Will Trump finally be felled by the Georgia Case? The talk right now is that this is a slam dunk massive conspiracy case that is airtight. On the surface it looks great, however there is a key component that I think needs to be highlighted here. And that is the time from indictment to arraignment, whereby she has given all the defendants in the case literally way too much time to surrender.
Most cases when you are indicted, the defendant is scooped up so fast it makes their heads spin. You don’t get time to get your affairs in order or time to think about your next moves or even get a cup of coffee to ponder it all. They come in guns a blazing, busting down doors, and hauling your ass off in full view of your neighbors or co-workers or even in the public grocery.
In this case however, Fani Willis is allowing a lot of time for the defendants to raise issues, file motions, get affairs in order and so forth. Already Mark Meadows is asking his case to be moved to federal court. Trump is working on doing the same, and others may be so inclined to ask that their cases be moved to a more friendly to them venue.
In this case, it appears that there may be a pause in the proceedings to allow named defendants to raise issues of venue and jurisdiction, and by delaying the surrender of the defendants, this may allow them to appeal, delay or not actually go through the processes they fear in Georgia, which is mugshots, turning themselves in for processing at an old-style jail that is a puss filled hellhole, whereby they will endure the entire processing process.
If the Willis indictment does suffer from defects, then this is the time those defects will come out, and she has all but surrendered her ability to hold these defendants accountable at the very least. Call me skeptical, but I always smell a rat in these cases when standard procedures are not followed. This thing has taken years to come to fruition, when in fact it could have been done or accomplished within 6 months after the events in question. Yes, new information came out subsequent to that, but then she could have filed a superseding indictment then and nothing would have been out of sorts.
I’m wary of showboating DA’s who use cases to show that they are in fact doing something, while not really doing anything like treating these defendants like other defendants who get indicted. She claims they will be treated no differently, yet in the same breath she gives them 10 days or more to decide on when they will come in for processing, which always tells me there’s a rat in the house or a loophole she is allowing these defendants to slip through.
Right now, it’s a win for her, she gets the big case and shows the public that she is holding the defendants to account, but never really processing them instantly like everyone else would be processed. If she was serious, she would have indicted and gave them 24 hours or less. Or if she was really serious, she would have had agents, police, Law Enforcers standing by with warrants to execute. Yes, they would have had to go to extradition and so forth due to the defendants being in other states, but then they’d be in jail where they belonged until those extradition proceedings happened. Once that was approved, they would all have had to ride TRANSCORP vans to their jurisdictions. Most call that diesel therapy, because it can take weeks to get a defendant to their jurisdiction.
But no, she gives them time, and enough time to file emergency federal court actions that may in fact delay or cause a stay action order until the federal courts who would salivate at getting such cases could decide their outcomes. And that of course could take months or even years. And during that time the defendants will skate and not ever have to surrender in the case for processing. And if this does happen– and mark my words it sure looks suspicious so far that it is, then these defendants will escape justice once again, and we will all have Fani Willis to blame for it because she gave them all time to appeal, delay, file motions, beg for moves to federal courts etc.
I know many have stated that planning a coup doesn’t fit the job descriptions they had for such privileges, but of course they are innocent until proven guilty, so of course these issues can be raised, and quite possibly allowed to move to a federal court because they are in fact innocent until proven guilty. That is the issue that most are not discussing here when they talk about this potential federal court request. They all act as if these guys are guilty already, and of course as we have seen they are probably guilty of it. BUT not guilty until a jury hears all the evidence and decides. Until then these are innocent parties, and all of them could in fact get federal court action by claiming they were just following orders or their federal duty or they were federal officials and doing their federal official duties. Right now, short of a guilty verdict, that claim can be made and sustained.
If this happens, Fani Willis will be the one who should take the blame for it, because by allowing them the freedom and time to get affairs in order and ask for federal emergency relief, Willis has all but sunk her battleship before it got out of the harbor.
I may of course be wrong, but each of these cases/indictments have had a stench on them that stinks to high heaven. Jack Smith filing in Florida and getting Trumps minion Judge Cannon to hear it. Failing to file in New Jersey where most of the documents ended up and failing to even go get those documents in New Jersey also stinks. These cases show the system is working of course but working how when none of these defendants have had to even post bail, get printed or mugshots or done any time processing, makes you wonder just have these scumbag criminals are really being held accountable? It’s all showboating for public consumption at this point. Yes, it appears that accountability is happening, but that’s only the appearance. Same for security at the airport. It appears that TSA keeps people safe in the air, but the truth is there is no real security anywhere. It’s all an illusion.
Story below:
When the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney, Fani Willis, filed criminal charges against Donald Trump and over a dozen of his allies for their attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results, she did something ingenious.
In contrast to the special counsel Jack Smith’s latest laser-focused federal indictment of Mr. Trump, Ms. Willis charges a wide range of conspirators, from people in the Oval Office to low-level Georgia G.O.P. functionaries, and is the first to plumb the full depths, through a state-focused bathyscaph, of the conspiracy.
Her case also provides other important complements to the federal matter: Unlike Mr. Smith’s case, which will almost certainly not be broadcast because of federal standards, hers will almost certainly be televised, and should Mr. Trump or another Republican win the White House, Ms. Willis’s case cannot be immediately pardoned away. It offers transparency and accountability insurance. As she said in her news conference on Monday night, “The state’s role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy.”
But the indictment stands out, above all, because Georgia offers uniquely compelling evidence of election interference — and a set of state criminal statutes tailor-made for the sprawling, loosely organized wrongdoing that Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators are accused of engaging in. It is a reminder of the genius of American federalism: When our democracy is threatened, states have an indispensable part to play in protecting it.
At 98 pages, Ms. Willis’s indictment is more than twice the size of Mr. Smith’s indictment in his Jan. 6 case and contains 19 defendants to his one. The indictment charges 41 counts (to Mr. Smith’s four) — among them, Georgia election crimes like solicitation of violation of oath by public officer (for Mr. Trump’s infamous demand to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to just “find 11,780 votes”) and state offenses like forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery (for creating fake electoral certificates) and conspiracy to commit computer trespass (for unlawfully accessing election machines in Coffee County to attempt to prove that votes were stolen).
The large cast of defendants populates a complete conspiracy chain of command and features the famous (Mr. Trump, his chief of staff Mark Meadows and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani), the infamous (the Trump lawyers John Eastman, Ken Chesebro and Jeffrey Clark) and the otherwise unknown (including Georgia state false electors and local Trump campaign allies without whom the plot would have stalled).
Ms. Willis ties them all together by levying one charge against Mr. Trump and each of the 18 other defendants under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO, accusing Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators of functioning as a criminal gang.
American law has long recognized through the crime of conspiracy that combinations of criminals are more dangerous than lone wolves. RICO is conspiracy on steroids, providing for stiffer penalties and other advantages like bringing multiple loosely connected conspiracies under one umbrella.
Georgia has one of the most capacious RICO statutes in the country. The state’s legislature enacted it specifically to “apply to an interrelated pattern of criminal activity” and mandated courts to “liberally construe” it to protect the state and its citizens from harm. Under the law, prosecutors can charge a sprawling criminal enterprise and even include individuals who may not have known “of the others’ existence,” as one court put it.
Editors’ Picks
Using a Credit Card? At These Restaurants It’ll Cost You.For Younger Workers, Job Hopping Has Lost Its Stigma. Should It?130 Degrees and Rising: How Kitchen Workers Are Dealing With Record Heat
Here, the statute may be triggered by violations of an array of federal crimes as well as over 40 charges specific to Georgia, including forgery, false statements and influencing witnesses.
Georgia RICO has become Ms. Willis’s signature. She applied it in cases like the Atlanta teacher cheating scandal, in which educators engaged in a wide-ranging scheme to inflate scores on standardized tests, and the prosecution of the rapper Young Thug, in which he co-founded a street gang that was accused of committing almost 200 criminal acts.
