Indictments handed down in Georgia

We’re in what we call the “just miserable” midst of COVID — wastebaskets filled with kleenexes, wracking coughing, can’t-deal-with-it headaches — but I’ve been watching the news and see that 10 indictments have been handed down in Fulton County, Georgia. It’s not clear at this hour how many defendants have been indicted or on what counts, but it is probably not a good night to be Defendant Trump or Rudy Giuliani or John Eastman or Sidney Powell.

The thing that is really interesting to me is the role Republican Party officials in Georgia have played in this. Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused to give in to enormous pressure to help Trump flip election results in the state so he would be declared the winner. I particularly recall the day that Gabriel Sterling, the chief elections official in the office of the Secretary of State, held a news conference and warned that if the attacks on the Georgia election continued, “somebody is going to get shot.”

It was extraordinary how Republican officials, both elected and appointed, stood up to the attacks Trump launched on the Georgia election. It was as if they were offended that anyone, even the president of the United States who was in their political party, would question their ability to run their own election fairly. It seemed to be a strange mix of state pride and pride in their offices and the jobs that they did that came together. It’s what will have to happen across the nation in the Republican Party if they are to take back their own political lives from Donald Trump. Kemp and Raffensperger stood up to Trump and were reelected, so they proved it can be done. It will be interesting to see if others learn from their example.

Meanwhile, I can’t stay up to wait for the indictment to be unsealed, so I’ll try to have something to say in the morning.