As They Say in Golf – “Fourrrrrr!”

In the least shocking news of the night, Trump was indicted in Georgia, his fourth indictment.  The far larger question for me is who else got indicted?  And as I write this, the names have come in, and there are 18 others indicted.  Trump has been indicted in three other venues – it was time to spread the glory. 

At the moment, as I write this, there is just one indictment.  But there are 41 counts in the indictment.  And it was founded on a RICO charge, meaning that Trump was named as the head of a criminal enterprise.  Several Trump lawyers were indicted here, notably Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.

MAGA:  Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.

Also among those indicted are Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.  There are additionally 30 unindicted co-conspirators.  For all that, there is one piece of good news I can glean for the indictment.  If your name is Lindsey Graham, you didn’t get indicted.

Fun Fact:  Perhaps the first prosecutor to aggressively use the RICO Act to convict the Mafia was in 1985 from Rudy Giuliani.  Man, that’s got to burn.

As has often been noted, the big thing about Georgia is that, being a state, it falls outside of the purview of presidential pardoning power.  Not that from all I read it seems like that a president can pardon himself – on the possibility that Trump wins re-election and this was a federal case, which it’s not – though that’s to be decided one day by others who know much more than I do,  And of course a president can pardon others indicted.  If this was a federal case, but it’s not.

(Trump’s team will try to get this moved to federal court, but he tried that in the Manhattan case, and it didn’t fly.)

Another thing about Georgia is that the governor can’t pardon.  That goes to a special commission, so Trump, if convicted, can’t rely on help from Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.  Not that Kemp has any love lost for Trump.

Additionally about Georgia is that in a RICO case, unlike with the federal RCO cases, there is a mandatory five-year minimum prison sentence.

And the big thing about Georgia is that if you want to get a pardon for your RICO conviction in the state, you have to wait until after you’ve served your prison sentence…and then you must wait another five years before you can apply for a pardon!

So, getting a conviction in a Georgia RICO case is deeply problematic.

Pardoning and prison time aside – which is a whole lot to put aside – another huge problem for Trump is whether any of the others indicted will want to plead guilty and become a cooperating witness.  It seems reasonable, after all, that lesser defendants (like those charged as Georgia fake electors, but even more perhaps a P.R. rep and pastor who tried to corrupt two poll workers) make not want to risk spending a minimum of five years in prison on behalf of protecting Trump.

There’s one other thing about Georgia.  A year or two ago, the Georgia legislature passed a law that allows them to remove a prosecutor.  So, it is conceivable that the Republican legislature in the state might decide to try to remove D.A. Fani Willis.  To be clear, that doesn’t mean they’d succeed, or that public outcry would be so massive that they’d back down – or that they’d try.  But it’s possible.  That said, it seems likely that her office and a new D.A. would pick up the case and go right on.

But for all that, there has always been one overriding issue about Georgia that has ultimately bewildered me, because it’s one of the most idiotically stupid things Trump has done in his whole effort to overthrow the government and democracy.

On his infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump asked him to find 11,780 votes for him, just “one more than we have.”  That’s it, that’s all he asked for – an “ask” that ultimately was the foundation in helping him get this troubling indictment for him – was just one more vote than he need.  He only wanted to win by one vote.

My question about this utterly idiotic stupidity is – what on earth was Trump thinking??  Did he think that if he won by just a single vote, Democrats would shrug, say “Whelp, that’s it we lost.  Just one vote.  If we only had one more vote it would have been a tie.  But…well, that’s life.  One vote.  We lost”???!!!??   Not only, of course, would Democrats have been screaming bloody murder and crying for a recount – but Georgia law would require a recount!  And even more to the point, once there was a recount, they would find that there were 11,780 fraudulent votes.

So, for all the people who talk about Trump being a master strategist…nah, no so much.  Trump reacts, has no filter, is a malignant narcissist, and attacks the way everyone else breathes.

And now, again, he has been indicted in Georgia.  Where he’s not protected by pardoning power by a U.S. president or the governor of the state.

Four indictments.

Though, in fairness, Trump is actually involved in seven trials.  At the moment.  Since there's also the New York state case for fraud, E.J. Carroll's defamation suit, and a class action lawsuit for fraud.

As they don't say in golf -- Sevennnnnn!