America's Talking - Georgia Grand Jury Indicts Trump on Charges of Attempting to Overturn 2020 Election

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

Former President Donald Trump was indicted for the fourth time Monday night, this time on charges related to the 2020 election in Georgia. A Fulton County grand jury indicted the former president on 13 counts of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which narrowly went to President Joe Biden. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to American Focus powered by the Center Square. I am Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today again is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. We are recording this on Friday, August 18th. More big news in the criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump this week. He was indicted for a fourth time, this time out of the state of Georgia, where charges against him relate to his alleged interference and trying to overturn the election in Georgia. You reported on it at thecenter square.com. Casey, tell us about it. Yeah, this is another indictment for former president Donald Trump. It's his fourth indictment. He has others in New York, Washington, D.C. and Florida. So now Georgia is just going up and down the East Coast, like racking up indictments. I think he's nearing 100 charges, about 100, 100 charges.

for indictments. And so this latest one is related to the 2020 election in his efforts to allegedly kind of overturn the results. Of course, he and his supporters would say he's not overturned anything. He's validating what the truth is. Now, what's interesting about this one is almost 20 of Trump's team, I guess you could say his lawyers and different associates were all wrapped up in this kind of RICO style racketeering indictment, which said they all kind of colluded together to do this,

and they can all be kind of charged together. These are often these kinds of, the racketeering thing is, you know, most famously been used to kind of get like mafia families or big groups of crime families that need to all be lumped together, though that's not exclusively used for that. So it's just an interesting development. There's a lot of people in the Trump world who are facing charge. is who you're like Mark, like Mark Meadows is wrapped up in this. So, you know, where this goes next is a really interesting question. I think the, the Fulton County indictment, the judge here

seems a little bit more hostile than some of the other judges. That is a little bit of speculation, but I think he has might face a harder time here than maybe some of his others. And also, regardless, even if he somehow, if he does somehow win all these cases, which is possible for sure. he could easily spend, you know, the next 18 months, which much, much of that is election season in the courtroom and meeting with his lawyers instead of out on the campaign trail, which, of course, is a big concern for Republicans and his supporters as he is the Republican frontrunner against incumbent President Joe Biden. Yeah, despite these four separate indictments, three of them federal, one of them stayed

out of the state of New York, Trump remains the strong frontrunner in the Republican primary, but the concern for Republicans now has to be Trump's going to be spending a lot of time with his lawyers in courtrooms. Each of these trials, not all of them are scheduled yet. Some of them are, a couple of them are, and they're scheduled before the November 2024 election. So Trump's time is going to be spent on legal matters, as opposed to out getting out there on the campaign trail. At least that's what some people fear and think. Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor, is trailing Trump. He's second right now in all polling in the GOP primary, including in the Center Square's Voters' Voters' Poll, which came out this week.

Does DeSanis have a shot of catching up to Trump? What happens if Trump is the Republican nominee, and he's convicted of an end? these charges. Yeah, I mean, DeSantis definitely has a chance. He has a lot of, you know, credibility and he has a lot of overlap with Trump, honestly. So if Trump somehow were able to bow out or were forced to bow out, I think DeSantis would suck up the majority of that support that is for Trump now. I mean, if Trump dropped out today, I think DeSantis would largely take his place in that outpacing others by double digits, not to the same degree, but I think DeSantis would easily have a 10-point lead, 20-point lead after Trump jumped out. So he has, you know, the potential there. And with all the

legal problems facing Trump, it's not out of the question. I think we are an uncharted legal territory here. So just into our listeners, any, you know, Fox or CNN analysts tells you this is definitely what's going to happen. They don't know what they're talking about. Because nobody has ever seen a fourth, not thrice, but whatever comes. What's after thrice stand? A four-time indicted president running for election. We just just, it's unprecedented. I was going to say, I guess the good news is as far as we know, who knows, but as far as we know, we don't think there's a potential fifth indictment coming. Is that good news? Can that be good news in any way for the former president? I don't think so, but I just throw it out there. Yeah, I mean, we haven't, I don't think there's going to be another one,

but these things turns out can pop up out of nowhere. And at the last minute, you know, who knows what could happen in a year before the election, that would be pretty interesting, you know, in October indictment, October 24 indictment. But, you know, there's a little bit, lot of legal questions here, too, of can he, if convicted, can he still run? I think yes. My read on it is, even from prison, he can continue running for president. We wrote off a poll out of Iowa, a plurality of Iowa Republican voters want Trump to continue to run for president, even if he's in prison. Right. And so if Trump somehow went to prison before the Republican primary was over, I don't know. I think it might get more support for him. It might scare some people into leaving him for DeSantis.

But I think if he goes a prison after the Republican primary before the general, I think Republicans are going to be on lockstep voting for Trump. And then that raises the question, can Trump pardon himself? And that is kind of an untested question as well. I mean, I don't think he's beyond doing it. And if he does pardon himself and then it takes, you know, two years to get to the Supreme Court and he's already out of the White House, you know, practically out of the White House by the time it happens, will the Supreme Court really throw a president who's been in office for three years in jail? that'll be, I mean, historic to say that. I do think it's important to note Casey that the former President Trump himself, and even many of his opponents in the Republican Party primary, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, say these indictments against Trump are politically motivated that President Biden has politicized the Department of Justice who brought three of the four indictments against the former president

and that this is all just a sham. So it's important to note that side of it. We'll see how it plays out, Casey, but we are out of time. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McKalib. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.