Today, Explained - Florida man indicted (again) (again) (again)

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Oft-indicted former President Donald Trump is at it again. Stephen Fowler, host of Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Battleground: Ballot Box podcast, explains the paradox of the Fulton County charges. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Miles Bryan, engineered by David Herman, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was a big night in Atlanta Monday. On one side of town, a queen was addressing her adoring masses. Meanwhile, just down the street, a former president was being indicted. A Fulton County grand jury returned a true bill of indictment. Not for the first. Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump was arraigned on a New York Supreme Court indictment. Not for the second. Charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws.

Not for the third. Charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States. But for the fourth time. Coming up on Today Explained, this fourth one might be the biggest one yet. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. This is Today Explained.

Stephen Fowler covers politics for Georgia Public Broadcasting, where he also hosts their Battleground Ballot Box podcast. He says this Fulton County indictment is different from the three that preceded it for three big reasons. One, this is a case about the former president's election malfeasance that's coming from a state, which means he won't be able to pardon himself if convicted and if reelected. Two, tons of people from the former president's election fraud posse are getting charged along with him. And third, as you may have heard. Yeah, I mean, the prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis, said in the past that she likes RICO as a prosecutorial tool because it sets a good narrative and it allows her to go before a jury and really paint a picture about the broad scope and scale of crimes that happened.

So all 19 people are being charged under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which basically means that they found at least two of these predicate acts that show a pattern of racketeering activity. On top of those things, there are actual other standalone election law crimes or just general crimes that they're being accused of. So there are 41 different counts in this indictment. And Donald Trump has been charged with counts 1, 5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 27 through 29 and 38 and 39. And those those are a lot of numbers. 13, 15, 17, 19, 27 through 29, and 38 and 39. And those are a lot of numbers. But basically, there were false statements made to state lawmakers trying to tell them they could overturn the election. State law doesn't in any way prevent you, the legislature, from immediately taking this over and deciding this.

That power, right, obligation is given to you by the founding fathers, deliberately. There were false statements and solicitations of high-ranking state officials like Georgia's governor and secretary of state. It's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal offense. And you can't let that happen. and you're not reporting it, that's a criminal offense. And you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan.

The fake electoral college documents. His idea is basically that all of us, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, et cetera, have our electors send in their votes, even though the votes aren't legal under federal law because they're not signed by the governor, so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6th. The harassment and intimidation of an election worker.

There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you? Solicitations of Department of Justice officials, the vice president, and the unlawful breach of election equipment. I'm the guy that chartered the jet to go down to Coffey County to have them inspect all of those computers,

and I've heard zero. Okay? Hmm. I went down there. We scanned every freaking ballot. And obstructive acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. And Trump sits squarely in several, several, several of these buckets. with solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer for basically trying to get an elected official to do something that goes against the oath of their office.

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. He's being charged with conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer for pushing the false elector slate of campaign. He's being charged with the conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree. And so the list goes on and on and on. But, you know, if you're painting this narrative

of this massive criminal enterprise, you know, figuratively and literally, Trump is at the top of this list. The second person on the list is Rudolph William Louis Giuliani. You don't know what you're talking about, idiot. Former New York mayor, now personal attorney of the former president. Giuliani faces the most number of counts tied with Trump because Giuliani also had his hands in just about every aspect of the post-election period. Giuliani helped speak to Georgia lawmakers and told them they couldn't certify the election. But there's more than ample evidence to conclude that this election was a sham. It was an embarrassment to the citizens of your state.

He also spread nasty allegations about Fulton election workers. How can they say there's no fraud? Look at that woman. Look at her taking those ballots out. Look at them scurrying around with the ballots. Nobody in the room hiding around. They look like they're passing out dope. He's facing a defamation suit from those workers and stipulated recently that, yes, some of the things that he said were defamatory per se. A particular irony here that America's former mayor, Rudolph William Lewis Giuliani, is being charged in all these RICO charges specifically is that he kind of made his bones as a prosecutor bringing RICO cases against criminals in New York.

Yeah, you know, there's a great Southern expression, says a hit dog hollers. And that's how somebody described the legal jeopardy that Giuliani was in as this was getting close. But I mean, Giuliani is the tip of the RICO iceberg along with Trump. John Eastman, the constitutional scholar who said the Constitution allows you to pick your own electors. He described for me what he thought the ambiguity was in the statute. And I said, you're saying that you believe the vice president acting as president of the Senate can be the sole decision maker as to, under your theory, who becomes the next president of the United States? He said, yes. I said, are you out of your effing mind? You've got Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, who helped organize calls with officials

like Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Mr. President, everybody is on the line. And just so this is Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, just so we all are aware. You've got other lawyers like Sidney Powell, who infamously filed the Kraken lawsuit in Georgia. I can hardly wait to put forth all the evidence we have collected on Dominion, starting with the fact it was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez. I'm going to release the Kraken. You've got a couple of Georgia's fake electors that were not just fake electors, but elsewhere involved in these schemes. You've got Kenneth Cheeseborough, a previously unknown lawyer that wrote memos outlining how the fake elector slate should go and arguing that they

were allowed to move forward. And, you know, we still have more and more and more defendants. But the more interesting thing that I think has flown under the radar of people's ideas about who could be charged is three people, Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, and Trevion Cuddy. Trevion Cuddy, I believe, worked for Kanye West. At one point, Kanye West publicist. So not necessarily your average American, like, grassroots, I'm not involved in politics except for the ways that I love it type stuff. But here you have, you know, from the highest levels of government all the way down to kind of low-level foot soldier types doing everything from turning the screws on the vice president all the way down to kind of low-level foot soldier types doing everything from turning the screws on the vice president all the way down to harassing a grandmother at her home

for, you know, working in an election and counting votes late one night. It just really shows the scale of this indictment. But again, just the scale of willing to do whatever it takes to change the election outcome. I think we all know how this is landing with the former president. Bing, bing, bong, bong, bing, bing, bing. But how is all this landing in Georgia, Stephen? Do Georgians broadly support Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis? Or is that more of like a Fulton County thing?

Well, you know, Fulton County is one of the most democratic counties in the state. It's also the most populous. So it does, what happens in Fulton County does skew a little bit more proportional than some of the other parts of the state. But I do think there's a certain level of Trump fatigue in Georgia because of this 2020 election and because of how much it dominated the 2022 midterm elections, that we're, I would say, looking to move to a post-Trump political scene where there still clashes over ideology between left and right and the democratically controlled urban and more suburban areas and the rural Republican-dominated portions of the state. But, you know, it's hard to say, too, because these indictments are so fresh, and there's plenty of people that like to go on TV and social media and say, this is a scam, this is a witch hunt, or like, this is the

rule of law coming down. But nobody had time to read it. Nobody had time to actually digest all of this. And so, I guess it's hard to say what the true impact is, especially because this is the third year of talking about 2020. Well, I'm sorry, while so many of your fellow Georgians were seeing Beyonce, you were reading the indictment, Stephen. Everybody say, hey, Miss Carter. Hey, Miss Carter. You know, in many ways, the indictments and this culmination of three years of coverage is my Beyonce. Georgia wants to move on from the former president right as it's becoming the epicenter of his legal woes. Stephen's going to tell us more about that political paradox

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I've been selling my soul, working all day, overtime hours, for today explained. Stephen, it feels so much like the former president's political fortunes have been tied to Georgia since before January 6th and certainly in the two and a half plus years since. That's my perspective as someone who lives north of Richmond, as they say. But what's the sense down there in Georgia? Well, you know, I think there was a viral ad,

Republicans cut, featuring words from Chuck Schumer. Now we take Georgia, and then we change America. And we find ourselves back in the same position for 2024, where most of the electoral map isn't really a question. But Georgia is one of those states that is. And so, Georgia is a state that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and did not vote for him in 2020. And if you chart that dotted line out a little bit further, would seem likely to not vote for Donald Trump in 2024. And so, yeah, I would say, you know, Georgia's in the driver's seat of not just Donald Trump's

future, but I would say American political future. And is in the driver's seat of not just Donald Trump's future, but I would say American political future. And not only that, but it's now bringing this case, which is arguably the most serious and broadest of all the indictments against the former president under a Republican governor, no less, has said Republican governor weighed in on these indictments yet? Brian Kemp has weighed in in interviews and other things by saying, look, quit looking back at the 2020 election. I mean, for goodness sakes, I was two and a half, three years ago now. The American people want to know what are you going to do for me to help me offset the bad policies of Joe Biden. So he's not explicitly sitting down and doing an interview and saying,

Donald Trump is too focused on the past and that cost him in the past and will cost us in the future. But he is offering that sort of politically savvy messaging way of saying, you know, we really need to do something because it's not going to work if we keep, you know, relitigating a past election for future, future elections. I think maybe Brian Kemp has moved on from Donald Trump and his reelection showed that he's moved on from Donald Trump. And I think the state of Georgia and voters on both sides of the aisle are moving on from Donald Trump. And I think the state of Georgia and voters on both sides of the aisle are moving on from Donald Trump in a way that there can start to be political conversations about what does it mean to exist without Donald Trump taking up all of the oxygen and all of the

political calculus. And so, you know, Kemp is a second term governor who doesn't have to worry about winning a primary or, you know, appeasing people in an election year, kind of loosening the tie a little bit and unbuttoning the sleeves and kind of being a little bit more authentic of this is kind of a hard pill to swallow. This is the truth. This is what we need to do. And trust me, I would know because I won my reelection in a blowout. It's interesting you say that while at the same time we see this highly indicted, the most indicted president in the history of this country, who made history by becoming the first president to ever get federally indicted or

