This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. The barriers are up in front of the main courthouse in Atlanta as officials brace for a new indictment of Donald Trump that could come as soon as next week in Fulton County Prosecutor Fannie Willis's investigation into the former president's efforts to overturn his twenty twenty election loss in
the state. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labott says they're prepared and if Trump is indicted, the former president will be processed like any other accused criminal, including getting a mug shot, something that hasn't been done in Trump's three prior indictments. We are following our normal practices and so it doesn't matter your status.
We have mugshots ready for you.
Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on Willis in an attack ad and making unfounded and selectacious accusations against her.
There's a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta, racist and they say, I guess. They say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member. And this is a person that wants to indict me she's got a lot of problems.
Willis has said the accusations are derogatory and false, but she urged her staff not to respond to them, saying we have a job to do. Willis has been attacked by Trump before, as have Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Special counsel Jack Smith, who are both prosecuting Trump, and her response has been measured.
People have the right to say whatever they choose to say, is long as it does not rise to the level of threats against myself, against my staff, or against my family.
Joining me is Noah Bookbinder, President and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. It's a two and a half year investigation. Seventy five witnesses have testified. So is the expected Georgia indictment likely to be the most expansive regarding Trump's efforts to overturn the twenty twenty election.
I guess it depends how you define expansive, because certainly Jacksmith's indictment last week covered conduct that occurred all over the country, and you know, in that sense was an incredibly powerful and expansive indictment. What I think you have in Georgia is an investigation that has gone on probably longer than any other investigation of Trump into this kind of conduct, and that could at least encompass a wide range of statutes and a wide range of different types of conduct.
Nearly twenty people have been told reportedly that they could face charges in Georgia. CNN is reporting that there will be twelve or more indictments, and Trump's attorneys say that he's going to be indicted. Does that seem more than likely?
Well, I think certainly the signals that we've been getting from the public statements that Christract attorney Fanny Willis has made, the witnesses that have gone in front of the grand jury, and the fact that every time at this point that Donald Trump has been indicted, his attorneys have gone public
with the fact that he's about to be indicted. So all of that suggests that while we don't know exactly the contours of it and that will be exactly as reported, it does seem like it is moving toward indictments, that those indictments will include Donald Trump and will likely include a number of other people.
Three witnesses have been subpoena to appear before the Fulton Grand Jurors that are currently hearing cases, the former Lieutenant governor, Jeff Duncan, Jen Jordan, a former state senator, and George Cheaty, an independent journalist. What does it tell you why would she subpoena witnesses when she has all the testimony from the investigative grand jury.
Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I think a lot of times prosecutors will try to get some testimony in front of the grand jury that's actually going to issue the charges. It sort of makes it more real to them. A lot of times that is simply kind of a summary witness. You bring in an agent who's been investigating the case and have them go through a lot of the evidence
that has already been gathered. It is relatively unusual here, assuming that this is the moment when a grand jury is going to be presented with charges, for new fact witnesses to be brought in. It's certainly not at all unheard of. I think what it suggests to me is that in the time since she last presented evidence to the grand jury, they've learned more and found new and presumably significant facts that they want to get in front of the grand jury so that the indictment can be
as comprehensive and as current as possible. But it certainly does suggest that District Attorney Willis is trying to leave no stone unturned and be as comprehensive as possible.
So a lot of experts are predicting that Willis is going to use Rico charges in bringing the case. Does that seem like a good guests or estimation based on her history of.
Using rico It does. She has made it a point of pride that she has used the Rico statute more than her predecessors did. She has built her career in some ways on very prominent and aggressive use of that statute, and she indicated in letters that she sent to witnesses or potential defendants that her office was investigating that. So everything points to the fact that that was something that
she was likely to consider very seriously. And you know, certainly, as I am and this sort of bipartisan group of experts that I worked with, as we analyzed it, we think that the facts in the law are there to charge reco in this situation. And since it's something that just returning Willis has found to be a powerful rapid as prosecutor, it seems like a pretty good guest to think that she's she's pretty likely to go there.
Will you explain the use of RICO and how it would enable her to sweep in criminal statutes in Georgia and different jurisdictions to explain the reach of RICO.
