The Rogues' Gallery of Criminals who tried to keep Trump in power
The beauty of the Georgia RICO ('Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization') law is that none of the imps indicted (18, not counting Trump) has a parachute out of at least a 5-year prison sentence if convicted. As CBS legal analyst Rikki Kleiman noted yesterday morning, they each now face extreme sanction (up to 20 years) and there is no pardoning any of them even if Trump would somehow sneak into the White House again. Hell, as she noted, the turd can't even pardon himself. We also learned Tuesday night RICO is traditionally used to prosecute organized crime i.e. the syndicate or Mafia. But for all intents Trump and his collaborators are an organized crime bunch, an enterprise, a "syndicate".
Former Fulton County prosecutor Tanya Miller was blunt last night (All In) describing the scope of the Georgia RICO statute, noting: "This is like a freight train for the prosecution going through the court room" adding:
"The enterprise doesn't even have to be organized in the traditional sense. It merely has to show all these people cooperated in the furtherance of a common criminal purpose - whether by fraud, perjury, forgery or other interference to keep Donald Trump in power by stealing Georgia's sixteen electoral votes."
Certainly they worked toward that end in terrorizing Fulton County election volunteer Ruby Freeman with the objective to overturn the Goergia election results with Dotard's blatant "I just need to find 11,780 votes' criminal admission request. Hell, this isn't rocket science or differential geometry. The maggot openly said it on tape, and so is as evidentiary as Nixon's admissions in his Watergate tapes. In many respects, as the LA Times lead story yesterday put it: "This is the most aggressive prosecutorial response to this sordid chapter of our nation's history."
A sordid chapter, I might add, to which we cannot allow ourselves to become numb, desensitized. Our constitutional republic is at stake so this is no time to zone out, hit the snooze (or valium) button. It's time to pay attention and not get snookered by Trump's lies or those of his assorted yapping, spinning pawns and ass lickers.
The other aspect of Fani Willis' case is the low threshold to put these rogues away. Basically, as Rikki Kleiman also noted, only two of the 41 charges need to be proven and it's 'Hasta la vista, maggot'. In addition, the Georgia RICO law - under the capacious structure of the statue- permitted Willis to pack a Georgia indictment with much of Trump and company’s nationwide scheme to steal the election, which extended to five other states. So whatever happened in those states, whether tampering with election computers and data, or using the fraudulent electors, became grist for the Georgia prosecution.
While some ninnies in the media have gone histrionic, fretting that the indictments are "excessive", Rikki Kleiman wasn't buying it. She said she's tried such RICO cases (but with 12 defendants) before and it's always possible to shape the narrative into smaller bites or chapters and get efficient outcomes.
Trump himself faces 13 total charges, alleging a
criminal racketeering scheme in which he pressured public officers and
conspired to commit forgery, create false statements and file false documents. I mean it's all there in writing and on tape. Trying to plead that he was just following his lawyers' advice simply won't cut it.
The motley crew of other co-defendants and their charges reads as follows:
Rudy Giuliani: 13 counts:
This brash cockroach was the chief architect of efforts to overturn the 2020
election in swing states. He served as a high-profile surrogate for Trump after
the election and personally argued a case on Trump’s behalf in Pennsylvania
court.
John Eastman: 9 counts:
A former constitutional law professor, if you can believe it, Eastman
promoted the notion that then Vice President Mike Pence could singlehandedly
reject the electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021. He also asserted without evidence
that President Biden won in Georgia because 66,000 underage people and
thousands of felons voted illegally there. This twisted also unsuccessfully advanced the fringe
“independent state legislature” theory to lobby state legislators in swing
states to appoint alternate, pro-Trump slates of electors. The State Bar of
California is seeking to revoke Eastman’s license.
Sidney Powell: 7 counts:
Powell, a confirmed kook (even Tucker Carlson called her that) babbled on FOX repeatedly the satellites" controlled by Venezuela" were manipulating voting machines to secure votes for Biden. This former Trump "legal adviser" helped direct efforts in Georgia to investigate election results that prosecutors assert amounted to a security breach in Coffee County, in rural southeastern Georgia. She was briefly named as part of Trump’s legal team soon after Election Day and quickly became the public face of efforts to cast doubts on the results.
Jenna Ellis: 2 counts:
Ellis, a Colorado religious freak, I'd written about earlier e.g.
was the youngest member of Trump’s legal team. The 36-year-old identifies as a constitutional law specialist and appeared regularly on cable news to promulgate allegations of voter irregularities. Ellis was censured by legal officials in Colorado and acknowledged making 10 “misrepresentations” on television, including that 500,000 votes in Arizona had been cast illegally.
Jeffrey Clark: 2 counts:
Clark, a former Justice Department roach during the Trump presidency, proposed sending a letter to officials in swing states asking them to send slates of phony Trump-supporting electors. Former DOJ officials testified to this at a hearing held by the House Select Committee that was investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A former environmental lawyer, Clark had vowed to use the DOJ’s power to help Trump pressure state officials and open election investigations if Trump removed the then acting attorney general and nominated Clark to lead the Department of Justice instead. The plan failed when DOJ officials threatened to resign en masse.
