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Trump has been indicted (again), this time in Georgia, under RICO charges. The charges against him and a large number of co-conspirators relate to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Full indictment here.
We've seen a range of charges laid against Trump in varying jurisdictions, and I think it's fair to say the cases have varying strength. These new charges seem to me to be on the strong end of the spectrum.
Helpfully, the indictment is painfully clear at every point as to what particular acts constitute which particular crimes or elements of crimes. This makes it a lot easier to assess for an uneducated layman like me. On at least some of the charges, it would appear that he's deeply screwed. E.g. "Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer" seems to be open and shut, and carries a minimum 1 year sentence. He also has no capacity to pardon himself if he is elected President, as these are not federal charges.
As far as I can tell Trump's only hope to escape conviction here is jury nullification.
Are you joking or something? There's no way I'm reading a ~100 page indictment, but if that is your idea of a strong charge then the rest of it is probably not worth reading anyways.
Have you listened to the Raffensberger call? It's extremely clear (to me) that Trump is claiming that there are many fraudulent ballots in Georgia (he goes on and on about it, and why he thinks so) -- then asks the people on the call to try to locate some of them. It's right there in the first few minutes.
It may be less clear to you for whatever reasons, but surely this is at least a plausible interpretation of what Trump is trying to say -- and if this were the case, he is definitely not asking anyone to violate their oath. Finding such votes would be required by their oath, surely?
I'm aware that the media has widely reported that Trump was asking R. to fabricate some votes so he could win (probably significantly poisoning the jury pool in the process) but presumably the court will hear the actual call rather than reading Washington Post clippings -- and if you think this interpretation is open-shut I really don't know what to say.
While I don’t know that the “oath of office” stuff holds up, I did listen to the Raffensperger call back in the day. Commentary here. For anyone else who wants to read the transcript, it’s here.
Trump was making his preferred outcome very clear. If there was fraud, the President of the United States would be happy. If there wasn’t, he would be unhappy, and some people might face criminal charges.
You can see how this is truth-agnostic. Trump may well have believed it. But he would say the same things whether or not he did. More importantly, he was suggesting what Raffensperger should report, whether or not he did.
Again, I’m not sure that this rises to the intent standard used by OCGA 16-4-7. It is plausibly deniable. I just don’t know how one can read that transcript and come away thinking the guy wanted the truth. He wanted to win.
And I don't know how one can read it and come away with the idea that he didn't think there'd been massive fraud -- at least 90% of the call is him railing on about various instances of fraudulent balloting he claims his team had uncovered, and pushing the Georgia officials for data that they were holding back so that he could prove more that he was sure existed but couldn't prove. I'm not sure what evidence you are using to claim that he would have made these claims regardless -- it seems unfalsifiable. New Hampshire and Maine had similar percent margins (and fewer absolute votes) for Biden as compared to Wisconsin -- why didn't Trump try to flip those states too, if he was making allegations unrelated to whatever evidence of fraud that he thought he had?
Anyways my point is that I don't see how anyone can think that this is open-and-shut in anything but Trump's favour -- we are now talking about serious criminal indictments, and this tape surely raises at least a reasonable doubt in terms of mens rea? He lays out all kinds of specific stuff that he (claims to) believe to be true evidence of fraud.
If anything, the Raffensberger call seems like decent evidence for the defense on the Smith (I think? I may be confused now that there are so many) indictment -- it's hard to listen to the guy and believe that he is lying about his beliefs as to whether there was fraud in Georgia (and elsewhere, bleeding into the call). He sounds quite emotional at times.
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