President Trump, in a Sweeping Indictment in Georgia, Is Charged as a Racketeer and Boss of a ‘Criminal Enterprise’

The indictment of President Trump and 18 others in Georgia for concocting a “criminal enterprise” intended to overturn the results of the 2020 election — they are accused of being racketeers — is the last legal shoe to drop, and it’s as big a boot as can be imagined. The indictment, handed up by a grand jury at Fulton County, will be prosecuted by District Attorney Fani Willis. In its multitude of defendants and roster of charges — 41, all told — it exceeds in scope and severity the indictments drafted by Special Counsel Jack Smith and District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In comments late Monday night, Ms. Willis stressed the scale of the 97-page indictment, as well as the fact that those accused should be presumed innocent.She set a deadline for Mr. Trump and the other defendants to “surrender” by Friday, August 25, at noon, and said she envisioned beginning the trial within six months. The judge in the case, though, she told a reporter, would set the schedule. Ms. Willis said that she intended to try the 19 accused plotters in one trial together.Mr. Trump faces 13 criminal charges, which comprise, among other crimes, conspiracy, the making of false statements, solicitation of violation of oath, and the filing of false documents. A preview of the true bill was offered on Monday afternoon, when a document prematurely appeared on Mr. Trump’s docket. In addition to those 19 defendants, Ms. Willis alludes to 30 unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators. In going big, Ms. Willis, the last prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, has put herself at the van of those seeking to hold him to account for efforts to undo President Biden’s victory in the last election. While Mr. Smith’s cases exhibit a more circumscribed focus, her indictment makes defendants out of Mayor Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and a bevy of lawyers and advisers. These include among others, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Kenneth Chesebro. The defendants all face a racketeering charge, in addition to their own dockets. Messrs. Trump and Giuliani face the most charges, suggesting that Ms. Willis sees them as the alleged conspiracy’s leaders.It is a stunning reversal for the former mayor, who as a New York prosecutor pioneered the use of racketeering charges against organized crime. He was much criticized for that at the time, but defeated at the Supreme Court a challenge to his use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Its use was subsequently curbed as a matter of policy by the Justice Department. Ms. Willis has brought charges under a state RICO law.Across those 41 criminal counts, Ms. Willis accuses this host of “knowingly and willfully’ joining a “conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.” All of them were charged under Georgia’s racketeering statute. The prosecutor alleges that the defendants formed a “criminal organization” that exhibited a “common plan and purpose,” manifested across 162 discrete criminal acts.Ms. Willis, in alleging both a raft of crimes and a “cover up,” used her state’s RICO statute to accuse of criminality everyone from the 45th president to state election officials in rural precincts of the Peach Tree State. At a news conference after the indictment was handed up, Ms. Willis explained that “the law is completely nonpartisan.”To secure convictions under that law, Ms. Willis will be required to show a “pattern of racketeering activity.” In Georgia, that can include an “attempt” at a crime, or a “solicitation” of one. She will have to persuade a jury that the defendants pursued a common purpose — keeping Mr. Trump in office — and that each of them took the steps to make that aspiration a reality.One of those steps, Ms. Willis alleges, occurred when “members of the enterprise stole data, including ballot images, voting equipment software, and personal voter information.” They then, she asserts, distributed that information to “other members of the enterprise, including members in other states.” Unlike Mr. Smith’s indictments, Ms. Willis’s is rooted entirely in state law, meaning that Mr. Trump will not be able to pardon himself of any convictions it produces. She traces the beginning of the alleged conspiracy to an Election Day speech by Mr. Trump where he “falsely declared victory.”

President Trump, in a Sweeping Indictment in Georgia, Is Charged as a Racketeer and Boss of a ‘Criminal Enterprise’

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