indicted by a state, is dominating the Republican primary across the country. I'm leading in the primary polls by 50 and 55 percent against him and others. And a poll just came out where I'm leading in Iowa. We love Iowa by 34 points. I'm leading in New Hampshire by 35 points. And I'm leading in South Carolina by over 30. primary bases of a political party and what the broader electorate wants. You see that a lot in the 2022 midterm elections, where primary voters on the Republican side nominated these farther right, more pro-Trump candidates in crucial Senate races. And then when the time came for the entire state population to vote, they're like, ah, we actually prefer the Democrat or maybe more aptly, we prefer not you. And I think the interesting thing about Georgia and these indictments and them coming at a time when Trump appears to be, you know, the unstoppable force dominating the Republican primary,

is that there's not really anybody nationally that has figured out how to position themselves as opposed to Trump and his actions, still committed enough to core Republican orthodoxy, and also capable of not sending key blocks of swing voters running away screaming. And you see it with the struggles with the Ron DeSantis campaign. Pollsters found Trump has a 20-point margin over Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis, who despite improving seven points since April, remains a distant second. You see it with all of these other presidential candidates getting in, pulling one, two, three percent, fighting for scraps among what could be a broader coalition of Republicans willing to move

on from Trump. And in Georgia, you see that with Brian Kemp being one of those few figures who has been able to distance himself from Trump and say, you know, what he did, not that great, not that helpful, and not lose any of his bona fides of being a very capital C conservative. So it sounds like you're saying that Georgia's basically figured something out that the rest of the country hasn't quite figured out yet. Yeah, I mean, I think Georgia is on the inside track to figuring out what it's like to be in a world where Donald Trump is not the alpha, the omega. And it's not just Brian Kemp. I mean, look at Raphael Warnock, who just won reelection in a hard-fought runoff. He ran against a candidate who was notoriously one of the weakest statewide candidates.

I don't know if you know vampires and cool people or they're not, but I'm going to tell you something that I found out. A werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that, so I didn't want to be a vampire anymore. I wanted to be a werewolf. But then anyway. and education costs and rural health care and things that aren't exactly, you know, the like far left screaming from the rooftops, progressive things that can fly in places where there's way more Democrats than Republicans. But also nobody's accusing Raphael Warnock of being a moderate flippy floppy, like, will he vote with the Democrats? Will he not? Warnock, in his own way, is able to be authentically his self and authentically a progressive pastor, voting rights advocate, but also speaking to the reality of the constituency in Georgia in a way that's

authentic. So yeah, I think as much as Brian Kemp and Raphael Warnock don't have a lot in common ideologically, or even how they view campaigning and retail politicking, their ability to basically read the room of Georgia and effectively govern, that's the secret recipe that maybe more people should be copying in other states and in other places if they want to have a political ecosystem that is not Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. It's so funny to think about that, Stephen, in light of this week's news, that Georgia is this one formerly pretty red state that's sort of managed to sort of carve its own trail out and become a political bastion that's moved on from the former president and will now be like the epicenter of

talking about the former president until this trial happens and even more so at that point. It seems like a paradox. You're sitting there listening to this conversation and you're like, how can Georgia be the tip of the spear on a potential criminal conviction of former President Trump and also the tip of the spear of moving on from him and going into a post-Trump future? I mean, well, Georgia, we're just built different. And I guess we just have a two-sided spear to deal with. But not everybody is going to be involved with the trial and pay attention. And sure, there'll be cameras, and sure, there'll be this national attention. And I mean, I have never seen more people in one block in downtown Atlanta, not at a concert or a football game or something, than at the courthouse

when you had international broadcasters. Every local TV station had all of their crews and their cameras and their vans and their everything. But like, I mean, it's a circus. Georgia is a circus, and they're trying to make Donald Trump a sideshow and would rather focus on some of the other rings of the circus. But I guess it just, you know, politics contains multitudes and Georgia is the most multitudinous of all right now. The second hottest ticket in Georgia on Monday night was the Fulton County Courthouse. The first hottest ticket was still Beyonce. Exactly. And so much so that when all was said and done, even the venerable Atlanta institution of Waffle House was crumbling under the infrastructure pressure of both post-Beyonce fans hungry for food and a post-courthouse reporter hungry for something to push through

a 24-hour shift. We won't name any names. We won't name any names, but he rhymes with me. Stephen Fowler, Georgia Public Broadcasting, hosts a podcast about Georgia politics called Battleground. Ballot box, say that 10 times fast. It's all about Georgia elections, which turns out they matter. Check it out. Check out Beyonce. Check out Hadi Mawagdi.

He produced this show with help from Amina Alsadi, Laura Bullard, and David Herman. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. Everybody Everybody