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Former President Donald Trump has all but dropped a key word from his vocabulary: Republican.

He didnt say it when he met with supporters including a Jan. 6 defendant at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire, late last month.

During remarks to a packed ballroom at the DoubleTree hotel earlier that day, he said it only in praising some GOP governors work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since he hit the campaign trail in early March, according to an NBC review of Trumps speeches, interviews, video posts and face-to-face interactions with voters, the front-runner for the Republican Partys 2024 nomination has used the name of the party he seeks to represent in sparing fashion and typically to disparage other party luminaries.

Fox News and [Senate GOP leader] Mitch McConnell and the Republican donors have basically signed a pledge to stop Trump at any opportunity. So, why should he be touting the Republican Party? Steve Bannon, host of the War Room podcast and the CEO of Trumps 2016 campaign, told NBC News. He shouldnt be loyal to the Republican Party. They havent been loyal to him theyve scheduled 10 primary debates to wound him.

In essence, according to advisers and allies, Trump is returning to the anti-establishment themes of his successful 2016 bid for the presidency that rallied voters to slay the favorite totems, orthodoxies and candidates of both parties.

"Yes, theres the Republican primary still, but some of the strategies and tactics in regard to how were engaging Joe Biden will look a lot more 2016 than 2020, said Jason Miller, a Trump campaign senior adviser who worked on both of the former president's prior bids.

Trump advisers say the short shrift he's giving the Republican label reflects a view that he is the leader of a movement that is broader than one party.

Its a recognition that its not just an R versus D its about the current state of the country and who, on Day One, is going to fix it, said another Trump campaign adviser who requested anonymity in order to discuss internal strategy. Whether thats the uniparty or the deep state or the world government, there is most definitely a recognition amongst the electorate at large that there is an us versus them component in all of this.

During his presidency, Trump grew closer to the Republican Party establishment as he began to take control of it. He hired Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus as his first White House chief of staff and installed Ronna McDaniel who still serves in the role as Priebus successor at the party committee. In 2020, he staged part of the Republican convention from the White House.

Trump at the time praised the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln and said it goes forward united, determined.

Trumps shift away from acting like the standard-bearer of the party comes after a year in which he waded into countless GOP primary contests, promoting some candidates who aligned with the Republican establishment and some who did not. He was able to knock out many of his loudest Republican critics, including then-Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Tom Rice, R-S.C.

But there appears to be an acknowledgment in Trumps approach now that he cant win the general election without expanding his reach outside the overlapping Venn diagram circles of his existing base and the Republican electorate. He lost in both the Electoral College and the popular vote in 2020, after winning the former and the White House in the more anti-establishment, less rah-rah-Republican 2016 campaign.

There is a recognition and realization from our standpoint that the 'them' is going to mean different things to different people, the adviser said. Youve got conservatives who are concerned about the administrative state or what theyre teaching kids in schools. There are people who are worried about the politicization of the justice system or that the military has gone woke. ... All of these things for different people mean different things, so being able to put all of those in the 'them' column provides a wider breadth.

We are the front-runner, damn it, and we're acting like it.

When Trump talks about the Republican Party, it is often to blast rivals, the GOP establishment or both. At a rally in Waco, Texas, in March, Trump took a moment to laud House Republican allies, including Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, by name and party. But he also took aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a still-unannounced candidate for the 2024 GOP nomination, who runs second to him in polls of Republican voters.

I will protect, unlike DeSanctus, Social Security and Medicare for our great seniors, defending them from both the radical left and the Paul Ryan-Republican establishment, Trump said, referring to DeSantis by a nickname and to Ryan, the former House speaker from Wisconsin.

The former presidents early distancing from the Republican establishment is also a sign of his desire to skip past internecine primary battles and focus solely on Biden.

We are the front-runner, damn it, and were acting like it, the campaign adviser said. We are doing what we have to do, and thats beating Joe Biden.

National surveys at this early stage in the race show Trump and Biden running neck and neck, typically within the margin of statistical error. While Trump's standing in GOP primary polls has emboldened him to primarily pursue a general election strategy, that could change if he starts to feel heat from DeSantis or another challenger.

On Wednesday, Trump's co-campaign managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, published a memo to "interested parties" that ripped DeSantis for losing ground in polls while his super PAC, Never Back Down, has spent millions of dollars on national and early-primary-state television ads.

At the end of March, Trump led DeSantis 46% to 30% in the RealClearPolitics average of GOP primary polls. On Monday, the gap had grown to 52% for Trump and 23% for DeSantis.

