Georgia GOP chairman says he was just following orders from Trump lawyers

[riversedge]

Source: CNN





Zachary Cohen Sara Murray Published 4:47 PM EDT, Mon May 8, 2023


Lawyers representing David Shafer, the embattled chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, are arguing their client should not be charged with any crimes for his actions following the 2020 election because he was following advice provided by attorneys working for former President Donald Trump, according to a letter sent to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last week.

Specifically, Shafer’s attorneys say their client was relying on “repeated and detailed advice of legal counsel” when he organized a group of “contingent” electors from Georgia and served as one himself, thus “eliminating any possibility of criminal intent or liability,” according to a copy of the May 5 letter.

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Shafer, who sources previously told CNN could be among those indicted when Willis makes her charging announcements, has come under scrutiny for his role in the effort to put forward alternate slates of electors to block the certification of the 2020 presidential vote.

In their letter to Willis’s office, Shafer’s lawyers say he was “given very direct, detailed legal advice on the procedure he should follow, and he followed those instructions to the letter.”

“I believe that any fair-minded person, with possession of all the facts, would conclude that Mr. Shafer and the other presidential elector nominees acted lawfully and appropriately,” the letter adds.

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Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/08/politics/georgia-gop-chairman-says-he-was-just-following-orders-from-trump-lawyers/index.html

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It does not say if Shafer was one of those granted immunity.

Link to tweet

?s=20
Chairman David Shafer speaks before his election at the Georgia GOP State Convention in Jekyll Island, Georgia on June 5th, 2021



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Link to tweet

?s=20

[Major Nikon]

1. So he was conspiring with a candidate to illegally install that candidate

But it’s all OK because they involved crooked lawyers in their illegal conspiracy.

Brilliant!

[Justice matters.]

26. Not brilliant if it's a RICO case.

RICOs are a tougher wall to escape from scot-free.

[Duncanpup]

2. So were the Nazis

[Talitha]

24. BINGO!!!!

[Ray Bruns]

36. Argument didn't work at Nuremberg, not going to work now.

[Botany]

3. So if somebody asks me to rob a bank and I try to rob that bank is that not a crime?

Last edited Tue May 9, 2023, 09:46 AM - Edit history (1)

n/t

[COL Mustard]

9. Not if we split the loot!

You keep the dye packs and I'll take the rest. Sounds like a plan to me!

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The earlier news reports had indicated "fake electors"

appeared to be ones given immunity. I just found this article from the fall -

Georgia GOP chairman singled out by judge for central role in fake elector plot

By Zachary Cohen, Sara Murray and Jason Morris, CNN
Published 2:52 PM EST, Wed November 30, 2022


CNN — A state judge singled out Georgia Republican Party chairman David Shafer, one of the fake electors for Donald Trump, for the unique role he played in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State as part of a ruling on Wednesday. Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special purpose grand jury investigation into 2020 election interference in Fulton County Superior Court, ruled that two attorneys for 11 of the so-called “alternate electors” in Georgia can’t represent all of them. McBurney cited Shafer’s central role as an organizer in efforts to overturn the election results.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, has already informed the entire group of 16 Republicans who served as pro-Trump electors – even though Trump lost the state in 2020 – that they are targets of her probe. The new ruling puts a spotlight on Shafer’s role in particular.

Willis, who is spearheading the investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election, had attempted to disqualify Holly A. Pierson and Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, who are representing the subset of 11 fake electors, saying their “simultaneous” representation is “rife with serious ethical problems” and conflicts of interest that violate the Georgia state bar’s rules of professional conduct. In Wednesday’s ruling, McBurney said that Shafer is the “exception” and should be viewed differently than the other electors, and so it is “impractical and arguably unethical for Pierson and Debrow to represent all eleven together.”

“Given the information before the Court about his role in establishing and convening the slate of alternate electors, his communications with other key players in the District Attorney’s investigation, and his role in other post -election efforts to call into question the validity of the official vote count in Georgia, the Court finds that he is substantively differently situated from the other ten clients jointly represented by Pierson and Debrow,” McBurney wrote. The judge cites evidence – including emails and other records in the case – that underscores Shafer’s unique role, but the nature of those supporting documents remains unclear as they were not detailed in the ruling itself.

(snip)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/30/politics/georgia-grand-jury-david-shafer/index.html

He's fucked. The only way I can see him getting any immunity is if he could really nail people like Graham, Powell, Ellis, Wood, and Ghouliani, etc. The quip - 45 "made me do it" won't suffice.

[crickets]

33. Good to know. Get these jerks, so no one tries to pull this crap again. nt

[BumRushDaShow]

34. I had posted upthread

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3072063

and you can see his name prominently shown on the elector submission!