Sure, What RICO is racketeering influenced corrupt organizations. These are statutes that were put in place to prosecute criminal organizations. Traditionally at the federal level, it was the mafia. It's been used toward gang but also towards all manner of kind of criminal enterprises, every time you have a group of people working together to achieve a criminal objective. So
it's been used against public officials. It was famously in Georgia used against a group of teachers and principals who were encouraging and pressuring and arranging for their students to cheat on standardized tests. So it can be used in a lot of different contexts. And what it allows you to do is, first of all, tell a kind of unified story of a criminal enterprise, of an effort to achieve criminal objectives that may be harder to tell when
you're charging very specific individual statutes. But it also allows you to charge a very serious felony offense that may be predicated maybe based on commission of some much more minor crimes. But if you can prove that they were together part of a broader criminal enterprise, you get this much more serious offense. And it can also pull in
offenses that were committed in different places. One of them has to have been committed in the county in which it's charged, but other ones may not be, so you can bring in much more sweeping conduct. Is certainly what we've seen suggest that the Fulton County inventstigation has included looking into things that happened in other parts of Georgia and maybe even things that happened in other parts of the United States.
In the Special Council's January sixth indictment, he recounts the events in Georgia. If the Special Council's case goes to trial before Georgia, does that impact the trial or proceedings in Georgia.
The only for formal way which it could impact it is because you're going to have similar witnesses and presumably at least one similar defendant. They're sort of a scheduling question. They can't go at the same time generally federal case takes precedents and moves first, but these are separate jurisdictions. They're separate laws, and what happens in the federal case doesn't necessarily dictate what will happen in the state case, but there are a lot of ways that it can
impact it. First of all, any kind of testimony that happens in the federal case can either be used or at least can affect testimony in the state case, because if a witness testifies one way in the federal case, that same witness can be brought in in the state case if they testify to something different, that can be used to attack their testimony. So it's going to be challenging but also in some ways helpful at times to make use of what happened in the federal trial in
a potential state trial. There's also the sort of persuasive effect that if Donald Trump is acquitted in a federal trial, even though that should not play any role in evaluating the state trial, it certainly is going to be harder to get people to think that he committed a crime if he's convicted in a federal trial and you then
have a state trial of very similar offenses. It is going to make defending him that much more difficult, even though judges and jurors will have to make a significant effort to show that they are evaluating the case on its own merits. But I think as a practical matter, it may be difficult to separate them.
So these rico prosecutions can take a long time. She is trying wrapper young thug and they're seven months into the trial and the jury hasn't been selected, So it seems like there's no way that this case could ever be tried and concluded before the election. And then if Trump wins, will he ever face trial.
Well, that's an interesting issue because one of the concerns about federal charges of Donald Trump is that if he is elected president, if he has already been convicted, he could pardon himself if a case is ongoing, he could even though the federal government is not supposed to work this way, but he could conceivably appoint an attorney general and order that person to dismiss charges against him. So there are a lot of ways that he could interfere
with a federal prosecution. There's also a federal policy that the Justice Department doesn't to prosecute a sitting president, which could come into play depending on where things are. None of that exists at the state level. There is no rescription on a state prosecuting a sitting president. There's no ability for a president to pardon himself for state offenses.
It certainly would be very complicated. I would imagine that you would be a real struggle for a state court to figure out what to do about a prosecution of a sitting president, because you don't want to unduly burden the ability of a president to serve and to fulfill their duties. But there's nothing stopping that case from moving forward.
And I think you know where there is a real concern of Donald Trump in the past has abused the authority of the presidency to help himself and his allies, and including abusing this justice system that's sort of part of his mo There's a real concern that he could use elected office to escape accountability, and in some ways, this Georgia case could be kind of an antidote to that.
If there are twelve indictments or even around that number, it seems unwieldy to try them together. Would she have to split up the trials?