In using RICO, Ms. Willis accuses Mr. Trump of functioning like a gang leader overseeing a theft ring, except instead of stealing cash or cars, he and his allies are accused of attempting to purloin the Georgia presidential election results.
The overall charge includes four core schemes. The first was to pressure government officials to advance the objective of securing Georgia’s electoral votes for Mr. Trump, even though he lost. For the evidence here, in addition to Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger, Ms. Willis details other efforts by Mr. Trump and his co-defendants — including Mr. Giuliani’s pressuring of state legislators, Mr. Meadows’s pressure on election authorities and the co-conspirators’ lies and intimidation targeting the ballot counters Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, who goes by Shaye. This also includes efforts in Washington that affected Georgia, such as the Department of Justice lawyer Jeffrey Clark’s preparation of an allegedly fraudulent draft letter targeting the state.
The second scheme was the organization of electors falsely proclaiming that Mr. Trump was the winner in Georgia. Ms. Willis alleges that Mr. Trump personally participated in this effort; for example, he called the Republican National Committee with Mr. Eastman from the White House to organize the fake slates of electors, including in Georgia. And she charges a great deal of other activity in and outside Georgia.
The third scheme was the unlawful accessing of voting machines in Coffee County, a rural county southeast of Atlanta. The indictment asserts that, after a White House conversation about getting access to election machines to prove supposed vote theft, Sidney Powell, a lawyer tied to Mr. Trump, along with Trump campaign allies and computer consultants, conspired to gain access to voting equipment in Coffee County.
Ms. Willis’s inclusion of that plan spotlights what has been one of the more neglected aspects of the nationwide effort. Mr. Smith does not even mention it in his federal indictment. Yet the Willis indictment alleges that this was part of a plan discussed (in general terms) in the Oval Office.
The fourth and final scheme is what has become a trademark allegation against Mr. Trump and his circle: obstruction and cover-up. Ms. Willis alleges that members of the conspiracy filed false documents, made false statements to government investigators and committed perjury during the Fulton County judicial proceedings.
In addition to the RICO charges, each of the 19 defendants is charged with at least one other offense. Perhaps most telling among these is the charge against Mr. Trump and six others of felony solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. This fits Mr. Trump’s demand for those 11,780 votes like a glove.
Mr. Trump has already begun to defend himself, trying to get Ms. Willis and her special grand jury disqualified, based on an array of supposed conflicts and other grievances. The Georgia courts have already repeatedly rejected those arguments. He will also probably employ defenses similar to ones he and his legal team have laid out in pending criminal matters elsewhere, seeking removal to federal court and advancing First Amendment and intent defenses that have been picked apart by many legal experts.
He and his co-conspirators may attempt to challenge the RICO charges on technical grounds, for example, arguing that the conspiracies are not sufficiently related under the statute. But Ms. Willis powerfully alleges otherwise, in particular emphasizing the unifying objective of Mr. Trump’s wrongfully seizing Georgia’s electoral votes.
That all of this is likely to play out on television only deepens the historic nature of the indictment. Georgia law makes generous allowance for court proceedings to be broadcast, with the state rightly considering open courtrooms to be “an indispensable element of an effective and respected judicial system.” Assuming that rules against televising federal trials stand, the Georgia trial would be the only one that the public could watch as it unfolds. We know from the Jan. 6 hearings — as well as, in an earlier era, the Watergate hearings — the power of seeing and hearing these events. And they will remain for viewing in posterity as a lesson in the rule of law.
There is one final important advantage of the Georgia case. It is shielded from what may be Mr. Trump’s ultimate hope: the issuance of a pardon should he or another Republican be elected president in 2024 (or a command by a Republican that the Justice Department simply drop the case). A president’s power to pardon federal offenses does not extend to state crimes.
And pardons in Georgia are not an unreviewable power vested solely in the chief executive. They are awarded by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles — and are not even available until five years after completion of all sentences.
The indictment from Ms. Willis strongly complements the federal case. It adds dimensionality, transparency and additional assurance of accountability for the former president and those who betrayed democracy in Georgia.
