesting that the legislature has yet to pass a law that I'm aware of that says if we think some legislature is not doing what they should do, that we can remove them quite as easily as they want."
Meanwhile, there are people in Georgia with actual problems that the legislature is ignoring, he said.
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