[crickets]

35. Thank you! I saw that.

And that the language leaves no wiggle room for excuses. Oops! Arrogance is going to him and any others who didn't go for immunity deals. Good.

[AZ8theist]

5. I CALL BULLSHIT

[Kablooie]

6. A jury should decide his guilt or innocence.

He’s just pleading his case to the prosecution on the hope that they will be nice to him.
Sound like he’s got some pretty naive lawyers.

[2naSalit]

7. That's what those nazis said too...

The ones in the Nuremberg trials.

[Roy Rolling]

8. Attorney advice?

Indict the attorneys, too.

Illegal legal advice is a crime, too.

But I’m no lawyer…

[sarchasm]

14. Exactly. What lawyers? Who were they? nt

Eastman?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. He was just being a good Nazi.

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. The Nurhemberg defense? Next, it will be twinkies. Then Affluenza.

[gab13by13]

12. Trump had it all planned out

And his lawyers would be protected by attorney/client privilege. Trump used attorneys to commit crimes for him.

[Fiendish Thingy]

22. Except courts have already ruled they are not protected, citing the crime/fraud exception

Which the lawyers were definitely aware of, but rolled the dice and gambled anyway.

[dlk]

13. In other words, Shafer doesn't know right from wrong

Or because powerful people were urging him on, he thought he could get away with his crimes.

[Novara]

15. Ah, now we're at the Throwing Each Other Under the Bus stage.

[Javaman]

16. "just following orders", now where have I hear that before.

it appears he has closed the fascism loop.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

17. Oh, I get it,

the Nazi defense, I was just following orders.
Didn't the Nazi defendants at the Nuremburg Trials use that same excuse?
How well did that work out for them?

[C_U_L8R]

18. Party of personal responsibility, my ass

More like suck-ups, toadies and co-conspirators.

[UpInArms]

19. How the Nazi's defense of 'just following orders' plays out in the mind

In a 1962 letter, as a last-ditch effort for clemency, Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann wrote that he and other low-level officers were “forced to serve as mere instruments,” shifting the responsibility for the deaths of millions of Jews to his superiors. The “just following orders” defense, made famous in the post-WWII Nuremberg trials, featured heavily in Eichmann’s court hearings.

But that same year Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, conducted a series of famous experiments that tested whether “ordinary” folks would inflict harm on another person after following orders from an authoritative figure. Shockingly, the results suggested any human was capable of a heart of darkness.

Milgram’s research tackled whether a person could be coerced into behaving heinously, but new research released Thursday offers one explanation as to why.

“In particular, acting under orders caused participants to perceive a distance from outcomes that they themselves caused,” said study co-author Patrick Haggard, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, in an email.

In other words, people actually feel disconnected from their actions when they comply with orders, even though they’re the ones committing the act.

…more at:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-the-nazis-defense-of-just-following-orders-plays-out-in-the-mind

I think they should spend the rest of their lives in prison reflecting upon the freedom they were destroying for the rest of the citizens of the USoA.

[MissMillie]

20. what MAY save the GOP "electors" from GA

(And I used the word "MAY" because I'm not a legal expert and truly don't know whether or not this defense would fly)

From my understanding of the early reporting about these GOP "electors," Georgia GOP sent their "elector" certificate with an accompanying letter that clarified that this "alternate" slate of electors was only to be used in the official electoral count iif the courts ruled that the true electors were invalid or if enough GOPers in the Senate and House voted not to accept the true electors.

Pennsylvania did something similar.

There are apparently some technicalities to consider in this scenario. Some states offered no such clarifying language whatsoever. Some states actually changed the language on their official certificates.

(There is a possibility that any change of language to the official language on these certificates may render them completely invalid. That would depend upon the laws of the states involved.)

The GOP "electors" from any state that made no clarification on this are definitely in a world of hurt--IMHO.

The ones that did make the clarification might very well be too, but I envision that they will argue that their actions to provide clarifying language prove that there was no intent to defraud the U.S. (Whether or not that argument works for them will be up to the courts--and the success of that argument will depend upon what court hears it).

All of this being said, testimony that they were following instructions from TFG's campaign does tie the campaign to the whole thing--which of course is damaging.

But then the question becomes, was it the campaign or was it TFG himself? One would assume that actions by the campaign are taken only under instruction from the candidate (well, that's what *I* would assume) but given how TFG worms his way out of any responsibility, it's not hard to see how he ties this up in court for quite some time.

Lastly... given my lack of legal expertise, I may be entirely wrong about all of this.

[BumRushDaShow]

25. GA is fucked

From my understanding of the early reporting about these GOP "electors," Georgia GOP sent their "elector" certificate with an accompanying letter that clarified that this "alternate" slate of electors was only to be used in the official electoral count iif the courts ruled that the true electors were invalid or if enough GOPers in the Senate and House voted not to accept the true electors.

