by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
Primary voters in Georgia went to the polls Tuesday and supported officials at the center of the state’s prosecution of former President Trump.
In Fulton County where Democrats dominate, District Attorney Fani Willis (D), whose office is prosecuting Trump for election interference amid a turbulent period in which she conceded a romance with a now-former colleague, defeated Democrat and former prosecutor Christian Wise Smith. Willis is expected to prevail in November against Republican Courtney Kramer, a former legal intern in the Trump administration and former litigation consultant to the Trump campaign.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who oversees Trump’s Georgia election interference case, defeated challenger Robert Patillo II, a civil rights attorney. McAfee was backed by Republicans and Democrats, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and former Gov. Roy Barnes (D).
In Kentucky primaries, conservative Rep. Thomas Massie easily survived a challenge in the state’s 4th Congressional District. And Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, the longest serving member of the House, won his primary in the 5th Congressional District.
In Oregon, Biden won the Democratic presidential primary and Trump is the winner of the state’s GOP presidential primary.
The House GOP padded its narrow majority in Washington as Republican California state legislator Vince Fong defeated Republican Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux Tuesday in a special election and runoff to fill the seat vacated last year by ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats in the Capitol are busy messaging to respective supporters using political weaponry guised as statutory punishments.
House and Senate Democrats want to turn up the heat on conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito following a New York Times report and photo showing an American flag flown upside down at his home shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. An upside-down flag is a distress signal and was a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” conservative movement that opposed Biden’s 2020 victory. The photo also triggered reactions of outrage from progressives across media platforms, perceived as a positive reaction by Democrats eager to motivate prospective voters this year.
Asserting political bias on the part of Alito, at least 45 Democrats signed a letter seeking the justice’s recusal from all pending Jan. 6-related cases. Supreme Court justices are largely self-policing when it comes to recusals and disclosures of conflicts of interest but ethics controversies forced the court to publicize nonbinding guidelines last year. Alito has blamed the flag on his wife’s spat with a neighbor.
“Your own public statement attempts to pass responsibility to your wife, but you nonetheless acknowledge that it was a political statement in support of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election,” the lawmakers wrote.
“The fact of such a political statement at your home creates, at minimum, the appearance of improper political bias,” they added.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday he’s considering bringing a Supreme Court ethics bill to the floor this week in reaction to Alito’s flag flying, which Schumer said calls into question the conservative justice’s impartiality. The majority leader said he will confer with Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Alito remains a Democratic political target as the lead author of the majority opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade and sent to the states in 2022 decisions about abortion restrictions. Alito was nominated to the high court by former President George W. Bush and was confirmed by a nearly party-line vote in the Senate, 58-42. Four Democrats from red states voted with all Republicans to confirm him in 2006.
CBS News: Not only is Trump “obsessed with losing 2020, he’s clearly become unhinged,” Biden (in Presidential form) told donors during a campaign event in Boston Tuesday night, according to pool reporting from one of two events. “He’s a threat to the planet.”
