Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans in disarray!

It’s a doggy dog world.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Commentary / Republican Crime Syndicate / Indictment #4: Rico! Meadows! and More!

Indictment #4: Rico! Meadows! and More!

by | 200 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Fani Willis will be speaking soon. I’ll try to find a live feed.

Meanwhile;

Direct Link to doc here

Mark Freakin’ Meadows…but no Lindsay

Live feed:

If that one gets annoying, USAToday seems to have just the press conference feed set up here. 

 

Reader Interactions

200Comments

  6. 6.

    Ishiyama

    Are there any special provisions in Georgia law placing a burden on Defendants in RICO cases to overcome a presumption of detainment for dangerousness? Asking for a friend.

  7. 7.

    BeautifulPlumage

    Time for more indictment wine!! Thanks to all for the various links in this & previous threads.

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    INTRODUCTION

    Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.

  11. 11.

    MisterDancer

    At least now we know why Graham was so unwilling to testify. He knew this was beyond just dirty politics, and his ass was neck deep in the field of shit being farted out by Team Trump-Up-Votes.

    As much as I want justice, I’m honestly just glad this information is getting out there, getting reported on, even as hobbled as our media can be. It may be that too large a percentage of our population is immune to the truth…but I do hope it’s still around the Crazification Factor level when it comes to shit like this

    (I’m also clearly really tied and should go to sleep…)

  13. 13.

    Mike in NC

    I just love watching cop shows where they start taking about using RICO to take down the mobsters. So appropriate for the sleaziest mobster Queens ever puked up.

  15. 15.

    TaMara

    Now I gotta put the ducks to bed and do some chores before bed.

    To think, I thought I’d do a kitty and good news post tonight. Ha!

  17. 17.

    H.E.Wolf

    Tomorrow morning (approximately 9 AM East Coast/blog time), the daily updates from Electoral-Vote.com will be posted. I expect it will be LIT. And will probably also have some snark in it, for those rare jackals who like that sort of thing.

  26. 26.

    dmsilev

    WaPo subhead right now: ‘It is the former president’s fourth criminal indictment this year’
    I like that they felt the need to specify ‘this year’.

  30. 30.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Yarrow:    I am unaware of this internet tradition.   Does Popehat have a dislike of RICO generally?  Did RICO push him off of the swing when he was young?  Did a former spouse leave him for RICO?  I would appreciate it if you have a link with a summary.

  34. 34.

    TS

    As a 100% non legal person on the other side of the world – it seems to me the trump defence will be 100% legal arguments, with 0% related to the facts of the indictment.

    It is also 1.35pm in my world so good timing from Fani Willis.

  41. 41.

    Yarrow

    @Jerzy Russian:  Unfortunately I don’t have a link because it was all in his Twitter account which he deleted. But he had a long history of saying it wasn’t RICO, was never going to be RICO and so forth.

  43. 43.

    Jackie

    Political Wire has a good round up of initial media reactions:

    “Donald Trump was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury — along with 18 others — and charged with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.”

    “Key line from the 98-page indictment: “Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.””

    “Trump faces 13 felony charges himself, including racketeering, conspiracy to commit forgery and filing false documents.”

    “It appears there are also 30 unindicted co-conspirators.”
    ”Atlanta Journal Constitution: “The Georgia case is unique because in addition to Trump, it also charges a cast of supporting players— from former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer.””
    ”New York Times: “Prosecutors describe the ‘criminal enterprise’ as one that operated not only in Fulton County, Ga., but also in other states, including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and in the District of Columbia. This underscores the power of a racketeering charge: Ms. Willis did not have to show that all of the acts took place in her jurisdiction.””

  44. 44.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I have to wonder if Trump will shell out money to defend the other 18 individuals like he has in the documents case. This will have to seriously drain his resources

  45. 45.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Mike in NC: I picked a bad week to give up smoking and drinking and sniffing glue!

    How does one smoke glue? Off tin foil, maybe?

  47. 47.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Omnes Omnibus:

     

    Full fucking names.

    I am not watching the feed at the moment. You mean like “Donald Fucking Trump”, “Rudolph Fucking Guilani”, etc., or perhaps “Donald John Trump, motherfucker”, “Mark Randall Meadows, fuckhead”, and so on.

  50. 50.

    Cameron

    Sounds bad.  Guess it’s time for him to start figuring out how to claim it was actually Don, Jr. all along.

