As you know last month Fulton County DA Fani Willis obtained indictments of Trump and eighteen others – a total of 19 folks to be tried on Georgia RICO charges. Frankly, there was a lot of (including from me) “what the hell is taking so long?” and I think we have part of the answer. She knew some might try to take advantage of Georgia’s Speedy Trial law and if she wasn’t fully ready to go their cases would be dismissed. It turns out she was in fact ready and called their bluff. In fact she wants ALL of the co-defendants in court for trial late next month. But that’s something I won’t get into here.
Part of why all this took so long is that for reasons I still don’t quite get (each state’s laws are different) there was a Special Grand Jury that had been convened to hear evidence regarding Georgia laws that were broken in relation to the 2020 election. The problem was that a Special Grand Jury can make recommendations but not hand down actual indictments. Weird, at least to me. But they did in fact make recommendations as we shall see. I’ll get to that in a minute. The main thing is that Willis had to convene another grand jury, this time one that could actually indict people if they believed the evidence warranted it. So she had to present all her evidence and witnesses to this grand jury with actual power to indict. Weird? More like insane but that’s how things had to go.
Here’s the kicker. Back in January Willis asked the judge to seal up the record of the Special Grand Jury’s work and much of it remained under wraps. Much was made of her telling the judge that indictments would be “imminent” and I’m among those who’s only criticism of Willis is that she seems to have a very different interpretation than most of the word “imminent.” Whatever. The point is that today the “good stuff” was unsealed and it turns out the Special Grand Jury recommended indictments/charges again THIRTY-NINE individuals. Wow. You of course see where I’m going with this.
Only 19 people (including Trump) were indicted last month! So, one has to ask why?
Reuters had a nice write up of things in an article earlier today. It’s certainly a fascinating thing to ponder, that less than half of those the Special Grand Jury would have indicted if they’d had the power to do so actually wound up being indicted by Willis last month. Now, to be fair something like a dozen of the fake electors decided to cooperate. That knocks the number down to 27. And let’s face it, most of the fake electors were just orange Kool-Aide drinking idiots who didn’t organize or drive that part of the scheme, they just said “sure” when asked to join in. Stupid, and criminal too but small fry and in any criminal gang the kind of small fish that help nab the bigger fish so they get a break. It’s just how things work.
Still, that leaves us with some pretty significant people the Special Grand Jury said should face charges but weren’t indicted. From the article:
The special grand jury recommended charges against Graham as well as Georgia’s two U.S. senators at the time, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the report said. Like Trump, all are Republicans.
To be clear, “Graham” refers to sitting U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham of SC. The article went on to note:
The panel also recommended charges against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, adviser Boris Epshteyn and lawyers Lin Wood and Cleta Mitchell, the report showed.
Now we can talk forever about how politics shouldn’t have any bearing on all this and that should be the case, but unlike MAGAs we live in the real world and charging a sitting U.S. Senator would complicate the hell out of what already is, as any RICO case (state or federal) is even before trial. I’m still of the belief that within a couple of weeks a half dozen or more of Trump’s co-defendants will plead guilty and either throw themselves on the mercy of the court or become cooperating witnesses. Or both.
However even with Chesebro and Powell on track to have their trials start next month (and John Eastman too?) Willis was still looking at a crowded defense table. One with lots of defendants who didn’t have Trump paid for lawyers who would damn well fight for their respective clients instead of “take what’s coming.” Which in this case would mean get convicted and hopefully stay out of jail for a while. And hope that despite the problems in their state with getting a pardon or commuted sentence it would somehow work out. If not, and they had a Trump paid lawyer they’d be screwed of course but it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who didn’t know damn well Trump would throw them under the bus in a heartbeat.
Anyway, as a sitting U.S. Senator Graham being part of all this, even with a rock solid case against him would drag things out and that’s the last thing Willis or any of us want. So it sucks, but (for now at least) he gets a pass. Even though they’re now former Senators Perdue and Loeffler get passes too for reasons similar to Graham’s. Plus, both are filthy rich and THEIR lawyers could throw all the sand along the coast of Georgia into the gears.
Mike Flynn? At first glance I thought maybe, if only to cover his son’s butt he might cooperate at least to a degree. However I saw a blurb earlier today where he fired a broadside at Willis and the Georgia RICO case so that’s out. Lin Wood? His being mentally competent to even stand trial is in question so again that would drag things out. Take care of him in some other way. Esphteyn and Mitchell? I don’t know. One would think if the Special Grand Jury found enough evidence to recommend indictments against any of these people Willis would have had the goods to include them in the broad parameters of the Georgia RICO law.