The Trump team will not take our eye off the ball of winning the nomination, the adviser said, adding that they will continue to rush the passer when it comes to DeSantis and other rivals.

The spokesperson for the DeSantis-aligned Never Back Down super PAC picked up that ball and ran with it.

"It's cute to see the Trump team acknowledge that the person who can win the game and general election is Ron DeSantis, their admitted QB," Erin Perrine said.

At the same time he is distancing from the GOP, Trump is reaching out to a broader set of audiences. He is set to participate in a CNN town hall next week in New Hampshire, and aides hint that there may be more efforts on his part to reach voters who aren't already aligned with him.

One sign of Trumps commitment to running against the establishment of both parties despite his status as the last GOP president is his refusal to pledge his support to the eventual nominee if he loses the primary.

There are probably people that I wouldnt be very happy about endorsing who are running, so well see, Trump said when asked about a Republican National Committee proposal to require candidates to sign a loyalty pledge in order to participate in debates.

The RNCs debate committee, which is headed by former Trump aide David Bossie, announced plans for its first televised matchup of the candidates a Milwaukee debate in August without securing Trumps agreement to participate.

He is considering skipping that debate and the next one, people aware of his thinking told NBC News.

The dispute between his team and the RNC over the first debate may foreshadow a more fractious relationship as he recasts himself as an outsider.

Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA and a Trump supporter, is one of a number of conservatives promoting the quixotic Democratic nomination hopes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a liberal critic of vaccines, as part of a broader argument about political realignment outside the two-party system.

I believe there is a new coalition being built not a coalition that is right versus left, but instead, bottom-up versus the ruling oligarchy regime, Kirk said on his right-wing radio program Monday. When I got Robert F. Kennedy Jr. getting standing ovations and sitting Republican senators getting booed at a right-wing conservative event, its an exciting time to be alive.

Trump proved once that he could win as a candidate that bashed the two parties and their dominance in Washington. Rather than the last war, he may be intent on fighting a central battle of the 2016 election.

Hes there to beat the administrative state and the uniparty, which is their political appendage, Bannon said. Youre seeing a reversion to the original Trump.

Vaughn Hillyard is a political reporter for NBC News.

Jonathan Allen is asenior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Washington.

Ben Kamisar contributed.

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Trump, looking to regain 2016 magic, moves away from the GOP brand - NBC News

TEXAS, USA Editor's Note: This interview was conducted on Thursday, May 4, 2023.

Texas communities along the border with Mexico have been preparing for the end of the pandemic-era public health immigration policy known as Title 42, which allowed authorities to quickly expel migrants at the border due to COVID-19.

Title 42 is set to expire on May 11 and North Texas Republican Congressman Keith Self expects a wave of people will try to cross the border.

Once it expires, I think were going to see people that are going to make the decision to come on over. We are going to swing the gates open if this expires with no more action than what weve seen, Self said on Inside Texas Politics.

El Paso declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the expected influx of migrants, many of whom have reportedly been camping out on sidewalks and crowding shelters in Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, which is directly across the border from the Texas city.

The Biden Administration has promised to increase deportations and is also sending 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border to assist immigration authorities once Title 42 expires.

But those service members, who will be deployed for 90 days, will not have any law enforcement duties and wont be able to detain or process migrants.

Self calls it nothing more than a PR move.

Theyre going to go down there armed with pencils and pens, the Republican told us. Hopefully that will relieve some border agents to do their job.

The Congressman also spoke to us about a recent letter he sent to President Biden opposing the administrations proposed policy concerning electric vehicles (EVs) that governs tailpipe emissions and is part of the administrations goal to require at least half of all new vehicles be electric by 2030.

Also signed by 32 other members of Congress, the letter urges the President to consider the devastating consequences the policy would have on American manufacturers and consumers.

This is a feel-good policy that is going to allow the wealthy progressives to feel good about their electric vehicles. But most of the electricity, even in their electric vehicles, will be produced by fossil fuels, said the Republican.

Congressman Self tells us he has not yet received a response from the Biden Administration.

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North Texas Republican says the U.S. is about to 'swing the gates open' once Title 42 expires - WFAA.com

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, advocates on either side presumed that the country would divide along the bright color lines: red states completely banning abortion, blue states protecting it.

That prediction failed to anticipate the Sister Senators.

The Sisters, as they call themselves, are the women in the South Carolina State Senate the only women, three Republicans, one Independent and one Democrat, in a legislature that ranks 47th among states in the proportion of women. As a block, they are refusing to allow the legislature to pass a near-total ban on abortion, despite a Republican supermajority.

