The whole carpet began to unravel with a call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, asking him to find 11,780 votes to overturn the presidential election in his state. The carpet was woven well before that, though, with plans made even before the election to cast doubt on any results that went against the desired result of Trump’s victory. These people knew it, they conspired to replace legitimate votes with fraudulent ones, and now they’ve been called to court over it.
- Donald Trump, former US president
- Rudy Giuliani, Trump lawyer
- Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff
- John Eastman, Trump lawyer
- Kenneth Chesebro, pro-Trump lawyer
- Jeffrey Clark, top Justice Department official
- Jenna Ellis, Trump campaign lawyer
- Robert Cheeley, lawyer who promoted fraud claims
- Mike Roman, Trump campaign official
- David Shafer, Georgia GOP chair and fake elector
- Shawn Still, fake GOP elector
- Stephen Lee, pastor tied to intimidation of election workers
- Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump
- Trevian Kutti, publicist tied to intimidation of election workers
- Sidney Powell, Trump campaign lawyer
- Cathy Latham, fake GOP elector tied to Coffee County breach
- Scott Hall, tied to Coffee County election system breach
- Misty Hampton, Coffee County elections supervisor
- Ray Smith, Trump campaign attorney
They’ve been indicted on racketeering charges by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (quick — has Trump been medically tested for syphilis? That’s how they got Al Capone, you know.)
These charges represent many serious felonies, and it’s not just a pattern of criminal behavior — it’s an overt attempt by the chief executive to undermine the rule of law and commit treason against the Constitution. Invoke the 14th Amendment and kill this guy’s campaign to run for re-election again.
Although, to be sure so far these are just more charges against these awful people, and we’ll have to see if he actually gets convicted. I grew up seeing Nixon getting off scot-free so my confidence isn’t high.
Brace yourself for the flurry of disingenuous defenses to come.
Notice the number of lawyers in that list, just as it was with Watergate. They truly are garbage made flesh.
“He use to give me roses, I wish he could again.”
Trump et al. were indicted under Georgia’s RICO law which was intended to prosecute mobsters; and some TV commentators seem to have been surprised by that. My first thought was, “Uh…yeah…a mobster is charged with being a mobster. That sounds right.”
Another interesting bit is whether his release pending trial could be revoked and he winds up behind bars for intimidating witnesses and jurors. We can be sure that Trump won’t be able to shut up about the case; and it’s a good guess that a subset of his supporters will be moved to violence because of his statements. We’ll see.
Also, even if worst comes to worst and he actually winds up as president again, he won’t be able to pardon himself because this is a state case, not a federal one.
This Georgia case will likely be the most interesting of all of them.
I just learned something. Nixon had considered pardoning himself during the Watergate scandal.
Something I remembered about that mess: Ford lost his election because of the level of disgust by the populace for his pardon of Nixon. Apparently, Ford carried in his wallet a portion of the text from Burdick v. United States, a dictum from the SCOTUS that issuing a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States
Which, if one has to carry a reminder of that, perhaps that pardon wasn’t the correct thing to do.
Trump is busily ignoring the court’s instructions on intimidation and similar antics, I’m willing to bet the court won’t slap him down. Maybe the Senate should simply draft a surrender document, announcing our government surrenders to the god-emperor Trump.
So, if Biden issues a pardon for Trump, on the charge of “Insurrection”, and Trump accepts the pardon…he won’t do any jail time for insurrection, but the 14th Amendment prevents Trump from being elected because at that point he’s officially acknowledge guilt.
Getting past the 14th Amendment isn’t something that a presidental pardon can do, it takes 2/3 of both houses of Congress.
I know it won’t happen, but I can see the defendants on the chain gang, chopping weeds by the side of the highway, whining and complaining to eachother. “If you hadn’t written that memo” one starts to snarl but is interrupted “It was Sidney’s stupid ‘source’…” etc. The uncaring sun beats on them relentlessly, like the relentless endless news cycles about Trump. Truckers screaming past recognize them sometimes, and think about the shitty times they brought for America, and honk their horns.