  57. 57.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Cameron:   Don Jr.’s defense will probably be along the lines of “I am too stupid to organize a criminal conspiracy.”  To be fair to him, that is a pretty solid defense.

  65. 65.

    Jay

    @Jerzy Russian:

    So Popehat is a fairly famous Internet lawyer.

    He get’s asked about 50 times a day,

    X,Y,Z, is this RICO?

    Knowing both Fed and State RICO laws, his answer is almost always, NO. And he makes his case. And no RICO charges wind up being filed.

    Now it’s RICO,

    First time in 25 years.

  66. 66.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    WTF is the deal with MSNBC set?  It looks like something out of The Shining.  A red American flag with black stripes and black X shapes as stars.  Red chairs for all.  Just too much red.

  69. 69.

    KrackenJack

    @H.E.Wolf: ​
     

    And will probably also have some snark in it, for those rare jackals who like that sort of thing.

    [Back of my hand to the forehead; the other hand feeling around behind me for the fainting couch]
    Snark! Heavens above!
    Will there be sarcasm, too?
    Asking for a friend…

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Bradley P. Moss @BradMossEsq 5m

    It won’t be 19 by the time it gets to trial. Watch for the plea deals.

  75. 75.

    Yarrow

    @cain:  Agreed. They’ll defend him for anything and everything he does.

    Idly wondering how he’d be President if he stayed in Moscow….

  77. 77.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Omnes Omnibus:   In a set with a finite number of elements, there has to be an element that is the most extreme, like the largest, the smallest, etc.  Normally, in a set with two people, there has to be a stupider one.  However, in the case of Don Jr. and Eric, that is not true, since they are both stupider.  Mathematicians will have to develop another branch of set theory, which should keep them busy (and employed) for quite some time

    ETA:  If stupidity is quantized (think integers), then I suppose two people can be equally stupid.  However, stupidity is a continuum (think real numbers), in which case the odds of two people being equally stupid become vanishingly small.

  81. 81.

    Yarrow

    What was the document that appeared and disappeared earlier today that one of the reporters asked about? Something about it matching the indictments or something? I must have missed something earlier today.

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev: that was always how I would’ve ended this screenplay. Tiffany smiling coldly at weeping, broke and abandoned Ivanka before driving away

    “You never even saw me coming”

  102. 102.

    H.E.Wolf

    @KrackenJack: [Back of my hand to the forehead; the other hand feeling around behind me for the fainting couch]
    Snark! Heavens above!
    Will there be sarcasm, too?
    Asking for a friend…

     Yer friend will have to check Electoral-Vote.com to find out….

    All snark aside: that blog is a good one.

  105. 105.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Can somebody lawsplain the 161 Acts? Each one ends with a little ritualistic phrase about “this was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy”.

    I gather this is part of the formula for charging RICO but what exactly are those kinds of acts as opposed to the criminal acts that form the charges?

  106. 106.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Captain C: Im reminded of the crazy apparati that people would use to do dabs, which I understand to be concentrated Marijuana oil.

  107. 107.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):@Nettoyeur:
    Next Friday, the 25th
    ​

    When I lived in TX, that was called “Friday week”: a useful new terminology for this former Northeasterner.

    ETA: and pronounced “Fraahdaay WEEK”.

  115. 115.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Could Trump have the trial successfully moved to federal court due to the “under color of office” federal statute since Trump was still president at the time? I might be getting some of the details wrong, but a talking head on CNN was arguing this

  116. 116.

    Alison Rose

    @Yarrow: There was a document posted to the court site that was purported to be an indictment document, but was almost immediately taken down, and the Fulton court released a statement saying it was not legit.

  117. 117.

    Sebastian

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    For instance, driving a car is not a crime. Watching a street in front of a bank is no crime either.

    But if it’s all part of a bank robbery, then it is because it furthered the crime.

  118. 118.

    BeautifulPlumage

    Per Neil Katyal Twitter: “…his name is mentioned 193 times in the indictment, …”

    PAB will be so proud of this he may even read it!

    Obligatory Gary Larson “blah blah.blah Ginger” comic ( sorry, not finding an official copy…search will bring it up).

  127. 127.

    piratedan

    so… the snapshot consensus seems to be that they expect the small fry to roll over and plead and vie to give testimony for reduced sentences to pile on to the bigger fish.

    my question now pivots to do other states follow the lead that we’ve seen in Michigan and Georgia and also work on the fake electors issues (Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Arizona)?

