Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis continues to maintain she will bring her RICO case against Donald Trump for challenging the 2020 election to trial.
But Willis has one big problem.
And she just got some really bad news about her case against Donald Trump.
Willis charged Donald Trump and 18 other defendants as part of a RICO conspiracy.
Georgia’s RICO statute allows prosecutors to charge individuals just for knowing about the existence of a conspiracy as long as the other perpetrators took overt acts to further the crime.
In an appearance on Fox News, former U.S. Attorney Bret Tolman explained Willis’ indictment against Trump was a house of cards precisely because of the types of overt acts the state lists Trump and his co-defendants taking to further this alleged conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Tolman said the pattern of behavior the state presented as being “criminal” struck him as stunningly weak.
“I found it fascinating that the county attorney, you may have heard him make reference to the pattern, the pattern is the part of the racketeering charge, a pattern of corruption or criminal activity that has to be presented,” Tolman told Fox News viewers.
“And he is throwing that in because the indictment itself is incredibly weak in terms of its treatment of a pattern of criminal behavior.”
Tolman added that the overt acts Willis claimed were made in furtherance of this so-called “conspiracy” were challenging the election through the court system.
The defendants Willis indicted for the so-called “false elector” plot only submitted their slate of alternate electors on the advice of lawyers who said it was necessary to preserve the campaign’s ability to file legal challenges in court to the results of the election.
“When you have, you know, folks like Ronna or you have in Georgia and other states you have individuals suggesting that the electors need to be replaced, that they don’t have it right there is fraud that has occurred, I mean then they challenge it in court, that’s very difficult to say that’s a pattern of corruption or criminal activity when they are doing it through the court system,” Tolman continued.
Donald Trump is seeking to have these charges thrown out on First Amendment grounds, arguing that Willis is seeking to criminalize protected political speech and activity.
Willis declaring the steps Trump and his lawyers took to fight the results in court only buttresses Trump’s argument – as the essential claim Willis is making is that it’s not a criminal conspiracy if Republicans avail themselves of their legal right to contest an election through the judicial system.
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