Re: Marcus Ranum #6…
A chain gang clearing weeds in summer heat? Trump wouldn’t last a week before keeling over. Then again, that would be one way to be rid of him…permanently.
Nice to see Trump’s close allies charged. Kind of like the way all the cases are being laid out. The documents case is what it is. The federal case is a laser beam aimed at Trump with further indictments possible/probable. And the Georgia case is a blanket tossed over a good number of co-defendants. Variety is the spice of life.
I was 12 when Nixon got away with it. And before that, he had instigated the military coup in Chile, which also happened 9/11.
He nearly went to war with the Soviet Union after Pakistan har started a genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) which prompted India to intervene.
He sabotaged the peace effort of Lyndon Johnson by (falsely) promising a Republican government would deliver better terms. After that, twice as many Americans died, he drew Laos and Cambodia into the war (ultimately leading to the Khmer Rouge taking over and murdering 1,5 million inhabitants).
This is what Nixon got away with.
I’m going to be honest, I’ve got a strong suspicion that if Trump actually ever did make it to prison, he’d be found mysteriously dead in his cell within a week anyway.
If he breaks the terms for bail, can the court at least order community service, you know, doing ordinary work side by side with ordinary joes?
microraptor@10,
But then on the third day, he’d rise again, but mysteriously vanish. At least, so it would be rumoured among the MAGA crowd.
George HW Bush also pardoned all the members of the Reagan adminsitration that were convicted in the Iran-Contra affair.
For no other reason than that he could.
Bush waited until he had lost his reelection but was still in office.
Yeah, Nixon got “off” but 40-plus others got convicted, pleaded guilty, and/or spent time in prison.
I will be delighted to see all of the fake electors do jail time, even if Mango spends his days under house arrest at Mar-a-Lardo.
@5. Snarki, child of Loki :
Would Trump be able to bear to get a pardon from Biden – or Kamela if she’s POTUS by then? Would he ever be able to acknowledge his obvious guilt?
Also would that help keep him out of jail in Georgia? Plus New York if he goes down oncriminal counts there too?*
From what a I gather (may be wrong?) a Federal even presidential pardon won’t mean release from state charges and prison if he ends up there?
.* Could Trump be sentenced to jail in both NYC and Georgia and if so does he serve jail time in both or ..?
“Could Trump be sentenced to jail in both NYC and Georgia and if so does he serve jail time in both or ..?”
Trump could be sentenced to jail in NYC, DC, Georgia AND Florida.
I think that calls for a “hang, drawn, and quartered” solution to Trump’s manifest treason, but I’m just a traditionalist in some ways.
Cool! Not fussy. I’ll settle for Trump dying disgraced behind bars in any one of those states. Or in transit between sentencing and staying gray bar hotel locales. Preferably of Covid since that’s be ironically (?) apt.
Fani Willis has announced these conspirators must report to her by August 25 for official arrest on their assorted charges. I have a bottle of cheap champagne i will open on that day. And I will have a nice happy dance.
Next after that is setting up trial dates, and assigning judges et al.
Marcus Ranum @ #6
Or chopping peanuts and picking cotton in a field with no trees anywhere around, his pudgy pink skin turning a bright red. Day after day with crappy food to eat sleeping in shabby hut with other men and no AC.
whheydt @ #7
As they say down there, it ain’t the heat that’ll kill you it’s the humidity…and Georgia in July/August has plenty of both. And as Trump ain’t never hit a lick at a snake (as they say down there), I’d be surprised if he lasted a morning in that broiler.
The first of the flurry of disingenuous defenses will be Democrats!!! Fani Willis is a Democrat…as well as Black, female, born in California, and the child of a founder of the Black Panthers. I can just imagine the spin on Fox. Of course, while Fani Willis lead an investigation before a special grand jury and a regular jury, it was the regular grand jury of Georgia citizens of all parties…some probably voted for Trump…who returned these indictments, not Fani Willis. Republicans and Fox won’t say that, but that’s the case.
