The Journal. - The Prosecutor Bringing a Racketeering Case Against Trump

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Yesterday, former President Donald Trump was indicted for the fourth time. This case, in Georgia, is the most ambitious and sweeping one against him yet. WSJ’s Cameron McWhirter reports on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the prosecutor leading the case. Further Listening: -Meet Jack Smith, the Special Counsel Prosecuting Trump  -What Will Trump's Third Indictment Cost Him?  -United States of America v. Donald J. Trump  Further Reading: -Donald Trump Indicted in Georgia Over Effort to Overturn Election Results  -Fani Willis: The No-Nonsense Georgia Prosecutor on a Collision Course With Donald Trump  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Cam McWhorter. I'm a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and I'm based in Atlanta. I cover all kinds of things, including criminal indictments. And how was your night? Really, really, really long. And it was very surreal. I was at the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta where we were awaiting news of an indictment. An indictment of Donald Trump, the fourth against the former president.

Eventually, by midnight, we all heard and saw the indictments and heard District Attorney Willis discuss the case. A Fulton County grand jury returned a true bill of indictment, charging 19 individuals with violations of Georgia law. The charges? Operating a criminal enterprise that sought to overturn the election results in Georgia. On his Truth Social platform, Trump called the two-and-a-half-year investigation a witch hunt. And his attorneys said the indictment was, quote, flawed and unconstitutional. You have a very successful and forceful district attorney, successful and forceful district attorney, and she is lining up against some of the top criminal defense attorneys in Georgia. And it's going to be a real battle royale.

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Tuesday, August 15th. and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Tuesday, August 15th. Coming up on the show, Donald Trump's Georgia indictment and the prosecutor bringing the case. Introducing TD Insurance for Business, with customized coverage options for your business. Because at TD Insurance, we understand that your business is unique, so your business insurance should be too.

Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. Former President Donald Trump has now been indicted four times. First in New York for an alleged hush money scheme, and then twice at the federal level for his handling of classified documents and for his role in the January 6th Capitol riot. But this fourth case is about what happened in Georgia after the 2020 election. The prosecutor is Fulton County District Attorney Fonnie Willis. So tell us about Fonnie Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought this case. Who is she? She has been a prosecutor for years and really developed a very powerful

reputation for winning. She is an interesting, interesting person. Her father had briefly been involved in a group with the Black Panthers in Los Angeles and was an activist. Later, he became a defense attorney and moved to the Washington area. She grew up with him and would see her dad as a defense attorney. She'd sit in courtrooms and see what he did. And she said that really drove her to want to become an attorney. She went to Emory Law School here in Atlanta and then started working and eventually got to the prosecutor's office here in Atlanta. Have you met her? Yes, briefly. And then I've interviewed her over the phone and talked to her. And she's absolutely no nonsense. And more importantly,

I interviewed a lot of her friends and close colleagues who had worked with her for years. colleagues who had worked with her for years. And the general consensus is she's a workaholic. And she confessed that herself to me. She said, people talk about work-life balance. I don't know what that is. What's her reputation as a prosecutor? She's not very tall. She's... That's not her reputation as a prosecutor. No, but this is the thing. This is important because I was talking to a friend of hers and he was saying, she comes in, she's not her reputation as a prosecutor. No, but this is the thing. This is important because I was talking to a friend of hers and he was saying she comes in, she's not very tall. She's kind of initially kind of quiet. And you think that, oh, you know,

this isn't going to be a real overwhelming personality. And then she builds up a case and she will go at to get what she wants and to get her to win a case, she will really go at it. And she is really well known as being obsessed with detail and gathering information prior to walking into a courtroom. She wants to be ultra prepared and she works obsessively for that goal. So she's not going to walk into a courtroom unless she has everything lined up. And that is something that she's very well known for. What kind of cases is she known for?

Well, she's mostly known for murder convictions and handling various murders. And she's handled over 100 murders personally. But her most famous case is the Atlanta school cheating scandal. Tell us about that case. So in the early 2010s, there was a case that developed in Atlanta involving the allegation that there was cheating by teachers and administrators in the Atlanta public school system to inflate the results, to give the school system a better ranking.

A massive cheating scandal in Atlanta's public schools. It's not the students, but 178 principals and teachers who were involved. 35 Atlanta public school teachers and administrators. They've been indicted on charges of large-scale racketeering and corruption, complete cheating. They're accused of conspiring to cheat by boosting the scores on standardized tests. Court documents allege there was a system in place whereby test answers were, quote, altered, fabricated, and falsely certified, unquote.

