Former US president Donald Trump added another first to his laundry list of unwanted achievements after being processed and released on bail from Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia. The state-run jail has been the subject of several unflattering songs and a federal investigation that found it to be unsanitary, unsafe and teeming with insects.
Among Trump’s three previous indictments is a state case in New York and federal cases in Florida and Washington, DC. The DC case significantly overlaps with the Georgia state case, and many observers were surprised at the similarity between the charges. However, the Georgia charges are being considered more serious because they all carry minimum jail time due to the inclusion of racketeering charges, which usually are only applied in cases of organised crime. But in a so-called Rico case, even a lenient judge cannot substitute jail time for a monetary or community service-based penalty. The main charges relate to Trump’s alleged attempts to ‘convince’ top Georgia election officials to increase his vote count in the state, and the efforts of his lawyers and advisers to replace Georgia’s official panel of electors with Trump loyalists. Whether he was acting in his capacity as the president or his private capacity will likely determine if the case can be transferred to federal court — most likely alongside the DC case. This could also be critical if Trump is to be pardoned or pardon himself — the US president can only pardon federal crimes.
Trump’s legal saga continues to distract from the actual work of government and the run-up to next year’s elections, but investigations and trials are also necessary, if only to ensure that no future candidate is so disrespectful of democratic norms. However, it has also become immensely clear that Trump was right when he said his supporters wouldn’t care if he killed someone in broad daylight. Republicans, it seems, have no qualms about voting for a man accused of committing the most serious crimes against American democracy, so long as he is ‘their’ criminal.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 27th, 2023.
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