August 28, 2023 - The next phase of Trump's Georgia and federal 2020 election subversion cases

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified Monday about the infamous phone call from then-President Donald Trump seeking election officials to "find" the nearly 12,000 votes needed to overturn Joe Biden's win in the Peach State.

Raffensperger, a Republican, testified there was no federal role in the certification of Georgia’s elections, which he oversees as the state’s top election official. Fulton County prosecutors asked if there was any role for the US president in certifying Georgia’s elections. Raffensperger replied there was none.

Prosecutors are trying to rebut Meadows’ argument that he got involved in Georgia’s 2020 election as part of his federal duties as chief of staff and not on behalf of the Trump campaign, and Raffensperger's testimony could hurt that argument.

Raffensperger testified that only two dead people voted in Georgia in 2020 – not the 5,000 that Trump falsely claimed on the January 2021 call with Raffensperger.

Raffensperger also testified that he first tried to resist the call with Trump. “I told my deputy I don’t think this is in our best interest,” he said.  

“Outreach to this extent was extraordinary,” Raffensperger added.  

Read the full transcript and listen to Trump’s 2021 call with Georgia's secretary of state.

CNN's Fabiana Chaparro, Macie Goldfarb, Morayo Ogunbayo, Jared Formanek, Shirin Faqiri contributed to this report.

A trial date was set Monday right in the middle of the 2024 presidential primary calendar for former President Donald Trump, while his former chief of staff took the stand in Georgia in what amounted to a mini-trial in the election subversion case there.

Here’s what to know from a busy and significant day in Trump's multiple trials:

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the stand in Mark Meadows’ court hearing. He was called as a witness by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Willis’ first witness was Kurt Hilbert, a former Trump campaign attorney. Hilbert, who was on the January 2, 2021, phone call with Donald Trump and Raffensperger, described his legal work in Fulton County on behalf of the Trump campaign after the 2020 election.  

As prosecutors try to bat down arguments from former White House chief of staff Meadows that the case should moved to federal court because he was acting in a federal capacity, prosecutors have pointed out that Hilbert was not working for the US government during the call.   

“I did not speak with anyone at the Department of Justice,” Hilbert said, though he noted he had some contact with a White House lawyer in late 2020. 

Former President Donald Trump on Monday said he would appeal a ruling by a federal judge that his criminal trial will begin March 4, 2024 as he faces charges that he sought to subvert the result of the 2020 election. 

“Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!” Trump posted on Truth Social. 

It's unclear, however, if Trump can actually appeal the trial date, let alone succeed.

An appeal would be an "interlocutory appeal," which requires special permission to file from the courts, Honig said. "And if he does get an appeal, it’s very rare to reverse a district court judge’s scheduling decision."

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows testified Monday that President Donald Trump’s January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was Meadows’ attempt to resolve Trump’s concerns about voter fraud and “land the plane” on the “whole transfer of power” to Joe Biden.   

Trump’s concerns about voter fraud were a “roadblock” to the transfer of power, Meadows said. Therefore, Meadows said he tried to get this off the former president’s list of concerns by getting on the phone with Raffensperger. 

Toward the end of Meadows’ cross-examination, Georgia prosecutors pressed him on the political nature of his call.

“I didn’t see that as a violation of the Hatch Act,” Meadows testified, referencing the 1939 law that prohibits federal officials from taking political actions in their official capacity.

Meadows was asked by prosecutors whether he believed Trump had won the state of Georgia at the time of Trump’s call to Raffensperger.

“I believed there were additional things that needed to be investigated,” Meadows said.  

Meadows argued that some of the things Trump raised on the call did need more scrutiny to determine who really won the election. “In my mind, that was an open question,” he said.   

Meadows said that the call with Raffensperger was “fairly lengthy” and said that the former president was talking about the “allegations of fraud that he believed occurred in Georgia.”  

Meadows is now done testifying. He was on the stand for roughly 3 1/2 hours.    

Meadows’ team isn’t calling any additional witnesses as part of the removal hearing. They are taking a short break and then prosecutors are expected to present their case.

CNN's Fabiana Chaparro, Macie Goldfarb, Morayo Ogunbayo, Jared Formanek, Shirin Faqiri contributed to this report.

A bond hearing has been set for Thursday for Harrison Floyd – the only one of 19 defendants to be detained in jail in the Fulton County 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump and his allies.

Floyd was accused of participating in a harassment campaign against local election workers. Unlike the other defendants, Floyd failed to negotiate a set bond with the district attorney’s office and a judge before turning himself in at the Fulton County jail.

In a motion for bond filed Monday, Floyd’s attorney notes that “Mr. Floyd's co-defendant, Donald J. Trump, has four (4) separate felony cases, and was given a bond by this Court.”

The attorney also pointed out that “Among the nineteen (19) defendants, Mr. Floyd who is the only African-American male, remains the only defendant denied bond.”

Last week, a magistrate judge declined to release Floyd on bond, noting that the decision had to be made by the judge assigned to the case. 

Floyd raised concerns during last week’s hearing about his ability to pay for a lawyer. Judge Scott McAfee, who is assigned to the case, allowed a public defender to be assigned to Floyd, even though Floyd did not meet the local income requirements, according to court filings. 

However, it appears from the latest filings that Floyd has retained local counsel of his own. 

Throughout Monday's hearing in Atlanta, Mark Meadows has been questioned by a prosecutor with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office about then-President Donald Trump’s January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

In the call, which is included in the Fulton County indictment, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes for him to win Georgia.

Meadows, who served as Trump's White House chief of staff, said that the former president had “a concern” about potential fraud in Atlanta and was hoping to figure out "a less-litigious way of resolving” his issues with the election results in Georgia.

Willis’ prosecutors have repeatedly highlighted that Meadows included outside, pro-Trump lawyers on that call – people who were not federal employees and didn’t work at the Department of Justice, for instance. Meadows said multiple times that he could not recall all of the outreach he did to set up the call.

Read the full transcript and listen to Trump’s 2021 call with Georgia's secretary of state.

Proceedings resumed in Atlanta's federal court shortly after 2 p.m. ET, with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows back on the witness stand to continue his testimony.

Meadows has testified for about three hours on Monday.

A prosecutor from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ team is cross-examining him, currently about former President Donald Trump’s January 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

The judges in former President Donald Trump’s federal 2020 election-related case and his New York state case regarding the alleged falsification of business records spoke last week, according to a spokesperson for the Unified Court System in New York.

Both trials are set to begin in March 2024.

Asked about the potentially overlapping criminal trial dates, spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said Judge Juan Merchan and Judge Tanya Chutkan "spoke last Thursday regarding their respective upcoming trials.”

“At this time there is nothing further to impart regarding the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump,” he continued.

The former president faces 91 criminal charges across four separate cases.

Trump's federal criminal trial on charges he sought to subvert the 2020 presidential election result will begin March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump, which alleges 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records, is set for March 25.

A spokeswoman for Bragg declined to comment. A lawyer representing Trump in that case could not be reached.