For further elaboration:
What is RICO and why are prosecutors using it against Trump?
Aug 15 (Reuters) - Criminal charges filed against, opens new tab former U.S. President Donald Trump in Georgia state court include allegations that he violated an anti-organized crime law known as RICO that is more expansive than its federal counterpart.
U.S. lawmakers passed the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in 1970 to battle organized crime, notably the mafia. Most states enacted similar laws with various twists.
The main requirements under the federal RICO law are at least two underlying crimes and participation in a criminal enterprise over a long period of time.
Georgia's RICO law does not require criminal enterprises to be long running and lists nearly 50 underlying crimes that qualify as racketeering, compared with 35 under its federal counterpart.
Defendants who are found guilty of Georgia RICO charges face between five and 20 years in prison, and while federal law has the same maximum, it does not have a minimum.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-charged-under-law-used-prosecute-mafia-bosses-2023-08-15/And the DUmp getting all moist and engorged regarding President Trump being charged with RICO crimes:
Fani Willis Appreciation Threadgab13by13 (19,570 posts)
Fani Willis Appreciation Thread
I know one thing for sure about Fani Willis, she is an Attorney General who had the guts to start investigating Trump in March of 2021.
I know she tried to hire 2 prosecutors for the investigation who turned her down because they are afraid of Trump, she then hired the prosecutor who she supposedly had an affair with, so what?
Someone is going through a lot of trouble to get her removed from office, I am not jumping on that band wagon. I stand with Fani Willis until I see concrete evidence to convince me otherwise.
Botany (69,773 posts)
2. She is an adult and is allowed to have a social life. She did nothing wrong.
And with RICO laws she is busy rolling up Trump, Meadows, and Rudy’s phony electoral
voters scam. She has already flipped some of the conspiracies who don’t want to spend
5 years in locked up on RICO charges. D.A. Willis and her personal life has nothing to
do with her criminal investigation. This is classic distract and attack.
https://conservativecave.com/cave/index.php?topic=132748It's all going to fall apart quickly for Trump and his allies on RICOTom Rinaldo (22,748 posts)
It's all going to fall apart quickly for Trump and his allies
Despite a virtually unified Republican front howling that all of the indictments are political hit jobs,the percentage of Americans who believe Trump and team committed real crimes keeps increasing. That number only goes up from here. At this point I have little doubt that Trump will stand trial, almost certainly in Washington, possibly in Georgia, and definitely in NY (unless that trial is pushed back to make room for others) well before the election. Coverage of actual trials will overpower the screams of partisan political spin doctors. Millions of Americans may be immune to actual facts, but millions more are not. It will only get worse for Trump.as more evidence emerges.
The Georgia indictments have pierced a false sense of invulnerability that once surrounded Trump. There were two main factors that previously had propped that up. One was fear of widespread civic unrest ensuing if the legal system made any serious moves toward jailing Trump. That damn has broken. That bluff has been called, and even if there actually was any substance to those fears which have not as yet materialized, the question is moot. The Rubicon has been crossed, there is no turning back, Trump is now being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
It matters that Trump is facing RICO indictments in Georgia. It frames him as the boss of a criminal enterprise, which is exactly what he is. That framing will permeate all of Trump's legal travails from here on out, because it resonates as fundamentally true. For a one time President who wanted to fill his cabinet with players who looked like they chosen by central casting, he has become the one obviously drawn from that pool. And everything he does and says now reinforces his crime boss stereotyping. He can't help himself, Trump was born to play that role.
Georgia matters for another reason, one that many have commented on before. Trump faces State , not federal , charges in Georgia, and so do all of his conspirators. There are many, and over a dozen of them have already been named and indicted wit him. That aura of invulnerability that Trump once had was largely built on the power he held to pardon accomplices who remained loyal to him. Even out of office Trump vowed to regain that office and with it that power. His grip on the GOP base was so strong that most Republicans who sought the presidency for themselves instead still pledged to pardon Trump and associates once in office.
None of that matters in Georgia, and everyone knows it. Even the Republican Party in Georgia is not reliably under Trump's thumb. It will not change the laws in order to save him. That means that the pressure is on full force for Trump's associates to flip on him, and to do so soon. The minimum charge for a RICO conviction in Georgia is a 5 year prison sentence, to be served in a State, not a Federal, prison. No pardons are even theoretically possible under Georgia State law, before a convict serves his or her time. Once the flipping begins Trump's entire conspiracy will be exposed to the bare bones with irrefutable hard evidence. Lots of former Trump loyalists have all of the receipts. Any week now it becomes every "man" for "himself"
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218192339