Various Fulton County RICO defendants have different priorities. For example, while Trump drags his feet and tries to get the trial postponed until after 2026 when there’s a chance he could be president and have put in the apparatus to get rid of all charges against him, some of his co-conspirators just want to get it over with ASAP.
Former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro— one of the key fake elector instigators— requested a quick trial and it has already been set to begin October 23. On Friday Sidney Powell also formally filed for a speedy trial. Tamar Hallerman reported yesterday that “Under Georgia law, a speedy trial demand means a case has to be tried by the end of two terms of court. In Fulton, court terms are two months long and the current term began in July and will end on Aug. 31… Powell was indicted on charges of violating the state’s anti-racketeering act, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer theft and two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud. Many of the charges relate to her hiring of the Atlanta firm SullivanStrickler to obtain breached election data from Coffee County in south Georgia. She is also accused of tasking people to identify Georgia residents who could serve as plaintiffs in suits contesting the state’s election results. Powell surrendered at the Fulton County jail on Wednesday afternoon after being granted a $100,000 bond.”
Reporting for USA Today, Josh Meyer noted that The Georgia election case against Donald Trump and 18 others is about to get ugly. The fear of jail time is palpable and “now that they’ve seen the inside of the notoriously dangerous Fulton County jail and had their fingerprints and mug shots taken, the alleged co-conspirators are mulling their options in terms of how to fight the case as it moves to court. And by all appearances, it’s going to get complicated, contentious and potentially ugly, as the Fulton County 19 weigh how much they want to fight for their own interests at the expense of everyone else.”
Former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official Gene Rossi told Meyer that “This case has all the indicators of a classic mob case. When prosecutors at the federal and state level charge RICO, the multiple defendants initially are one team. But at some point in the process, each defendant realizes I have to be out for myself, I have to think about me, And at some point, I don't know how many defendants will decide, ‘Let's call the prosecutors. Let's offer our cooperation and let the chips fall where they may, and we will take our punches and hopefully get a lighter sentence.’ That decision may not happen soon, but it will happen. And that decision will be made quickest by the people who are at the lower end of the totem pole. So, 15 through 19 will likely cooperate a lot faster than somebody in the top seven.”
Kyle Cheney, writing for Politico yesterday, had an example of exactly how that’s already beginning. 3 of the Georgia Republican fake electors are pointing at Trump as the culprit, the same way Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago director of information technology flipped on Trump and is now a witness for the prosecution. The 3 fake electors— David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, state Sen. Shawn Still and Cathleen Latham, a QAnon crackpot and local GOP official— filed court papers this week claiming “it was Trump and his campaign lawyers who urged them to sign the false documents, claiming they were necessary to preserve Trump’s flailing court efforts to reverse his defeat to Joe Biden. That exhortation from Trump’s campaign lawyers, they said, amounted to federal government permission to take the actions they did.”
Cheney noted that “The filings underscore the strains and tensions likely to emerge as Trump and his 18 codefendants march toward trial. The three Republican activists say they should effectively be immune from state prosecution because they believed they were carrying out a federal function with the blessing of the incumbent president and a phalanx of his lawyers. Now, they stand charged with racketeering, forgery, and other crimes related to their decision to falsely claim to be legitimate presidential electors.”
Meyer did a rundown of all the defendants starting with the big fish with the 41 Georgia criminal counts. Meanwhile. Mid-sized fish Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark and David Shafer are trying to get the case taken out of Fulton County’s hands and over to a right-wing federal judge. “U.S. District Judge Steve Jones is set to hold a hearing Monday on Meadows' request,” wrote Meyer, “but he refused to block the arrest of Meadows and Clark, who is also charged with trying to help Trump illegally overturn the election. At the federal level, Meadows has also asked to dismiss the case, for the same reason, which is that any actions he took to help Trump were done in his official capacity as White House chief of staff. Willis called the urgency of request ‘meritless’ and ‘futile.’”
Another mid-sized fish, Jenna Ellis is whining that “Trump isn’t paying their legal bills, despite his vast and high-profile fundraising effort to mount an aggressive legal defense. She has turned to social media to ask why the former president and his donors aren't doing more to help.”
Meanwhile the small fish that couldn’t post bond and wound up in jail, election worker intimidator Stephen Cliffgard Lee, got a contribution from Silk or “Diamond and Silk” and is now free.
And the guppy who was deemed too dangerous to even be offered bond, Harrison Floyd, is still in jail. The leader of Black Voices for Trump and the only Black man among the defendants, was part of a scheme to pressure election worker Rudy Freeman into making false statements. He's been charged with racketeering, conspiracy and influencing a witness. He didn't have a lawyer to come to a bond deal with the sherrif's office before surrendering. He has a pending charge for assaulting a federal officer earlier this year.