President Donald Trump on Saturday tried to insert U.S. District Judge Leslie A. Gardner, sister of Georgia’s voting rights activist, Stacey Abrams, as part of her latest desperate effort to control the state’s electoral process.
Trump last week accused Abrams’ brothers and Georgia Republican State Secretary Brad Raffensperger of baseless influence in some way on the state’s electoral process in favor of President-elect Joe Biden and Senate run-off candidates. Democrat. Trump on Saturday blamed Judge Gardner, Abrams’ sister, for helping to avoid signature verification in several Georgia counties and for the judicial system’s continuing refusal to listen to the baseless allegations of “large-scale electoral fraud” presented by his own team. legal.
Trump tweeted on Tuesday that Raffensperger’s brother “works for China” in his latest insult attempt to discredit the Republican election official. And on Saturday, the president went after Gardner, making baseless claims that she is protecting Georgia’s “complete disaster” in an election process. Fact checks on Trump’s claim found that Raffensperger has a brother, but not one who works for a Chinese technology company and he is not named Ron, according to family records.
“Only a small part of those votes gives the United States a big and conclusive victory in Georgia. Did they illegally destroy the ballots in Fulton County? After many weeks, we still don’t have a judge to hear this large-scale election fraud case. only judge appears to be Stacey’s sister! “the president tweeted on Saturday.
Gardner, a US district judge for the Central District of Georgia, on Thursday rejected a motion by the Muscogee County Electoral Council asking her to refuse a voting case that aims to block or disqualify thousands of voters from Georgia. Gardner said that refusing would be an abandonment of duty and would violate his oath as a federal judge, but Trump – and Raffensperger – suggested that Abrams may have “funded” a political action committee linked to the case.
“We can only assume that the argument is something in the sense that if my sister is actively engaged in a cause, I cannot be impartial. This argument is mere speculation, not supported by any facts that would support a conclusion of bias,” said Gardner The Augusta Chronicle.
National Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias praised Gardner’s lawsuit as a “blow to the suppression tactics of Republican Party voters”. Even though Gardner’s only offense appears to have been his request to see real evidence of electoral fraud, Trump’s sycophants immediately clung to the sibling connection as they tried their hardest to take control of the Georgia elections.
“The judge blocks voter purges in 2 Georgia counties. Don’t you think these things are rigged? THE JUDGE IS STACY ABRAMS !!! WTF’S SISTER,” tweeted Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday. But the case he highlighted showed that Republican Party election officials were trying to remove more than 4,000 names from Muscogee County voting lists just days before the January 5 runoff. In response, Gardner reversed the decision.
Gardner held a motion for an injunction last week that requires Muscogee County to notify all voters whose eligibility has been contested because their names appear in the National Change of Address database administered by the U.S. Postal Service. A progressive PAC called Majority Forward helped lead the process that blocked the effort to disqualify voters just days before the second round of the US Senate.
Screenshot: Stacey Abrams | Facebook
Gardner simply asked Muscogee to provide any evidence that the names used in the database do not match and are grounds for disqualifying his vote.
“Why didn’t they do the signature verification in Fulton County, Georgia. Why didn’t they deduct all the dead people who ‘voted’, illegal people who voted, non-Georgia residents who voted and tens of thousands of others who voted illegally, of the final vote count? “Trump continued tweeting on Saturday.
Gardner made headlines in 2018 when it came out that she was engaged, and now married, to Jimmie Gardner, a man who was jailed for 26 years for rape and theft he didn’t commit.
Newsweek contacted Gardner’s office and the White House for further comment on Saturday.