Georgia Grand Jury Hands Up Indictment of Trump After Day of Courthouse Confusion

Updated at 9:25 P.M. E.D.T.President Trump has been indicted by a grand jury at Fulton County, Georgia, press reports said late Monday. The indictment followed a day of courthouse confusion in which a document briefly appeared on the Fulton County court website on Monday, indicating that Mr. Trump will be charged with 13 felonies and underscoring the Georgia-based threat to the former president’s liberty. Moreover, the arraignment, when it comes, will likely be televised, as the judge overseeing the case, Robert McBurney, indicated that he is inclined to allow cameras. In 2018, the Georgia supreme court ruled that “it is the policy of Georgia’s courts to promote access to and understanding of court proceedings” by the “general public and by news media.”The alleged crimes ascribed to Mr. Trump in the prematurely posted document include violations of state racketeering charges, solicitation of oath by a public officer, impersonation of a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery, and filing of false documents. Just minutes after the document emerged onto Mr. Trump’s docket, it faded into the ether. The office of the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, called reports of the charges, first discovered by Reuters, “inaccurate.” While the document posted online named only “Donald John Trump,” CNN reports that the 45th president will be joined by at least 11 more — the network reckons at least a dozen — defendants, which suggests a sprawling rather than a surgical approach. The disclosure, even if premature — the document was labeled “open” — is only the latest example of sloppiness, incompetence, or lack of seriousness in Ms. Willis’s handling of the case. An earlier indication was a report that one witness was sworn in while the court officer was eating a Ninja Turtle purple popsicle. The forewoman of an earlier grand jury went on a publicity tour.The indictment, or draft indictment, accidentally published does offer a glimpse of a serious matter — how Ms. Willis and Special Counsel Jack Smith are pursuing different strategies with respect to essentially the same crime of pursuing efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.This link between the two prosecutions is emerging even as Ms. Willis allowed on an Atlanta radio station, “I don’t know what Jack Smith is doing and Jack Smith doesn’t know what I’m doing. In all honesty, if Jack Smith was standing next to me, I’m not sure I would know who he was. My guess is he probably can’t pronounce my name correctly.” It’s pronounced Fah-nee.Pronunciation aside, the co-existence of the two investigations is possible because of the independent sovereignty of federal and state governments. When charges are handed up by those two separate sovereignties, the Fifth’s Amendment’s ban on double jeopardy does not take effect — at least not according to most justices. Exceptions include Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Neil Gorsuch, who dissented on this head in a gun case, Gamble v. U.S. Mr. Trump, though, could face two penalties for the same act, and the challenges for Mr. Smith and Ms. Willis could turn on practicalities more than parchment. Two unnamed co-conspirators in Mr. Smith’s case — reportedly Mayor Giuliani and an attorney, John Eastman — have been treated as criminal suspects in Ms. Willis’s inquiry. When considering cooperation, these witnesses, and others under similar scrutiny, are likely to be alert to the issue of legal immunity. The double jeopardy could increase the incentive for some witnesses being eyed by both prosecutors to invoke the Fifth Amendment’s protection against being compelled to be a witness against themselves.Ms. Willis’s mulling over an indictment that would sweep in a dozen defendants throws into sharp relief Mr. Smith’s divergent strategic choices. Across both the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations, he has opted for a scalpel rather than a scythe.Both probes potentially involve conspiracy charges, but Mr. Smith’s resemble something like stripped-down versions — just two co-conspirators in the documents probe, and only the unnamed half dozen in respect of January 6.The same “skinny” approach appears to hold to Mr. Smith’s approach to charging. Of the hundreds of documents found at Mar-a-Lago, he filed charges in respect of only 32 of them. When it comes to the events of January 6, 2021, the former prosecutor eschewed charges of seditious conspiracy and incitement to insurrection, on the latter of which Mr. Trump has already been discovered — via an impeachment trial in the Senate — to be not guiltyEven before Monday’s disclosure, Ms. Willis’s office was well known for deploying Georgia’s version of racketeering statutes. At a press conference last summer, the loquacious lawwoman tipped her hand in this case, and others, by noting that she is a “fan of RICO” — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. She called it a “tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.” Now, it appears she is set to move on that charge.The law, though, is highly controversial for use in white collar cases, as distinct from mafia-type organized crime. The United States Department of Justice as a matter of policy has curbed the use of RICO. That was after controversies over its use by — wait for it — the U.S. prosecutor in New York, Mr. Guiliani, who could yet figure in a RICO case in Georgia.While Ms. Willis’s story awaits telling, it appears likely to share plot points with the tale told by Mr. Smith’s indictment. That true bill included Mr. Trump’s order to the Georgia secretary of state, Bradley Raffensperger, to “find” him sufficient votes to beat President Biden, as well as the scheme to furnish alternative electors pledged to Mr. Trump rather than Mr. Biden. Messrs. Giuliani and Eastman were allegedly involved in that plan. Ms. Willis, though, could have her eyes on a criminal charge all her own. CNN reports that the prosecutor has uncovered evidence linking Mr. Trump’s campaign to a voting system breach at Coffee County, in Georgia’s southeast. Mr. Trump won 70 percent of the district’s vote, but allegedly received a “written invitation” from election officials to access the voting rolls.

Georgia Grand Jury Hands Up Indictment of Trump After Day of Courthouse Confusion

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