Trevian Kutti: 3 counts
Trevian Kutti defines the roach-like sewer of the Trump gang who sought to steal Georgia's 16 electoral votes for the orange Traitor. She is the former publicist for child predator R. Kelly and an associate of Hitler fan Kanye West. She is under scrutiny for her role in trying to pressure volunteer election worker Ruby Freeman to falsely confess to election fraud. According to court filings, Kutti told Freeman in a Jan. 4, 2021, meeting that “an armed squad” of federal officers would approach Freeman and her family within 48 hours and lock her up if she didn't cooperate. But Kutti was there to "help … in order to defend yourself and your family.” Kutti, caught on police body cam video, warned Freeman that she was “a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up”. If she refused Kutti’s help then her “freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members”. Though a lower profile maggot than Eastman, Ellis or Giulani, this creep likely fueled much of the energy for Fani Willis to drive her indictments based on the Georgia RICO law.
Other reprobates:
Mark Meadows: 2 counts
Meadows is a former North Carolina congressman
and the White House chief of staff. Testimony during the House Jan. 6 panel’s
hearings indicated Meadows had some knowledge of the potential for violence
before the Capitol insurrection, having been informed of the crowd outside
possessing weapons. His text messages, turned over to the J6 panel, contained
details of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. As well as inciting the insurrection. Now, Meadows is trying to worm his way out of his Fulton County arraignment to get a change of venue, and it may succeed. Loopholes exist in the GA statute for a federal indictee to move a state venue to a federal court. (Which would be just down the street.) But never mind, there is still no wiggle room for Meadows to escape with a pardon, given state laws (in this case the RICO law) will still hold. Meaning no pardons.
Kenneth Chesebro: 7 counts
Chesebro, an attorney and Trump campaign
adviser, was the original architect of the fake elector plan. His memo to GOP
party officials in his home state of Wisconsin on Nov. 18, 2020, is the
earliest known proposal to nominate fake electors, which he then worked to
replicate nationwide with Giuliani and others. Republicans from seven Biden-won
states eventually met on Dec. 14, 2020, to cast fake electoral votes for Trump,
which Trump allies then attempted to deliver to Capitol Hill. Chesebro has been
the subject of a complaint to the New York Bar and a subpoena by a Georgia
grand jury related to his efforts.
Ray Stallings Smith: 12 counts
An Atlanta-area attorney, Smith filed an
unsuccessful lawsuit challenging Biden’s Georgia victory. He was later the
subject of a complaint from a legal watchdog group to the state bar seeking
disciplinary measures.
Robert David Cheeley: 10 counts
A personal injury lawyer, Cheeley presented
Georgia state senators with video clips that he claimed showed election workers
at a downtown Atlanta precinct double- and triple-counting votes.
Mike Roman: 7 counts
Roman served as the director of Election Day operations
for Trump’s 2020 campaign. Communications that surfaced during the Jan. 6,
2021 House panel’s probe show Roman worked with other Trump operatives to
create slates of fake Trump electors in seven states, including Georgia.
KEY NUMBERS:
19
The number of people charged,
including Trump. Each is accused of racketeering and at least one related
crime.
41
The number of individual counts in the indictment, many of
which involve multiple people.
13
The number of counts faced by both Trump and Giuliani, tied
for the most of any defendant.
5 of 6
The number of unnamed individuals identified as unindicted co-conspirators in
special counsel Jack Smith’s previous indictment of Trump who are now charged
in Georgia: Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jeffrey
Clark. (The identity of the sixth unindicted co-conspirator in Smith’s case has
not been confirmed )
30
The number of unindicted and unnamed alleged
co-conspirators in the Georgia indictment. As occurred after Smith presented
his indictment, efforts to identify the co-conspirators and glean who might
have cooperated in the investigation began almost immediately Monday night.
See Also:
by Robert Reich | August 15, 2023 - 7:22am | permalink
And:
by Amanda Marcotte | August 18, 2023 - 6:18am | permalink
— from Salon
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wrapped up her case early and with a bang on Monday night, securing indictments against Donald Trump and 18 other people for conspiring to steal Georgia's electoral votes for the 2020 election. "Sprawling" is the favorite adjective applied to her case, which uses the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Such laws were originally written to deal with the Mafia and other organized crime syndicates, and typically allow prosecutors "to pull an array of conduct" into their charges, Devan Cole at CNN explains, by painting a picture of a criminal conspiracy for a jury. It allows prosecutors to take down a mob boss, for instance, instead of just the guys who follow orders.
And:
And:
And:
by David Badash | August 15, 2023 - 7:08am | permalink
— from The New Civil Rights Movement
Excerpt:
A 41-felony count 98-page indictment that names Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell, and eleven others was handed up by a Georgia grand jury and unsealed Monday night. There are a total of 19 named defendants.
The indictment effectively alleges Donald Trump sat atop a criminal organization that included his chief of staff and several of his attorneys who engaged in racketeering in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to a summary reported by MSNBC.
And:
by Bill Blum | August 17, 2023 - 7:15am | permalink
No comments:
Post a Comment