The group American Oversight obtained copies of what was submitted through FOI to the National Archives, and published them - https://www.americanoversight.org/american-oversight-obtains-seven-phony-certificates-of-pro-trump-electors

When you go to that page, and scroll down there is an embedded image-viewer that lets you scroll through images of the bogus elector docs submitted by 7 states.

My state PA, did the hedging, which is why then-PA Attorney General, now-Governor Josh Shapiro, neglected to prosecute (see first sentence in the below declaration - pg. 32 at the link, whole submission goes from pgs 32 - 43) -




NM also had stipulative language in their submission (see first sentence from pg. 25 at the link, whole submission is pgs 25 - 27) -



HOWEVER, GA's submission had no such language - at least from what was published from FOI'd documents and GA's submission appears as pgs 6 - 15, which includes pages where there were replacement electors submitted for any original designees who were absent at the time of the bogus voting session. Below is pg 7 -



There were 5 states - AZ, GA, MI, NV, & WI that didn't have the equivocating language. All of the states have been "in the news" often except one - NV - which has been hiding in the desert behind scrub and mesquite trees, regarding their "issue". I found one little updated news story on that -

Nevada AG mum on investigation of 6 GOP electors in 2020

January 8, 2023

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford won’t say if the state is investigating the six Republican electors who submitted fake electoral certificates declaring Donald Trump the winner of the presidential 2020 election.

“The moment I decide to comment on the fake electors, someone’s going to say this is a partisan investigation because I comment on nothing anyway,” Ford, a Democrat, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Ford said Friday during a press call with the Democratic Attorneys General Association about the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that he “would not jeopardize anything that we are doing or that we may do by commenting on whether we’re investigating.” Ford did say that he’s cooperating with and participating in the Justice Department’s investigation, according to the Review-Journal.

Authorities say six Republican electors gathered outside the Nevada Capitol in Carson City on Dec, 14, 2020 and signed a fake certificate of ascertainment certifying the election results for Trump.

(snip)

https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-politics-nevada-donald-trump-764fed030bc108302ad23d13e58f020e

[MissMillie]

27. WOW! You went above & beyond! And I appreciate it!

As you can tell by my post, I am not fully versed in the intricacies involved in this. The information you provided goes a long way in correcting that.

(I am reminded of the "West Wing" debate episode where Bartlet reminds us that complexity is not a vice.)

I often find myself looking for what legal defense the GOP will use for their behavior. I thought that maybe I had figured out what their arguments would be.

It would appear that if they attempt to use the path I envisioned, their arguments will go nowhere.

Thanks again. That was an extraordinary amount of work that you put into that post. I hope everyone here takes the time to educate themselves on this.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. You are welcome and I was following this since it happened because of what the loons did here in PA

I had much thanks to give both Josh Shapiro (AG at the time) and Marc Elias (and his Democracy Docket) for their staving off the nightmarish pre- and post- 2020 election here, that is still going on in the courts - the latest being Dominion Voting Systems-related and bogus "audits".

[Fiendish Thingy]

21. CNN apparently playing fast and loose with the facts by using the term "orders" in headline

When the actual reporting says his letter states he was following legal “advice”, which, while not an excuse for criminal behaviour, as claimed, is a more accurate term to use than “orders”. Trump’s attorneys (I’m guessing Eastman and Powell) had no authority over Shafer, and he would likely suffer no legal consequences for disobeying their illegal “orders”.

[kacekwl]

23. I hope these dummies are naming names

and bringing evidence otherwise no deal for you. Kick them to the curb and bring charges.

[NCjack]

28. The chairman of the Georgia Republican Party will benefit from a prison term.

It's a great place to work on his hog jowls.

[Happy Hoosier]

30. Generally, speaking taking the advice of a lawyer...

... who works for someone else is NOT a defense.

Someone else's lawyer is not under any legal obligation to give you sound legal advice. If you commit a crime becuase you relied on their advice, that's not a defense.

My company is dealing with this issue now.... a partner's lawyer advised us that a certain action was perfectly legal. We wisely consulted our own lawyer who questions that advice and assured us that we MUST NOT EVER rely on the legal adivce of a lawyer who works for someone else, especially when the action they advise is in the interest of their client.

[Paladin]

31. trump's reverse Midas Touch, in action once again.

One of these days Republicans are going to wake up to the obvious: Everything trump or his bought-and-paid-for operatives touch, turns to shit.

[LiberalFighter]

32. And he would jump off a cliff too?

[prodigitalson]

37. yeah, that's literally the conspiracy