And she led the prosecution with some other key attorneys in that case, and they brought a RICO statute, a racketeering statute, against the teachers and the administrators. What is RICO? So there's a federal RICO statute that was developed in 1970 to combat the mafia. It's the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Statute. And George's RICO statute is a little broader, but is modeled after that law. And it was, again, developed to go after gangs. So if somebody commits a crime at the direction of someone else, or numerous crimes at the direction of someone else, that's a conspiracy to commit crimes. the direction of someone else, that's a conspiracy to commit crimes. And if you can charge someone with, I'll give an example, someone's murdered because, you know, Joe told Fred to kill this person. Joe and Fred are both charged with murder. Willis used the RICO law to prosecute teachers

and administrators involved in the cheating scandal. The assertion in that case was there was a criminal conspiracy on the part of the administrators to direct people to commit crimes, i.e. inflating grades and changing test scores, to promote the school illegally, and that the harm that was done was to the students because they weren't really being tested. And she went into that courtroom and eventually 11 were convicted. That strategy is similar to the one she's using against Trump. That's next. That's refreshing. That's Summer's Beat. Must be legal drinking age. Please drink responsibly. Carlsberg Canada Inc. Waterloo, Ontario.

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Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. Cam was in the room late last night when District Attorney Willis held a press conference. It was very, a lot of tension in the room. I would say even before that, the clerk came to gather the indictments from a judge who had been overseeing the grand jury. And that judge did not discuss what the indictments were,

but you could see that it was a substantial document that the court clerk was holding, and we knew at that point that there was going to be a substantial case presented. And then shortly after that, a few hours after that, District Attorney Willis came out and presented to the media and the television cameras this sprawling case where 19 people were indicted. The top of that list is former President Donald Trump with numerous felony counts and a wide-ranging conspiracy case.

A case that she says there was a criminal intent to overturn the 2020 election here in Georgia, which narrowly President Biden won. And how does she say it's a conspiracy? There are allegations that they were all committing criminal acts with the sole goal of overturning an election, which is against the law. So Trump, his legal team is alleged to have been directing people in parts of Georgia to gather voting machine information. There are allegations that Trump was calling investigators and pressuring them to search for votes and find votes. The indictment also references a January 2021 phone call between Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Trump.

this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. President Trump is repeatedly asking for Raffensperger to open an investigation to find what he alleges is fraud. And he says it over and over again. So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. And they were all, it was this intense pressure to overturn the election.

And in this indictment, there are 19 co-defendants named, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. There are 41 charges, and it details day by day 161 so-called acts, which are just phone calls and meetings by these co-defendants to allegedly try to overturn the election. Right. Now, one important point that I should have brought up. So the strategy with racketeering charges like this is that you charge a bunch of people, right?

So the top of the list would be former President Trump. But then you have people who are just small people who don't have a lot of money who were supporting him in a rural county in Georgia, who are now named also in this indictment. And the classic strategy in RICO for prosecutors is to get people who are on the lower rung of whatever the network is to flip. I'm being somewhat flippant in my description, but they turn and they agree to cooperate with the prosecutor. And then you start building a case. And that is what happened in the Atlanta school cheating scandal. Teachers started to agree to cooperate in exchange for immunity. So that is

exactly what a prosecutor wants, is people on the lower level of a conspiracy, an alleged conspiracy, to start cooperating. And it goes up the line. A lawyer for Meadows didn't respond to a request for comment. Giuliani called the indictment, quote, an affront to American democracy. And he said it does, quote, permanent and irrevocable harm to our justice system. How did Trump respond to this indictment? He really doesn't like it. He's been very vocal on Truth Social, his social media enterprise that he set up. And he is attacking this as an attempt to undermine his candidacy because he's running for president again, trying to seek the Republican nomination. His attorneys have already, even before the indictments dropped, were taking shots at it, and they're going to vigorously, vigorously seek to undermine the case

and present it that certainly that the racketeering is wrong, that charge is wrong, and that President Trump did nothing wrong beyond exercise his First Amendment rights. When could this case actually go to trial? When could this case actually go to trial? Willis, she said she wanted to do all the defendants together and within six months. That seems very unrealistic to people who are in the know. There's going to be some motions to try to move it to a different venue, perhaps to federal court. So it's going to be a big, sprawling headache. So when is this going to come to trial?

Nobody really knows. But the indictment has dropped. These are felony charges. So the train has left the station. This is going to happen. Now, what will be interesting to see in the coming months is what I mentioned earlier, who flips, who's going to flip, and who's going to flip first. What's next for Trump?

He's still running for president, and in the midst of all of it, it's going to be this court case, this crazy, sprawling court case. That's all for today, Tuesday, August 15th. The Journal is a co-production of Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Sadie Gurman, Aruna Vishwanatha, and Yan Wolf. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.