In a groundbreaking and potentially historic development, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly preparing to bring a sprawling racketeering indictment against former President Donald Trump. This bombshell revelation comes as a result of her ongoing investigation into the former president’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, where he is now the leading frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination.
As reported exclusively by Hugo Lowell from Atlanta for The Guardian, two individuals with knowledge of the matter have disclosed the possibility of racketeering charges being leveled against Trump. These charges would center around allegations of influencing witnesses and engaging in computer trespass, both of which are serious offenses under Georgia’s racketeering statute.
To establish a case of racketeering, the prosecution must demonstrate the existence of an “enterprise” and a pattern of racketeering activity involving at least two qualifying crimes. While the specific evidence supporting these charges has not been fully disclosed, the potential “influencing witnesses” charge could stem from Trump’s recorded conversations with Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. In that conversation, Trump can be heard imploring Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the exact number he needed to reverse his defeat in the state.
Regarding the potential computer trespass charges, it is alleged that Trump operatives, funded by his then-lawyer Sidney Powell, engaged in an unauthorized breach of voting machines in Coffee County. During this breach, sensitive voting system data was copied and later uploaded to a password-protected site. The motive behind this act was apparently to furnish election deniers with supposed evidence of election rigging in an ill-conceived attempt to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an ‘enterprise’ – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two ‘qualifying’ crimes,” Lowell explains.
For the computer trespass charge, where prosecutors would have to show that defendants used a computer or network without authority to interfere with a program or data, that would include the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, the two people said.
The breach of voting machines involved a group of Trump operatives – paid by the then Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – accessing the voting machines at the county’s election office and copying sensitive voting system data.
If the charges materialize, this would mark a significant turning point in the legal battles surrounding Trump’s actions after the 2020 election. Racketeering charges carry severe penalties and would further intensify the scrutiny on the former president’s conduct during that tumultuous period.
