Indicted Sen. Shawn Still seeks to quash charges

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - With the Sept. 29 plea deal of a former Atlanta bail bondsman in Fulton County’s historic indictments of former President Donald Trump and 18 others, attention is now turning to other possible deals that may be coming.

Also, attempts so far from some of the co-defendants to move their case out of Fulton County and into federal court have been unsuccessful,

Here are the latest details on each of the 19 co-defendants indicted in what Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is alleging is a massive, organized crime-related effort to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.

LAST UPDATED: 8:30 am, Oct. 5, 2023

Donald Trump

The latest: On Sept. 28, the former president’s attorney, Steven Sadow, said his client will not attempt to move his case out of state court and into a federal court.

Backstory: After Georgia’s certified presidential election results showed Joe Biden becoming the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992, prosecutors allege Trump fixated on Georgia and making unfounded assertions of widespread election fraud. He also called top state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp, to urge them to find a way to reverse his loss in the state.

In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. Willis opened an investigation into possible illegal attempts to influence the election shortly after a recording of that call was made public.

Robert Cheely

Backstory: A Georgia lawyer, Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani.

Kenneth Chesebro

The latest: On Oct. 2, Chesebro and his attorneys filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court, requesting more time to question jurors. Chesebro is scheduled to go on trial in Fulton County Superior Court on Oct. 26, along with Sidney Powell. Both filed motions weeks ago, requesting a speedy trial.

Backstory: Prosecutors have said the attorney worked with Georgia Republicans in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trump’s campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

Jeffrey Clark

The latest: On Sept. 29, U.S. District Court Judge Steven Jones denied Clark’s request to move case into federal court.

Backstory: A U.S. Justice Department official who championed Trump’s claims of election fraud, Clark is alleged to have presented colleagues with a draft letter pushing Georgia officials to convene a special legislative session on the election results, according to testimony before the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Clark allegedly wanted the letter sent, but Justice Department superiors refused.

John Eastman

Backstory: A former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers, was deeply involved in some of his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. He wrote a memo arguing that Trump could remain in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence overturned the results of the election during a joint session of Congress where electoral votes would be counted. That plan included putting in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states, including Georgia, who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states.

Jenna Ellis

Backstory: The lawyer appeared with Rudy Giuliani at a Dec. 3, 2020, hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. Jenna Ellis also wrote at least two legal memos to Trump and his attorneys advising that Pence should “disregard certified electoral college votes from Georgia and other purportedly ‘contested’ states” when Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors have said.

Harrison Floyd

Backstory: Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Stephen Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti.

Rudy Giuliani

The latest: A federal judge has set a Dec. 11, 2023, trial date to determine how much money Giuliani will have to pay two former Fulton County election workers whom he has been found liable for defamation.

Backstory: Prosecutors have said Giuliani was involved a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans serve as fake electors, falsely swearing that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

Scott Hall

The latest: Hall is the first co-defendant who has reached a plea deal with prosecutors. Hall has pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

Hall has received 12 months of probation for each count for a total of five years probation. According to his plea deal, he must perform 200 hours of community service; pay a $5,000 fine; write a letter of apology to the state of Georgia; must testify truthfully in upcoming court proceedings; have no contact with any victims or witnesses or co-defendants associated with the case; cannot participate in any polling activities while on probation; and have no communication with the media while the overall case is ongoing.

Backstory: An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Hall was involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County in south Georgia.

Misty Hampton

Backstory: She was the elections director in Coffee County. Misty Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment.

Trevian Kutti

Backstory: Prosecutors allege the publicist claimed to have high level law enforcement connections. They say Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker, met with Kutti at a police precinct, where Kutti brought Harrison Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors said Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud.

Cathy Latham

Backstory: One of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, Latham was also chair of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was at the county elections office for much of the day on Jan. 7, 2021, and welcomed a computer forensics team that arrived to copy software and data from the county’s election equipment in what the secretary of state’s office has said was “unauthorized access” to the machines.

Stephen Lee

Backstory: Prosecutors say Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year.

Mark Meadows

The latest: The former White House chief of staff has been unsuccessful in his repeated requests and appeals to move his case out of Fulton County and into a federal courtroom.

Backstory: Trump’s White House chief of staff visited Cobb County while state investigators were conducting an audit of the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in December 2020. Meadows obtained the phone number of the chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office, Frances Watson, and passed it along to Trump, who called her. He also participated in the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Sidney Powell

The latest: Powell is scheduled to go on trial in Fulton County Superior Court on Oct. 26, along with Kenneth Chesebro. Both filed motions weeks ago, requesting a speedy trial.

Backstory: The attorney was part of a group who met at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood in November 2020 “for the purpose of exploring options to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere,” prosecutors have said. Wood, who’s licensed in Georgia, said Powell asked him to help find Georgia residents to serve as plaintiffs in lawsuits contesting the state’s election results. Additionally, emails and documents obtained through subpoenas in an unrelated lawsuit have shown that Powell was involved in arranging for a computer forensics team to travel to rural Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment there in January 2021.

Michael Roman

The latest: Roman and his attorneys have filed a motion that seeks to request a speedy trial by the end of October, separate from Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro.

Backstory: A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations, Roman is alleged to have been involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election.

David Shafer

The latest: On Sept. 29, a federal judge denied Shafer’s request to move his case to a federal court.

Backstory: The former chairman of the Georgia GOP, Shafer was one of 16 state Republicans who met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate declaring Trump had won and also declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. He also joined Trump in a lawsuit challenging the certification of the 2020 election in Georgia.

Ray Smith

Backstory: A Georgia-based lawyer, Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the state’s election.

Shawn Still

The latest: On Oct. 2, Still’s attorneys filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court to quash his indictment.

Backstory: The only elected official indicted in the case, Still will be allowed to remain in office and avoid suspension, according to a recent decision by a governor-appointed review panel. Still, a GOP state senator from Johns Creek, was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year.

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