Category: Tech

• Rep. Matt Gaetz is being investigated over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid her to travel with him.
• Eight sources familiar with the probe told The Daily Beast the investigation is still unfolding.
• Any updates on the case would likely be announced after the midterms in November, per the report.

The Justice Department’s probe into whether Rep. Matt Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paid her to travel with him has not made much noise recently since it was first reported in 2021, but the investigation appears to be ongoing, according to a new report.

Eight people familiar with the inquiry told The Daily Beast that the case continues to be investigated, while no formal charges have yet been brought against the Florida congressman.

If there are any updates on the case, however, the announcement would likely come after the midterms in November to avoid the appearance of meddling with the elections, two attorneys told the publication.

Gaetz has repeatedly and denied the allegations. On Twitter in March 2021, he claimed that the accusations were part of an “organized criminal extortion” scheme involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million from Gaetz and his family.

A spokesman for Gaetz told Insider they would not be “providing comment to Insider on matters where he is considering litigation against Insider.”

—Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) March 30, 2021

 

A Florida businessman named Stephen M. Alford was sentenced to more than five years in prison on Tuesday for his attempt to defraud the congressman’s father, Don Gaetz, out of $25 million.

Alford claimed he could make investigations into Gaetz go away or secure a presidential pardon in exchange for the money, according to the Justice Department.

The DOJ’s probe into Gaetz stemmed from another investigation into one of the congressman’s associates, Joel Greenberg.

Greenberg, who was also a former tax collector in Seminole, Florida, pled guilty in May 2021 to several federal crimes, including trafficking a minor who was under 18 at the time.

“Greenberg also introduced the minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the minor in the Middle District of Florida,” the Justice Department said.

In a letter obtained by The Daily Beast in the spring of 2021, that The Daily Beast said was written by Greenberg, he reportedly claimed that he and Gaetz paid for sex with multiple women, including a 17-year-old girl.

“From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App, or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman,” The Daily Beast said Greenberg wrote, referencing Gaetz.

In response to The Daily Beast’s report on the alleged letter, a PR firm representing Gaetz told the outlet the following:

“Congressman Gaetz has never paid for sex nor has he had sex with a 17-year-old as an adult. We are now one month after your outlet and others first reported such lies, and no one has gone on record to directly accuse him of either. Politico, however, has reported Mr. Greenberg threatening to make false accusations against others, which seems noteworthy for your story and in fact sounds like the entirety of your story. Congressman Gaetz has had no role in advocating for or against a pardon for Greenberg and doubts such a pardon was ever even considered.”

In January, Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend testified before a federal grand jury investigating possible sex crimes by the congressman, NBC News reported. 

Gaetz won the primary for Florida’s 1st congressional district on Tuesday. He’ll face Rebekah Jones, a former data scientist, in the midterms in November. 

• Dr. Mehmet Oz encouraged the Trump White House to push hydroxychloroquine research, emails show.
• Oz, the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, sent clips of his show to Jared Kushner.
• Numerous studies have found hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19.

Dr. Mehmet Oz’s Democratic rival, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, said it’s “actually not surprising” that, according to a new report, Oz pushed former President Donald Trump’s administration for research on an unproven COVID-19 treatment.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, former President Donald Trump embraced hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for malaria, as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Trump described hydroxychloroquine, along with another drug, as potentially “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”

Behind the scenes, as well on Fox News and his own daytime television show, Dr. Mehmet Oz was encouraging optimism about the drug despite there being little evidence at the time that it worked. Since then, numerous studies have shown is not an effective treatment for COVID-19.

A new report, from House Select Committee on the Coronavirus, shows that Oz — now the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania — was emailing top White House officials to encourage the former president’s interest, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Wednesday.

“Here is a clip of my show,” Oz wrote to White House aide Jared Kushner on March 23, 2020, including a link to an interview with a French doctor who advocated that “all patients” should “immediately” begin taking hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, though he noted that “we should simultaneously start clinical trials.”

