Professor John Owens contributed to a 17 August 2023 Newsweek article fact-checking whether the state of Georgia could throw out charges relating to Donald Trump and an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results there.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the Republican-led Georgia state legislature could throw out the case led by Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis. Newsweek consulted with a range of experts in constitutional and state law to fact-check these claims.
Professor Owens pushed back against the claims and told Newsweek that passing any legislation throwing out the indictment would negatively impact the Georgia legislature. He said that it would be “a highly risky constitutional and dangerous political predicament given the indictment's central focus on the legitimacy of U.S. elections and American political democracy. Given Trump's reputation and previous form, of course, he will try to persuade/coerce Republican state legislators and the court to take any kind of action that would seek to overturn the indictment.”
Owens noted that “[Trump’s] and other conservative lawyers are hard at work trying to invent new strategies to support him. I really doubt any of them will succeed.” He also reminded readers of the gravity of Trump’s previous indictments: “Also bear in mind that the main action has been and will be taken by the [Department of Justice] DOJ in Washington, whose actions to a great extent duplicate the grand jury's/Willis' actions in Georgia.”
Professor Owens is a Professor of United States Government and Politics in the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster, and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at the American University in Washington, DC and the Institute for the Study of the Americas at University College, London. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.
Read Fact Check: Could Georgia Shut Down Fani Willis' Trump Investigation? on Newsweek’s website.
