Kate Murphy

Updated Tue, August 15, 2023 at 9:46 PM

A Fulton County, Ga., grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies late Monday night on criminal charges for their attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump and the other co-defendants have all been charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act, in addition to an array of other counts.

If Trump and his allies are found guilty of RICO charges,
each of them could face a minimum of five years in prison,
with a maximum of 20 years.

Unlike the two federal indictments brought against Trump by the Justice Department, the criminal charges filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis are part of a state prosecution, which is not subject to the authority of the federal government. The same applies to the hush money case brought against Trump earlier this year in New York.

Trump would not be able to pardon himself in the state cases if he’s reelected to the White House in 2024.

While New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has the power to pardon the charges in the Manhattan case, she is unlikely to do so. And in Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp doesn’t have the power to pardon. Trump would have to turn to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, and even then, if he’s found guilty on RICO charges, he could apply for a pardon only five years after his sentence was completed.

For these reasons, Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University, told Yahoo News, “Trump is in big, big trouble if he's convicted in Georgia.”

Cunningham spoke to Yahoo News about how the Georgia indictment stacks up against the other criminal indictments the former president is currently facing. Some responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why does the Georgia case seem more consequential
than Trump’s other three indictments?

Cunningham: The most obvious reason that it could be the most consequential is that, unlike the two federal cases, this case would survive even if a Republican is elected president.

Whereas if a Republican is elected president, even if it's not Trump, I think the chances are very great that the Republican president would direct the Department of Justice to terminate both federal cases and probably would pardon Trump if there had been a conviction at that point.

The Georgia case, on the other hand, would continue to go forward even if Trump became president again. The Georgia governor couldn't pardon him if he was convicted in Georgia. So the long-term consequences are certainly more significant.

What is the significance of how the RICO statute is being used
in the Georgia case?

It was designed for going after organized crime, and part of the power of RICO is that it gets people lower down the chain of command to cooperate and testify against the people higher up in the chain of command.

RICO carries a minimum five-year sentence. So if you're talking about these co-defendants, and they're looking at five years in jail, they have a real incentive to cooperate.

What happens if Trump gets reelected in 2024
in the middle of the Georgia trial?

If the Georgia case is still going forward and he becomes president, I think we would have a constitutional crisis, because I think he would do whatever he could to use the power of the presidency to prevent the trial from happening.

If the trial did go forward and he was convicted, it's hard to imagine that a sitting president would be arrested by the Atlanta police and put in the Fulton County Jail.

But the way the system ought to work is, if he’s convicted in Georgia, the House of Representatives would put forth articles of impeachment based on that conviction. The Senate would approve those articles of impeachment, and Trump would be removed from office through the constitutional process of impeachment. But, of course, what the Republican Party would do is certainly a question in that regard. Recent history suggests that House and Senate Republicans would block a process like that.

Copied from Yahoo News by WM , August16,2023