Screenshot/House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis

Five days later, Oz emailed Dr. Deborah Birx, then the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, to share that he had read a “pre-print” of a study from the same French physician analyzing the drug combination. “The French will not use a control group due to ethical concerns,” he noted, “but the treatment appears safe and results are better than expected.”

Rachel Tripp, a spokesperson for Oz, defended his early embrace of unproven treatments.

“At the outset of the pandemic, Dr. Mehmet Oz spoke with health experts worldwide who were seeing hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as viable treatment options for desperately ill COVID patients and he offered to fund a clinical trial at Columbia University,” she said.

Oz’s advocacy was previously reported by The New York Times, which in April 2020 noted that he “was in touch with Mr. Trump’s advisers about expediting approval to use the drug for the coronavirus.”

The report released this week details the Trump White House’s efforts to pressure the FDA to approve hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19; the former administration also stockpiled some 66 million doses of malaria drugs.

Studies have since found that hydroxychloroquine does not help those infected with the coronavirus. In May 2020, for example, a Columbia University study of nearly 1,400 people with moderate to severe COVID-19 found that those who received the drug “fared no better than patients who did not receive the drug,” per a news release.

At the time he was publicly and privately boosting hydroxychloroquine, critics accused Oz, then a member of the White House Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, of pushing the drug. “The fact that he has the uncritical ear of the president only magnifies any potential harm,” Timothy Caufield, chair of health law and policy at the University of Alberta, wrote in an April 2020 op-ed for NBC News.

Oz did temper his enthusiasm with calls for more research. But, as the Inquirer noted in its report, he has denied the findings. “Even today, two years later, we don’t know if it works. It’s never been allowed to be studied,” he falsely claimed earlier this year.

Oz’s promotion of dubious treatments, including weight-loss supplements, has emerged as an issue in his Senate campaign. At a press conference earlier this month, three doctors criticized him for at times promoting quack medicine on his television show, in particular green coffee bean extract, which he described as a “magic weight-loss cure.”

In that same vein, in response to the House report the Fetterman campaign said in a statement to Insider, “That’s….actually not surprising. That’s what he’s been doing on his TV show for two decades — cashing in on the trust of his viewers and causing real harm.”

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

• Jared Kushner said Trump governed in a “peculiar” way while weighing in on the Mar-a-Lago raid.
• He said his father-in-law probably did what he thought was “appropriate” with classified documents.
• Kushner also dodged a question on whether he would want to work for Trump again.

Jared Kushner this week weighed in on the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid and defended his father-in-law’s handling of classified information. 

Kushner, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump, was asked on Fox News on Wednesday if he thought Trump had made a mistake by bringing sensitive documents from the White House to his Florida residence.

While executing a search warrant on the property earlier this month, the FBI removed 11 sets of classified documents — some of which were marked top secret and concerned nuclear weapons. According to the warrant, the Justice Department is looking into whether Trump broke three federal laws, including the Espionage Act.

“Like I said, I’m not familiar with what was in the boxes,” Kushner told Fox News host Bill Hemmer.

“But I think President Trump, he, uh, he governed in a very peculiar way and when he had his documents, I’m assuming he did what he thought was appropriate,” he added. 

—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 24, 2022

During the same interview, Kushner was also asked if he would work for Trump again if the latter were to run for president in 2024. Kushner did not give a firm answer to the question and only said that working for Trump had been “an honor.”

“I’m very proud of the things I got done. It is a big toll, working in Washington,” Kushner said. 

When pressed if his answer was a “maybe,” Kushner responded that he was “enjoying my life in the private sector and loving the time with my kids.” 

For his part, Kushner has denied being an FBI informant who may have been working with the agency on the Mar-a-Lago raid — a theory that commentators like Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, have pushed.

Kusher has also called the raid a mistake made by Trump’s enemies that resulted from people trying to “overpursue” his father-in-law.

