Georgia starts investigation into Trump's election interference

Gee, I am surprised that an alleged felon gets fingerprinted and has a mug shot at their arraignment. I guess it only happens to high-profile cases and on TV?

 

Okay, I'll go through some of the column's points "so that my fellow Rockets' fans don't have to." Haha.

From the jump.

I think that is absolutely factually wrong. Stringing together (individually legal) acts in context is exactly what happens with establishing criminal intent. I've been on too many juries, including several criminal trials, and recall directions recited to me by experienced judges, to not understand this.Three individual texts saying (1) "I really wish something bad would happen to that editor at Powerlineblog," (2) "I have a loaded gun on my person," and (3) "Hey gang, let's gather outside the editor's house," are individually legal. And it's legal to send those texts to several people. It is legal for the sender and those people to gather near said editor's home. Depending on the state laws, it may be legal to stand there with several people in the vicinity of the aforementioned editor with a literally warm, smoking gun. It is maybe also legal for us to stand around near an injured editor while not rendering aid. It is legal for the texter to own the ordinance that also so-happened to ballistically injure the editor. Happily, in my goofy analogy, the editor was not badly hurt. And in the real case, a scheme to overturn a valid election failed.

But anyway, a prosecutor would presumably gather this evidence including many individually legal events for a grand jury to consider. Is there enough evidence here to put that texter on trial?

The column makes repeated and objectively misleading attempts to keep the results of the 2020 election in question. Or suggest that they were very much in doubt in January 2021, but I believe that is false and not presented by the author in good faith. Trump and his campaign had been through recounts (where he lost ground actually) and court challenges and lost, having never presented any legit evidence of voting problems. This is super well documented by multiple sauces and sets of Republican election officials in Georgia. To keep up the drumbeat of "apparent" is to flirt with alternative realities, versus different perspectives on confirmed realities. If one exhausts their legal remedies to an established outcome and starts trying new remedies beyond legal means, that's when they enter the path leading to this indictment and others.

In that sense, the column is an eloquent version of what Trump followers ... apparently ... must do: label court-validated elections as illegitimate when Trump doesn't like the outcome. (Including, don't forget, when he lost that Iowa primary. Established pattern.)

I'm trying to leave aside well-earned ad-homs for Miller as a reference. The guy does not have a good history in terms of character, decency, or honesty. (deep breath) The indictments lay out a case that it had nothing to do with "in the event that one or more of his legal challenges succeeded." The grand jury is persuaded by evidence that these slates of electors were to be inserted by any means available, including pressuring officials to abdicate their sworn responsibilities, whether or not one of the (mostly failed at the times of the alleged crimes) leftover court cases (at that point on appeal?) bore fruit.

My kudos to the author for acknowledging something in the indictment that might be serious, even from his perspective. That's a good technique in argumentation and makes him seem less biased. But here I have to point out that he's giving great simplification and a benefit of the doubt to the accused when he or Miller suggests "their effort to find evidence of voter fraud." That's a big reason people use RICO is to establish patterns beyond individual events. The grand jury found, in part, that the communications and other evidence made this particular violation less innocent than the author's suggestion of the gang just seeking the truth (as if the recounts and court cases did not confirm the truth of the GA election).

Saying he was just simply and honestly looking for voter fraud is, in the analogy above, kind of saying the texter was just squirrel hunting in the editor's neighborhood. Haha. Maybe, I guess. He was hunting squirrel with buckshot.

I don't think the column was poorly written. But I don't find it a very honest treatment overall. I'm sad that many readers will come away with the idea of "all these individually legal things," and think the grand jury is just full of crazy zealots. That would probably be a mistaken impression.

The column does presume innocence and in that way reminds us that presumed innocence is a bedrock part of our courts. Many of us are struggling with that for this defendant who continually reminds everyone that he disregards and even disrespects norms, facts, rules, fellow human beings, etc. But still, a good reminder.

In the end, again, I don't like a voice that encourages people not to read books or items of public record. And I'll try to remind myself of that when I see the same from the left.

