If you’ve paid attention to the news at all these past five months, you may have noticed that former President Donald Trump is in a bit of legal trouble. He’s now facing four indictments, ranging from campaign finance violations and improperly handling classified information to attempting to steal the 2020 election.
His most recent charges come from the state of Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has deployed a favorite law of hers: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Willis has used RICO charges in two other high-profile cases: one regarding Atlanta teachers and test scores, and the other involving the Atlanta-based rap collective Young Stoner Life (YSL).
Trump has been indicted alongside 18 other co-defendants for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, including by trying to marshal a false slate of Georgia electors and soliciting a “violation of oath by public officer.”
David Sklansky, a professor at Stanford Law School and an expert on criminal law and criminal procedure, notes that Georgia’s RICO law covers a wider breadth than its federal counterpart. “It’s significant because it means that lots of specific Georgia crimes can be part of this indictment,” he says. “The predicate acts that are charged in this case include offenses that seem narrowly tailored precisely for circumstances like the ones that are alleged to have occurred here.”
In this episode of The Weeds, we sit down with Sklansky to discuss the history of RICO laws, how they apply to this case, and what it all could mean for the future of democracy.
Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to The Weeds on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get podcasts.
Jonquilyn Hill
There are a lot of what-ifs right now, and that’s because this is a gigantic case with some very serious implications. But before we get into what that guilty…
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