Heather Cox Richardson has pointed out that much of the evidence about the election fraud perpetrated by Trump and his gang come from information provided by Republicans, including a couple of important Georgia Republicans as well as Arizona, and perhaps Michigan. Some of these folks are breaking with the MAGA block. Others are probably just trying to cover their butties by telling some (if not all) of the story.
I couldn’t help but notice the absence of Michael Flynn, the disgraced, convicted, and pardoned general from Trump’s ship of fools. He was around a lot of the major players named in this indictment. Also curiously absent is Lin Wood, who was one of Trump’s senior lawyers at the time. Both were involved in the illegal activities, and could spill a lot of secrets from the inner circle. And I don’t see Fani Willis as being the type who would carelessly leave such people out in her prosecution.
The other thing about pardons I’ve heard mentioned before: not only are they a tacit admission of guilt, but because you’ve been pardoned and thus can’t be tried for that crime any more, your ability to call on the fifth amendment to avoid testifying about that crime is pretty much non-existent.
I’m pretty sure that got explained to Trump at some point. How much he understood it is a different matter, of course. But the idea that Trump shouldn’t pardon any of his co-conspirators because that could be used against him probably sunk in. (Most of his big bag of end-game pardons were for fans and previous events rather than his immediate inner circle and co-conspirators.)
Hunh, looking over the list of pardons from Trump on Wikipedia, I’d forgotten that Trump pardoned Conrad Black.
If he violates the bail conditions, can he please be made to do community service with something he thinks is beneath him, preferably in a place where MAGA fans will be unable to cheer him on?
Peeling potatoes for a school kitchen? Planting new trees at a burn site in a national forest?
In Constantine Peter Stormare (as Lucifer) tells Constantine he has prepared a whole funfair for Constantine down in hell once ge gets hold of him.
That is how I think about Trump, Boris Johnson and their enablers.
Contrary to what Ken “Popehat” White says, sometimes it is RICO.
Leeja Miller — “How Watergate Ruined Everything”
Why Nixon should’ve been indicted.
What does this mean for all the people pardoned by Trump during his final days in office?
@25 SQB
Popehat in a 12-second video on the current topic:
@11, @23:
Trump has already pretty clearly violated the terms of his bail. I am just hoping that Judge Chutkan is now giving him rope with which to hang him. Metaphorically, I guess, but a spell of prison confinement would do him a world of good. Maybe. Worth trying, anyway!
@28 petesh When it’s so very RICO, even Ken has to admit it.
The sickening thing is all the commentators now suggesting that, OK, he’s charged, he’s probably going to be convicted, but surely an ex-President should never be imprisoned. Even Rachel Maddow and Hillary Clinton were playing with that idea last night. Madness.
It’s a start!
I have head that because Trump is entitled to lifetime Secret Service protection, it would be unlikely he would go to jail.
coreyshlueter @ #33 — Perhaps we can make an exception in Mr. Trump’s case as he is such a special person. Just imagine how it would placate his sense of self-importance to know he’s a first.
However, I think it’s very unlikely that if he is convicted he will go to prison. Some form of house arrest perhaps.
It’s not like Secret Service protection for ex-Presidents is in the Constitution. It’d be a simple act of Congress to fix it. And… that’s an absurd reason to keep him out of prison, anyway (like every other reason offered).
SQB, petesh: heh.
petesh @ #28, :). One of the first things I did when it was confirmed to be RICO was look for a tweet from him, only to discover he’s no longer there, so thanks!
@29. petesh : “a spell of prison confinement would do him (Trump -ed) a world of good. Maybe. Worth trying, anyway!”
Reckon it would do the world a world of good too! At least help the USA.. which sadly wields far too much influence over the rest of the planet.
(Edward G. Robinson, Little Caesar (1931))
Would there be a jury trial for this Georgia case? It seems implausible Trump would ever lose a jury trial, no matter what evidence is presented. :/