Three times in eight months, Republican leaders in the chamber have tried to ban abortion beginning at conception. Three times, the women have resisted, even as fellow Republicans have threatened primary challenges and anti-abortion activists have paraded empty strollers and groups of children heckling the women as baby killers.

Before the most recent debate started in April, the anti-abortion group Students for Life dropped off gift bags at the offices of the three Republican women containing plastic spines, infant size but intended to encourage the women to grow one, with notes signed, the pre-born.

The women filibustered, taking the gifts to the podium on the Senate floor to declare themselves even more firmly in resistance. Ive got one hell of a spine already, but now Ive got another backup, Senator Katrina Shealy said, flanked by the two other Republican women, all holding their plastic spines like trophies.

After three days of debate, during which the women spoke for as long as four hours each at a time, Senate leadership acknowledged again that it did not have the votes to pass the ban.

I dont think the Republican Party saw us coming, because we didnt do what they thought we were going to do, Ms. Shealy, the senior member of the group, said in an interview with the other women around a table in her State House office. They thought we would do just what they told us to do.

But as men argued that abortion was killing babies, the five women insisted that abortion bans are about controlling women and that they will not be controlled. They have argued the ban reduces women to baby machines like the dystopia of The Handmaids Tale and rejected as ludicrous claims from male legislators that women use abortion as birth control.

I dont believe any woman goes out on Friday night and has sex and gets pregnant so she can have an abortion the next day, Ms. Shealy said.

The debate in South Carolina, a deeply red state where abortion for now remains legal up until 22 weeks, shows how much has not happened according to plan now that overturning Roe has made abortion bans a reality rather than a symbolic gesture or plank in a party platform.

Many Republican-controlled states have outlawed abortion, largely through bans triggered by the Supreme Court decision in June. But states that were expected to have not, stopped by voters in ballot measures (Kansas and Kentucky), Republican legislators (South Carolina and Nebraska) or courts that have temporarily blocked bans, saying they are likely unconstitutional (Utah and Wyoming).

Pro-life and pro-choice have proven muddy if not increasingly meaningless distinctions. And views on abortion have turned out to be far more nuanced than a red/blue divide: Polls show groups that might have been expected to generally back bans on abortion, Republican women among them, moving away from a desire to make most abortion illegal. Even in South Carolina, polls show most voters support some abortion access and disapprove of overturning Roe.

Theres got to be gray area, said Senator Penry Gustafson, another of the Republicans.

The three Republican women are white, the two others Black, and all describe themselves holding deep religious faith. They are all mothers, and several have fostered children or supported relatives or other young people through college, and they say their experience of pregnancy informs their views on abortion.

All the women support the right to abortion, but with some restriction, though they vary on gestational limits: Senator Margie Bright Matthews, a Democrat, and Senator Mia McLeod, who left the Democratic Party this year, lean toward codifying Roe, which allowed some right to abortion up until fetal viability, around 24 weeks.

Ms. Gustafson and Sandy Senn, the third Republican, would prefer to restrict abortion after the first trimester, with exceptions. Ms. Shealy said if it were up to her personally, she would leave the decision to women, their partners and their doctors: Women know whats best for their bodies.

Still, she and other Republican women describe themselves as pro-life, not pro-choice. They proudly embrace the states Republican creed, which begins I do not choose to be a common man and includes a pledge to think and act for myself. They also believe that women should be allowed to think and act for themselves, and that most would say that the decision on abortion should be left up to them.

There are millions of women who feel like they have not been heard, Ms. Gustafson said during their filibuster last month. And thats why Ive been standing up here this long.

Their positions hardly make them champions to reproductive rights groups. Two of the three Republican women, Ms. Shealy and Ms. Gustafson, voted in favor of a six-week ban, which the Senate passed. This is before most women know they are pregnant. The Republican women successfully insisted on adding exceptions for medical emergencies or cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal anomalies.

They call it a compromise between the ban at conception and bills they put forward that would have placed the question of abortion rights to voters on the ballot, or banned abortion after the first trimester, with exceptions. The Republican leadership in the Senate declined to put those measures to a vote. Ms. Senn voted no on the six-week bill, saying any ban should begin at the end of the first trimester, no earlier.

The House has refused to vote on the six-week bill, holding out for the ban at conception, but still has until Thursday to do so. Instead, it has pressured the Senate to repeatedly vote on the ban at conception. Senate leadership has done so, despite having acknowledged it did not have the votes.