Still, I’ve got a lot of questions tonight. I get that Willis wants to get a case to trial and do so well before the conventions. I also have a sense that she’s made damn sure she has everyone indicted stone-cold dead-to-rights, and that maybe things were a bit more dicey with the others. It might be a long, long time before we know. Still, I can’t help but wonder at why at least some of the big names I’ve mentioned aren’t part of the Georgia case.
Once she’s got convictions on the first nineteen, doesn’t it make it easier to chase down the rest for something already proven in a court of law?
Like Glenn Kirschner and Brian Tyler Cohen have speculated on their podcast, some of the other might be cooperating witnesses, some might have less strong evidence, and some might just be next on the list.
We won’t know until we get there.
Well, Perdue and Loeffler, at least, were Georgia politicians, elected by the people of Georgia, so their roles had *some* possible allowance for “interfering” (though once all the recounts and audits were done, they should’ve accepted the outcome and moved on) but there exists absolutely ZERO reason for South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham to have gotten involved in the case. Absolutely NONE of his constituents were affected by the outcome (at least, no more so than the people of California or New York had in questioning Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016–their preferred candidate lost under very questionable circumstances and by very narrow margins in several states–but the senators from those states didn’t place calls to political officials in those states demanding they recount and recount and “find” votes to change the outcome*). I will guarantee you that if a sitting Democratic President had lost a usually reliable “blue” state with a Democratic governor and Dem-led legislature (e.g. Illinois) by 12,000 votes and a Democratic senator from Massachusetts called the Governor and the state’s election officials to “find” the necessary votes to change the election results, you just know that Graham would be leading the charge to have that senator charged with election interference and tampering (and possibly having the senator formally sanctioned by the Senate). But, of course, for Republicans there are two sets of rules: Rules that Republicans “should” follow; and rules that everyone else “must” follow.
*I’ll admit that scenario probably wasn’t the best since the leaders of the states that had those incredibly close results were led by GOPers and they’d have just laughed at the very idea that they should do anything to change the election result–even the mere suggestion of holding a state-funded recount.
Hypocrisy, thy name is republican.
Fani Willis did not indict Lindsey Graham – nor did she intend to indict him – because he made a couple of phone calls. The problem is what the court accepts as evidence and what people think is evidence.
There is no recording of Graham’s phone calls so what he said is hearsay. That’s one problem. The second problem is inference versus substantive evidence. People are inferring what Graham’s intentions were just from the fact of his making the calls. But inference is not substantive evidence. The court does not accept inference no matter how strongly you feel about it.
Fani Willis included overt acts and predicate acts in the indictment. Phone calls are, for the most part, overt acts and these are not, in themselves, evidence of crimes. They may, however, contribute to predicate acts which are illegal actions that then contribute to the central criminality.
But overt acts alone are not crimes. Lindsey Graham’s actions in making the phone calls were just overt acts. Moreover, he did not go on to commit any predicate acts. To be indicted under RICO, co-conspirators must commit at least one predicate act.
See the explainer with graphic in https://politizoom.com/tracking-gop-trials-update-3-aug-31/
Never sacrifice the good in pursuit of the perfect! Hey, if Trump goes to state prison at the end of this trail, realistically, would any of us complain about these other arseholes skating? Not me. When the head gets lopped off, the rest will slink back into oblivion. Maybe the ‘senators’ who’ve betrayed their oaths to the constitution, get sent packing once the evidence is broadcast over the airwaves day after day.
Why flynn, a retired military officer, was not indicted is a mystery to me. It isn’t as if he did not know better and he participated in this whole Big Lie bullshit as much as any other-I’m guessing his fingers were deep in the RICO crimes committed in GA. Of course, I’m still trying to figure out why he isn’t in Leavenworth and why he still has his retirement bennies after all the treason he’s committed.
Mike Flynn should be court-martialed – maybe that’s what they’re expecting. I’d like to know why he hasn’t been court-martialed already.
Lindsey Graham is not going to be indicted by Fani Willis or Jack Smith. You may not like what he says or does but none of it is substantive evidence of crime.
However, there are at least 31 members of Congress – House and Senate – who are in it up to their red necks and I bet Jack Smith has plenty of evidence to prove it in court.