Prosecuting Trump's Criminal Conspiracy
Ten observations on the just-released fourth indictment of Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in Georgia
Democracy depends on leaders who participate in elections and accept that the one who wins will take power. Long before the 2020 election, Donald Trump made clear he would not promise to accept its outcome.
Monday night a Georgia grand jury handed down a 41-count, 98-page indictment, addressing the aggressive refusal of Trump to accept the people’s will and engage in a criminal conspiracy with 18 co-defendants to pursue fraudulent, illegal means to keep power. As charged, their actions amount to a criminal organization and justify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ pursuit of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) case.
The indictment makes clear Trump was no lone wolf: He was the boss of a multi-headed monster pursuing a coup. The actions of this rogues’ gallery—Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Mark Meadows, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and so many more—represent not only flagrant violations of law, but ugly attacks on a most fundamental principle of elective democracy.
In the coming months, we all will be exploring the intricacies and permutations of Georgia’s RICO statute and learn how many of these defendants will choose to accept or fight the indictment’s assertions—many of whom will risk conviction and a mandatory minimum jail sentence of five years. (Rudy Giuliani, facing 13 charges, the same number as Trump, is already calling the prosecutors of this case “the real criminals.”)
For now, let me say this indictment feels different because of its focus on conspiracy—a more truthful expression of the transgressive, wide-ranging conduct of an ex-president who successfully ensnared and exploited willing accomplices to overturn a legitimate election and stay in office. We are in this fix because of the cancerous capacity of both high-profile figures like Giuliani, Powell, Eastman and Meadows, as well as an anti-American gaggle of minor figures arrogantly ready to usher in democracy’s demise.
What follows are 10 observations about this criminal organization which, according to the indictment, committed offenses such as “false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury.” All intended to help keep Trump in office.
The loyalty of thieves: We can be sure that some subsection of these 18 co-defendants will decide it’s in their interest to tell the truth, even if it means adding to the case against Trump. Whatever the depth of their personal love and belief in their dear leader, the prospect of prison can be a powerful inducement to think twice about going down in his sordid ship.
The exquisite irony: Since he descended the golden escalator in 2015, Trump has operated like a mob boss—flouting the law, relying on fear and intimidation, employing flunkies to provide him cover, bullying and lying with abandon, relishing the tough guy bravado, demanding and expecting favors, exploiting his power to enrich himself, believing he’s untouchable. That this mob-style operator tutored by the ruthless Roy Cohn (lawyer for mobsters John Gotti and Fat Tony Salerno) has been charged with RICO—a law which at the federal level brought down a variety of organized crime families—feels like the perfect encapsulation of his downward trajectory.
Speaking of irony: Rudy Giuliani, who has pursued this lie of election fraud with utter abandon, as if he is untouchable, now may finally face the music. How it’s taken this long for him to be charged for a crime is hard to fathom, given his brazenness. But connecting the dots between the 1980s Giuliani, the New York prosecutor who took down eight mob figures and helped dismantle La Cosa Nostra in the city with his aggressive use of federal racketeering laws, and the 2020s Giuliani, who is about to taste his own medicine, is the stuff of fiction. Tragically for the whole country, it’s all too real.
Rethinking bad choices: I’m an optimist. Maybe this case will convince some of the arrogant accomplices, who’ve acted like they could say and do anything, that they really are in danger for breaking the law and could face jail time. Maybe they’ll decide to come clean—finally grasping that conspiring with a criminal sociopath will lead to ruin. Maybe it will motivate other Republican leader bent on emulating Trump’s criminality and cruelty to reconsider whether this is the path to victory. For the good of the country, let’s hope this is a subsidiary benefit of conviction.
Believe your eyes and ears: We’ve heard Trump’s call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to find 11,780 votes to shift the Georgia result. We’ve read about the fake elector schemes in Georgia and other states. We’ve watched Trump’s legal operatives like Sidney Powell saying anything and everything, even while the courts determined over and over their insistence of election fraud lacked evidence. Finally, Fani Willis is reminding us to believe what we saw and heard—and to expect she’s not going to let that arrogant criminality stand. Whatever the outcome: What a relief. That call to Raffensperger alone should be reason enough to charge Trump.
Sad, sweet justice: The aggressive lying about and harassment of election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss—swearing they were committing election crimes—has led to these two women facing death threats, the loss of their reputations and the likely permanent destruction of their safety and stability. This abuse alone steels my belief that justice must be served. While some of the other indictments can seem a little abstract, this state indictment brings home the personal damage this criminal operation caused for real people who were just trying to do their job as public servants.
Oh, the lying and the lying: I’ve probably said it a dozen times, but I’ll say it again. I hate lying. And I especially hate when that lying is used to attack real people and put our democracy in danger. This whole circle of defendants demonstrated that they believed they could lie without consequences, that the louder and more frequently they lied, the more they could keep it going. They lied like addicts and they plotted their Big Lie like criminals. Maybe now, maybe with a cascade of convictions, some of those looking on and hatching their own dark plots will think twice.
The ultimate live TV: By all accounts, this trial will be televised. There’s no final word on the matter, but this has been the practice of the Georgia courts. Not only will this be a ratings bonanza (if we must acknowledge the reality of television), I believe that the combination of what happens in the court and what happens in conversations about the trial around the country will change minds. It may take decades to shake the cult from their frozen, fact-free conviction, but there are other Republicans who can still be saved. Now that would be a valuable use of this most powerful medium.
It’s not normal: With the 13 new counts against Trump, that makes a total of 91 felony charges in four separate indictments. Yes, we are going to hear endlessly this is just political persecution from a corrupt Biden administration bent on burying his political rival. The sheer number of indictments and charges will be viewed as a clear indication that this poor man is being treated unfairly by liberal prosecutors and a Justice Department out to get him. But just try to imagine any other occupant of the nation’s highest office could have created the conditions for prosecutors to come up with 91 felony charges. This is aberrant behavior of the highest order and it’s high time he’s held to account.
The devil is not only in Georgia: Fani Willis may be the first state prosecutor, but I now expect she won’t be the last to bring charges involving the pro-Trump fake elector scheme to overturn the 2020 outcome. What say you, Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin? Lest we forget—just two weeks ago on Aug. 1—Special Counsel Jack Smith has already included this sorry plan in his list of charges in the Trump indictment involving Jan. 6. And let’s not forget that a president cannot stop a state case, either by manipulating the DOJ or by issuing pardons, nor can a Georgia governor end it with a pardon. As DA Willis said Monday night, “The state’s role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy.”
May the wheels of justice keep turning.
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Excellent piece Stephen. You clearly expressed my same observations. I would only add my hope that all the members of Congress who aided and abetted any of his illegal schemes are held accountable.
In an ideal world, the true nature of all his criming while president, including allowing Russian meddling in the 2016 election, would be exposed.
Justice has been too long delayed. We’re all beyond sick and tired of this insanity.
Really appreciate you summarizing these points. Especially liked you mentioning in the first paragraph that Trump told us well before the election that he would not respect the outcome of the election if he lost. This seems to have been forgotten by everyone else, yet it’s so important. I just wish they had thrown all these people in jail right away, as soon as flagrant violations of the law occurred. That would be justice like it’s given to everyone else.