Representatives for Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

• Finland’s Helsinki-Vantaa international airport has become a key transit hub for Russian tourists.
• Many of them drive into Finland amid an EU ban on Russian flights into its airspace.
• Russian tourists holding valid EU Schengen visas can travel freely within the zone.

The European Union has banned Russian flights from its airspace over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but Russian travelers are still touring countries in the bloc.

Russian holidaymakers have been able to travel to various EU destinations by taking circuitous routes to their destinations — or, if their locations allow, by simply driving across the country’s northwestern border to Finland and making their way to the Helsinki-Vantaa international airport.

Since the EU flight ban, Finland has become a key transit hub for Russian tourists, so much so that their luxury cars — Porsches and Bentleys, among others — are packing the garage at the Helsinki airport, AFP reported on Tuesday.

“Helsinki airport is seeing a lot of Russian tourism at the moment,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told AFP.

That’s been the case since Russia eased Covid travel restrictions on July 15, sending border crossings up 80% in just one month from June, per AFP. The situation has angered many Finns, who find it difficult to accept Russians holidaying in Finland while the Kremlin is still at war with Ukraine.

An attraction popular with Russian tourists in Finland has even gone as far as to play the Ukrainian national anthem to protest war, the AFP reported.

Finland is planning to limit Russian tourist visas from September 1, according to the country’s foreign ministry in a statement last week. However, Russians can still enter Finland with visas issued by other EU countries in the borderless Schengen region. As it stands, two-thirds of Russians cross into Finland via its eastern border with visas issued by other EU countries, the Finnish border guard told AFP.

“They come here on Schengen visas issued by various different countries and then continue further via Helsinki airport,” Haavisto told the outlet. Under Schengen rules, Finland cannot unilaterally deny entry to those holding valid visas.

EU foreign ministers are set to discuss a region-wide visa ban for Russian nationals next week but not all member states think it’s a good idea as there may be those who want to flee President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

“This is not the war of the Russian people, but it is Putin’s war,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week at a press conference.

• Belgian Prime Minster Alexander De Croo said the next five to 10 winters could be “difficult.”
• Europe faces an energy crunch as Russia has been slowing natural-gas flows via a key pipeline.
• European household energy bills have surged and could rise further.

Europe could be in for a stretch of long, hard winters as energy prices surge to record highs amid the war in Ukraine.

“The next 5 to 10 winters are going to be difficult,” said Belgian Prime Minster Alexander De Croo at an event in Belgium on Monday, as reported by broadcaster VRT. “In a number of sectors, it is really difficult to deal with those high energy prices. We are monitoring this closely, but we must be transparent: the coming months will be difficult, the coming winters will be difficult.”

De Croo’s comments come as Europe faces an energy crunch exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The continent depends on Russia for its natural gas needs, importing about 40% of its fuel from the country. But Russia has slowed gas flows via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of its capacity, citing technical issues. European officials say the move is retaliation against sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

Belgium imports just 6.5% of its natural gas needs from Russia, according to The Brussels Times, citing official data. However, energy bills are still going up in Belgium as prices have soared on the global markets. On Monday, benchmark Dutch natural gas futures jumped almost 20% in one day to a fresh record high on news of an unscheduled three-day shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from August 31.

Surging energy prices pushed the cost of electricity in Belgium on the wholesale market to a fresh record high on Sunday, per The Brussels Times. This in turn translates to record high energy bills for households.

Other countries in Europe are also expecting energy bills to continue rising. In the UK, household energy bills in early 2023 are expected to be four times higher than they were between 2018 and 2021, per the Financial Times. In Germany, energy bills are likely to double for households as companies pass on rising natural-gas costs, the AFP reported in early August, citing an electricity provider.

• James Coddington is scheduled to be executed on August 25.
• His killing would be the first of two dozen scheduled to take place in Oklahoma.
• Coddington’s case highlights the connection between addiction and the criminal justice system.

“If this ends today with my death sentence, okay,” a condemned inmate told Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board 25 years after a dayslong cocaine bender sent him to death row.

