NYT:

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump filed a motion in a Georgia court on Monday seeking to quash the final report of a special grand jury that investigated whether Mr. Trump and some of his allies interfered in the 2020 election results in Georgia. The motion also seeks to “preclude the use of any evidence derived” from the report, and asks that the office of Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, be recused from the case.

The move comes as Mr. Trump has started pushing back more broadly against several criminal investigations into his conduct. Over the weekend, Mr. Trump said in a social media post that he would be arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into a hush money payment he made to to a porn actress, and called on his supporters to protest.

In Georgia, Mr. Trump is seen as having two main areas of legal jeopardy: the calls he made in the weeks after the 2020 election to pressure state officials to overturn the results there, and his direct involvement in efforts to assemble an alternate slate of electors, even after three vote counts affirmed President Biden’s victory in the state. Experts have said that Ms. Willis appears to be building a case that could target multiple defendants with charges of conspiracy to commit election fraud or charges related to racketeering.

Notice of the filing appeared in the official court docket on Monday morning, but the filing itself was not yet public. Mr. Findling acknowledged that he had filed it on Mr. Trump’s behalf, along with Ms. Little and another lawyer from Mr. Findling’s firm, Marissa Goldberg.

Last month, Mr. Trump’s lawyers in the Georgia case, Drew Findling and Jennifer Little, said that the forewoman of the special grand jury in Fulton County had “poisoned” the inquiry there by granting a number of media interviews in which she discussed details of the jury’s work. Last week, five other jurors discussed aspects of their work in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Fulton County special grand jury was sworn in last May and met behind closed doors for months, hearing testimony from 75 witnesses. It did not have the power to issue indictments; rather, it produced a report containing recommendations on whether and whom to indict. Portions of the report were released in January, but key sections remain under seal, including those detailing which people the jury believes should be indicted, and for what crimes.

NYT:

New Jersey’s top election-enforcement official sued Gov. Philip D. Murphy and three of Mr. Murphy’s top aides on Thursday for what the official said was their attempt to oust him in retaliation for comments he made ridiculing the state’s rules governing political fund-raising.

The election official, Jeffrey M. Brindle, claims in his lawsuit that Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, and the governor’s chief of staff, George Helmy, targeted him in a “concerted and joint action and conspiracy to extort and coerce” him.

Mr. Brindle has led New Jersey’s Election Law Enforcement Commission, an independent agency responsible for monitoring state campaigns, as executive director for 14 years.

The suit comes as the Legislature, with support from Mr. Murphy’s office, is debating a sweeping bill that would fundamentally reshape New Jersey’s election laws. The legislation would increase the limits on certain campaign contributions; alter so-called pay-to-play rules meant to restrict the influence of money in government; and, by changing the statute of limitations for campaign violations, quash many of the commission’s pending investigations.

A proposed amendment to the bill would also give Mr. Murphy 90 days to appoint all new members to the election law commission — the only entity that is empowered to replace Mr. Brindle. (An earlier version of the bill, which was scuttled, would have given the governor the power to directly appoint the commission’s executive director, a change that the legislation’s opponents argued would gut the agency’s independence.)

The core argument in Mr. Brindle’s suit is tied to a meeting in November in the governor’s offices. Those at the meeting included Mr. Brindle, Mr. Helmy, Parimal Garg, Mr. Murphy’s top government lawyer, and Dominic Rota, the governor’s chief ethics officer.

Mr. Brindle was asked at the meeting about a message he had written in response to a subordinate’s email about National Coming Out Day, an annual gay-rights awareness celebration.

Mr. Brindle’s lawyer, Bruce Afran, said in an interview on Thursday that Mr. Murphy’s aides claimed that Mr. Brindle’s emailed response showed “anti-gay bias,” and asked him to sign a resignation letter that had already been typed.

In the email, which was sent in October, Mr. Brindle asked the staff member if she was coming out, and he lamented that there were not individual days set aside to celebrate the birthdays of President Lincoln and President Washington, according to three people familiar with the email….

Mr. Brindle says in his suit that the criticism of the email was merely a ruse to fire him because he is an outspoken critic of super PAC funds that shield the names of contributors and are often referred to as “dark money” accounts.

Politico:

Oklahoma’s leading anti-abortion group is pushing GOP lawmakers to loosen the state’s near-total ban.

In a recent letter to legislators, Oklahomans for Life Chair Tony Lauinger argued that if they don’t amend the state’s anti-abortion law to add exceptions for rape and incest, there is a real chance a citizen-led ballot initiative to make all abortion legal will eventually succeed.

His efforts, which other lawmakers and anti-abortion groups have slammed as immoral and politically naive, are the latest example of the national scramble to prevent voters from restoring abortion access by popular vote.

Legislatures in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma are debating bills this session that would hike the filing fees, raise the number of signatures required to get on the ballot, restrict who can collect signatures, mandate broader geographic distribution of signatures, and raise the vote threshold to pass an amendment from a majority to a supermajority. While the bills vary in wording, they would have the same impact: limiting voters’ power to override abortion restrictions that Republicans imposed, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

After watching the pro-abortion rights side win all six ballot initiative fights related to abortion in 2022 — including in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky — conservatives fear, and are mobilizing to avoid, a repeat.

“It was a wake-up call that taught us we have a ton of work to do,” said Kelsey Pritchard, the state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on ballot initiative fights on abortion over the next two years. “We’re going to be really engaged on these ballot measures that are often very radical and go far beyond what Roe ever did.”

In Mississippi, where a court order froze all ballot efforts in 2021, GOP lawmakers are advancing legislation that would restore the mechanism but prohibit voters from putting abortion-related measures on the ballot.

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