Former President Donald Trump stands accused in Georgia of being a ringleader in a multistate scheme to overturn his stinging 2020 election defeat.
But his most diehard supporters aren’t buying it, and some of them were willing to tough it out in the searing heat Thursday in a show of support to Trump when he is booked later today. Trump has agreed to a $200,000 bond.
Trump and 18 of his allies are all charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is modeled after a federal law designed to target mafia leaders and those engaged in organized crime.
The former president is also charged with a dozen other crimes, including solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer and conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, for an alleged scheme to convince lawmakers in key states like Georgia to substitute lawfully elected electors with GOP alternates.
“Racketeering is about stealing money and stuff like that. That makes no sense,” said west Cobb County resident Jerry Ramsey, citing legal experts who have appeared on Fox News. “If you show me that some real crime was committed, then I might change my mind. But I have seen no real crime.”
Ramsey argues that Trump did what anyone else would do after coming up short in an election.
“Here in Georgia, he just called and said ‘Would y’all recount the vote?’ If I lost an election, I’d do the same thing,” he said.
Georgia’s election results were confirmed three times, including one recount that was done by hand. A state-led investigation and multiple lawsuits also failed to turn up the widespread fraud Trump has long falsely claimed thwarted his bid for a second term. Trump’s own Attorney General in 2020 told the former president that he’d lost Georgia’s election and there was no evidence of fraud.
And other legal experts take a much different view about RICO’s applicability to the fake elector strategy.
“This case is essentially a…
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