About that that indictment

Also, Ted Cruz is not pissed.  He's just spouting whatever gets him air time.  Unless he means pissed with the British usage. (Drunk)

According to the indictment, Trump and his co-defendants used at least eight methods to try to undermine the election: (1) Making false statements to members of state legislatures, including Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; (2) Making false statements to high-ranking state officials in Georgia, such as the secretary of state and the governor; (3) creating a slate of fake electoral voters; (4) harassing and intimidating a Fulton County election worker; (5) soliciting high-ranking members of the United States Department of Justice to make false statements to government officials in Georgia; (6) soliciting Mike Pence to reject electoral college votes properly cast by Georgia’s electors; (7) unlawfully accessing voter equipment and voter data; and (8) making false statements and committing perjury to cover up the conspiracy.

The first public act in furtherance of the conspiracy started the day after the election when Trump gave a speech falsely declaring victory. Trump had discussed a draft speech to that effect three days before the election, in which he planned to declare victory and claim voter fraud. In other words, Trump was already prepared to attempt to overturn the election before election night even happened.

[...]

What this indictment lays out is that 19 people who knew they were lying about the election took dozens of affirmative steps to get other people to undertake actions to overturn the election.

[...]

The Georgia indictment also highlights that this was not an organic grassroots effort by Republicans across the country who were unhappy with the election results or concerned about voter fraud. Instead, it was an effort by Trump and his allies that involved repeatedly reaching out to state legislators in multiple swing states to sway them to participate in the fake elector scheme. That’s why the indictment discusses how the criminal enterprise didn’t just happen in Georgia. It happened in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — any state perceived as Republican enough to be vulnerable to Trump’s pressure.

[...]

Another thing surfaced in this indictment is that the efforts to undermine the election in Georgia didn’t end after January 6. The very next day, as the nation was reeling from seeing an insurrection play out on live television, Sidney Powell and three other defendants — Cathy Latham, one of the fake electors; Misty Hampton, an elections supervisor for Coffee County; and Scott Hall, a bail bondsman — began in earnest their efforts to illegally access Dominion voting machines. CNN had previously reported this appeared to be a “top-down push by Trump’s team” to access voting software and data and the indictment shows that as late as April 2021, an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator was illegally sending data copied from Coffee County voting equipment to an attorney associated with Sidney Powell.

[...]

Where everyone is charged with the RICO violations, the remaining 40 counts only apply to certain defendants, sometimes in conjunction with Trump, and sometimes not. Trump is on the hook for 13.

  Public Notice

Oooh, the Bedminster Report we've all been waiting for.  (Maybe Fani will add it to the indictment.)

UPDATE 01:38 pm:

A judge has ruled that all proceedings CAN BE TELEVISED.

[...]

During Fani Willis' press conference last night, she made crystal clear the difference between overt and predicate acts. Overt acts aren't necessarily crimes, but acts done in furtherance of the conspiracy. For example, if a mob planned to murder a guy, and two of the lieutenants went to home depot to buy rope and cement, that's an overt act. It's NOT ILLEGAL to buy cement and rope, but it's an act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Predicate acts are crimes. They don't have to be successful or proven, but they are predicate crimes for racketeering just like the underlying crimes in Manhattan that elevated the falsification of business records from misdemeanors to felonies.

The DA has 161 overt and predicate acts, but she doesn't categorize them as such. She lays out the acts in chronological order. Among the 161 acts, 34 are predicate acts and they include:

• Lies told to GA senate and house by Rudy, Ray Smith, and Cheeley during hearings on 12/3, 12/10, and 12/30
• Shafer, Still, Latham and the fraudulent electors forging and mailing the fake elector certificate
• Lee, Kutti, and Floyd intimidating and soliciting Ruby Freeman at her home on 12/15/20 and in a police station on 1/4/21
• Clark trying to get Rosen and Donoghue to sign his letter to GA lawmakers saying the DoJ found election irregularities
• Trump and Eastman lying in the GA lawsuit about election fraud filed 12/31/20
• Trump lying to Raffensperger in the Jan 2 call
• Hall, Latham, Hampton, Powell, and 5 UIC executing the coffee county burglary
• Trump’s false writing to Raffensperger in Sept 2021 asking him to overturn the election Shafer lied to the DA about the fraudulent elector scheme
• Latham and Cheeley committed perjury in the grand jury in 2022

Fani Willis has to prove TWO of these 34 predicate acts to convict on RICO charges.

[...]

Mark Meadows isn't fully cooperating - which leads me to believe he might not be fully cooperating with Jack Smith. Meadows isn't listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in Jack Smith's indictment of trump, so perhaps he's cooperating with the feds but not the DA. It's important to note that in Fani Willis' education RICO case from a few years back, she indicted 35 but only 12 went to trial because the rest began to cooperate. So in this case, since Willis had said she's not coordinating with the DoJ, that Meadows is cooperating - at least partially - with Jack Smith, but hasn't reached out to the Fulton County DA. I'm sure we'll learn more.

Also, still nothing for Stone, Flynn and Bannon - though they were more involved in the attack on the capitol as a group. In this Fulton County indictment, Flynn could be one of the unindicted co-conspirators as he was present at the 12/18/20 Oval Office meeting where the Coffee County burglary was discussed. He may be cooperating, but she may have also left him out for now to see if she can flip him.

[...]

I don't think we'll see all 19 tried at once. I imagine many of them will flip or plead guilty.
  Mueller, She Wrote

Trump-alligned attorney Jenna Ellis, who was charged with two counts, responded to her indictment by attacking prosecutors on Tuesday.

“The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law,” Ellis wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “I am resolved to trust the Lord and I will simply continue to honor, praise, and serve Him.

  The Hill

He'll be with you in your jail cell, Jenna.

UPDATE 05:00 pm:

Yikes.

Well, the judge in the Georgia trial, Scott McAfee, will be a young man appointed by Republican governor Kemp in early 2023.  I wouldn't be completely surprised if convicted (but, he IS an Eagle Scout!), Trump is allowed probation by McAfee.  But what would that mean for the co-defendants?

UPDATE 08/16/2023:

UPDATE 08/18/2023:

The former president on Thursday said he was cancelling a scheduled press conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course that was scheduled for 21 August, on the advice of his attorneys. Trump announced the press conference after the release of the indictment, saying he would provide new “evidence” for his widely debunked claims that election fraud cost him victory in Georgia, and ultimately nationally.

  Guardian

In an interview on CNN, Christie said he isn’t surprised about Trump’s decision to cancel the press conference. He said the former president is now aware that he is “facing jail time” and “can’t make his situation much worse.”

“I think the first smart decision he’s made in this regard, in a long time, was canceling that ridiculous press conference for Monday,” Christie said.

  The Hill

UPDATE 08/18/2023 04:11 pm:

Oh! I see.  No longer necessary.

Laughable.

UPDATE 08/20/2023: