08/16/23
Good morning! It’s National Tell a Joke Day.
Why don’t eggs tell jokes?
Wait, before I tell you that…
And now, the news.
Trump Indictment #4
-via NY Times, Washington Post,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Self-evident, unalienable, liberty… these are the words that declared our independence.
And while that paragraph, one of the most famous in our country’s history, has not lived up to every element of it (the “all men are created equal” part needs some real work to make reality), the idea that we have a self-evident, unalienable, right to liberty is one that held through 58 presidential elections.
They held in Thomas Jefferson’s win in 1800, the first time an election was tied and decided by the House. They held in 1912, when Roosevelt split the ticket and Woodrow Wilson won with less than 50% of the vote.
It held in 2000, when a contested Florida decision meant to Supreme Court picked the president.
In 2016, when Hilary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, and therefore the election, she called Donald Trump just after 2:30am, the morning after the election.
But in 2020, after losing both the popular vote and the electoral college, Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attempt the overturn the free and fair election.
To destroy that self-evident, unalienable, right.
And in his quest, not only did he send an armed mob to our national capital, in an insurrection that ended six lives, he also planned and attempted to carry out a plan in certain states where he believed, through this illegal plan, he could overturn the election results.
He did this because he does not believe in this country. He does not believe that we should be able to choose the people that lead this country.
He does not believe in your self-evident and unalienable rights. He does not believe you deserve them.
And because of that, two of the four times he’s been indicted, this year, were for crimes related to attempting to overthrow your election. To ignore your vote. To erase your vote.
That’s right, four times because folks…
It’s Trump Crime Update Time
(Special episode, edition)
On Monday, August 14th, Donald Trump received his fourth indictment. This is a state case, not federal, and is all about what happened in Georgia.
I did a little info at the end of yesterday’s show, but let’s really get into it. What in the world is going on in Georgia?
---
We’ll start who was charged.
Biggest get is Trump, of course.
There were also some names you might recognize:
Former America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Sidney Powell, one of the most outspoken Trump lawyer’s, who pushed the fraud by voters lie and pushed Trump to fight his lose. You saw her with Giuliani a lot – frenemies.
John Eastman, the lawyer who was a key architect on the fake electors scheme.
Kenneth Chesebro, the lawyer we first learned more about in the January 6th indictment, he’s assumed to be an unnamed co-conspirator there. He’s named here. In both crimes, he also helped dream up the fake electors scheme
Mark Meadows (aka Marky Meads) – the former Chief of Staff who was heavily involved in all the things, including showing up at a Georgia vote-counting facility and putting Trump on the phone with a top state elections investigator.
Jeffrey Clark - former senior Justice Department official who was also out and about, in front of the fraud by voters lie.
Jenna Ellis, who said she was part of something called “elite strike force team” of lawyers who appeared at public hearings and pushed the fraud by voter law. “Elite strike force team.” Lol – this is the second indictment for your guy.
And some new names!
Ray Smith III, an attorney who worked with Team Trump and pushed false claims at a legislative hearing in Georgia.
Michael Roman, a senior staffer who played a role in the fake electors scheme.
Misty Hampton, a former election supervisor suspected of helping Trump supporters access the county’s voting equipment.
Trevian Kutti, former Kanye publicist who lied and said she committed fraud by voter.
Stephen Lee, a pastor, who was implicated for his efforts to intimidate Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the poll workers who took the stand in the House Committee and are suing Giuliani for defamation.
Willie Floyd III, who also intimidated Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Scott Hall, who took part the plan to access election equipment.
And Robert Cheeley, Cathy Latham, David Shafer, Shawn Still – all of whom were fake electors.
There are also 30 unindicted and unnamed alleged co-conspirators in the indictment.
In all, 19 people and 41 charges.
--
Now… what are they charged with?
The RICO Act.
Well, other things too… For example, at the head of the table, Trump is being charged with 13 counts
3 counts of solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
2 counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
2 counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings
2 counts of false statements and writings
1 count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act
1 count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
1 count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents
And 1 count of filing false documents
And everyone’s got a mix of all that, but the one thing they all have in common? The RICO Act. It was adopted federally in 1970 and in Georgia in 1980.
Rico stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization and is a tool meant to stop organized crime by making it illegal to participate in, acquire or maintain control of an “enterprise” through a “pattern of racketeering activity” or to conspire to do so – regardless of whether it their enterprise was a success or not.
That word enterprise is important here, because it can mean one person or a group. And that group didn’t even have to know each other well, or at all, for them to be all included in the enterprise.
As a reminder, Trump’s second favorite defense after “I didn’t do. Also it’s not a crime. Also I didn’t do it,” is - “I barely haven't even ever seen a 'gortar'.” Aka – I don’t know these people. For RICO, it doesn’t matter.
DA Fani Willis, who brought these charges, loves RICO. She literally said, “I’m a fan of RICO,” last year, when she used it in an indictment against more than two dozen alleged gang members.
So the RICO Act is the big thing here. That’s what everyone’s going to talk about.
--
But as a reminder… we got here because Trump called at least six state officials and asked them to toss state results. He lied and claimed fraud by voters. Which did not happen. He publicly attacked Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. As did others, to the point that this mother and daughter, who factually did not do one single thing wrong, had their whole lives turned upside down and threatened. Because of, among others, Trump. Trump allies copied election equipment in an attempt to transmit data out of Coffee County and over to the Trump Campaign. And then, when all of that failed, the crafted a fake electors scheme to outright overturn the election.
And all of that was planned and carried out, whether it succeeded or not, because Donald Trump lost the election.
--
What happens next?
Trump and his merry band of bing bongs have until noon on August 25th to turn themselves in. They will be processed like anyone else which means, it’s possible, we may get a Trump headshot for the first time.
Each defendant will appear individually in front of the judge to enter their plea. However, DA Willis says she wants to try everyone together, which everyone agrees is um… dreams are nice, of course. But 19 defendants, with their own lawyers, and all that comes with the Trump circus is… would be surprising, that’s for sure.
However, it is expected that many of these folks will plead out. Racketeering carries up to 20 years in prison.
DA Willis wants this to go to court in six months, which would be great – we’ll see how possible that is. Because if there’s one thing Trump’s gonna do, it’s delay this as long as possible in hopes of never going to court.
You know… like innocent people do!
--
This is a developing story, so I hate to break it to you but we’re going to have a lot of Trump Crime Update Times here this summer and fall.
Because Donald Trump, and others, were charged on Monday, August 14th, for crimes related to a coordinated attempt to overturn the right to a free and fair election. And he did that from behind the seal of the president. He did that in the White House. He did it in the Oval Office.
Self-evident, unalienable, liberty… that is what they attempted to take away from us.
They failed.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of DA Fani Willis and the Grand Jury that voted in favor of consequences for actions.
When Benjamin Franklin talked about having a Republic if we can keep it, he might not have imagined how we got here, with a former president have planned and employed national and statewide measures to overturn the results of the presidential election from behind the seal of the president but thanks to Fani Willis, and Georgia Grand Jury, and the bravery of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss – we’ve got a little bit of a handle on it.
And because I still have to work my way into the end of this episode but it’s impossible to feel more proud of those folks…
Why don’t eggs tell jokes? Because they’d crack each other up.
But more than that joke, if you can even believe it.