I think we'll sort of have to see how that plays out. And one of the uses of particularly we go conspiracy charges is that they can allow a case against a large number of people to proceed in a
way that is powerful and at least reasonably efficient. It can be a way to in a lot of cases, get a number of people to plead guilty and cooperate testify against other members of the charged conspiracy, and it can be a way to get in expansive evidence that has to do with what maybe what some people were doing as part of the conspiracy that would only be able to be introduced against other people as part of
a unified trial into a unified conspiracy. So there can be real advantages for a prosecutor to keep people together if you're charging something like a Rico conspiracy. But it makes it very complicated and certainly would take a long time. So that's not going to be the approach if she wants it to move quickly. And one of the things you saw with Jack Smith's indictment is that he charged just Donald Trump, even while charging conspiracy conspiracy charges and
enumerating some of the other people involved. Presumably he's going to charge those other people separately, or at least he may because he wants to move quickly, and it's much more efficient if you just charge Donald Trump individually. So that could be an approach that thester attorney Willis could take if she wants to move it quickly, But if she wants to make the strongest possible case, she may well elect to charge them all together.
Trump has filed three separate suits to quash Willis's investigation. If he's charged, do you think that we'll see the defense attorneys bringing up those issues, for example, that the special grand jury proceedings were unconstitutional, that Willis made prejudicial public statements. Will they be raising those again?
I think they will unquestionably be raising those again. The cases that Donald Trump brought to try to clash this investigation have been flapped down pretty comprehensibly at every stage. They haven't gotten anywhere. But I think that Donald Trump and his attorneys will continue to raise them. They'll try to raise them as a legal matter in front of whatever judge draws the criminal case against him, assuming there
is one. I suspect they will also try to bring in some version of this whatever they are permitted to say in front of a jury to suggest that this whole thing is biased and improper. I would think that they'll continue in every possible forum and way to make
those kinds of charges. We haven't seen a lot to suggest that they're going to get very far with that, but it's to be a key part of both the legal and public relations strategy from the former president, so I expect we'll see a lot more of that.
Trump has been attacking the prosecutors who are bringing cases against him, Alvin Bragg and Manhattan and Special Counsel Jack Smith, but his attacks against will Is seem particularly vicious and personal. Is he trying to poison the jury pool? What can be done to stop him from making these attacks?
I mean, I think he's trying to do a couple of things. I think he likely is trying to influence and to someone said, poison the jury pool, to think that these prosecutors are biased and are corrupt and are deranged, and these other kinds of words that he uses. I think he is also trying to win a presidential election
and foment to political movement. And these aren't kinds of characterizations that are effective that sort of ping up political support and outrage and outrage has always been the kind of his brand and what he uses to advance his political career and his influence. So I think that's something that's happening too. I also think that some extent he is baiting prosecutors and judges to try to stop him from saying these things. He's saying these things that are
potentially very dangerous. They not only could influence jurors, they could lead to violence. We've already seen an instance where a supporter of Donald Trump went into an FBI office with a gun after the search of mar A Lago and his rhetoric in response to that, so there could be violence. It's going to be in part incumbent on
prosecutors and judges to try to curb that. But they also understand that Donald Trump is a former president, he's a current presidential candidate, and trying to restrict the speech of a candidate and a major political leader is fraught and is something that would encourage more outrage. And I think Donald Trump knows it could be helpful to him politically if there is an attempt to kind of muzzle
him by the court. So he's I think trying to put prosecutors and put judges in that box, and I think to some extent they may have little choice but to try to restrict and control what he's say because public safety may demand it.
How important do you think a Georgia indictment would be in context?
You know, in some ways, if there's an indictment in Georgia next week, it could be widely seen by the public and widely sort of dismissed as another indictment. It's the fourth indictment of Donald Trump, and some will characterize that as improper piling on. Others will see it as
significant just because it's kind of one more. And I think it's really important not to lose sight of the fact that with the most recent indictment by Jack Smith, and potentially with an indictment in Fulham County as well, that these are significant because they address the attempts by a former president to keep himself in power after losing an election, including by encouraging pilance, and that is about the most significant offense that a leader in a democracy
can commit. In a lot of ways, it really threatens the continued viability of democracy. And so the indictment we saw last week, and assuming there is another one in Georgia. These are significant not just because they're kind of one more indictment. They're significant because they address conduct that really goes to the heart of whether we can still have a democracy in this country. And I think it's important that not be a loss in coverage that sort of just looks at this to the aggregate.
Thanks so much for being on the show.
Noah.
That's no a Bookbinder, President and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcasts. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg