If he were an ordinary citizen he would be in jail by now

Yeah, there is that fourth indictment against the nasty guy. This one appears to have real consequences to it, not something that can be satisfied with paying a fine. Of course, there are several articles about it on Daily Kos. Laura Clawson starts off with some of the basics of this one. This is about the efforts in Georgia to overturn the 2020 election, brought by a district attorney in Georgia working under Georgia’s laws. The main charge is racketeering. Dictionary.com defines that as extortion. A lot of racketeering is done by more than one person, and the indictment lists 18 other people who helped the nasty guy. The nasty guy likes to say he was only doing what his lawyers suggested. This time the lawyers are indicted too. If he got back to the White House he can’t pardon himself or his co-conspirators because this follows Georgia law and pardons are very hard to get (thanks to a constitutional amendment passed in 1943 in response to Gov. E.D. Rivers and his scheme to peddle pardons). An Associated Press article posted on Kos describes the 18 associates included in the indictment. It includes the top players – Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell – plus many I hadn’t heard of before. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/15/2187371/-A-look-at-the-19-people-charged-in-Georgia-indictment-connected-to-Trump-election-scheme Mark Sumner of Kos reviewed why this being a racketeering indictment is so important. It is referred here as RICO – Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. It makes a difference in what is to be proven and what evidence can be used. It gave federal and state prosecutors a big boost when going after Mafia, drug cartels, and criminal organizations. That include Wall Street insider trading and corrupt health care providers. The law is for going after the criminals at the top of the pyramid. So this indictment isn’t against just the nasty guy, it is also against the whole team of coup plotters. In a delicious bit of irony Giuliani used RICO laws quite a bit when cleaning out the Italian Mafia (so the Russian Mafia could move in). The attorney is bringing the case in Fulton County, Georgia because the attempted outcome would have affected voters in Fulton County. Sumner then explains there may be individual acts that are generally legal and all those acts taken together that are a crime. In this case the purpose of all those acts was to “unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.” An important part of the Georgia RICO law is if a person is found guilty they must serve time in prison. That means the smaller players in that list of 18 are going to be looking for deals. A likely outcome of a deal is to give more evidence against those at the top of the enterprise. Kerry Eleveld of Kos noted that the nasty guy’s tendency to punch back and intimidate those who try to bring him to justice. That works in a political rally and he has lashed out at the judges in other cases. But Georgia law...

Legal expert and co-editor-in-chief of Just Security Ryan Goodman pointed to one key difference regarding a defendant's eligibility for release on bail. Georgia puts the burden of proof on the defendant to demonstrate they pose "no significant risk of intimidating witnesses."

An AP article posted on Kos introduces Fulton County attorney Fani Willis and some of what she did to bring this case. Sumner discussed the term FAFO (F[ool] Around and Find Out). Don’t believe there will be consequences? Keep doing what you’re doing. These are state charges. Returning to the White House and its ability to pardon can’t make these state charges disappear. The state governor can’t pardon. Sumner fills in the story about Gov. E.D. Rivers and why the pardon power was taken away from him. Even the state pardon board will only clear a record five years after a sentence has been fully served. Of course, various people are now calling for the Georgia governor to be given the ability to pardon. But that ability was taken away by a constitutional amendment. The indictment names the nasty guy and 18 more people. But the “criminal enterprise” wasn’t limited to just those. Eleveld reported there were lots of accomplices outside of Georgia and many Republicans are getting worried. The list of those include the Republican National Committee, the fake electors in several states, individual efforts to refuse to certify the vote, and people like Sen. Lindsey Graham, who called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger lobbying to invalidate votes. A pundit roundup by Greg Dworkin for Kos included a quote from Simon Rosenberg, writing “Hopium Cronicles” on Substack. Rosenberg quoted and then expanded on a tweet from Stuart Stevens. Here’s what Stevens wrote:

This is basically a Rico indictment of the Republican Party. As it should be. Every Republican elected official who refused to acknowledge the winner of the 2020 election is an unindicted co-conspirator.

There are a few more quotes related to the indictments. And in the comments a large number of cartoons. Hunter of Kos wrote about the wave of columns from the pundits who support the nasty guy. There will be lots of these. The first one, at least the one Hunter is focused on is by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post. Marcus wrote the individual acts and says they are not crimes. But that misses the point. For that Hunter quoted a tweet by Lee Kovarsky:

OMG this is going to go on for days. SAY IT WITH ME: OVERT. ACTS. IN. FURTHERANCE. OF. ENTERPRISE. OBJECTIVES. NEED. NOT. THEMSELVES. BE. CRIMES. It's like if I took a sentence documenting the getaway driver's role and was like "NOW IT'S ILLEGAL TO DRIVE ON THE TURNPIKE!"

