It has come to light that a grand jury is set to consider whether to indict 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in connection with alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. If indicted, this would be his fourth this year.
It has been noted that the lawyers who have followed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation, including some who have worked with her in the past, expect her to invoke Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, which is modeled after the federal act of the same name, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Signs are certainly pointing in that direction,” said law professor at Georgia State University Anthony Michael Kreis.
Under the RICO Act, if prosecutors show that there is an organization of people committing crimes together on a recurring basis, then members can be prosecuted for the crimes of the group. The federal statute, which the state act is modeled after, was enacted in the 1970s to help take down the mafia.
When Willis launched her investigation in 2021, she retained John Floyd, one of Georgia’s leading experts on racketeering charges, to advise the investigation. Clint Rucker, a former Fulton County prosecutor who worked closely with Willis on the Atlanta school-cheating case, said the investigation team in the Trump case had been sent to a hotel for a week to study the RICO Act.
“It was a big deal because it wasn’t a gang case,” said Rucker.
Rucker has said that he expects Willis to use the RICO Act in the Trump case, as she has already used it with success in the school cheating case.
The list of charges that prosecutors are weighing also includes criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit election fraud, as well as solicitation of a public or political officer to fail to perform their duties and solicitation to destroy, deface or remove ballots.
The potential indictment comes as Trump is facing three other indictments. The first of which came from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this spring on felony charges of falsifying business records. Two more have come from Special Counsel Jack Smith, one of which relates to the alleged retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after the end of Trump’s presidency, and the most recent relates to alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
