The Georgia indictment is the biggest threat to democracy yet
Washington Examiner
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Trust in America’s institutions is at an all-time low. Partisan hostility is high and growing. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s political indictment of not just former President Donald Trump but 18 other Republicans will further erode trust in government and fuel hostility between parties.
According to a CBS poll taken after special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump but before Willis’s, 56% of Republicans viewed the indictments as “an attack on people like you” compared to 28% who said the indictments were “upholding the rule of law.”
DONALD TRUMP INDICTED: THE FORMER PRESIDENT’S ONE BIG ADVANTAGE AS CRIMINAL CHARGES PILE UP
Considering that the Smith indictment charged just Trump with conspiracy, but Willis charged Trump and 18 others, expect that 56% to rise significantly.
Take, for example, Willis’s indictment of David Shafer, who, at the time of the alleged crime, was head of the Georgia Republican Party. Trump contested the results of the 2020 Georgia presidential election in court, and by the day the Electoral College was due to meet to approve slates of electors, litigation was ongoing.
Not wanting his party’s candidate to be without electors in the event Trump won his lawsuits, Shafer did what the Democratic Party of Hawaii did in 1960 when its presidential results were being litigated: He held a meeting of Trump supporters at the state Capitol and elected an alternative slate of electors.
Shafer told the press, “Had we not met today to cast our votes, the president’s pending election contest would have been effectively mooted. Our action today preserves his rights under Georgia law.”
Shafer did nothing but openly exercise his First Amendment rights, and for that, he is being prosecuted as a member of a “criminal organization.”
The same is true of Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, whose crimes include texting one politician for the phone number of another and attending various meetings with Trump supporters in the White House.
Where is the crime?
Real crimes may have been committed and are in the indictment, but they are surely not those cited above. Willis identified a scheme in which Trump lawyer Sidney Powell allegedly contracted for the unlawful breach of Coffee County’s election equipment. That is a crime and should be prosecuted as such. But you don’t need conspiracy law or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to punish someone for hacking a computer. That is overkill.
Much ink has been and will be spilled analyzing what this latest indictment means for Trump’s chances of being convicted of a felony and what effect a conviction might have on the 2024 election. Those are important topics.
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But eventually, Trump, too, shall pass. We will be left with precedents set by previously unprecedented prosecutions of not just a former president but of his supporters exercising their First Amendment rights.
These precedents will not be forgotten, partisans will respond in kind, and our democracy will be weaker because of it.