Washington Wednesday: Trump indicted for racketeering in Georgia

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 16th of August, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Up first: Georgia versus Donald Trump. On Tuesday, District Attorney Fani Willis announced that a grand jury in Fulton County Georgia returned a bill of indictment.

WILLIS: Charging 19 individuals with violations of Georgia law arising from a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in this state.

This latest indictment contains 41 counts, ranging from racketeering to perjury.

Much of the information is the same as in indictment number two. That’s the one about mishandling documents that special counsel Jack Smith brought in July.

Smith also brought the third indictment for election subversion.

The first indictment back in March was for payment of hush money, brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

EICHER: But this indictment goes further than any previous one.

District Attorney Willis sets out to describe a criminal conspiracy. The co-defendants named include Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, as well as former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about it is Dave Aronberg. He’s been Palm Beach County’s state attorney for 11 years and was previously a Democratic member of the Florida Senate.

​​Dave, good morning to you.

DAVE ARONBERG: Great to be with you, Mary.

REICHARD: We’re talking today about the fourth indictment against Trump. What’s your impression of the gravity of this one compared to the three other criminal cases?

ARONBERG: You know, I was surprised when I saw the indictment, all 98 pages of it: 19 defendants 41 counts. It's a lot more ambitious, a lot more sweeping than most of us expected. In contrast, Jack Smith's indictment over a similar subject matter, it only indicted Donald Trump. He left off the other six unindicted co-conspirators because he wanted this to move fast. His indictment was built for speed. And by contrast, Fani Wilson's indictment, it really is, it's like drinking from a firehose, she just goes after the entire conspiracy from soup to nuts. I mean, she didn't leave any of the leadership out. So this is a lot more ambitious than I anticipated. It, I think, will pretty much ensure that this case will not be tried before the 2024 election. It's too expansive and it's going to be too complicated, I think, to get it done before the election.

REICHARD: Well, one way this indictment is different than the others is that it includes the racketeering charge, the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO, in common parlance. Have you seen similar cases use this charge before in this way?

ARONBERG: Never against someone who tried to overturn the election, but we've never been down this road before. She has used it several times, though. She used it last week against the street gang. In fact, I think Young Thug was one of the defendants. But I think you also see her use this statute in other ways that are innovative, like against teachers during a cheating scandal. I mean, that's something that probably hadn't been done before. But RICO is not just for the mafia anymore. It is more expansive than that. And as long as you have an enterprise, and a pattern of racketeering activity, which is just defined as two or more qualifying crimes over four years, then you've got a RICO charge.

REICHARD: Well, this indictment quotes a whole lot of Twitter posts. And, Tweets themselves are not illegal, but Willis cites a number of them as so-called predicate acts which is legalese meaning actions that help facilitate a conspiracy.

Trump’s attorneys have publicly stated that all of these things that he said fall under the First Amendment, and so they’re protected. How do you think that's going to play out in court?

ARONBERG: That's his defense also, in the court of public opinion. The problem with that is a couple of things. Firstly, he's going to have to really testify in court, take the stand to say that, hey, I honestly believed the election was stolen and here's why. And I don't think his lawyers are going to want him to take the stand and walk into a perjury trap. So that's gonna be a tough defense for him. Plus, you know, election laws are really enforced by the states, not the feds. That's why this is a stronger case, in my opinion than the federal one, because in the state of Georgia, yeah, you can claim that an election was stolen, but you can't call an election official and pressure them to overturn the election. You can't lie to a legislative committee, you can't lie to state officials. So those are the crimes. It's not the words, but the actions and sometimes it is the words, in the context like going before legislative bodies like Rudy Giuliani did, he has every right to lie to the public, he has every right to lie at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, but he doesn't have a right to spew election lies in front of state leaders or at a state legislative body.

REICHARD: You know, kind of depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn’t it? Some say, you say, “trying to overturn an election.” Others say “an attempt to challenge reported election results.” But let’s stay on politics here: Willis is a democratic prosecutor in a democrat county. Trump says she's biased. She's just trying to distract. But Dave, what is your take on whether this indictment is just politics?

