It was one of the coldest Presidential Inaugurations on record.\u00a0\u00a0January, 1977; the National Mall had wind chills in the zeroes.\u00a0My place was below the Capitol and I shivered, despite my goose down mountain jacket.\u00a0\u00a0I watched the former Governor of Georgia sworn into office.\u00a0\u00a0I was one of \u201cthe staff\u201d, one of the twenty-somethings who were\u00a0\u00a0\u201cfeet on the ground\u201d for the Carter-Mondale Presidential Campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0I\u2019d spent two months crisscrossing Southwestern Ohio, organizing high school kids and Moms for literature drops in Cincinnati, getting statistics and materials for Warren, Brown, Clermont and Butler Counties, and organizing students to knock on dorm room doors at Miami University in Oxford.\u00a0\u00a0There were signs everywhere, and long computer lists on wide paper. We made thousands of phone calls to get folks out to vote.\u00a0\u00a0We won Ohio by only a few thousand; at twenty years-old, I thought I talked to every one of them!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jimmy Carter was President.\u00a0\u00a0The Watergate Era was officially over, as Nixon\u2019s replacement Gerald Ford failed to win election.\u00a0\u00a0I went from the parade (Jimmy and Rosalyn walked) to get ready for the \u201cStaff Ball\u201d at the DC Armory.\u00a0\u00a0I wore my three-piece suit and cowboy boots;\u00a0\u00a0stylish for 1977.\u00a0\u00a0Jimmy was truly a Georgia man, he was good friends with the Charlie Daniels Band (and even more the Allman Brothers). Daniels played for the inaugural ball.\u00a0\u00a0We all danced to \u201cThe Devil Went Down to Georgia\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Georgia changed America that day.\u00a0\u00a0Jimmy Carter represented a sea-change in American politics.\u00a0\u00a0He was a Southern Man, the Governor of a Southern State.\u00a0\u00a0His predecessor in Georgia, Lester Maddox, was an \u201cold-style\u201d Southern Democrat.\u00a0\u00a0He chased Black people out of his restaurant with an ax handle.\u00a0\u00a0But Jimmy was a friend of the civil rights movement.\u00a0\u00a0When Carter was sworn into the Governorship, he called for the end of racial discrimination.\u00a0\u00a0He was a new kind of Southern politician, a man who spoke of human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1976 in Georgia marked a pivotal change in American politics. And last night, Georgia was leading again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all listened to the entire conversation, recorded by Georgia\u2019s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The President of the United States was demanding more votes, threatening Georgia authorities. His meaning was crystal clear: alter the Georgia vote count so that Donald Trump wins, no matter what the actual votes were. While by then we were well aware that Trump didn\u2019t follow the established \u201cnorms\u201d of the Presidency; as Americans listened to the call, most of us were thinking the same thing: this has to be illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last night, Atlanta\u2019s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis answered the question with a resounding \u201cYES, it was illegal\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0In a ninety-one page, forty-one count indictment of nineteen named defendants, DA Willis called Donald Trump the leader of a criminal conspiracy, in violation of Georgia\u2019s \u201cRICO\u201d (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) statute.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s the same law used to bring down organized crime; the Mafia and drug cartels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Federal Special Prosecutor Jack Smith indicted Trump two weeks ago in a tight, targeted case for attempting to obstruct and delay the Presidential transition of power. While there were seven conspirators, Smith only indicted Trump himself in that action. The prosecution is designed to quickly bring the former President to trial, before the 2024 election and maybe even before the nominating convention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Smith was tight and targeted, Willis\u2019s indictment was broad. She indicted all of those involved, from Trump to Giuliani to Meadows to the Georgia Republicans who signed on as \u201cfake electors\u201d. She is bringing the entire conspiracy to obstruct the election to Georgia, in a case where nineteen defendants will try to avoid the mandatory minimum five-year sentence attached to the RICO charges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Willis is not encumbered with the time constraints facing Jack Smith. Smith needs to conclude his trial before September, 2024, before the Justice Department mandated window of sixty days prior to the election. And, Smith knows well, that if Trump or an ally is elected President in 2024, his case might well disappear. Willis, on the other hand, has time. While the election is important, there is no mandate to skirt around the campaigns. She\u2019s not likely to try all nineteen at once, in fact, I\u2019m sure she expects that several of them will \u201cflip\u201d and plead-out well before trial. But when it all \u201ccomes down\u201d, Willis has the luxury of time that Smith cannot depend upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith and Willis have different goals. Smith is trying to hold Trump personally accountable for his actions, to let the Nation see that justice applies to all. Willis, on the other hand, is trying to tell the entire story. She wants America to know that it wasn\u2019t just bumbling \u201chacks\u201d trying to somehow deflect the will of the people with hair dye running down their face. It was organized, it was real, it was a determined attempt to change an American election, and short-circuit the United States Constitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith wants Trump, his \u201cDevil\u201d. Willis has invited the \u201cDevil\u201d and the entire structure of Hell with him down to Georgia. What\u2019s at stake? \u201cOnly\u201d the soul of the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"