Hunter adds:

If you go up to someone or a group of someones and say, "Please give me money," as long as you're wearing nice clothes and do not look homeless, it is not often considered a crime. If you say "please give me money" while inside a bank, pointing a loaded gun at a cashier's head, it is immediately a crime and your blurry face will be on FBI posters within a week.

And:

Trump and others are now facing racketeering charges because Georgia (and federal) prosecutors have a mountain of evidence to prove that each of those not-criminal acts were undertaken in order to further the criminal part of the plan.

Charles Jay of the Kos community discussed some of the nonsense coming from Republicans.

Incredibly, the latest talking point for Trump defenders is that if Democrats want to ensure Trump, the current GOP frontrunner, isn’t elected president in 2024, they should let it happen at the ballot box rather than in the courthouse. This script ignores entirely that so many of Trump’s legal issues stem from the fact that he wouldn't concede that the previous presidential election had been decided at the ballot box.

Sumner reported this upcoming Monday the nasty guy will reveal a new report documenting the election fraud in Georgia. That leaves one wondering how he got info now that he could have used 2½ years ago. Yeah, it is all about him spouting more lies (or spouting the same ones over again). Perhaps he’s going for the non existent theory that “it’s not a crime if you really believe it.” It’s also not a crime to express your beliefs. Sumner wrote:

Trump is welcome to believe he won Georgia. He can believe 5,000 zombies voted in Georgia and 125,000 ghosts pulled the lever in Detroit. He is free to take those claims to court, to file requests for recounts, and to seek redress through every legal means. But having done that, he can’t use these statements or any other statements as a means to solicit illegal activity. That’s the problem, and it doesn’t matter what Trump believes.

Clawson reported that the nasty guy has been on his Truth Social app attacking the judges and prosecutors of his various indictments. Which means his followers are now threatening those judges and prosecutors. And some are being arrested.

If Trump’s supporters can walk right up to the line of direct threats before facing criminal charges, Trump himself—in theory—should be on a tighter leash. The conditions of his release bar him from making “inflammatory statements” and in particular attempting to intimidate witnesses. Yet Trump is doing exactly that and has yet to face consequences. The New York Times reports, “Some lawyers have said that if Mr. Trump were an ordinary citizen issuing these attacks, he would be in jail by now.” It’s one of the many ways Trump has been given special, lenient treatment as he moves through the legal system. Any judge, though, who puts Trump in jail over his efforts to intimidate witnesses and incite his supporters to violence will face a major burst of rage from those supporters, along with accusations by Trump and much of the Republican Party that it’s a political persecution of a presidential candidate. Trump is banking on continuing special treatment for exactly that reason.

After a previous indictment Kos of Kos wrote the nasty guy posted “If you go after me, I’m coming after you.” Yes, the judge took note that it appears to be witness intimidation, which can affect the fair administration of justice. An AP article posted on Kos Judge Tanya Chutkan, overseeing the federal election conspiracy case, warned him the defense “is supposed to happen in the courtroom, not on the internet.” Repeated intimidation and harassment will prompt her to take action to “safeguard the integrity of the case.” That could include moving up the court date. Another part of what the nasty guy wants to do is publicly release much of the evidence against him, making it harder to use it in court. That includes “sensitive” documents. His legal team is discussing it with the judge, though the prosecution’s definition of what is sensitive is prevailing. Meteor Blades of Kos reported in spite of the warning the nasty guy is still “pushing the envelope.”

At some point, a threat must be exercised or the power of future threats is vapor. If Trump keeps it up, Chutkan will have little choice but to call his bluff and make good on her warnings.

Right now his lawyers are doing all they can to delay the trials. But...

If the former occupant of the White House does ultimately get held in pretrial detention, he and his lawyers will be desperate for the trial to start ASAP rather than keep trying to delay it until January 2025.

In the comments of another pundit roundup Pat Byrnes says all these indictments aren’t fair to cartoonists. He shows himself at his desk muttering, “Another indictment cartoon? How many of these do I have to come up with?” Further down in the comments is a meme posted by exlrrp that says, “Confession! I was one of the 81,281,502 people who ‘rigged’ the election for Biden.”