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Former President Donald Trump is now facing four separate criminal indictments following the Fulton County grand jury’s decision – announced late last night – to charge him with racketeering and other felonies for attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Georgia election law scholar Anthony Michael Kreis joined journalists and political observers outside the courthouse yesterday afternoon, and into the night, waiting for the results of the grand jury’s vote. Meanwhile, a small team of us at The Conversation, like many other people across the country, watched and waited as a livestream inside the courtroom showed the routine process of courtroom clerks walking a stack of papers through the building and into a judge’s hands.
The Georgia racketeering charges carry a particular weight that can be harder for the former president to evade, Kreis writes. “Georgia’s RICO law is much more expansive than the federal version of the law. It allows for a lot more different kinds of conduct to be covered. That makes it very easy to sweep people into one criminal enterprise, and it’s a favorite tool for prosecutors,” he explains.
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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney receives documents from court clerk Che Alexander on August 14, 2023.
Megan Varner/Getty Images
Anthony Michael Kreis, Georgia State University
Fulton County District Attorney Willis’s RICO charges against Trump are essentially targeting election law violations, but by another name. The charges can result in a minimum five years in prison.
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