James Coddington is scheduled on Thursday to be the first of two dozen men slated for execution in Oklahoma — a state with a history of botched judicial killings that continues to defy the trend of curtailing execution rates across the country.

In 1997, Coddington had gone to the home of 73-year-old Albert Hale, his coworker at a Honda shop, to borrow $50 for cocaine. Hale, who refused to give him the money, tried escorting him out of his home before Coddington picked up a nearby hammer and struck him with it repeatedly, according to court filings.

Hours later, Hale was initially found alive by his son but later died, after succumbing to the damage inflicted on his brain and skull, court documents suggest. Coddington was sentenced to die in 2003. 

Addiction and abuse as catalysts for his death sentence

Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP, File

James Coddington was born to Bill Coddington and Gala Hood on March 22, 1972. He was the second-youngest of their combined nine children and had been subject to a turbulent upbringing, according to court records.

Both of Coddington’s parents experienced addiction, which he would also endure. Starting from the time he was an infant, Coddington’s father and older brothers regularly spiked his baby bottles with alcohol, his siblings confirmed to the court.

Similarly, many of Coddington’s siblings also struggled with drug abuse and several had been in and out of jail for drug-related crimes. 

His mother had been in and out of jail while he was young, leaving his father to run the household. Legal filings suggest the Oklahoma City house — where the tub was used as a toilet as pests and roaches ran rampant — was “not even fit for a rat.”

Court filings said Bill Coddington, who had his own run-ins with the law, physically abused James throughout his childhood.

His mother recalled Bill Coddington “whipping [James] hard or slapping him or hitting him or if he got too rowdy, [Bill Coddington would] throw a bottle full of whiskey or beer and just knock him out,” per court documents.

Ngozi Ndulue, deputy director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told Insider that acknowledging James Coddington’s relationship with addiction and the criminal justice system during his upbringing is necessary to understand his journey to death row.

“I just don’t want to lose track of the fact that his life, from a very early age, was affected by the criminal legal system, and then also by people with substance use disorders really shaping the childhood that he had and making it much more likely that he would end up in that cycle of drug use,” Ndulue said.

A medical examination completed by an Oklahoma psychiatrist the same year found that Coddington’s “drug-induced psychosis” led to his “impulsive” killing of Hale. Further, a psychiatric evaluation of Coddington conducted in 1998 showed that he suffered from “mild neuropsychological impairment.”

During the trial, the judge barred a psychiatrist from testifying about Coddington’s inability to form “the required intent for first-degree murder due to his intoxication,” prompting a retrial in 2008. But he was once again sentenced to die, according to court filings.

“I think thinking about this one moment where he commits this crime that he was deeply remorseful for, without taking it into the broader context of how the system actually shaped him and affected where he ended up at that time, I think is shortsighted,” Ndulue added.

Seeking redemption

 

Prior to Hale’s death, Coddington’s life was marred by poverty, addiction, and abuse, but the 50-year-old inmate has since turned his life around as best as possible behind bars, Emma Rolls, Coddington’s attorney, told Insider.

“I’m clean, I know God, I’m not … I’m not a vicious murderer,” Coddington said at a parole hearing seeking clemency.

Rolls said killing Hale marked a turning point for Coddington as demonstrated by his “exemplary behavioral record” and involvement in the prison: “It made him not want to live out any more moments in vain.” 

During his time in the Oklahoma prison, Coddington received his GED and became a man of faith, legal filings said.

At the prison, he’d also taken on the role of unit orderly — helping with staff needs throughout the prison — and the role of run man — in which he gave other inmates their meal trays.

Coddington was even selected as one of four death row inmates to participate in a pilot communal yard time project where inmates were placed in separated outdoor yards.

In court documents, Rolls wrote: “James has lived his transformation on death row. His sobriety, service, and compliance with rules of the society in which he lives are documented. The man the jury convicted and sentenced to death no longer exists.”

Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board recommended that Coddington’s death sentence be commuted to life without the possibility of parole on August 3, but it’s up to the governor to actually reduce his sentence.