Yeah, disclaimer, not a lawyer, etc. Okay, back to real work, haha.

 

I read your excellent post so I don't need to read the powerlineblog tripe you responded to...

 

I appreciate the thought you put into this. I'm inclined to agree with you on some, but from what I can gather the Georgia RICO statute is overly broad and the county DA here is really pushing the envelope. Time will tell whether the 41 counts hold up, but I'm also inclined to think Hinderaker is closer to the truth with his estimate that 2 of the 41 are real versus the more optimistic (from the anti-Trump perspective) that 41 of 41 will hold up.

I also think a lot of the strategy here is simply to tie Trump up in court until the 2024 election is over. Perhaps get some convictions, then allow him to win on appeal and ride off into the sunset when he can no longer do any damage.

 

a brief assessment of the Georgia RICO law

https://reason.com/2023/08/16/fani-willis-is-abusing-georgias-terrible-rico-law/

Fani Willis Is Abusing Georgia's Terrible RICO Law
by Joe Lancaster
8.16.2023 1:35 PM

This week, District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County, Georgia, charged former President Donald Trump and 18 others based on their collective efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election and keep Trump in power. Among 41 felony counts, Willis charged each defendant under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Jacob Sullum have detailed the charges against Trump, et al., including the RICO portion. The defendants' conduct was indefensible and a jury will likely decide whether it rises to the standard of "constitut[ing] a criminal organization," as the indictment alleges. But even apart from this case, Willis' proclivity for RICO charges is concerning.

The original federal RICO law was drafted for use against the mafia, allowing prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges based on certain predicate acts. It quickly expanded to include all manner of activity that was already illegal but could now be charged more aggressively. As Reason noted all the way back in 1990, "Ambitious federal prosecutors have now discovered RICO's many uses, and this poses a great danger to civil liberty and free enterprise."

Georgia's RICO law is even more expansive than its federal counterpart—for example, it does not require multiple defendants or an extended timeline to establish a conspiracy. Former prosecutor Chris Timmons told ABC News, "Somebody could go to JC Penney, shoplift a pair of socks, walk next door to Sears and shoplift a second pair of socks, and they can be charged with RICO."

The law also makes it easier to bring racketeering charges than the federal statute: As former federal prosecutor Ken White noted on the Serious Trouble podcast this week, federal cases must satisfy numerous "elements" to support RICO charges; the Georgia statute, on the other hand, doesn't specify any requisite elements, making it much easier to charge on flimsier evidence.

Willis is unapologetic about her use of the statute, saying in August 2022, "I'm a fan of RICO." As a deputy D.A., Willis was the lead prosecutor on the case against Atlanta public schoolteachers accused of cheating in order to inflate standardized test scores. While the state's decision to charge teachers and administrators as racketeers was controversial, it worked: Prosecutors secured 11 convictions and 21 guilty pleas.

Willis noted this week that her office has pursued 11 RICO cases since she became D.A. in January 2021. She has primarily used it against gangs, bringing RICO charges in 2022 and 2023 over a series of Atlanta shootings and home invasions. In 2022, she also charged 28 people—including Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna—under the state RICO statute as members of the YSL gang, incorporating allegations going back to 2013.

RICO statutes allow prosecutors to bring charges using guilt by association. Kerry Martin wrote in the Michigan Journal of Race & Law that RICO "is not supposed to criminalize mere membership in a gang, but it comes dangerously close to doing so." Georgia's statute is even worse.

Perhaps Trump and his co-conspirators truly did "constitute a criminal organization," as Willis's indictment alleges. And it's entirely possible that Young Thug was party to committing felonies, either alone or as part of the YSL gang. But a conspiracy charge should require more thought and preparation than the "kitchen sink" approach currently available in Georgia and favored by one of its most prominent prosecutors.
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Pretty much you think this is all a conspiracy by the deep state to keep him as the republican nominee but only for him to lose and then they'll drop everything lol.

