In 1969, Lawrence Speiser, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington, D.C., office, appeared before Congress to testify against a proposed law that would greatly expand the powers of federal law enforcement.
Despite Speiser’s warnings, Congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
This from reason.com.
Since the federal law was established, more than 30 states have adopted RICO statutes of their own. Georgia\’92s version, passed in 1980, is substantially broader than the federal law.
In August, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a communist/globalist and self-proclaimed ‘fan of RICO,’ used Georgia’s law to charge President Trump and 18 co-defendants with racketeering, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
But contemptible as the alleged actions of Trump and his cohorts may be, Willis is wielding the RICO statute in a way that is far afield from the law’s original intent, and the case threatens to impinge on activity protected by the First Amendment.
The charges in the indictment stem from a claim that Trump attempted to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia by way of a January 2021 phone call in which Trump requested Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to do his job. Specifically, perform a legitimate recount of electors.
Trump is accused, however, of trying:
[T]o change the election outcome in Georgia (charged as solicitation of a felony); a lawsuit that included numerous ‘materially false statements’ about illegal voting (charged as knowingly filing a false document); and a plan to present ‘alternate’ electors, which the indictment says involved various crimes, including forgery, impersonating a public officer, and false statements on ‘matters within [the] jurisdiction of state or political subdivisions.’
Trump’s argument has always been that his claims about election fraud were not lies because he believed them. According to that defense, for example, Trump did not encourage Raffensperger to violate his oath of office when he implicitly threatened him with criminal liability if he failed to “find” the votes necessary to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. Trump merely asked Raffensperger to do his job by investigating credible allegations of fraud.
If the case goes to trial, a jury will face the unenviable task of psychoanalyzing Trump and determining if he truly believed the theories he [spoke]. In the absence of criminal intent, such false statements are constitutionally protected speech.
The case also raises questions about the scope of Georgia’s RICO law, which covers many more predicate offenses than the federal version, prescribes a weaker test for establishing an ‘enterprise,’ and does not require ongoing racketeering activity. As a result, it is much easier to prosecute someone for racketeering in Georgia even when the alleged offenses bear little resemblance to the activity of La Cosa Nostra.
Trump’s indictment includes numerous questionable allegations in service of the RICO charge. The indictment describes 161 overt acts, which need not be crimes; they simply must demonstrate that a conspiracy was more than just talk. The acts include many descriptions of conduct protected by the First Amendment.
Act 1, for example, is the November 4, 2020, speech in which Trump declared that he had won reelection. Act 5 is a November 20 Oval Office meeting with Michigan legislators in which Trump ‘made false statements concerning fraud.’ Act 22 involves a December 3, 2020, tweet in which Trump called attention to Georgia Senate hearings on his election fraud claims: ‘Georgia hearings now on @OANN. Amazing!’
When Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith announced a federal indictment of Trump in August, he noted that Trump:
[H]ad a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.
Notably, Smith decided not to charge Trump with incitement based on his speech preceding the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, perhaps to avoid First Amendment objections, but noted that what Trump did not have the right to do was pursue:
[U]nlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.
At face value, a jury will be forced to determine whether President Trump knowingly pressed false claims.
But with this latest and most prominent demonstration of RICO’s ever-expanding applications, the Georgia indictment reflects the dangers that Speiser perceived half a century ago, when he cautioned that this new prosecutorial weapon would be “more far-reaching than its supporters suggest” and warned that “the possibilities for abuse are manifold.”
Final thoughts: As the title denotes, Government overreach at its ugliest is on full display here. If the government chooses to do this to President Trump, imagine what they will do to We the People.
