Donald Trump and Rapper ‘Young Thug,’ Both Pursued by Fani Willis, Face Epic, Months-Long Trials at Atlanta

For President Trump to beat the election rap against him, he would do well to study the unfolding fate of one of America’s premier rappers, Jeffery Williams, known as Young Thug. The 45th president and the Atlanta songster are both facing racketeering charges brought by the office of the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis. In that capacity, they are accused of heading criminal enterprises and conspiring against Georgia’s laws. Ahead could lie the White House, the trap house, and the big house.Just as Mr. Trump was once vested with the entire executive power of America, Young Thug was the leader of Young Stoner Life Records, known as YSL. Ms. Willis contends he was also the leader of Young Slime Life, a “criminal street gang.” Mr. Williams claims that he is no gang leader but a man of faith and that “Thug” stands for “Truly Humble Under God.” Ms. Willis makes the same racketeering accusation — if not the accompanying murder, robbery, and assault charges — with respect to Mr. Trump and his camarilla. That second group has been charged with overlapping conspiracies, all aimed at keeping Mr. Trump at the White House for a second term. Both Mr. Trump and Young Thug have reached for the First Amendment in efforts to ward off Ms. Willis’s prosecution. Mr. Trump, here and in the federal case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, claims that his efforts to overturn the election amounted to political speech. The rapper has objected to the use of his violence-tinged lyrics as evidence of criminal intent, with his attorneys arguing that he is merely a “studio gangster,” not a real one. A district court, though, ruled that Ms. Willis may marshal the lyrics “provisionally” on an individual basis, if she can make the case that they meet the evidentiary bar. More than 20 of YSL’s alleged members have pleaded guilty, as have four of Mr. Trump’s fellow defendants. Young Thug, along with five other defendants, began his trial last week. It is expected to last six months to a year, after an interval of jury selection that stretched for months. Prior to that, Mr. Williams, who is worth tens of millions of dollars, spent 560 days in the Fulton County Jail, which Mr. Trump and his co-defendants avoided by posting bond. Mr. Trump’s trial has not yet been set, though Ms. Willis indicates that it could run past the 2024 presidential election. The size of racketeering trials makes them slow beasts. Ms. Willis notoriously used her state’s racketeering statute in 2014 to prosecute a group of Atlanta teachers accused of cheating by changing students’ answers on standardized tests. The trial, which lasted eight months, was the longest in Georgia’s history.In respect of Mr. Trump, that timeline could yield a date at the Supreme Court. The former president’s attorneys are now arguing that if Mr. Trump wins the election, he cannot be expected to stand trial at Atlanta. The case, they argue, must be postponed so that Mr. Trump is able to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as required by the Constitution. Trial, they say, would block that function.Mr. Trump’s attorney, Steven Sadow, takes the position that if his client secures the Republican nomination for which he is the odds-on favorite, Ms. Willis’s trial will have to wait until 2029. In court, he asked, “can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is in some form or fashion in a courtroom defending himself?” Trying the potential Republican nominee for president would be the “most effective election interference in the history of the United States,” Mr. Sadow told Judge McAfee. If Mr. Trump retakes the White House, there would be the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause over which to worry. That passage ordains that federal law, ratified treaties, and the Constitution itself “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.”It appears likely that Mr. Sadow and his team will argue that a trial on state charges would amount to an infringement on the national parchment itself. A version of this argument has been mounted by Mr. Trump’s erstwhile chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in his effort to have his case moved to federal court from a state one. Judge McAfee rebuffed that effort, but it is before appeal.

Donald Trump and Rapper ‘Young Thug,’ Both Pursued by Fani Willis, Face Epic, Months-Long Trials at Atlanta

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