Nearly four years ago, security cameras captured the moment that allies of former President Donald Trump walked into a South Georgia office where authorities say they copied confidential software and files that could be used to undermine the legitimacy of an election.
Today, as Georgia approaches the eve of another presidential election, the fate of the Coffee County breach is still frozen in a state of limbo. So far, the only criminal charges in connection with the activities in the rural Georgia community have been filed in Fulton County, some 200 miles away. But that case, which also involves other allegations of election interference, has stalled.
And although the state Attorney General’s office received a nearly 400-page report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation more than a year ago, they have pressed pause.
Election integrity advocates warned that the inaction sends a dangerous message to other bad actors who may want to tamper with Georgia’s voting system and undercut democracy.
“It has put Georgia’s 2024 elections at great risk because there’s no deterrent for people to go in and do more of the same, accessing the system in an unauthorized manner,” said Marilyn Marks, who uncovered the scheme in Coffee County in her role as executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, a nonprofit that focuses on election security and voter privacy.
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Two Trump supporters involved in the Coffee County breach have cut plea deals with Fulton County prosecutors to avoid what could have been up to 20 years behind bars. Another two allies were indicted in Fulton but are unlikely to face trial anytime soon. Those people account for just a portion of the names that have been publicly linked to the Coffee County election breach in the GBI’s report, media accounts, and even video footage.
Attorney General Chris Carr’s office says that the Fulton case is “currently taking precedence,” but that their case “remains open.”
“Our office moving forward with the Coffee County matter while Fulton County’s prosecution is still underway could potentially jeopardize both cases,” Kara Murray, a spokesperson for the office, said in a statement.
Neither the local district attorney, the FBI, nor the U.S. Department of Justice has indicated they are investigating the Coffee County breach. The Coffee County district attorney’s office did not return an email request from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A fading hope for justice
Today, some Coffee County locals are clinging to a faint wish that one day, the people involved in the 2021 breach will be punished.
Judi Worrell, a retired schoolteacher, said she sees people around the city who she believes should be behind bars. In her mind, a crime is a crime, and this one was caught on camera.
“They’re just walking around Scot-Free, and it’s just so blatantly obvious they were involved,” she said. “I mean the videos show what happened and who was there.”
The events in Coffee County unfolded on Jan. 7, 2021, just one day after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Cathy Latham then-chairwoman of the county Republican Party, welcomed several Trump allies as well as a few hired computer security analysts into the elections office.
At the time, Trump and his supporters were falsely claiming that voting machines had been rigged and that he had defeated Democrat Joe Biden.
Latham, one of Georgia’s electors for Trump, was seen with former Coffee County Elections Director Misty Hampton and former county election board members Eric Chaney and Ed Voyles. Hours of security footage shows the group copying vast amounts of data, including the state’s election software, memory cards that store votes and files from ballot scanners.
“Huge things are starting to come together!” Trump lawyer Katherine Freiss said in a text that was obtained as part of a civil lawsuit. “Most immediately, we were granted access — by written invitation! — to the Coffee County [systems]. Yay!”
The data copied in Coffee County was later distributed to election deniers and conspiracy theorists through a file-sharing website. It’s unclear what they did with the files or if they used them.
HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Olivia Coley-Pearson sees a twisted irony when comparing the 2021 breach of her county’s voting system to her own election-related charges. The voting rights activist was charged, and later acquitted, on allegations that in 2012 she illegally helped a voter who didn’t need any assistance. She was also charged for criminal trespass for attempting to help a voter in 2020. That charge, she said, was dismissed.
“It’s very frustrating that I would have gone through that ordeal … and then here, a whole election system gets breached, data copied, and you don’t hear [anything],” Coley-Pearson said in a recent phone interview while she shuttled residents to the polls for early voting.
She said it’s time for Coffee County officials to “come clean” about the events that unfolded on Jan. 7, 2021. But she is realistic, and cynical, about the state of affairs in her county.
“Too many people [are] tied into it locally, that nothing is going to happen,” Coley-Pearson said. “I firmly believe that.”
A case in purgatory
It could take years to resolve the Coffee County matter — if it is ever fully resolved.
In August 2023, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted 19 people, including Trump, on racketeering and other charges saying they had attempted to subvert the 2020 election results.
Four of the defendants were tied to the election breach: Trump attorney Sidney Powell, Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall, chairwoman of the county Republican Party Cathy Latham, and former Coffee Elections Director Misty Hampton.
One month later, the GBI completed a report trying to ascertain what exactly happened in Coffee County, according to the state AG’s office.
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The Fulton County case is “currently taking precedence,” according to Murray, the spokesperson for the attorney general, because Willis indicted the Coffee County defendants before GBI delivered its report to the AG. The state has shared its investigative findings with Willis, the spokesperson said, and deferred all questions to her office.
The bulk of the Fulton County case will be paused until at least late 2025 as Willis waits for the courts to decide whether she and her office will be disqualified from the Trump case. The Georgia Court of Appeals is currently considering whether Willis can stay on the high-stakes case, or if she’s compromised, due to her past romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Whatever the decision, it is expected to be immediately appealed by the losing side.
One former prosecutor said there’s no legal reason why the Attorney General’s office couldn’t move forward with charges against the defendants who didn’t take a plea deal or anyone else who was involved, while the Fulton County case is on hiatus. Waiting for the Fulton County case to run its course could be a risky move, according to J. Tom Morgan, a former district attorney for DeKalb County.
“[The AG is] putting a lot of faith in the Fulton County prosecution — which has run into a lot of roadblocks — that it’s not going to collapse under its own weight,” Morgan said.
Danny Porter, a Republican and former Gwinnett County District Attorney, said there are several reasons why Carr wouldn’t pursue charges in the Coffee County case right now, The attorney general’s office is understaffed in its criminal division, which Porter said could make it difficult to take on a case of this scale.
The essence of the matter is also “frozen up” in the Fulton County case, he said, and Carr’s office will not want to wade into the issue until there’s been a resolution.
Robert James, a Democrat and former district attorney for DeKalb County, agreed that moving forward with the same case on two parallel tracks just wouldn’t make sense, and is a waste of taxpayer funds.
“I just don’t know why the AG would prosecute the exact same thing that DA Fani Willis is prosecuting — the exact same people and exact same crime,” Jones said.
Political ambitions
Since Willis is a Democrat and Carr a Republican, there have been accusations of political pandering on both sides. Carr is widely expected to run for governor in 2026, when Brian Kemp steps down.
“Chris Carr has certain political ambitions,” said Porter, the former District Attorney for Gwinnett County. “Right now, to generate another case that involves Trump and his minions would not be a good thing for him.”
Screenshot from Fulton County Superio
Screenshot from Fulton County Superio
As for the four Coffee County defendants in Willis’ case, Latham, the Trump elector, and Hampton, the former elections director, pleaded not guilty. Hall, the bail bondsman, and Powell, the former Trump lawyer cut a plea deal in exchange for a grab bag of minor punishments: several years of probation, a few thousands of dollars in fines, community service hours, and apology letters. Once Powell and Hall serve their probations, their charges will disappear from their records.
Powell’s handwritten apology was just 13 words long, and stated, “I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, other states have taken more aggressive steps to combat breaches to the election system. In Colorado, a county clerk, was recently found guilty after she allowed a man to unlawfully access the county election system. That clerk, Tina Peters, was also found to have been deceptive about that person’s identity.
She was sentenced to nine years in prison.
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