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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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The Georgia case is actually the weakest one. Some of the charges are technically unconstitutional on their face, and Trump's lawyers can use those to have the indictment thrown out, and if they're mean about it, they can file to have the indictment thrown out the night before the trial.
The DA in that case would then have to refile the indictment without the unconstitutional charges, and if they fail, that's it. They get two tries and then trump gets off.
Also, Georgia RICO law is a mess. That will lead to appeals where Trump might get off.
The final part that makes the Georgia case weak is that Trump can easily get it transferred to federal court, which could add years to the case before it even gets to trial.
No, the strongest case is from DC. Jack Smith did a fine job of threading the needle of not charging Trump for anything he said, just what he actually did. So no first amendment defense.
The top secret document case is also pretty strong, but the judge is blatantly biased. Which is almost impossible to prove through the official process.
Please explain how being charged with violations of state crimes gives federal jurisdiction.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-is-likely-to-try-to-move-georgia-case-to-federal-court-it-could-work/ar-AA1frwme
Follow up question - what difference is that supposed to make?
It will add years to the proceedings. The Georgia case is already a mess that will take years to litigate, taking it federal will just make it worse.
Federal court also means a federal judge, who will likely throw out large chunks of the indictment, because the indictment is messy. It's political grandstanding and headline bait. There's a lot of substance in there, but it's poisoned with fluff and nonsense, and federal judges hate that shit.
That's why Jack Smith's DC indictment is such a work of legal art, because he cannot afford to play fast and loose for the headlines.
Not op (nor a lawyer) but as it was explained by an actual lawyer, there's an argument to be made that since some of the crimes were committed while president he could argue that they were done so as part of his presidential duties. If the judge agrees it could be moved to federal court.
Mark Meadows has already filled a req to remove the case to federal court since he was acting as a federal employee during all the crime-ing.
He can argue anything he wants. Presidential duty doesn't involve plotting coups against your own country, kind of the opposite really.
And before you start putting stock in Trump allies requesting things, remember the 60+ lawsuits they filed right after the election. They lost every single one, and for good reason.
I was just (somewhat poorly) answering the 'why is this even an option' question above, not trying to justify it.
Even if it does work, it changes nothing but the venue. They're still facing state charges, and it's still DA Willis and her team bringing them, it'll just be a federal judge overseeing with a slightly larger jury pool.
My point wasn't that it's a way to avoid the charges, however it will work as a delay tactic.
Precisely, and that's why Trump's lawyers are practically begging the judge presiding over that case to have Smith's request for a January 2024 trial pushed out to 2026, presumably so Trump can attempt to win back the presidency and pardon himself.
Trumps lawyers are dumb, but they're not so dumb that they don't know Trump is fucked six ways to Sunday on the DC court case.
You clearly didn't come up with this analysis yourself, can you point me to your source? It will save us both a lot of time because I have questions.
This digs into it.
Ken White is a first amendment lawyer, and has been covering the Trump indictments (and general crimes) for a while now.
There are a few other lawyers I follow on Mastodon who have also chimed in on it. The general consensus is that Fani Willis wants a bit of a show trial. Which weakens the case, If she had been a bit more careful with it, she would have a slam dunk, but would not have the mandatory minimum sentencing of the Georgia RICO.
Ugh, a podcast? I know it's not your fault about the format but that's not super useful. Thanks though.
Same lawyer has a substack where it seems like he's talking about all the same stuff here, tl;dr
It makes him uneasy as a first amendment defense attorney but it seems like he still thinks it will work
Want youtube?
This one isn't quite as good at digging into the issues of the indictment, but does talk about how it's weaker than Jack Smith's DC indictment.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=7mk4nfGX-pM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
They only need to prove two (2) instances for the criminal enterprise to be established under the Georgia Rico laws, and the tampering and harrassement of Ruby Freeman as well as the Coffee County extraction of voter information would easily set the stage for the other 140 acts described, I dont see the 'show' here, sounds like an easily winnable case in the state of Georgia, as for the removal to the federal system, they would need to prove that the criminal conspiracy acts, overt and predicated were part of the official duties, which in the current state of the judiciary is a flip, but should not have any bearings on convictions anyway.