    With charges now inside the 45 Administration, how long before these tendrils extend to others who aided and abetted, some of who are sitting in office right fucking now.  What will it take to break this fever dream that the GOP is under to believe that they should be in charge and fuck our history and our Constitution.

  128. 128.

    RaflW

    Dang. Lindsey is in it up to his eyeballs:

    Roger Sollenberger @SollenbergerRC
    Lindsey Graham’s campaign has spent about $1.16 million this year. One out of five dollars went to lawyers.
    Since Jan. 6 [2020], Graham’s campaign has spent roughly $720,000 on legal fees. Before Jan. 6, his total combined legal costs — going back to 2011 — was about $74,000.

  131. 131.

    Ruckus

    @Jerzy Russian:

    A pretty solid one – and the only one he’s got.

    Although.

    Organizing a criminal conspiracy isn’t that hard, OTOH, organizing a reasonably well working one might just be beyond the capacity of those seemingly involved.

  133. 133.

    Warblewarble

    RICO charges are a damburst ,putting it up to other states where electoral  interference took place.

  134. 134.

    Ruckus

    @Jerzy Russian:

    in which case the odds of two people being equally stupid become vanishingly small.

    Not really. The total of humanity is over 7 billion members. Anyone too stupid to not understand a simple restriction on being stupid is going to be stupid about most everything. Anyone smart enough to not be too stupid about many things would fit into a rather large group. Leaving a smallish group not to be too stupid about most things. Of course there is always the issue that they may have a blind spot about some item, trait, thing, wrong thing, stupid thing. And the group not being stupid about anything seems to be a very, very small percentage of humans.

  135. 135.

    cain

    @RaflW:

    He must be raging at himself to be taken in by the orange menace and getting himself into jeopardy that he now has to spend a shit ton of money on lawyers.

  140. 140.

    Burnspbesq

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I have to wonder if Trump will shell out money to defend the other 18 individuals like he has in the documents case. This will have to seriously drain his resources

    That’s also a good way to get them all disqualified. The conflicts of interest…

  141. 141.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Ithink:

    Hey, did you ever get your Japanese stuff translated buddy?

    I think I remember what you’re talking about. Wow, that was 4 years ago. Time flies. Yeah, thanks to the power of Google Translate and Google Lens I’ve been able to translate it. Thanks for asking

  142. 142.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Burnspbesq:

    That’s also a good way to get them all disqualified. The conflicts of interest…

    I didn’t even think of THAT angle

  143. 143.

    Warblewarble

    The criminality is the criminality of the republican party and not just of tRUMP and his indicted co conspiritors.

  144. 144.

    Ithink

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  Anytime bud! I finally got my good missionary buddies at the Dallas International University a hop, skip and jump from my house to do something complete with them but I said I had to go find him and see if he still actually needed or wanted them anymore after such a long while. It wouldn’t have taken as long if COVID-19 and the lockdowns hadn’t hard reset our collective reality and lives. I’ve been some deep cleaning of my seven active accounts but message me again @ [email protected] and let me know if you wanted what they got for future reference!😎

  146. 146.

    Ithink

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They told me to tell you that anybfuture things you needed translated by them (or me, for that matter) they’d be able to a lot quicker, being Bible translators in about 100 or so different languages and getting more missionaries and former students traveling about the world again! It’s a long story and explanation but they actually do great work once they get around to doing it all!😂

  147. 147.

    Burnspbesq

    Presumably the irony of a former U.S. Attorney who was an aggressive user of RICO getting hoist by his own petard isn’t lost on anybody.

  148. 148.

    Tony Jay

    @Old Dan and Little Ann:

    A red American flag with black stripes and black X shapes as stars.

    Those are the colours of Communist Angola and the Black Liberation Movement! Is any more proof needed that President Trump is the victim of a racially motivated lynching?!?

    Of course someone, somewhere, is saying this, because it’s stupid.

  152. 152.

    Steeplejack

    Looks like Nitter has been nuked again. Links to specific comments don’t work; links to people’s home pages work, but there are no comments shown

    Uh, guess I’ll hit the sack.

  154. 154.

    sab

    Full service blog went to bed at eastern daylight time.

    I am up much later at same time whining.

  156. 156.

    sab

    @sab: Also too, my dad’s nursing home does have ducks (and Canada geese) and putting them to bed safely keeps them from coyotes. Real thing in urban Ohio.

  161. 161.

    NotMax

    Best laid plans.