ARONBERG: You know, whenever you're an elected prosecutor, like Fani Willis or I am, you run as a member of a political party, but once you're in office, you just follow the evidence and the law. But there is a built in tension when you run as a member of a party, that when you delve into elected officials, political matters in your job, you're going to get accused of being partisan, you're gonna have the wrong motivations. There are some prosecutors who take it too far who do say things that really come back to hurt them, saying things like, I'm going to target Donald Trump. Now, that would be concerning that happened in New York and the Attorney General there who said that has had to walk that back, but you got to be careful. But in the end, we are elected by the voters of our community. We're entrusted to just do justice.

REICHARD: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because I want to talk about Hunter Biden. There's been an unusual turn in that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as Special Counsel. How does that change the game?

ARONBERG: It's ironic that the same people who are calling for special counsel now don't want the special counsel. My head is spinning because I thought that's what they wanted all along. And they had said that David Weiss wasn't allowed to file charges outside of Delaware relating to Hunter Biden, well, now he is, and now they're still complaining because they didn't like that David Weiss gave him what they consider a sweetheart deal after two minor offenses, and so they don't trust him anymore. I mean, in the end, you got to justify your charges based on evidence and the law. And so far, despite the fact that people on the far right are obsessed with Hunter Biden and think he's an international criminal mastermind, the only thing to be able to come up with so far is that he lied on his gun application form, which was regarding a statute that's now been thrown out as unconstitutional about not using drugs while you're applying for a gun permit. And he didn't pay taxes for two years, and he's being treated the way that others in his situation are being treated. And if he is found to be guilty of other crimes, he should be charged with him if he's found a committed to have committed other things he should be. But let's not put the cart before the horse.

REICHARD: But David Weiss? Isn’t that putting the fox in charge of the henhouse? He let the statute of limitations expire on the most serious charges. He’s not from outside the DOJ, which is the norm for a special counsel. He wasn’t brought in until Republicans got control of the House and started looking into all of this. This doesn’t pass the smell test, does it?

REICHARD: Well, I read the Special Counsel statute, you could have someone appointed like David Weiss to do this, who comes from within. I mean, the Durham Report, remember, John Durham was special counsel to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. He came from within the Department of Justice, just like David Weiss did. And just like David Weiss, both he and John Durham, have stayed on appointed, kept on even though they were both appointed under Donald Trump, and for those who think that this is the politicization or weaponization of the DOJ. I don't recall Bill Barr ever doing anything like this where he allowed a holdover from the Obama administration to investigate someone close to Donald Trump. That's what's happened here. David Weiss is a holdover from the Trump administration. He was appointed by Donald Trump so—but affirmed by, and affirmed by two Democratic senators from his state.

ARONBERG: Correct, correct, but still appointed by Donald Trump, only the finest people. And, you know, I just I think at some point, you just have to trust that the people who are career prosecutors are there to follow the evidence and the law, especially those who are appointed by the guy who's now complaining.

REICHARD: Here's my final question here. Something that jumped out at me while listening to Attorney General Garland’s statement last Friday. He said that Mr. Weiss told Congress that he's been granted the necessary authority in the matter. Why didn't Garland just say that the Department of Justice granted him the necessary authority?

ARONBERG: I don't know. I've I've criticized Merrick Garland for being too timid in some ways, and, you know, just you know, there's some things I just can't explain. I think one of the reasons why Donald Trump is now able to say that this is political is because the DOJ took so long to finally get an indictment in in his case, I mean, I think this thing could have been expedited. It took Jack Smith to come aboard to do it. So I don't have an answer to the question why Merrick Garland didn't say it as opposed to David Weiss, but he is he is now authorized to file charges anywhere in the country regarding any matter relating to Hunter Biden, so hey, have at it.

REICHARD: Dave Aronberg is the state attorney for Palm Beach County in Florida. Dave, thanks so much for joining us!

ARONBERG: Thanks for having me, Mary.

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