Donald Trump has been indicted a fourth time. On this occasion, for his alleged felonious activities during the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia. Trump faces four trials and nearly 100 charges heading into the 2024 election. It’s insanity—and more Americans are beginning to see these indictments as political hit jobs than prosecutors upholding the rule of law.
The Georgia indictment is the second-most bizarre legal chapter in the Trump saga. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 indictment is aberrant because it seeks to put the former president on trial over his state of mind and whether that played a role in the event. It’s a total attack on free speech. The Peach State legal brouhaha here literally has a charge that Trump told his supporters to watch One America News.
Law professor Jonathan Turley, who has sustained a full-court press on this pandemonium, highlighted the dangers within the Georgia indictment. It’s to provide a chilling effect on any recount ventures in future elections. Moreover, he aptly described this indictment as one where a prosecutor charged the former president with everything under the sun, letting a higher power sort it out. He also brought a level-headed breakdown on the call Democrats have used as “smoking gun” evidence that Trump was trying to defraud state electors [emphasis mine]:
The scope of the alleged conspiracy is massive. Indeed, every call, speech, and tweet appears a criminal step in the conspiracy. District Attorney Fani Willis appears to have elected to charge everything and everyone and let God sort them out. https://t.co/T7RzCJbljR
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 15, 2023
As expected, the indictment is a sweeping racketeering based prosecution involving former president Donald Trump and the 18 other defendants. The scope of the alleged conspiracy is massive. “The call” is one of those steps but the famous line that has occupied hours of coverage (and led to the investigation) is not the central allegation. Indeed, every call, speech, and tweet appears a criminal step in the conspiracy. District Attorney Fani Willis appears to have elected to charge everything and everyone and let God sort them out.
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As with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, many view Willis as a Democratic prosecutor pursuing the highly unpopular former president. However, given the three grand juries and the three years that have passed, Willis may have found new evidence or witnesses that could tie Trump to criminal conduct in seeking to challenge the results in the election.
Thus far, the focus has been on the controversial call that Trump had with Georgia officials — a call widely cited as indisputable evidence of an effort at voting fraud. Yet, the call was similar to a settlement discussion, as state officials and the Trump team hashed out their differences and a Trump demand for a statewide recount. Trump had lost the state by less than 12,000 votes. That might be what he meant when he stated, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
While others have portrayed the statement as a raw call for fabricating the votes, it seems more likely that Trump was swatting back claims that there was no value to a statewide recount by pointing out that he wouldn’t have to find a statistically high number of votes to change the outcome of the election. It is telling that many politicians and pundits refuse to even acknowledge that obvious alternate meaning.
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I could not understand how many experts were declaring that there was no evidence of voting irregularities a day after the election, before any data were available. However, I also said that the Trump campaign had failed to supply such evidence in critical court filings. I also publicly disagreed with Trump’s fraud claims.
It is important for campaigns to seek judicial review of election challenges without fear of prosecution. Some Democratic lawyers after 2020 made their own controversial (and unsuccessful) allegations of machines flipping or altering election outcomes. No one suggested that they should be criminally charged or disbarred.
The pile-on of prosecutions could create a chilling effect for campaigns in seeking recounts and reviews in close elections. That does not mean that there may not be evidence of knowing fraud or criminal wrongdoing. However, another anemic filing like the one in New York will only fuel the deep political divisions and unrest in the country. It needs to be clearly based on a desire for justice, rather than “just deserts.”
That latter part is true. Let’s say Trump wins the 2024 election; he can’t pardon himself on state convictions. It’s why no matter how absurd this courtroom drama becomes over the following months, the possibility of Trump being convicted is real. It may not happen immediately, but I doubt he’ll escape every charge in these four indictments, given the forces against him. Democrats get to jail Trump, warns Republicans what will happen if they try to pursue a recount in elections, and create an environment that could produce another January 6-like event. It will give the Left the basis to engage in more anti-democratic and authoritarian measures to lock up conservatives.