If they had done it the one time, thats one thing, Ms. Senn said. But then a second time and a third time. They knew what the outcome was going to be. They were forewarned.

Its like they dared them, agreed Ms. Matthews.

Im like, youre going to get it, Ms. Senn added. Youre going to get an earful.

An earful she delivered: We the women have not asked for, nor do we want, your protection, she said, addressing her male colleagues on the floor, wearing flip flops for comfort during the filibuster. We dont need it. We dont buy into the ruse that what you really want is to take care of us.

Ms. Gustafson, elected in 2020, got her first taste of politics when a friend took her to a Tea Party rally in 2016. She had owned a restaurant and acted in community theater, including in the role originated by Dolly Parton in the classic film about strong Southern women, Steel Magnolias.

Banning at conception allows nothing for the in-between or things we cant even conceive of, she said. There are too many things that can happen.

The women have found support from a few male Republicans in the chamber. But others have accused them of betraying the party by seeking bans short of onestarting at conception.

Im not willing to sit by and let the goal posts be moved for what it means to be pro-life for the Republican Party, Senator Richard Cash said.

As other states in the region have restricted abortion, the Republican women worry that South Carolina has become a destination for it. The number of abortions has risen since Roe was overturned, and nearly half are women coming from other states, according to state figures.

The South Carolina legislature is an unexpected place to find so much talk of womens rights. It took until 1969 to formally ratify the 19th Amendment, which gave all American women the right to vote in 1920.

Abortion rights supporters were shocked in January when the states highest court declared that privacy protections in the state Constitution extended to a right to abortion, overturning a six-week ban with limited exceptions.

That opinion was written by the only woman on the court, who has since retired, and the legislature replaced her with a man. The Republican leadership is trying to pass the new six-week ban in the hopes the new court will overturn the decision.

Both Ms. Shealy and Ms. Gustafson knocked off popular incumbents to win their seats; Ms. Shealy ran as a petition candidate against a Republican, and wore bedazzled Wonder Woman sneakers to win it. (I still wear them when I get mad, she said.) A newspaper editorial at the time accused her of an over-eager desire to be liked.

For three years, she was the only woman in the chamber, and leaders continued to address the body as Gentlemen of the Senate. One Republican colleague said women should be barefoot and pregnant, not in the legislature, and later told her women were a lesser cut of meat.

Now chair of the committee on family and veterans services, Ms. Shealy is the self-described Mama Hen of the five women. Come girls, she said, herding them to a photograph, Chop chop.

Female legislators are still unusual enough to attract attention. The women! a lobbyist exclaimed as the quintet passed him on the escalator. I need to go with yall!

A parent in the Upstate region of South Carolinaobjected to The Handmaids Tale in a school library after Ms. Senn mentioned the book during the filibuster. But she and the other senators say most of their constituents agree with them. Older women in particular, Ms. Senn said, have sent notes with small donations. One of them said, This old crone is proud of you.

And women who staff the legislative offices have flashed them thumbs up. One stopped Ms. McLeod as she got out of her car on Wednesday. She said thank you for what you did last week, she said. Many of them work for Republican men.

Ms. Matthews added: They always say, We cant say what we think.

More:
The Unexpected Women Blocking South Carolina's Near-Total ... - The New York Times

Republican lawmakers are pushing new bills that could further regulate which books should be allowed or disallowed in Maine's school libraries.

One would create a rating system and ban books from elementary or middle school libraries if they're not rated as age-appropriate. Another would issue a cease-and-desist order to schools that disseminate content that's found to be obscene by the attorney general or a district attorney.

That bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. James Libby of Standish, says it comes in response to recent efforts by parents to ban particular books, including the graphic novel "Gender Queer," from school libraries. He says his measure would offer a compromise that would only redact particular lines or images.

"We'd just be redacting some parts of some controversial books. And if you read the definition of what's obscene, we're drawing a line, but it's a pretty low line," he says.

But the measure faced opposition from teachers and librarians, who say it would override local control and the local book vetting process managed by educators and administrators as well as harm marginalized students.

Heather Perkinson, the president of the Maine Association of School Libraries, says schools already have a process for challenging books, and she worries the proposal would have a chilling effect.

"Who gets to decide what is obscene? I fear it would quickly become a politicized metric that would censor ideas and identities, targeting topics that get at the very heart of what the First Amendment enshrines," she says.

