On Monday night, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis added a Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations indictment and 13 fresh felonies to Donald Trump’s towering list of crimes. Those new indictments came just three days after Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan warned Trump to “take special care in your public statements” following his latest round of indictments in Washington, D.C.
Trump is now preparing to get himself out of this massive hole, not by being quiet and working with his attorneys but by breaking out a shiny new shovel. On Monday, Trump says he will reveal a new report during a very special episode delivered live from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. That report, according to Trump, contains “irrefutable” evidence of election fraud in Georgia. And then Willis will have to fold her case and go home because it will be obvious that Trump actually won the 2020 election. Also, we will all get a pet unicorn.
Other than getting Trump more air time and opening the phone lines to collect donations from his brainwashed masses, the intention of this event seems to be doubling down on the “it’s not a crime if you really believe it” theory, which unfortunately for Trump is not a thing.
According to The New York Times, Trump’s irrefutable report was compiled not using a team of new investigators or election experts, but by Trump Communication Aide Liz Harrington. If that name sounds at all familiar, it’s because Harrington was a voice on the recording of the infamous conversation in which Trump brags about showing off military plans for a potential invasion of Iraq. That’s her in the background cheering Trump on and chortling over the idea that the document was never declassified.
Even at a reported 100 pages, that report has a lot of work to do. For example, just one charge in the Fulton County indictment dings Trump for claims that:
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About 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were “dropped mysteriously” into the vote totals for Georgia.
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Thousands of people in Georgia were told they could not vote because ballots had already been cast in their name.
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In Georgia, 4,502 people voted who were not on the voter registration list.
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Nine-hundred-and-four people voted in Georgia who were registered at an address that was a post office box.
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Ruby Freeman was a professional vote scammer and known political operative.
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Ruby Freeman stuffed ballot boxes.
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Ruby Freeman, her daughter, and others were responsible for fraudulently awarding at least 18,000 ballots to Joe Biden.
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Close to 5,000 dead people voted in Georgia.
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In Detroit, 139% of people voted.
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In Pennsylvania, 200,000 more votes were recorded than the number of people who voted.
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Thousands of dead people voted in Michigan.
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Hundreds of thousands of ballots were dumped in Fulton County.
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Trump won Georgia by 400,000 votes.
All of that is just the lies Trump sent, in writing, to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs, and Georgia Secretary of State General Counsel Ryan Germany on a single day.
Whatever Trump says on Monday it’s not going to support any of these claims, because every single one of these statements is provably false. These are not vague claims softened by an “in my opinion” or “I think.” They’re not offered up as reports to be investigated. They are presented as supposed facts, often accompanied by precise numbers, but in fact they are simply lies.
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Should Trump try to pass off even one of these things as the truth on Monday night, he’ll be reinforcing the charges against him. Should Harrington provide new lies to spout, that will be creative but it absolutely won’t help. It could even make things worse.
As it stands, 19 of the acts listed in the current indictment took place after Jan. 6, 2021. That includes an event that came nine months later when Trump wrote to Raffensperger, "As stated to you previously, the number of false and/or irregular votes is far greater than needed to change the Georgia election result." Depending on just how Trump handles things on Monday, the door is always open to add more acts to a superseding indictment.
But then, it almost seems as if Trump is deliberately trying to draw a judicial reprimand. He’s obviously and deliberately going over the line again and again, even when receiving clear instructions. Maybe that’s because he can’t help himself. Maybe that’s because he enjoys watching his supporters threaten violence against judges and other officials. Maybe he feels like his best way forward is to keep as many people as possible in turmoil. Very likely it’s all three.
However, the biggest point of this seems to be reinforcement of the idea that Trump really believes his own bulls**t. Which does not matter. At all.
The center point of the RICO charge in Georgia, as well as the four federal charges presented by the jury in Washington, doesn’t require that Trump knows he is lying. In fact, those federal charges make it clear:
The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.
If Trump had a right to lie, then what’s the problem? And why do his lies keep getting listed in the Georgia indictment? That’s also explained in the federal indictment. Trump had a right to lie, and to “formally change the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means.”
That included going to court. That included asking for a recount. That included challenging ballots and procedures.
That did not include attempting to obstruct the process of government, or attempting to get an elections official to alter the vote, or soliciting the selection of false electors, or trying to get state legislators to decertify election results.
The reason that Trump’s lies appear on the Georgia indictment is not because they are lies, but because he made up those lies in furtherance of his efforts to unlawfully overturn the outcome of the election.
The Georgia indictment breaks the false statements into three groups: false statements made to solicit action by state legislatures, false statements made to solicit actions from state officials, and harassment of campaign worker Ruby Freeman. Trump was on television every day during the period covered by the investigation, usually several times a day. He also had a number of rallies and speeches, but only a handful of Trump’s false statements are called out because those are statements that fit the above categories.
Trump is welcome to believe he won Georgia. He can believe 5,000 zombies voted in Georgia and 125,000 ghosts pulled the lever in Detroit. He is free to take those claims to court, to file requests for recounts, and to seek redress through every legal means. But having done that, he can’t use these statements or any other statements as a means to solicit illegal activity.
That’s the problem, and it doesn’t matter what Trump believes.
As the federal indictment puts it, Trump engaged in:
A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified.
Or, as the RICO charge in the Georgia indictment puts it, Trump:
Knowingly and willingly joined a conspiracy to change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.
In support of that conspiracy, Trump lied. And of course he did. Because the truth is that he lost.
Did anything happen while we were all taking a well-deserved break? Something about Donald Trump being indicted not once, but two times! Also in the news: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign collapse. So much is happening!