“I took a life. It changed me. It changed me in a way that I can’t explain, but it changed me. It took a fire out of my stomach that I had my entire life and it made me calm. I don’t know why he had to die to do that, but it did. It calmed me. And I can’t apologize enough for what I did,” Coddington told the board during his clemency hearing.

Coddington’s execution date is set for August 25 unless Gov. Kevin Stitt, a pro-death penalty conservative, commutes his sentence.

“He lives the life of compassion, of peace, of service and atonement. And I think that’s the real testament of his belief. He is not a person who’s going to without humility, discuss his beliefs. But every day he lives out the principles of redemption,” Rolls told Insider.

“This is the purest case that the governor will likely see that involves these concepts,” Rolls added.

• Luis Miguel, a candidate for Florida’s House, was removed from several social media platforms Friday.
• Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook suspended Miguel after he posted about violence against federal agents.
• Miguel said that under his plan Floridians could shoot FBI, IRS and ATF agents “on sight.”

Luis Miguel, a GOP candidate for Florida’s House of Representatives, was banned from several social media platforms on Friday after calling to legalize shooting federal agents “on sight.”

On Wednesday, Miguel, who is running in Florida House District 20, posted across his Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Parler accounts the same message, signed with his name: “Under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds ON SIGHT! Let freedom ring!”

The post, which is still visible on his Parler account — a platform associated with supporters of former President Donald Trump — prompted Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to suspend him.

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to Insider Miguel was permanently suspended from the platform for violating its hateful conduct policy, which states users may not make violent threats.

A Facebook spokesperson told Insider that one of Miguel’s Facebook accounts and his Instagram account were both removed, but did not respond to questions about whether the suspension was permanent.

Calls for violence against federal agents have risen in recent weeks following the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, where officers recovered 11 sets of classified materials, according to court records.

Miguel told Florida Politics the suspension “doesn’t affect (him) at all.” The local news outlet reported he stands by the proposal, which he said is justified because the IRS has been “weaponized by dissident forces.”

The Miguel campaign did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Miguel is running against incumbent Republican Rep. Bobby Payne in Tuesday’s primary election. 

• David Laufman said there would be evidence if Trump declassified the Mar-a-Lago documents.
• Laufman, a former DOJ official, investigated Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified records.
• Trump said he had a “standing order” to declassify, but ex-officials have pushed back on the claim.

A former Department of Justice official has pushed back on Trump’s claim that he had broadly declassified all the documents held at Mar-a-Lago, saying if that were the case there would be evidence to back it up.

Trump made the claim after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida last week. The search was part of a Justice Department investigation into potential violations of three laws related to the handling of government records. Court documents showed 11 sets of classified materials were seized during the search.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he had a standing order to declassify documents that were removed from the Oval Office and taken to his residence. Presidential records, classified or not, are public property and by law are managed by the National Archives when a president leaves office.

David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, dismissed the idea of the standing order or broad declassification.

“It can’t just be an idea in his head,” Laufman, who led the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and handling of classified documents, told CNN. “Programs and officials would have been notified. There is no evidence they were.”

Presidents have broad authority to declassify documents, but former Trump administration officials told CNN there is a process that is followed. The process typically involves documenting the declassification and notifying agencies, such as the CIA, NSA, or Defense Department, among others.

Laufman had previously said the documents Trump was holding at Mar-a-Lago were particularly “stunning” and “egregious” due to their level of classification. According to court records, one set of documents was labeled “Sensitive Compartmented Information,” the highest level of sensitivity a classified document can be designated. 

Former Trump White House officials also pushed back on Trump’s claim that he had a “standing order” to declassify documents when they were transported. Two of Trump’s former chiefs of staff, John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney, told CNN they’d never heard of such an order.

“Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given,” Kelly, who was chief of staff for nearly a year and a half from 2017 to 2019, said. “And I can’t imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.”

