'Building unorthodox GA RICO cases' is Willis’ 'signature move' — and not even Kemp can pardon convictions
A new analysis published Tuesday on vice.com explained why the latest Georgia racketeering case against Donald Trump and his 18 co-conspirators “will be a particularly tough one to thwart, even if” the former president “wins the next presidential election.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Monday charged Trump, former White House chief of state Mark Meadows, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others with charges including forgery, influencing witnesses and perjury.
The "
nearly 100-page indictment" alleges Trump and his co-defendants “engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result,” Willis said in a news conference Monday night.
As reporter Greg Walters explains, even if Trump manages to win the 2024 presidential election, he would not be able to pardon his crimes in Georgia as “
a president can only pardon federal crimes.”
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Walters reports:
… Georgia also makes it particularly difficult for local authorities to pardon away crimes. The pardon power in Georgia falls to a five-person panel, not the governor. And the rules say a defendant is supposed to serve at least five years of their sentence first, before they qualify for a pardon.
DA Willis on Monday told reporters the charges Trump is facing include “
time that you have to serve.”
“It’s not a probated sentence,” Willis explained.
As Walters reports, “Building unorthodox Georgia RICO cases just happens to be Willis’ signature move.”
“Before she was elected Fulton County’s top local prosecutor in early 2021, Willis was best known for leading a racketeering case against 12 public school teachers in Atlanta accused of falsifying their students’ scores on standardized tests to improve their schools’ standing," Walter wrote. “At the time, she argued that the teachers violated Georgia’s RICO law by using the school system, a ‘legitimate enterprise,’ to engage in widespread cheating. Eleven educators were convicted.”