Parts of the indictment are easily winnable, parts are not winnable at all.
And parts might get removed to federal jurisdiction.
That's what makes it a show trial. Fani Willis has laid out a very nice political case against Trump, but has added shit that will make the legal case harder to prosecute. Namely, parts of the indictment that seem to be clearly First Amendment violations.
This means that under Georgia law, Trump's lawyers can file a motion to dismiss, and can do so now, or next week, or the night before the trial starts. Georgia law gives a DA two tries to get an indictment right, if it's dismissed due to problems a second time, Trump gets away with it (in Georgia, the DC case is still going to nail his ass to the wall)
Jack Smith didn't make that sort of mistake in either the Documents case or the DC indictment.
Nah, the First Amendment doesnt cover criminal acts nor is total as the trumpet found out on the Chutkin case, as for the whole case as argued, you can throw out some of the 140 listed acts, but as provided on the Georgia special vaguely RICO laws you can link those seemingly innocent 'First Amendment' 'perfect' tweets with the whole scheme which is pretty clear, steal the presidency -'wE wOn' speech et all- and we all saw it happen, now, the indictment its just a detailed timeline with specific set of acts, that when looked as a whole can be linked to the criminal enterprise -you can buy a printer, but not use it for blackmail-, be it govt officials or civilians or any group of people acting in concert, and as such under the Georgia law, the solicitation for votes, the speeches, the false statements, the tweets are overt acts aiding the conspiracy.
Seems to me, after reading the indictment, theres more than enough to satisfy the Georgia RICO Laws and that the first amendment as well as the change of venue should fall on its face but the judge is a novice and the trumpet will try it all.
As for the motion to dismiss they -trumpet lawyers- file those daily, on the most banal and frivolous grounds and they must be very well paid cause they lose them all, so l wanna see how the judge weathers the first motions from Meadows, you really cant tell anymore, just look at the Cannon debacle down in Fla, so its a flip.
The consensus from people that have argued RICO cases and won seems to be its pretty well built and there seems to be people cooperating with the Ga prosecutors, based on the accts mentioning unindicted co-conspirators declaring shit to the grand jury.
And as a final note the same Willis on the press conf that night said that some acts were added cause the grand jury considered them to be part of the conspiracy so I would not agree on the "Fani Willis" wants attention hot take, whereas the trumpet is the one sociopath crying and whining on social media and well known thinned skinned coward.
Edit. formating
There are clear first amendment actions being listed as criminal in the Georgia case, every single lawyer who has read it and publicly commented has said so.
This podcast episode has actual lawyers, including a Georgia lawyer familiar with Georgia RICO law, talking about it.
If you don't want to listen to 20 minutes, there's this breakdown.
Jack Smith was careful with making sure that all the overt acts he picked were meant to stay away from protected first amendment speech. Fani Willis was not as careful. This lead to a quirk of Georgia law, the General Demurrer. This motion challenges the indictment to be more clear about what is and is not a crime. Basically the defendant says "I did these things, but they aren't a crime" and some of the items used in the Georgia indictment are not crimes, ever. Some other things are very much criminal. It's a mess.
The fact of the matter is that State DAs are often sloppy and arrogant when filing charges. Fani Willis uses RICO to drag out cases, strong arming defendants and their lawyers into accepting the convictions, because she's more interested in show trials and headlines than doing the job correctly.
Contrast Jack Smith, who is a Federal prosecutor and held to a much higher standard, and you can see how weak the Georgia case is. The really sad part is, there's enough in the Georgia case that it could be a very strong case, but the way it's written, it just isn't.
Ken White fan?