{"id":28149,"date":"2023-08-26T12:59:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T19:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28149"},"modified":"2023-08-26T12:59:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T19:59:48","slug":"trumps-rico-indictment-proves-the-gop-is-beyond-saving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/08\/26\/trumps-rico-indictment-proves-the-gop-is-beyond-saving\/","title":{"rendered":"TRUMP’S RICO INDICTMENT PROVES THE GOP IS BEYOND SAVING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FRI, 8\/25\/2023 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON<\/a> (Occupy.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite four criminal indictments totaling 91 felony charges<\/a>, two impeachments<\/a>, 26 women<\/a> with sexual misconduct allegations, and arguably an act of sedition<\/a> and an attempt to incite a civil war, Donald Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But what this week\u2019s indictment of Trump and 18 other Republican operatives by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury truly shows is that the corruption within the Republican Party goes far beyond Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas a criminal indictment would likely doom any Democratic candidate (former New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin resigned last year<\/a> following an indictment for crimes allegedly committed while he was a state senator), Trump\u2019s indictments, bizarrely, have not only had no negative effect on his polling position, but strengthened it. Trump\u2019s national polling average has steadily climbed<\/a> since he was first indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on several dozen counts of falsifying business records. In the meantime, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis \u2013 Trump\u2019s closest rival \u2013 has seen his own polling position decline over that same period of time according to FiveThirtyEight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could be argued that, according to these two trends, DeSantis\u2019 base of support is converting to Trump\u2019s side as he continues to accumulate felony charges. It\u2019s become more clear that any political party in thrall to a presidential candidate awaiting trial in three separate jurisdictions is a sign that that party is morally bankrupt and rotten to the core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Georgia RICO indictment a who\u2019s-who of GOP operatives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Trump was a centerpiece of the Manhattan indictment and Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s indictments for allegedly mishandling classified documents and masterminding the January 6, 2021 insurrection, he was just one of many players in the alleged criminal enterprise Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis laid out in her indictment. Many of the other names are longtime acolytes of GOP causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Georgia\u2019s RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations) statute, each co-conspirator in a RICO case is equally liable, and each person charged can serve up to 20 years in prison with a mandatory minimum of five years\u2019 prison time. In her press conference announcing the indictment, Willis made it clear that anyone found guilty will not be able to serve less than five years<\/a>, or be able to substitute time served with probation. This means other co-conspirators like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro are just as culpable as Trump in attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. When looking at the careers and records of individual co-conspirators, it becomes clear that Trump is merely a byproduct of an increasingly criminal political party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed plot to steal the 2020 election via fake electors from swing states came from the mind of John Eastman<\/a>, who has a decades-long career<\/a> as one of the GOP\u2019s most committed apparatchiks. Eastman not only clerked for conservative judges like J. Michael Luttig and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (R-Bush 43)* but has represented Republican-dominated legislatures in multiple states in their legal challenges to court cases involving same-sex marriage and immigration. Eastman also chairs the board<\/a> for the National Organization for Marriage (which is opposed to same-sex marriage), and sits on the board<\/a> of the far-right Claremont Institute. He\u2019s also heavily involved in the Federalist Society \u2013 a powerful far-right legal powerhouse which has produced all six members of the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative majority. Eastman could be thought of as the GOP version of Democratic super-attorney Marc Elias<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffrey Clark \u2013 another prominent defendant in the Fulton County RICO case \u2013 also has decades of experience<\/a> as a champion of far-right causes in the legal world, particularly in representing anti-environmental special interests. In addition to serving as Assistant Attorney General in the Trump administration\u2019s Department of Justice (DOJ), Clark also served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for George W. Bush\u2019s DOJ. He also represented the US Chamber of Commerce<\/a> (the chief lobbying organization<\/a> for multinational corporations) in legal challenges to regulations of carbon emissions. And in 2010, Clark represented BP<\/a> in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (the worst offshore oil spill<\/a> in US history). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eastman and Clark being named in the RICO indictment, along with other major GOP figures like former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and others, is arguably more significant than just Trump being indicted. It shows that the effort to subvert the 2020 election \u2013 and effectively, democracy itself \u2013 by any means necessary, including the alleged commission of crimes, was not just a goal of Trump and his team. In fact, it was a goal shared by the Republican Party\u2019s most experienced legal minds. With this in mind, it\u2019s not inaccurate to say the Republican Party as it is now is ardently opposed to both democracy and the rule of law, and there\u2019s no saving it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost all voices of sanity in the GOP have been run out of the party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 19, Politico mourned<\/a> the political career of Governor Chris Sununu (R-New Hampshire), who announced that day he was not seeking a fifth two-year term for the Granite State\u2019s highest office. While Sununu \u2013 the son of former New Hampshire governor John Sununu<\/a> \u2013 attributed his decision to simply wanting to \u201chand off the reins<\/a>\u201d to another Republican, he has been one of the most vocal GOP critics of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Trump handily won New Hampshire\u2019s Republican primary by a wide margin in 2016<\/a> and accumulated more than 365,000 