Tuesday Reads: Trump Indictment #4

Good Afternoon!!

As you know, the Georgia grand jury handed down multiple indictments of Trump and many of his cronies for a conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. He has now been indicted 4 times for a total of 91 criminal charges. I tried to stay up until the bitter end last night, but I fell asleep before Fani Willis finally made her announcement.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo: Fani Willis Lowers The Boom On Donald Trump In Massive Indictment.

After a marathon session Monday, a Georgia grand jury returned a monster 41-felony-count, 97-page indictment against a total of 19 defendants, including former President Donald Trump; Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis; and Trump DOJ official Jeff Clark.

It was a strange day of uncertainty and expectation, with moment-by-moment reporting from the Fulton County courthouse. The duty judge would poke his head into the courtroom of waiting reporters to do check-ins. Grand jury witnesses scheduled to testify today made public that they had been called in a day early and offered regular updates as to where they stood in the line of witnesses paraded before the grand jury. The presentation of the indictment to the duty judge was televised live. Reporters were taking photographs from the inside of the clerk of court’s office as they waited an agonizing couple of hours for the paperwork to be processed and the indictment made public.

The day was punctuated by what appeared to be the accidental posting then quick takedown from the clerk’s website of a document seemingly related to the case that listed Trump as a defendant. That sparked an initial round of excitement and panic, then confusion. The clerk’s office later issued a statement calling the document “fictitious.” But it remained unclear exactly what had happened and why.

As the drama stretched deep into the evening, it became increasingly clear that District Attorney Fani Will was pushing to finish the indictment the same day. The duty judge kept the courtroom open late to accept the indictment, should it come. It finally did, just before 9 p.m. ET. The indictment became public just before 11 p.m. ET.

Read more of the basic facts at the TPM link.

From Aaron Rupar’s Public Notice, Lisa Needham breaks down the charges: Trump’s Fulton County indictment, unpacked.

The latest Trump indictment is out, and it’s a blockbuster. Let’s start with the numbers, shall we? A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, returned an indictment that has:

• 19 defendants, including the former president of the United States and 6 lawyers in his orbit
• 41 criminal counts across all defendants
• 13 criminal counts against the former president himself
• 8 types of manners and methods used to further a criminal enterprise
• 161 overt acts of racketeering activity

Many of the defendants are already familiar. Rudy Guiliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Sidney Powell are all attorneys who are likely some of the unindicted co-conspirators in the federal January 6 case. Others are people whose names have surfaced repeatedly during the various 2020 election investigations, such as Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, and attorney Ken Chesebro, who wrote the first memo suggesting the fake elector scheme. Others, like fake electors Shawn Still and David Shafer, aren’t household names….

If you’ve ever watched a mob movie set after 1970, when the law was first passed, you’ve probably heard of the federal RICO Act. It was designed to charge people for acting in concert with one another in furtherance of a criminal act. This was a big breakthrough because in sprawling criminal enterprises, people at the top — gang leaders, mob capos, etc. — could insulate themselves from criminal liability by having other people do their dirty work. But the advent of RICO meant that if you helped mastermind the heist but didn’t do the burglary, for example, you could still be held liable. The law isn’t just used against the Mafia but has also formed the basis for prosecuting people who run Ponzi schemes and gangs, among other things….

According to the indictment, Trump and his co-defendants used at least eight methods to try to undermine the election: (1) Making false statements to members of state legislatures, including Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; (2) Making false statements to high-ranking state officials in Georgia, such as the secretary of state and the governor; (3) creating a slate of fake electoral voters; (4) harassing and intimidating a Fulton County election worker; (5) soliciting high-ranking members of the United States Department of Justice to make false statements to government officials in Georgia; (6) soliciting Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes properly cast by Georgia’s electors; (7) unlawfully accessing voter equipment and voter data; and (8) making false statements and committing perjury to cover up the conspiracy.

The first public act in furtherance of the conspiracy started the day after the election when Trump gave a speech falsely declaring victory. Trump had discussed a draft speech to that effect three days before the election, in which he planned to declare victory and claim voter fraud. In other words, Trump was already prepared to attempt to overturn the election before election night even happened.

Read the rest at Public Notice. It’s a very good summary of the case.

For a quick summary of the various kinds of charges in the indictment, check out this uncharacteristically short post by Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel: The Various Kinds of Georgia Crimes in the RICO indictment.

I was very happy to see that Mark Meadows was among the Trump allies who were indicted. Insider: Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, will face his first post-2020 election-related indictment in Georgia.

Mark Meadows, a Freedom Caucus conservative who rose to become Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, will face a criminal indictment in Georgia alongside former president.

Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis unveiled her sprawling indictment late Monday evening, ending Meadows’ run thus far of successfully ducking some of the legal serious legal liability that others in Trump’s orbit have faced stemming from their actions that took place during the waning weeks of his presidency.

It means Meadows may soon join HR Haldeman, Nixon’s self-dubbed “son of a bitch,” in infamy among those who held one of the most powerful posts in the federal government, Chief of Staff. Haldeman, of course, faced prison time over his role in trying to cover up the Watergate break-in.

According to the indictment, Meadows, like each one of his fellow co-defendants, is facing a violation of Georgia’s RICO law. He is also facing an additional count related to his participation in Trump’s January 2, 2021 call with George Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” enough votes so he could win.

Meadows’ other conduct is mentioned throughout the indictment. In particular, Willis zeroed in on Meadows’ efforts to reach state lawmakers in Pennsylvania. Willis later told reporters that the grand jury believed conduct outside of her jurisdiction helped furthered the conspiracy she alleged.

Meadows was not one of the unindicted co-conspirators in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment related to conduct after the election, leading to speculation that the former chief of staff could be assisting the federal investigation.

Of course, Trump can’t keep his big mouth shut. He announced on Truth Social that he has proof of election fraud in Georgia which he will announce next Monday.

It’s not clear why he didn’t reveal this information before he was indicted.

One more article on Trump’s obvious first delay tactic in the Georgia case:

Kyle Cheney at Politico: An early test for Georgia prosecutors: Trump’s likely bid to take the case to federal court.

One of the first big battles in the new racketeering case against Donald Trump is likely imminent: Should the former president face a jury in state or federal court?

Although the charges were filed in state court in Fulton County, Ga., Trump is sure to attempt to “remove” the case to federal court, where he would potentially have a friendlier jury pool and the chance of drawing a judge whom he appointed to the bench.

To try to get the case into federal court, Trump is expected to argue that much of the conduct he’s been charged with was undertaken in his capacity as an officer of the federal government, because he was still president during the critical period when he and his allies attempted to subvert the 2020 election results. A federal law, known as a “removal statute,” generally allows any “officer of the United States” who is prosecuted or sued in state court to transfer the case to federal court if the case stems from the officer’s governmental duties.

Trump has already attempted to make this move in New York, where he’s facing state charges for falsifying business records to cover up an affair with a porn star. A federal judge there rejected the effort and directed the case back to state court, noting that the charges there didn’t really implicate Trump’s powers as president.

“There is an ‘outer perimeter’ to a President’s authority and responsibilities beyond which he engages in private conduct,” U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled, sending the case back to New York state court. Trump is appealing the ruling.

But Georgia could be different: Most of the charges Trump is facing — sweeping allegations of using his office to corrupt the 2020 election — involve his presidential authorities and his efforts to manipulate the federal processes he was charged with overseeing. That makes removal a more viable option in Georgia than New York.