Enquirer<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0And the Issue finds a way to gain tax money from the deal.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m voting for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNo, the legal weeds we\u2019re talking about today are national \u2013 the legal weeds that Donald Trump finds himself entangled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defend All Sides<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
For the record, Trump is currently in legal \u201ctroubles\u201d in five different jurisdictions.\u00a0\u00a0There are two federal cases; January 6th\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0indictment in Washington, DC, and the classified documents in Ft Pierce, Florida.\u00a0\u00a0There is election interference (RICO case) in Atlanta, Georgia.\u00a0\u00a0And there are two cases active in New York. The first indictment was the \u201chush money\u201d case . The other is the civil case brought against the Trump Organization by the New York Attorney General.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHis woes can be categorized in four \u201cbaskets\u201d:\u00a0election interference 2020 and January 6th<\/sup>\u00a0(Atlanta and Washington, DC), personal business and election finance fraud from 2016 (New York), violating classified document security (Ft Pierce), and Trump Organization business fraud (New York).<\/p>\n\n\n\nA better analogy might be, he\u2019s in a \u201cswamp\u201d rather than in the weeds.\u00a0\u00a0But swamps already have a bad name from Trump use; let\u2019s not mix the metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, let\u2019s start in Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the ATL <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The biggest (and possibly \u201cbaddest\u201d) charges Trump and his campaign faces\u00a0\u00a0are state charges in Georgia.\u00a0The former President face felony charges of election interference. And those charges are \u201cenhanced\u201d by a \u201cRICO\u201d charge.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cRICO\u201d is a charge of corrupt conspiracy to commit felonies, with a minimum penalty of five years in prison.\u00a0\u00a0RICO cases were made famous by \u2013 wait for it – former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudy Giuliani. He used them to bring down the Mafia in the 1980\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Rudy is now one of Trump\u2019s co-defendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the prosecutors’ standpoint, RICO cases allow them to pressure the \u201csmaller fish\u201d to \u201cflip on the bigger fish\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Nineteen were charged in the original indictment.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s already down to fifteen. Last month, Scott Hall pleaded guilty to breaking into election machines in an attempt to \u201cprove\u201d they were rigged to change Trump votes to Biden.\u00a0\u00a0Hall was the \u201cman on the scene\u201d, but he received his instructions from Trump attorney Sidney Powell (the \u201cKracken\u201d lady).\u00a0\u00a0Powell then pled guilty, putting another Trump attorney in an \u201cuntenable\u201d position at trial, Ken Chesebro.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He also pled-out, leaving Trump attorney Jenna Ellis completely vulnerable to conviction.\u00a0\u00a0So she pled guilty to a felony, but not the RICO charge that would put her in jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flipping and Talking<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hall, Powell, Chesebro and Ellis all must testify truthfully as a condition of their plea agreement. They have traded their testimony to avoid jail time, instead taking fines and parole as punishment. Should they fail to \u201ctell the truth\u201d (already guaranteed by sworn and videoed testimony to the Prosecution team), they\u2019re headed to jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That leaves the \u201ctop\u201d Trump attorney, Giuliani, \u201ctwisting in the wind\u201d to use a Mafia expression he might remember.\u00a0\u00a0Powell was in the \u201ccrazy\u201d meeting on December 18th<\/sup>, when she and Giuliani proposed that Trump use the military to confiscate voting machines in key states.\u00a0\u00a0Powell\u2019s testimony could directly impact Giuliani, Trump, and Trump\u2019s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n