Attorney General Aaron Frey also says that the bill is unnecessary, as his office and district attorneys already have the authority to respond if someone is disseminating obscene material to minors.

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Republican proposals would add restrictions to books in Maine ... - Maine Public

At least eight of the 16 Georgia Republicans who convened in December 2020 to declare Donald Trump the winner of the presidential contest despite his loss in the state have accepted immunity deals from Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating alleged election interference, according to a lawyer for the electors.

Prosecutors with the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis told the eight that they will not be charged with crimes if they testify truthfully in her sprawling investigation into efforts by Trump, his campaign and his allies to overturn Joe Bidens victory in Georgia, according to a brief filed Friday in Fulton County Superior Court by defense attorney Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow.

Willis has said that the meeting of Trumps electors on Dec. 14, 2020, despite Republican Gov. Brian Kemps certification of Bidens win, is a key target of her investigation, along with Trumps phone calls to multiple state officials and his campaigns potential involvement in an unauthorized breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County, Ga.

Georgia was among seven states where the Trump campaign and local GOP officials arranged for alternate electors to convene with the stated purpose of preserving legal recourse while election challenges made their way through the courts. Among the questions both Willis and federal investigators have explored is whether the appointment of alternate electors and the creation of elector certificates broke the law. Another question is whether Trump campaign officials and allies initiated the strategy as part of a larger effort to overturn Bidens overall victory during the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.

The news that some but likely not all of the electors will not be charged raises new questions about the scope of Williss examination of the meeting of electors, all of whom she had previously identified as criminal targets in her investigation. The electors who accepted immunity did so without any promise that they would offer incriminating evidence in return, and they all have stated that they remain unified in their innocence and are not aware of any criminal activity among any of the electors, Debrow said.

In telling the truth they continue to say they have done nothing wrong and they are not aware of anyone else doing anything wrong, much less criminal, said an individual familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity to discuss the case.

Among the electors who appear to remain targets are David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party who presided over the gathering, and Shawn Still, a state senator who at the time was state finance chair for the party and who told congressional investigators he played a role confirming electors identities and admitting them into the room at the Georgia Capitol where they convened.

None of the electors responded to efforts by The Washington Post to reach them. Shafer has denied that convening to cast electoral votes for Trump was improper, saying repeatedly including during the gathering itself that the electors were meeting on a contingency basis to preserve Trumps legal remedy in the event that he prevailed in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the Georgia result.

Under federal law, electors for the winning presidential candidate in each of the states must meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December to cast their votes. The Republican electors said that if they had not met and voted, and if Trump had prevailed in his lawsuit, Bidens electoral votes would have been invalidated but there would have been no Trump votes to replace them.

Fridays filing was the latest in an escalating back and forth between prosecutors and attorneys for the Republicans electors, who have traded allegations of unethical conduct since last summer.

In the latest volley, Debrow accused prosecutors of misrepresenting the facts a reference to an April 18 motion from Willis asking a judge to block Debrow from any further participation in the case, claiming the attorney did not tell her clients they had been offered potential immunity in the investigation.

That motion also claimed Debrow had committed an ethical breach by representing so many clients simultaneously, including some that prosecutors said had incriminated others that Debrow represents in interviews with prosecutors conducted last month. Willis argued that was a conflict of interest.

In her response Friday, Debrow vehemently denied both allegations and accused prosecutors of knowing that their allegations were not true. She cited a letter to her clients dated last August that laid out early discussions of potential immunity offers. She also said that all eight of her current clients have accepted immunity, making it impossible for them to implicate each other. She added that after reviewing audio recordings and transcripts of her clients interviews with prosecutors, which she attended, she has found no evidence that any of them implicated anyone else.

This statement is categorically false, and provably so, Debrow wrote. None of the interviewed electors said anything in any of their interviews that was incriminating to themselves or anyone else, and certainly not to any other elector represented by defense counsel.

She added that Williss motion was reckless, frivolous, offensive, and completely without merit and she asked court to impose sanctions on prosecutors in the form of payment of the cost of responding to the motion.

Debrow also accused Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the case, of attempting to mislead at least three of her clients by asking confusing questions about when they had first been presented with offers of immunity.

Debrow claimed in the filing that when she sought to clarify Wades questions about immunity during an interview with one of her clients, identified in the filing as Elector E, Wade ordered a prosecution investigator in the room to shut off a recording device before engaging in what she described as overt threats and attempted intimidation against both her and her client.

According to the filing, the exchange was captured on Debrows tape recorder, which continued to run.

