Former President Donald J. Trump has found himself in quite the legal pickle. He’s facing 91 felony counts, has been indicted in four separate criminal trials, and is being threatened with disqualification from becoming president again under a specific interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Insurrection Clause.”
In the Georgia state prosecution against Trump, he has been convicted along with 16 co-defendants who were part of his legal challenge to the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. Things were not looking good for this cohort, as the Georgia prosecution attempted to try them all together.This meant that it was unlikely these defendants would get a fair trial, since their fates would have been inextricably bound to that of the controversial former president.
Thus far, two of the Trump campaign’s former attorneys who led the forty-fifth president’s challenge to the outcome of the 2020 election, Sydney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, have had their cases separated from the Georgia district attorney’s, frankly, ridiculous attempt to try all these defendants together in a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act trial. Both Powell and Chesebro have requested speedy trials.
Their trials, therefore, are set to go forward in Georgia on Oct. 6.
What the Heck is Going On Here?
The reasoning behind the presiding judge’s decision to separate the defendants from the former president was as much about fairness as it was logistics. The other defendants — especially Trump — are all facing other charges in other courts. As a logistical matter, then, getting all these defendants to show up in one court, when they have so many other demands to be in other courts at the same time, would unnecessarily delay the trial.
Thus, separating these defendants from each other is necessary. In all, though, it means that the zealous Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney, Fani Willis, has her work cut out for her.
A RICO trial inherently favors the prosecution. This is one of the reasons that Willis wanted to RICO Trump and his fellow co-defendants. The basis of the RICO Act was to make it easier for prosecutors to get convictions of criminal bosses who were otherwise insulated from prosecution under the pre-RICO legal standards.
Yet, despite what Willis and the politically motivated prosecutors doggedly pursuing Trump and his fellow defendants for their actions in 2020 may think, neither the former president nor his legal team from 2020 are gangsters.
Therefore, treating them as such is a stretch.
The prosecution of a former president (who is again running for re-election) is also an unconventional affair. So, treating Trump like he’s just another accused person is ridiculous. Especially a man like Trump, who engenders either undying affection or unadulterated enmity. By linking so many other people’s freedom to Trump’s, that creates its own unfairness. The presiding judge is correct to both separate these defendants from each other as well as to seek a reasonable amount of time in between cases.
Some Fairness for a Change?
Of course, the prosecution is crying “foul!” over this matter. Oh well. Although Willis’ team has a fairly damning audio recording of the former president apparently demanding that Georgia election officials “find” him 11,780 additional votes (the number of votes Trump needed to win Georgia in the 2020 election), there is additional context that must be considered.
What’s more, for any of these defendants to get a fair trial — in the midst of a campaign that many of them are involved with — they will need time and will need to have their cases heard without being directly tied to the lightning rod that is former President Trump.
Many are fearful that neither Trump nor his co-defendants will get a fair trial. That is certainly a possibility, especially because so much of the prosecutions that Trump is being subjected to are politically motivated.
Yet, it just might be that it isn’t all bad for Trump and his cohort.
They may find that there are still some fair-minded jurists in a justice system that is clearly being weaponized against the forty-fifth president. This decision by the Georgia judge is hopefully the first step toward a modicum of fairness being exercised in these proceedings.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From the Vault
