S9 Ep 15: It's Newt's turn

10/18/22 • 38 min

2 Listeners

The latest episode of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Breakdown podcast focuses on new out-of-state material witness subpoenas issued by the Fulton County special purpose grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies.

The most notable to receive them are former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former Georgia congressman and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Also on the list are one of Trump’s former senior advisors, a cyber investigations consultant and a police chaplain from Illinois.

The special purpose grand jury, which convened in May, is investigating alleged interference with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Gingrich has been an election denier since shortly after the 2020 election as evidenced by an interview he gave to Fox News.

Democrats stole “five or six states,” Gingrich said. “In Fulton County, Georgia, we believe these people are thieves. We believe the machines are corrupt.”

Gingrich’s subpoena says he was involved with the Trump campaign in a plan to air TV ads that “repeated and relied upon false claims about fraud in the 2020 election” and which encouraged viewers “to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge and overturn the results of the election.”

In November 2020, Trump pardoned Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to giving false statements to the FBI during an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Just weeks later, Flynn appeared on Newsmax and said Trump won the 2020 election. Flynn also said Trump “could take military capabilities and he could place them in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.”

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer above.

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The special purpose grand jury, which convened in May, is investigating alleged interference with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Gingrich has been an election denier since shortly after the 2020 election as evidenced by an interview he gave to Fox News.

Democrats stole “five or six states,” Gingrich said. “In Fulton County, Georgia, we believe these people are thieves. We believe the machines are corrupt.”

In November 2020, Trump pardoned Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to giving false statements to the FBI during an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer above.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previous Episode

S9 Ep 14: Breakdown Bonus with the AJC's Bill Torpy and Patricia Murphy

The latest episode of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Breakdown podcast explores court filings that suggest a criminal investigation of former President Donald Trump and his allies has reached a new, more sensitive stage.

The bonus episode also includes podcast hosts Bill Rankin and Tamar Hallerman interviewing the AJC’s metro columnist, Bill Torpy, and the newspaper’s political columnist, Patricia Murphy. They both have been keeping up with the special purpose grand jury investigation and give some interesting observations on what has happened so far and what may happen in the coming months.

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it on your computer above.

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Next Episode

S9 Ep 16: The Phony Slate

When 16 Georgia Republicans met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, they cast Electoral College votes for Donald Trump, who had not won the state’s presidential election.

The 16th episode of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Breakdown podcast – “The Trump Grand Jury” — revisits what happened that day and the consequences going forward. The false electors cast their votes the same day 16 Democrats, the official Electoral College electors, publicly cast votes for the man who’d been certified as the victor: President Joe Biden.

Fulton County prosecutors heading the special purpose grand jury investigation of former president Trump and his allies have notified the 16 fake electors that they are targets of the probe. This means they could be criminally charged for what they did.

In the episode “The Fake Electors,” Breakdown hears from three reporters — the AJC’s Greg Bluestein, Channel 2 Action News’ Richard Elliot and independent journalist George Chidi — who stumbled across the GOP meeting where the GOP “electors” cast votes that were later sent to Congress and the National Archives. The podcast also interviews legal experts who are closely following the case and who give their takes on what occurred.

Among those members of the phony slate of Republican electors trying to overturn Biden’s victory was state Sen. Burt Jones, the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor.

This summer, Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney handed Jones a victory by disqualifying the Fulton DA’s office from further investigating him because District Attorney Fani Willis hosted a fundraiser for Jones’ opponent, Democrat Charlie Bailey.

But Jones is not in the clear yet. The Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia now has jurisdiction and could appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones. This means Jones, who is leading in the polls in the race for lieutenant governor, could face a possible indictment.

You can download the Breakdown podcast from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting platform. You can also stream it above.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices