Donald Trump and his co-defendants scored a win on Wednesday when a Fulton County judge dismissed six counts in the Georgia RICO case against him and his allies.
As a matter of fact, I did call this out in real time.
ETA: Further correct analysis of how weak this indictment is here.
Corruption all around.
I guess the good news is that if he did this, it would make no sense to then toss the prosecutors.
How naive of me. I ‘thought’ that the charges were brought by the Grand Jury. I now find out that the Judge can just decide they are stupid and the charges aren’t valid. Of course, they can re-file but…how is THIS the ‘law’?
Prosecutors with Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ office will be able to refile the charges that McAfee dismissed.…McAfee ruled that prosecutors failed to specify what part of the federal constitutional oath and Georgia constitutional oaths Trump was supposed to have been asking officials to violate.
Sounds to me like an easy fix. These 6 counts weren’t specific enough, that can be corrected, and what you’ve got is a stronger case.
Of, course the republican judge ruled for Donald Trump. One day after it was revealed the republican special prosecutor lied about Biden’s testimony.
When will this madness end?
Correct! That’s a thing that judges are empowered to do when the allegations are legally insufficient to support the charge. Just like Hunter Biden is attempting to do with the criminal charges he’s indicted on.
Are you aware of any fix to this conundrum?
This hurts in terms of public understanding of how awful the behavior of Trump and his cronies was. The phone call got so much publicity, and now it seems to be out of the case, while the GA RICO charges, which are more difficult to explain or understand, remain.
So this definitely hurts. A lot.
The charges are always brought by the prosecutor. The grand jury informs the indictment, but they are not a party to the case. The judge has a responsibility to evaluate the charges brought because almost every defendant is going to make a motion to dismiss where they can and the judge has to rule on that motion.
I have some misgivings about this judge given the circus he allowed by not forcing the defense to make a prima facie case on the disqualification prior to an evidentiary hearing as if removing the prosecutor is a normal pretrial motion. However, in this instance, this is his role and seems to be right that the prosecutors botched the charge which they can refile later if they can nail down the specifics.
Hur is actually a political stooge. There is no evidence that the judge here is – he’s certainly been naive but in good faith. This seems on the up and up.
Don’t be too sure about that. Raffensperger had to swear to support the federal and state constitutions, but he wouldn’t necessarily be violating that by seeing if he could find 11,781 more votes for trump.
Read the actual commentary by the actual legal experts and realize that this is not letting Donnie off the hook. It retains the other charges and strengthens the overall case.
Nope. When I went looking last summer for an oath Raffensperger plausibly would have been breaking, I came up empty.
I’m telling y’all, the RICO indictment is quite weak. Said it from the beginning. Even if he gets convicted, SCOGA will obviously spring him. Willis should have just gone ahead and charged him with the much more obviously applicable misdemeanors. Her hubris is astounding to me.
It is a shame how this matches Donald Trump‘s narrative.
It really is a shame. When you come at the king . . .
Nah, the phone call still supports other predicate acts and makes his fraudulent intent perfectly clear. The judge has not thrown out the phone call, just the claim that the call was soliciting Raffensperger to violate his oath of office.