votes<\/a> in the 2020 general election, Gov. Sununu may very well have read the tea leaves and saw no path to victory as a Trump critic in a state where the former president\u2019s popularity has remained strong. FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump holds 49% support<\/a> out of all candidates in the 2024 New Hampshire primary, with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (another outspoken Trump critic) coming in second with just 9% support as of this writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t just Chris Sununu and Chris Christie who have been relegated to the sidelines of a party they once called home. Of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection, only two remain in office<\/a>. The rest have either been defeated by Trump-backed candidates in Republican primaries, or, like Sununu, declined to run for another term. Even former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) \u2013 the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney \u2013 was unceremoniously drummed out<\/a> of office by more than 30 points in the August 2022 primary. This is despite Cheney\u2019s far-right voting record as a member of Congress, and as someone who voted in line with Trump\u2019s stated positions on issues 93% of the time<\/a>. In the eyes of GOP primary voters, Cheney was deemed a heretic not because she wasn\u2019t conservative enough, but merely because she objected to Trump instigating an attack on the US Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Republicans who remain in office are some of the former president\u2019s most steadfast defenders. Following the Georgia indictment, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-New York) all panned the new charges against Trump<\/a> as politically motivated. Even Ron DeSantis, who was arguably handed the biggest political gift with the Georgia indictment, referred to the new charges as a \u201ccriminalization of politics<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican Party\u2019s base has made it clear there is no room for dissent within its ranks. But one silver lining in the midst of one of America\u2019s two major parties openly rejecting the rule of law is that criminal accountability may be coming down the pike for even more Republican operatives, possibly including Republican elected officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The GOP\u2019s potentially dark future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket will almost certainly spell political disaster for Republicans in 2024, given how Americans\u2019 antipathy toward Trump caused Republicans to lose control of the US House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms, the White House in 2020, and the US Senate in 2022 (as Occupy.com previously reported, the GOP retaking the House in 2022 was largely a result of racial gerrymandering<\/a> and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he came out of testifying before Fani Willis\u2019 grand jury in Fulton County, former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan (another Republican Trump critic who declined to seek another term<\/a> in office) emphasized that the GOP nominating Trump would be a huge mistake. He even compared<\/a> the former president to failed Republican US Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who was accused by multiple women of domestic violence<\/a> and quietly paying for multiple abortions<\/a> and eventually lost to Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) despite a Trump endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t ask who was the best leader. We didn\u2019t ask who had the best resume,\u201d Duncan told CNN\u2019s Anderson Cooper on the eve of the 2022 general election. \u201cUnfortunately, Republicans looked around to see who Trump supported and he was a famous football player, and so he became our nominee and now we\u2019re paying the price.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Congressman Will Hurd (R-Texas), yet another Trump critic who didn\u2019t run for reelection<\/a> despite surviving the 2018 Democratic midterm wave, is challenging the former president in a long-shot bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Hurd was more direct in his admonishment of Trump regarding his toxicity to the Republican Party as a whole. In a July interview on NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, Hurd said nominating Trump would \u201cgive the [2024] election to Joe Biden<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But aside from the potentially damning political consequences of Trump leading the Republican Party once again, there may be additional legal headaches for Republicans in the near future. Even after Jack Smith indicted Trump for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection, the grand jury he convened is still active<\/a> and meeting at the same DC courthouse. Smith indicated that \u201cinvestigation of other individuals continues,\u201d and there are still six unnamed, as-yet unindicted co-conspirators who may face charges in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, Fani Willis\u2019 indictment included 30 other unnamed co-conspirators<\/a> who may face separate criminal charges in addition to the 19 already named in the RICO case. It\u2019s still too early to tell who any of those individuals are, but between the fake Georgia electors and the several dozen Republican lawmakers<\/a> who texted Mark Meadows in the prelude to and aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, it\u2019s safe to say there are plenty of other Republicans who may be criminally charged in the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The depth of criminality within the Republican Party \u2013 both among its elected officials and its operatives \u2013 is truly unprecedented. Democracy may not ever truly be secure in the United States until the Republican Party suffers enough defeats at the polls. Alternatively, if the GOP still manages to stay electorally competitive, democracy may be in peril for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Occupy.com has made the editorial decision to name the president who appointed each respective Supreme Court justice, along with their party affiliation, when mentioning a specific justice.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carl Gibson is a freelance columnist whose work has been published in CNN, USA TODAY, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, Barron\u2019s, Business Insider, The Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Bluesky @crgibs.bsky.social.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FRI, 8\/25\/2023 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON (Occupy.com) Despite four criminal indictments totaling 91 felony charges, two impeachments, 26 women with sexual misconduct allegations, and arguably an act of sedition and an attempt to incite a civil war, Donald Trump remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But what this… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28150,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28149\/revisions\/28150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}