Heres the deal. Heres the deal, Wade allegedly said, according to a partial transcript included in Debrows filing. Either [Elector E] is going to get this immunity, and hes going to answer the questions and talk (inaudible) wants to talk or or were going to leave. And if we leave, were ripping up his immunity agreement, and he can be on the indictment. Thats what can happen.

A spokesman for Williss office declined to comment.

The dispute touches on a key uncertainty about Williss investigation, which is exactly what crimes she and her team believe may have been committed. In her April 18 filing, Willis indicated her belief that some electors, but not all of them, broke the law. Those who planned and helped manage the elector meeting including Shafer and Still appear still to be targets.

During these interviews, some of the electors stated that another elector represented by Ms. Debrow committed acts that are violations of Georgia law and that they were not party to these additional acts, Williss filing said.

According to two individuals with knowledge of the elector interviews with prosecutors, many of the questions centered around Stills role restricting admission to the room in the state Capitol, and also around who mailed the signed electoral certificates to Washington. Debrow made clear in her response Friday she does not believe either action broke any law.

In testimony last year to the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Still said he had been asked to verify electors identities before admitting them to the room. The meeting itself was open to the public and the press and was reported, with video, that day.

The legal back and forth comes just days after Willis said in letters to state and local law enforcement that she expects to announce a charging decision in the case between July 11 and Sept. 1 and urged a need for heightened security and preparedness in coming months due to this pending announcement.

The letters were the strongest indication yet that Willis may file criminal charges in the high-profile case, which not only has cast scrutiny on the actions of Trump and his closest allies but also has ensnared a litany of prominent Republicans, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C.

The fireworks between Willis and defense lawyers began last summer, when she first sought electors testimony before a special purpose grand jury convened to investigate alleged election interference in Georgia.

In July, Debrow and Holly Pierson, her then-co counsel, asked a judge to quash those subpoenas, revealing their clients had been informed they were targets of the investigation after some electors, including Shafer, had already voluntarily spoken to prosecutors.

They accused Willis of improper politicization of the case and later asked for her office to be blocked from investigating their clients requests that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, denied.

In October, Willis sought to disqualify Pierson and Debrow from the case, claiming it was unethical and a conflict of interest for them to represent so many clients simultaneously.

Pierson and Debrow have strongly denied a conflict. In a November filing, they said even if a judge were to determine there was a conflict, their clients had been fully apprised of the necessary information to make an informed choice to waive any such conflicts and remain in the joint representation.

They insisted their clients were innocent of any crimes and pointed to the 1960 presidential election in Hawaii, when Democrats created an alternate slate of electors while the state conducted a recount. The recount flipped the outcome in the state from Richard M. Nixon to John F. Kennedy, and Congress ultimately accepted the Democratic electors votes, which could not have occurred had they not convened and voted in December.

McBurney later ordered Pierson and Debrow to split up their 11 clients ruling that Shafer was substantively differently situated than the other 10 GOP electors jointly represented by attorneys.

He is not just another alternate elector; his lawyers repeated incantation of the lawfulness of the 2020 alternate electoral scheme and invocation of a separate electoral process from 60 years ago and 4,500 miles away do not apply to the additional post-election actions in which Shafer engaged that distinguish him from the ten individuals with whom he shares counsel, McBurney wrote. His fate with the special purpose grand jury (and beyond) is not tethered to the other ten electors in the same manner in which those ten find themselves connected.

Pierson remained with Shafer, while Debrow took on the other 10 clients. Last week Cathy Latham, one of Debrows clients, indicated she had retained a new attorney in the case.

Latham, a former chairwoman of the Republican Party in Coffee County, Ga., has drawn scrutiny for her role as an alternate elector but also for her alleged involvement helping Trump allies copy sensitive election data information from voting machines in the county.

On April 28, Kieran Shanahan, a North Carolina attorney, gave notice that he was representing Latham in the case and filed a motion joining Trumps attorneys in their recent request to remove Willis from the case and block evidence gathered as part of the special grand jury from being used any future legal proceedings.

Shanahan did not respond to a request for comment.

Another elector formerly represented by Debrow is also seeking a new attorney, according to Fridays filing, but it did not say which one. That leaves Debrow with eight electors as clients, all of whom have immunity.

On Monday, McBurney gave Willis and her team until May 15 to respond to the Trump motion, which also claims Willis violated prosecutorial standards and Trumps constitutional rights in part by publicly commenting on the case.

Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.

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At least 8 Republican fake electors agree to immunity in Georgia ... - Press Herald