CNN spoke with a total of 18 former Trump administration officials, some unnamed, who all said they had never heard of such an order, with several laughing at the idea and suggesting Trump had made it up.

• A newly-revealed email shows how Fulton County DA Fani Willis blasted Governor Brian Kemp’s lawyer.
• The lawyer had repeatedly called Willis’ election probe “politically motivated” in emails to her staff.
• Willis slammed the lawyer’s comments as “offensive and beneath an officer of the court.”

A newly-revealed email shows how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis excoriated the lawyer of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for accusing her office of undermining Kemp’s re-election chances by calling up the governor for testimony.

The email was part of a conversation attached to a court filing on Wednesday in which Kemp’s lawyer, Brian McEvoy, sought to dismiss a subpoena of Kemp for the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. It reveals the frustration of Willis’ office in trying to secure testimony from Kemp, and how the governor has responded to the probe’s requests.

In the attached conversation, McEvoy and counsels from Willis’ office discussed Kemp’s possible testimony, up until McEvoy called Willis’ probe “politically motivated” on July 20 and repeatedly cited concerns of “leaks” that could lead the public to learn that the governor had been called to testify.

Kemp is currently seeking reelection after soundly beating his GOP rival David Perdue in the Georgia gubernatorial primary in May.

That was when the district attorney stepped in, personally reprimanding McEvoy and challenging his claims.

“The email you sent is offensive and beneath an officer of the court. You are both wrong and confused,” Willis’ email read.

“Let’s discuss the ways you are wrong: This is NOT a politically motivated investigation. It is a criminal investigation and often at the end of criminal investigations people are cleared and often they go to prison,” she continued.

Willis wrote that McEvoy’s repeated references to the so-called “politically motivated investigation” did not make it the truth. “In fact, you repeating it so many times only proves you have become very comfortable being dishonest,” she added.

In the email, Willis also wrote that McEvoy’s reasoning that her office’s probe was driven by a separate agenda because it took place during an election cycle was “without merit as you have purposely delayed to get us to our current date.”

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Willis’ investigation focuses on whether Trump and his allies violated Georgia’s election fraud and racketeering laws while he tried to pressure state officials to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. The 18-month probe has deployed a special grand jury with the power to subpoena potential witnesses and has ordered some of Trump’s closest advisers, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, to appear for testimony.

Kemp has been called as a witness because he was one of the officials Trump phoned in December for help with overturning the results. The governor had tweeted at the time that he was advocating for a signature audit of the votes.

As part of the investigation, Willis’ office had arranged for Kemp to submit a recorded video testimony by July 25 about Trump’s request when McEvoy made his claims about the probe being a risk to Kemp’s re-election.

In her response, Willis said her office had never leaked anything about the investigation and that it was the attorneys of witnesses, such as Kemp and Giuliani, who often reveal to the public that their clients are the targets of a probe.

The district attorney said she had already told her staff to “bend over backwards” to accommodate Kemp out of respect for his position.

“We have been working with you in good faith for months. You have been rude and even disparaging to my staff. You have been less than honest about conversations that have taken place,” she wrote.

“You have taken my kindness as weakness and you have continually treated this investigation with disdain,” Willis added. She also demanded that her staff be treated with the same respect that they had shown to McEvoy.

“Your client is a mere witness that needs to come and tell the truth. That is all we have ever asked of the Governor,” Willis wrote. 

So far, Kemp has not submitted the requested video testimony and was on August 4 issued with another subpoena on Thursday.

In Kemp’s challenge to the subpoena submitted on Wednesday, McEvoy repeated the same claims he made about Willis’ probe, saying the district attorney had “engineered the Governor’s interaction with the investigation to reach a crescendo in the middle of an election cycle.”

Kemp is set to face off against Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch of 2018’s midterm elections, in which he beat her by a slim margin.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Kemp for refusing to back his baseless election fraud claims and for resisting pressure not to certify President Joe Biden’s win in the state. However, earlier this month, Insider reported that Trump has not ruled out endorsing Kemp in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial race.