One legal scholar says the new criminal indictment in Georgia against former President Donald Trump looks highly politicized, but he’s doubtful that the charges will go away without a court trial.
On Monday evening, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis unveiled a 98-page indictment, alleging President Trump and at least 18 co-defendants were involved in a 41-count criminal conspiracy to upend the 2020 election results. President Trump specifically faces 13 different criminal charges, including violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, three counts of solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, two counts of conspiracy to commit filing of false documents, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and two counts of committing false statements and writings.
“I think it’s an attempt by Georgia to do a shock and awe sort of attack on Donald Trump and his supporters,” William A. Jacobson, a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School, told NTD News’ “Capitol Report” on Tuesday.
The latest indictment from Ms. Willis’s office comes after President Trump was criminally charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in April, and after he was again charged in a Florida federal court in June and in a Washington D.C. federal court earlier this month.
Mr. Jacobson said Ms. Willis’s latest indictment against President Trump is “throwing everything at him, and really replicating what the federal government is already doing in the District of Columbia.”
Georgia Case ‘Smells Very Political’
Mr. Jacobson raised issues with a number of aspects of how Ms. Willis’s office handled the new indictment, such as plans to take and publicize the former Republican president’s arrest photo.
“They’re gonna play this up. I think the prosecution wants, you know, a pound of flesh from Donald Trump,” Mr. Jacobson said. “They want the mug shot, they want him paraded in front of the cameras.”
Indeed, Ms. Willis’s office has given President Trump and his co-defendants an Aug. 25 deadline to turn themselves in and Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has told media outlets that his office will take President Trump’s mugshot.
“They didn’t do that in the Manhattan indictment. They haven’t done that in the federal indictments. So I think this all smells very political, from the way that prosecution is conducting itself,” Mr. Jacobson said of apparent plans to take arrest photos and televise the former president’s court appearance.
Mr. Jacobson also raised issue with the timing of the indictment.
“I think one of the big concerns that people have is that this is the weaponization of the prosecutorial function for political purposes,” he said. “They waited to bring these charges until we’re in an election year. And that’s the problem—these charges are based on conduct that took place almost three years ago. They could have brought this case a year ago, we would have had the trial, we would have had the result, and it wouldn’t have interfered with the Republican primaries in the general election.”
The former president has previously accused Mr. Bragg and special counsel Jack Smith of election interference after they filed criminal charges against him earlier this year. President Trump is running in the 2024 presidential election and currently leads all other Republican candidates by double digits in most polls. In a Monday evening press statement, President Trump’s 2024 campaign accused Ms. Willis of being a “rabid partisan” like Mr. Bragg and Mr. Smith and said she “has strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign.”
Easy Out Unlikely For Trump
Mr. Jacobson said he doesn’t believe Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results were criminal, but also expressed doubt that many of the charges can easily be dismissed before a trial.
“I don’t agree with Donald Trump’s conduct after the election, but I also don’t think it was criminal,” Mr. Jacobson told NTD News.
Mr. Jacobson added that Ms. Willis is within her rights to prosecute the former president under the Georgia RICO laws, but he believes she’s missing the specific elements she needs to prove that crime.
“Georgia is entitled to bring charges based on its state RICO statute. I think it will be scrutinized by a judge. I’m not sure they’ve alleged the elements of it,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to go away. Pieces of it might. But I think this is a case that’s probably going to have to go to trial.”
The Cornell Law School professor also expressed doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court will get involved in the case, but didn’t rule out the possibility entirely.
“The Supreme Court doesn’t normally micromanage cases as they’re proceeding through trial,” he said. “I think you do have an issue here, which is that you have local prosecutors and the federal government bringing charges that are going to interfere with a federal election. I don’t know if that will move an appeals court or the justices to take action. I don’t think so, but this is a highly unusual circumstance. This has never happened before, that they are going to tie up the most likely nominee of a major political party in an election year.”