Donald Trump charged in Georgia: How this indictment is different from the others

Donald Trump is in deep, deep legal trouble. The former president has now been indicted in four separate cases – the latest being in Georgia where he is accused of attempting to overturn his 2020 general election defeat. Unlike his previous indictments in the classified documents case, the hush money case and the civil cases in New York, the case in Georgia could bring Trump a whole host of new legal headaches and hassles. The probe by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began shortly after the release of a recording of a 2 January, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the then-president suggested that Raffensperger could “find 11,780 votes” — just enough to overtake his rival Joe Biden. Trump, a Republican, has described his phone call to Raffensperger as “perfect” and has portrayed the prosecution by the Democratic district attorney as politically motivated. Let’s take a closer look at what makes the case in Georgia different from the others: Lights, cameras, action… None of the legal proceedings against Trump have been televised thus far. That could change in Georgia. According to Forbes, Georgia law mandates that cameras be allowed in court – and has done so for decades – to “promote access to and understanding of court proceedings.”

The only exception to this is if there is a good reason such as protecting the identity of a minor

“Georgia courts traditionally have allowed the media and the public in so that everyone can scrutinize how our process actually works,” an Atlanta-based attorney, Josh Schiffer was quoted as saying by CBC. “Unlike a lot of states with very strict rules, courts in Georgia are going to basically leave it up to the judges.” So, the world could witness the unedifying sight of Trump sitting at the defendant’s table or even taking the witness stand. [caption id=“attachment_12941322” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The probe by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began shortly after the release of a recording of a 2 January, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the then-president suggested that Raffensperger could “find 11,780 votes” — just enough to overtake his rival Joe Biden.[/caption] While some claim Trump would be treated like any other defendant – with Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat saying “it doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you" – other experts say Trump is likely to receive the same treatment he did at his other indictments. “He’s gonna be treated with kid gloves because he’s a former president,” Keisha Steed, an Atlanta-area criminal defence attorney and former public defender, told BBC. “And our clients are going to be kicked in the teeth.” Pardon me? Trump may be relying on the get-out-of-jail-free card known as the presidential pardon. While GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to pardon Trump of any convictions if elected and Trump, if re-elected, might attempt to pardon himself (a case destined to land up before the Supreme Court), one stumbling block is that the president is not granted the power to pardon state convictions. That power, usually rests with the state’s governor. However, in Georgia not even the state governor has this power – though some Republicans have predictably argued for this to be changed.

The process of obtaining a pardon is a drawn-out affair.

According to Forbes, under Georgia law, a person can apply for a pardon after a board appointed by the governor approves such an application. However, before a person can do so, he or she must have “no pending charges” and be  “free of supervision … and/or criminal involvement for at least five consecutive years thereafter as well as five consecutive years immediately prior to applying.” Legal experts say that Trump faces real peril in Georgia. “The state charges in Georgia could be very serious and could mean real prison for him, in a way that he could not stop in any way, even after becoming president,” Duke University professor Mac McCorkle told CBC. Come one, come all This may be the last of the Trump indictments, but it was the big one. The indictment lists 18 defendants in addition to Trump, all joined together by Georgia’s unusual anti-racketeering, or RICO, law. Lawrence Douglas, professor of law at Amherst College in Massachusetts, told CBC the law “…basically has certain higher-ups and, almost like an octopus, has these tentacles that reach out engaging in these various criminal activities.” Many of the defendants aren’t even based in Georgia. The better-known defendants include former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell, who appeared in numerous hearings and on television spreading false claims about unfounded incidents of purported election fraud. Giuliani and Powell were among the unnamed co-conspirators in the federal indictment against Trump for his push to overturn the election that was released earlier this month. Others, however, had to date escaped mention in charging documents, like Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was on the call during which Trump urged Georgia election officials to “find” him the votes he needed to be declared winner of the state. [caption id=“attachment_12951642” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney and former campaign lawyer. AP[/caption] Other defendants include Mike Roman, a Trump campaign official who the indictment alleges helped arrange slates of fake Trump electors whose votes Congress could count rather than those of the actual appointed ones for the winner of the election, President Joe Biden. Another person charged is Jenna Ellis, who has become a prominent conservative legal personality after working on the Trump campaign and helping spread Trump’s false allegations of widespread fraud. The charges also fall upon several Georgia players, including Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley, lawyers working for Trump in Georgia, and David Shafer, then the state GOP chairman, for serving as a fake Trump elector along with fellow co-defendants Shawn Still, then the state GOP finance chairman, and Cathleen Alston Latham.

John Acevedo, a law professor at Emory University, told Politico the racketeering charge is ’notable'.

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Acevedo ventured that Willis took this action to attempt to get some of Trump’s cohorts to ‘flip’. “I think it does reveal a bit of her strategy,” he added. Critics may argue this is an overreach for a local prosecutor’s office. But the Georgia RICO statute gives Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office the ability to construct a wide-ranging narrative by citing and charging other players in the alleged wrongdoing, even those out of state. As Michael Zeldin, a former high-ranking US justice department official, told CBC, “All of the people charged in the enterprise, all the co-conspirators, are jointly liable for the acts of everybody, so even if you didn’t participate in one part of the conspiracy … you still are held responsible for the acts of the co-conspirators, and that’s what makes these things so difficult to defeat.” Some legal analysts think that Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who filed the earlier charges against Trump for trying to overturn the election, didn’t charge people identified as co-conspirators in his case, like Giuliani, because he is aiming for a trial as quickly – and with as much time as possible before the 2024 presidential election — as feasible. Willis on Monday night said she hoped for a trial date in six months. But her office is taking a notably different, more sweeping approach from the more streamlined federal indictment. She vowed that she would seek to try all 19 defendants together. With inputs from agencies