Why Willis’ 'unencumbered' Trumpworld RICO case 'is an indictment for history': columnist

New York Times Editorial Board member David Firestone, in an opinion column published on Wednesday, explored the historical significance of Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling indictment of former President Donald Trump and eighteen of his allies for their alleged "criminal enterprise" attempting to steal the 2020 election.

"No one knows whether these charges will lead to convicting Mr. Trump and the other conspirators or in keeping him from power," Firestone writes. "But even if it doesn't, the indictment, and the evidence supporting it, and the trial that ideally will follow it, will have a lasting value."

Firestone opines that Willis' Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act case "is an indictment for history, for the generations to come who will want to know precisely how the men and women in Mr. Trump's orbit tried to subvert the Constitution and undermine American democracy, and why they failed. And it is a statement for the future that this kind of conduct is regarded as intolerable and that the criminal justice system, at least in the year 2023, remained sturdy enough to try to counter it."

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Firestone notes that unlike in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's criminal complaint, Willis "was unencumbered by the narrower confines of federal law and was able to use the more expansive state RICO statute to draw the clearest, most detailed picture yet of Mr. Trump's plot."

Another key distinction, Firestone continues, is that Willis "made sure the high cost paid by lesser-known figures was also recorded for the books. Specifically, the indictment focuses on the outrageous accusations made against Ruby Freeman, the Atlanta election worker who was singled out by Mr. Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, for what they insisted was ballot-stuffing and which turned out to be nothing of the kind."

Giuliani accused Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss of "quite obviously surreptitiously passing around U.S.B. ports as if they're vials of heroin or cocaine" to manipulate "crooked Dominion voting machines," Firestone recalls, adding that Giuliani — "who admitted last month that he had made false statements about the two women and is facing a defamation suit they filed — was charged in the indictment with the felony offense of making false statements."

Freeman, "because she is Black," as well as Moss subsequently faced rampant harassment and abuse by people who believed Trumpworld's lies, Firestone says. He concludes that "in the 'vast carelessness' of their scheme, to use F. Scott Fitzgerald's phrase, the plotters smashed up institutions and rules without regard to the resulting damage, willfully destroying individual reputations if it might help their cause. Ruby Freeman was one of those who was smashed, exposed by Mr. Trump to ridicule and abuse, though he never paid a price. Now, thanks to Fani Willis, Ms. Freeman's story will reach a jury and the judgment of history, and the record will show precisely who inflicted the damage to her and to the country."

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View Firestone's complete editorial at this link (subscription required).