Republicans are probably grateful for Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump. Helps them avoid questions on the potential for RICO charges and election fraud coming down the pike. Prosecutors in Georgia are now considering conspiracy and RICO charges against Trump over his efforts to challenge 2020 election results. The RICO law is made for exactly the crime Donald Trump has done. Then there’s NYC, plus he lied to his lawyers about classified documents.
Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly considering RICO charges against Donald Trump in her probe of his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CNN reports. RICO charges are generally used when prosecuting organized crime cases.
“The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent,” Willis had said last year about a different case. “They want to know what happened. They want to make an accurate decision about someone’s life. And so RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.”
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a law professor and an NBC News/MSNBC contributor, Monday morning on Twitter, pointing to CNN’s report, said Willis “is seriously considering a RICO charge.” She repeated that claim on MSNBC shortly after.
CNN reports, “Investigators have a large volume of substantial evidence related to a possible conspiracy from inside and outside the state, including recordings of phone calls, emails, text messages, documents, and testimony before a special grand jury. Their work, the source said, underscores the belief that the push to help Trump was not just a grassroots effort that originated inside the state.”
www.alternet.org/...
For decades, according to people who worked with him years ago at the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump — who was first criminally investigated in the 1970s — was plainly frightened of being arrested. He spent years cultivating officials who might have influence over investigations into him or his company.
[...]
“The Good Lord’s given me good health up to now — but you never know,” he told one person at the time.
But Mr. Trump slowly found relief in a new routine, playing 36 holes of golf a day and timing his arrival at dinner on the Mar-a-Lago terrace with nightly standing ovations from dues-paying members who were already seated. By June, Mr. Trump had again started hosting his signature campaign-style mega-rallies.
Two years later, Mr. Trump has not only defied the expectations of many who believed he would never again seek public office, but he has also emerged as the strong favorite to win his third consecutive Republican presidential nomination.
www.nytimes.com/...
As we await the potential indictment of former president Donald Trump, there are three intersecting truths to keep in mind:
- The criminal case against Trump for violating New York state law in arranging for hush-money payments to a porn star might well be weak.
- There is a proper way to test that weakness: in a court of law, where a judge can determine whether any alleged conduct constitutes a crime, and a jury can decide whether the state has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The wrong way — the truly un-American way — is by threatening an uprising. Refraining from bringing an otherwise justifiable indictment for fear of sparking dissent and violence would itself represent a danger to the rule of law.
www.washingtonpost.com/...