    Maui police have suspended a placard distribution program that was launched [Monday] morning. It was open for just over an hour when police decided to suspended [sic] the program saying they were experiencing an overwhelming demand from non-essential individuals and non-Maui residents who flooded the two placard distribution sites…. Source,/blockquote>

  162. 162.

    Betty Cracker

    Trevian C. Kutti and associates are small fry compared to Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, etc., but deserve to be prosecuted for threatening and harassing Ruby Freeman. Kutti, who served as a publicist for Kanye West and R. Kelly, stupidly threatened Freeman and “one or more… family members” at her home and in an Atlanta police station (where the threats were captured on police body cam). They tried to coerce Freeman into confessing to bogus voter fraud allegations. Maybe we’ll get confirmation that West was behind it, or maybe Kutti was working for a different sleazebag. (Source: Rolling Stone)

  165. 165.

    Tony Jay

    Are you guys up all night to wired to sleep or up early to sup at the Banquet of Tears?

  167. 167.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jerzy Russian: ​
     

    ETA: If stupidity is quantized (think integers), then I suppose two people can be equally stupid. However, stupidity is a continuum (think real numbers), in which case the odds of two people being equally stupid become vanishingly small.

    Nah, I think it’s more like partially ordered sets. One person might be stupider than the other, or their degrees of stupidity might not be directly comparable. ;-)

  171. 171.

    Tony Jay

     

    @Betty Cracker:

    @Manyakitty:

    Then with all relevant apologies and for your earworming pleasure…

     

    8 o’clock, Monday night and I’m waitin’

    To finally hear from a girl a little smarter than me

    Her name is Fani, she’s a DA with a Jury

    She talkin’ RICO, but I’m not quite sure what that means

     

    But when she talks

    All my lawyers freeze and the small fry sing

    She’s serving notice on me

     

    Cause she says I’m talkin’ treason

    Schemin’ coups with tough guys

    Listenin’ to Mike Lindell

    Indictments in her eyes

    It’s like a bad movie

    She can see right through me

    If you were me, then you’d be

    Squealin’ Rudi screwed me

    As I fail miserably

    Tryin’ to be the Don all the MAGATs want

    ‘Stead of a con like this black girl wants

     

    She wants a perp walk where I look like Agent Orange

    This Jury’s full of losers that are mad at their dad

    She says she’d like to send me down for Life plus forty

    She doesn’t know that Vlad won’t ever let me live to serve that

     

    But when she talks

    All my lawyers freeze and the small fry sing

    She’s serving notice on me

     

    Cause she says I’m talkin’ treason

    Schemin’ coups with tough guys

    Listenin’ to Mike Lindell

    Indictments in her eyes

    Bringing witchhunts down on my ass

    Says treason’s not just a faux pas

    Biden’s laughin’ in his Trans-Am

    Hey, a mullet makes a man!

    It’s like a bad movie

    She can see right through me

    If you were me, then you’d be

    Squealin’ Rudi screwed me

    As I fail miserably

    Tryin’ to be the Don all the MAGATs want

    ‘Stead of a con like this black girl wants

    Just a con like this black girl wants

    Just a con like this black girl wants

     

    There she goes again

    With glasses on, and Meadows under that stare

    Coup broke apart, I spent ‘21 sedated

    All I wanted was to see Ivanka naked

     

    Now I am watchin’ OAN

    Tryin’ to be a tough guy

    Still listenin’ to Mike Lindell

    Selfish tears in my eyes

    I can’t cover this bald patch

    And De Santis can’t save my ass

    Eastman’s now my cellmate… cellmate… cellmate…

     

    It’s like a bad movie

    She could see right through me

    If you were me, then you’d be

    Squealin’ Rudi screwed me

    As I fail miserably

    Tryin’ to be the Don all the MAGATs want

    ‘Stead of a con like this black girl wants

     

    I’m just a con that no PAC would want

    I’m just a con that no PAC would want

    I’m just a con that no PAC would want

    Play out…..

  172. 172.

    WereBear

    @Ruckus:

    And the group not being stupid about anything seems to be a very, very small percentage of humans.

     
    We seem to need a certain level of delusion to function at all. I do think this quality varies greatly, though.