Fascinating opinion

 

It's amazing how otherwise rational people continue to support trump no matter what. Your comment about tying it up in court is another example of flipping the narrative. Criminal defendant trump is the one that is trying to delay each of the lawsuits as long as possible with the hopes that him or one of his cronies can get into position to make the charges against him go away. By whatever means possible. Otherwise he has a very good chance of jail time for trump. All the facts certainly support that.

 

It's amazing how otherwise rational people continue to support trump no matter what. Your comment about tying it up in court is another example of flipping the narrative. Criminal defendant trump is the one that is trying to delay each of the lawsuits as long as possible with the hopes that him or one of his cronies can get into position to make the charges against him go away. By whatever means possible. Otherwise he has a very good chance of jail time for trump. All the facts certainly support that.

 

Gee, its a shame that trump and his crime syndicate is finding the timing of their trials so inconvenient.

 

But.....Colonel Ketchup is the savior of America!

 

Remember guys, people indicted for crimes should have the legal system bend over backwards to accommodate their schedule and personal 'ambitions'. That's what America is all about.

 

Thanks, Os. I honestly appreciate it when we have our occasional exchanges.

1. You could be right about Georgia RICO, and I would agree that all 41 won't make the cut, for sure. That seems logical. We just have our trust placed in different sources for assessing Georgia's RICO, or rather, it seems like all the voices we can hear about it have a strong bias right now and/or know what will get more clicks than less. Tough to navigate for a non-lawyer like myself, for sure.

2. We disagree a little on the strategy here. I could truly be too naive, but these indictments follow behaviors; they in no way seem cooked up as a last-minute reaction to the possibility of a re-Trump. If Trump had decided not to run, I believe these cases would be rolling forward and he'd be receiving indictments. I understand the cynicism, but I really believe that. If Democrats in different jurisdictions somehow all collaborated (that happens, ever?) with the DNC or something and said, "oh ****! We have to blunt his campaign with a bunch of court cases!" then I think they badly miscalculated. For the primary at least, the indictments have strengthened his hand and have formed a kind of de facto loyalty pledge for the GOP establishment folks, from what I can tell. I can almost hear it at the convention ... "and do you all solemnly swear to ignore any legal convictions that may be handed down for our nominee?"

Maybe the cases and prosecutors are carefully watching one another's timing, but I'm skeptical that they're on regular conference calls and working with DNC establishment folks. I worry that might be assumed by some skeptics and sort of following some FOX commentary bluster, but it might not hold water in reality.
Georgia was making noise about this case since that crappy "need some votes" phone call went public. A number of Georgia Republicans were pissed. And apparently, some are still pissed about it and have things to say about the shenanigans.

 

So is she abusing the law or enforcing it as the Geaorgia State Legislature designed?

 

Not familiar with Colonel Ketchup. Is that another nickname for criminal defendant trump?

 

I gave him that name, because he doesn't have the guts to be a real soldier. He just throws ketchup at the walls in his fits of rage. He wouldn't risk his life for the country in any real battle.

 

My favorite sub theme of Conservative Butterflyism is the expectation that they get the kid gloves when it comes to consequences, and Democracy should just roll over for them.

Conservatism led the charge on a functional government death spiral…..Citizens United, Mitch McConnel’s obstruction, Palin, the Tea Party…kicks off the do nothing platform, then that evolves to outright corruption, stealing Supreme Court seats, hyper partisan gerrymandering to create absolute nut jobs in congress….now we have delved even further with downright insurrection.

OH BUT HIS OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT TRIAL IS DESIGNED TO HURT TRUMP POLITICALLY.

Obviously not true, but you know what…GOOD…. State media is going to paint this as a witch hunt no matter what, so wear that mantle with pride. Stop treating this as just people who have different ideas and start treating it for it is…a cancer. Play dirty, and destroy the abomination that this has turned into.

 

And with his hand out... because there is always an opportunity for the billionaire to soak the magas bank accounts...

 

That snake needs to be locked up .