"I make decisions in this office based on the facts and the law. The law is completely non-partisan."
Indeed, counselor, the law is completely non-partisan. Or, at least it's meant to be. In fact, we should consider that notion to be such a self-evident truth that a district attorney need not remind us of it.
However, while the law, itself, is "non-partisan," it would be stupidly naive to believe that it can't be applied in a horribly partisan fashion, just like Fulton County DA Fani Willis is doing, even as you read this.
But what's worse than a simple partisan manipulation of the law is the outright misuse of it in a selfish and irresponsible grandstanding campaign.
Yesterday, the Georgia prosecutor announced 13 counts in the case brought against former President Donald Trump and 18 others, including Rudy Giuliani and Trump's White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows. She also issued an August 25th deadline for the whole lot to surrender themselves at the Rice Street Jail.
Willis says that she intends to try all 19 cases simultaneously, and within the next six months.
Huh?
Does that strike any of you as a good idea? Doesn't it seem like it would be sort of a messy way of proceeding with a very serious legal matter with epic ramifications? I can't even envision how that would work. Are we going to see 19 defendants in the dock, all at once?
No, I didn't go to law school, but it seems to me that it will be a complete circus, or what, in the military, we'd call a goat-rope.
You'd like to hope that, perhaps, the judge assigned to the case would talk some sense into Willis. Alas, that's not likely to happen, as you'll read in a few paragraphs.
Interestingly, even if the trial only lasted a week, the DA's timetable for the case would overlap with the first four Republican Presidential primaries, in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
And, don't forget, Trump has three other indictments for which he'll have to appear in court over that same period of time.
Throughout the entirety of her news conference yesterday, Willis read from prepared notes, and did a pretty lousy job of it, frequently stumbling over the text, and not just with the SAT words.
For instance, "Rather than bide (oops) abide by Georgia's legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia's Presidential Election results."
She didn’t say, “oops,” I just enjoyed inserting it.
"It is now the duty of my office to prove these charges," she asserted.
The charges include:
Two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings.
Conspiracy to commit filing false documents
Filing false documents
False statements and writings
Violation of the Georgia RICO Act
Three counts of solicitation of violation of oat by a public officer.
Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
Two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree.
The former President and his co-defendants were charged under Georgia's RICO law, which is (or used to be) intended to counter organized crime.
RICO is short for Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations.
According to the Department of Justice website:
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) of 1970 seeks to strengthen the legal tools in evidence gathering by establishing new penal prohibitions and providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies for dealing with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime.
Quite ironically, Federal RICO laws were the very same tactic employed in the 1980s, by then US Attorney, Rudy Giuliani —a co-defendant in the Trump case— to convict eight high-profile mafia bosses.
Georgia's version of the statute is actually broader and more potent and than the Federal version.
If convicted in Georgia of a RICO violation, the minimum sentence is five years, a $25k fine, or both.
I'm not entirely clear on how many, or which, of these counts Trump and/or his “accomplices” would have to be convicted of in order to win the maximum sentence, but if any of them hits the jackpot, they’re looking at 71 years behind bars.
To put that in perspective, in 1973, after having been convicted, in Federal court, of burglary, conspiracy, and two counts of contempt of Congress, for refusing to testify to the Senate Watergate committee, G. Gordon Liddy served for a total of 52 months.
Take a minute to mull that one over.
Team Trump's contention, or course, is that the charges against him are an attack on the former President’s First Amendment right to simply ask questions about the validity and accuracy of the 2020 election results.
I have to agree.
And, while you're not supposed to question an umpire about balls and strikes, he's not going to lock you up for 71 years, if you do.
Look, Trump has said, Tweeted, and otherwise posted some incredibly stupid things, including after the last election. However, the vast majority of stupid —even irresponsible— statements are still protected by the US Constitution.
I intimated earlier that we shouldn't expect any Solomon-like wisdom from the bench in this case. That's because 35-year old Scott McAfee, the judge who'll preside over the trial, has been on the bench for a total of, wait for it…six months.
Really? OMG. Who made that call?
We're talking about a criminal trial in which the former Mayor of New York City and the former President of the United States of America are facing 71 years in prison, and the dude wielding the gavel is a 35-year old, whose robe hasn't made it to the dry cleaners yet.
But the shenanigans don't stop there.
Fulton County's Sheriff, Pat Labat, says that he intends to treat Trump like anyone else accused of a crime, including fingerprints and a mugshot.
“Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices, and so it doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you,” Sheriff Labat said, rather snarkily.
The Sheriff's Office released a statement which read, “At this point, based on guidance received from the District Attorney’s office and presiding judge, it is expected that all 19 defendants named in the indictment will be booked at the Rice Street Jail.”
And, as if this judicial bedlam needed a sideshow, just to add to the absurdity of it all, yesterday morning, the docket sheet for the case got leaked to the press, which ran with it.
Oops. How’d that happen?
The DA’s office quickly tried to douse the media fire, referring to the document as "fictitious."
But, as it turned out, the "fictitious" document was identical to the real thing that was released last night.
When asked at the press conference about this kooky occurrence, DA Willis responded, "I am not an expert on clerks' duties, or even administrative duties. I wouldn't know how to work that system, and so I'm not gonna speculate."
Wait a sec. Aren't you the District Attorney? The boss? How are you not at least kinda, sorta familiar with the duties of your clerks and administrative staff?
But it gets better. Her Wikipedia page says that she was an assistant DA in that very same office for 16 years. Was she wearing a blindfold the whole time?
Ugh. This whole thing is so patently ludicrous that it's hard to find a PG-rated adjective to properly describe it.
Fortunately the defense has already initiated a petition to have the case removed to federal court, where it obviously belongs, if it belongs anywhere.
Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that happens, so that we never have to hear from the Peach State's Moe, Larry and Curly again.
If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to share it with your friends.
Brian O'Leary is a retired Marine Corps colonel, who served for 30 years, including deployments to Somalia and Iraq, and command of an infantry battalion in Afghanistan. Additionally, he has spent 25 years in the financial services industry. Brian earned his BA in English from Penn State University, and his MA in National Security Studies from the US Army War College.