The full depths
Norm Eisen and another lawyer (Amy Lee Copeland) on why the Georgia indictment is such a good thing.
Ms. Willis charges a wide range of conspirators from the Oval Office to low-level Georgia G.O.P. functionaries and is the first to plumb the full depths, through a state-focused bathyscope, of the conspiracy.
Her case also provides other important complements to the federal matter: Unlike Mr. Smith’s case, which will almost certainly not be broadcast because of federal standards, hers will almost certainly be televised, and should Mr. Trump or another Republican win the White House, Ms. Willis’s case cannot be immediately pardoned away. It offers transparency and accountability insurance. As Ms. Willis said in her news conference Monday night, “The state’s role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy.”
But the indictment stands out above all because Georgia offers uniquely compelling evidence of election interference — and a set of state criminal statutes tailor-made for the sprawling, loosely organized wrongdoing that Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators are accused of engaging in…
…The indictment charges 41 counts (to Mr. Smith’s four), among them Georgia election crimes like solicitation of violation of oath by public officer (for Mr. Trump’s infamous demand to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to just “find 11,780 votes”) as well as state offenses like forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery (for those fabricating the fake electoral certificates) and conspiracy to commit computer trespass (for defendants allegedly unlawfully accessing election machines in Coffee County to attempt to prove that votes were stolen).
…
There is one final important advantage of the Georgia case. It is shielded from what may be Mr. Trump’s ultimate hope: the issuance of a pardon should he or another Republican be elected in 2024 (or from a Republican president simply commanding the Justice Department to drop the case). A president’s power to pardon federal offenses does not extend to state crimes.
And pardons in Georgia are not an unreviewable power vested solely in the chief executive. They are awarded by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles — and are not even available until a period of five years after completion of all sentences.
It’s encouraging.
I just came across this gem at Timothy Snyder’s blog: We can have the Constition … or we can have Trump. It is mostly a reference to a paper by two legal scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen: The Sweep and Force of Section Three (the link points to the abstract – the paper itself is a PDF file).
Section Three of the 14th amendment to the US consitution reads as follows:
Baude and Paulsen argue in the paper that this means not only that Trump is ineligible for the office of president – but also that any election official is duty bound by the 14th amendment to reject any ballot with Trump’s name on it.
Both the blog post and the paper are worth reading.
NPR had an interview about how using RICO laws to file the charges changes the picture, too. In a normal criminal case, the prosecution is required to focus on very small, specific events related to the charge. “Supporting” actions can be hard to bring in without being objected to (and those objections sustained). The whole point of RICO, on the other hand, is that the prosecution has a much wider latitude in which to discuss patterns of behavior that lead to criminality.
Apparently Georgia’s RICO laws are particularly potent and broadly written–they were used awhile back to bring a case against a group of teachers and school administrators who had concocted a scheme to have their students cheat on standardized tests.
So, yes, this indictment is absolutely Trump’s nightmare.