  176. 176.

    prostratedragon

    We’re gonna need some concordances. Here are some matches in the form of federal pargraph no., Georgia act no.:
    Nov. 22, 2020: solicit Arizona Speaker: 15, 7
    Nov. 25: solicit PA legislators at off-site meeting: 43, 8+9
    Nov. 30 or Dec.1: re-solicitation of Arizona Speaker: 16, 17
    (Act 18, Michael Roman)
    Dec.: formalizing fake elector strategy: 53-59, 19
    Dec.1: reiterating with Arizona Speaker: 16, 20
    Dec. 3:: soliciting Georgia Senators using false presentation: 21-2, 23-27
    Dec. 3-4: soliciting PA legislators and targetting them when they decline: 44, 28
    Dec. 8: phone call by DJT to GA Attorney General: 24, 43
    Dec. 9: Chesebro memo: 54c, 46
    Dec. 10: Chesebro disseminates fraudulent elector instructions: 59, 47-52

  179. 179.

    Burnspbesq

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Could Trump have the trial successfully moved to federal court due to the “under color of office” federal statute since Trump was still president at the time? I might be getting some of the details wrong, but a talking head on CNN was arguing this

    He tried that in New York; didn’t fly. Won’t do any better in Georgia. The duties and responsibilities of the President don’t include crimin.’

  180. 180.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @WereBear:

    We seem to need a certain level of delusion to function at all.

    We do.  The human brain is not the logical processor with added emotion that people think it is.  Science has demonstrated clearly that it is irrational and runs on emotion, with logic being something pasted over the top that overrides emotion only with effort.  We are not rational animals, we are animals capable of reason.

    EDIT – To circle back to your point, Republicanism is thick with people who are angry at the results of trying logic, so the actively refuse it.

  181. 181.

    Burnspbesq

    So, suppose Trump holes up at Mar-a-Lago and refuses to surrender voluntarily.

    Wouldn’t it be fun to watch DeSantis explain to the MAGAts that he didn’t have any choice but to extradite him?

  183. 183.

    lowtechcyclist

    I couldn’t even tell for sure which was the name of the band, and which was the name of the song.

  184. 184.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    It was on the radio over here this morning and I thought, ah, serendipity. I think they also did the classic ‘Stacy’s Mom (Has Got It Going On)’ so think of it as Early 2000s Americana Pie music.

  186. 186.

    Tony Jay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Hit play, emerge twelve hours later from a deep dive into the YouTube catacombs with bad tattoos, your hair dyed orange, and a chunky best friend called Broke Pete (no one knows why).

    For that was what Da Keedz called popular music back in the day. 8-)

  187. 187.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Oh, I bet you do. Everybody knows Stacy’s Mom. Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink, etc.

    Though I have to say, though it’s a – bit – shit, I think GATBGW is actually a superior bounce-along track. It’s no Gay Bar, but it’s damned catchy.

  190. 190.

    WereBear

    I’m sorry it took this long, but I think it had to take this long. Drip, drip, drip on the cult shield.

    Indictment after indictment. And I hear legal experts saying this will take YEARS to sort out.

    Good. Mills of the gods, people. Exceedingly fine.

  193. 193.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: Maybe stupidity is like string theory, where there appear to be six different theories (Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, SO(32) heterotic, E8xE8 heterotic, and Bob), but it turns out they’re all just limiting cases of a single M-theory.

    While googling for the names of the theories, I was amused to note that if you judged just by the image hits, you’d think string theory is a type of abstract art, or perhaps a screensaver.

  195. 195.

    prostratedragon

    WereBear@188: Know what you mean, though I prefer pastrami or corned beef. And a bit slimmer. But those can be indicted too.

  196. 196.

    opiejeanne

    We should fly the flag today in celebration of yesterday’s many, many indictments. .

  197. 197.

    Ithink

    @NotMax: Lord God we have got to dramatically upgrade our FEMA and other natural disaster programs for this absolutely regular torrent of horrors we’re going through right now, you’d think Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath would’ve taught us all at once.

  199. 199.

    Tony Jay

    @piratedan:

    It’s true! With the partially awesome (the Rachel Hunter bits) and partially disturbing (lotta make-up on that scantily dressed tween, no?) video.  I got it mixed up with the Bowling For Soup cover from 2011.

  200. 200.

    moops

    It is almost certain that Trump’s own lawyers make a plea offer to avoid prison time.   Trump would flip on every one of these losers.

     

    I just don’t think dumb dumb Trump has anything he can offer the prosecution.  He didn’t know any of the details, or keep any relevant documents, or record any relevant conversations, that would help the prosecution.

Comments are closed.