Yes, but Fulton County has no authority to prosecute it.
Up to 6 months. Realistically, probation. BFD.
Yes, but Fulton County has no authority to prosecute it.
Up to 6 months. Realistically, probation. BFD.
If convicted of a misdemeanor (one not of a high and aggravated nature), Trump could be sentenced to up to twelve months, time to be served in a city or county jail. Unlikely, I know, but it amuses me to imagine him in a city or county jail in Georgia rather than a country club federal prison. https://www.georgiacriminallawyer.com/misdemeanor-punishments#:~:text=Misdemeanor%20Punishments%20in%20Georgia,exceed%2012%20months%20or%20both.
Well at least if Trump is charged, and convicted, it’s shows up on his permanent record. 
He’ll also be barred from attending the prom.
I had no idea he was a musician. I just know him as an azzhole.
Do they still break rocks while in shackles in Georgia? Because that seems totally on-brand.
All indications are that she was a low-level hanger-on and grifter. She got close enough to encounter Mike Lindell at some point, and apparently also Falafel Shop Attorney Jesse Binnall.
…somewhere deep in the muck.
Okay, here’s my best IANAL shot at it (links to justia site). This statute – Miscellaneous Offenses § 21-2-604. Criminal solicitation to commit election fraud – says it’s a felony to solicit fraud from a third party when that third party’s fraud would fall into the felony class, and not the misdemeanor class.
And then Miscellaneous Offenses § 21-2-566. Interference With Primaries and Elections Generally outlines the different types of felony election fraud.
The last item (8) for “tampering” may be general enough to cover an election official just ignoring the results of the ballot tabulation and calling the election for someone else.
It is not. It only prohibits willfully tampering “with any electors list, voter’s certificate, numbered list of voters, ballot box, voting machine, direct recording electronic (DRE) equipment, electronic ballot marker, or tabulating machine.” Trump didn’t solicit Raffensperger to do any of that.
The most plausible statute I can find for what Trump wanted Raffensperger to do is failure of a public official to perform his duty, which is only a misdemeanor.
Interfering with an elections official is also just a misdemeanor.
Depending on one’s definition of “willfully tampering,” yes?
Oxford says tamper can mean “interfere with something in order to cause damage or make unauthorized alterations.” Unauthorized alterations would fit what Trump was asking for. Mirriam Webster says tamper can mean “to interfere so as to weaken or change for the worse.”
I don’t know if it’s enough to result in an indictment, but most statutes are written in a way that they don’t have to spell out, in detail, every specific way the crime can be committed. Just the general definition.
Destroying evidence? (misdemeanor, 1 year max $1000 fine)
Obstructing law enforcement officer? (misdemeanor, 1 year max $1000 fine)
Best i can find is § 16-10-93 - Influencing witnesses: (felony. 1 year min, 5 year max)
https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-16/chapter-10/article-5/16-10-93
I’m not quibbling over the verb. I’m pointing out that no "electors list, voter’s certificate, numbered list of voters, ballot box, voting machine, direct recording electronic (DRE) equipment, electronic ballot marker, or tabulating machine” were involved in Trump’s solicitation of Raffensperger. That means the statute does not apply.
Raffensperger isn’t a witness, or at least he wasn’t at the time Trump and Cleta Mitchell called him.
In any investigation that we know of.
And the statue could apply to anyone his team pressured not to testify to the GA grand jury.
Not a slam dunk.
Wouldn’t some or all of the ways that Raffensperger could have found those additional 11,000 votes (in a way that could hold up at least briefly) have involved such tampering? Or does tfg’s usual vagueness of not telling his minions how to get the crime done take him off the hook again?
Maybe, but Trump didn’t solicit tampering of anything in particular. And yes, Trump’s customary mob boss vagueness does help him stay off the hook for his many, many crimes.
Ms. Kutti was part of the conspiracy to overturn the election and is likely guilty of CONFRAUDUS. She needs to be tried under both US and GA law for interfering with and intimidating a GA election worker, and it’s all on tape. No mercy. Lock her up.
Does the fact that a scheme to submit fake Electoral College delegates isn’t specifically mentioned mean that it can’t be prosecuted at all as election fraud? I’m a little skeptical on that point. The Fulton County DA mentioned that as one of the things they’re looking at. Is there a separate criminal statute for defrauding the state of GA? (I’m not going to look right now). Here’s what the NYT reported recently:
Ms. Willis is weighing racketeering among other potential charges and said that such cases have the potential to sweep in people who have never set foot in Fulton or made a single phone call to the county.
Her investigators are also reviewing the slate of fake electors that Republicans created in a desperate attempt to circumvent the state’s voters. She said the scheme to submit fake Electoral College delegates could lead to fraud charges, among others — and cited her approach to a 2014 racketeering case she helped lead as an assistant district attorney, against a group of educators involved in a cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/us/trump-grand-jury-georgia.html