Right...in the case of impersonating a government official...thinking that it would prevent a crime won't do anything for them.
And just that part of it is enough to "prove" the RICO act violations. They knowingly had a scheme that had an alternate slate of Electors sign documents as if they were the official electors. They had a scheme for the Vice President to count those votes as if they were the official electors, except that the Vice President was allegedly said to be "too honest" by the President.
However, if they genuinely believed there was election fraud, if they genuinely believed Trump had won the election, if they genuinely believed they were buying time for evidence that fraud happened...
These are things that they can make statements about that are untrue...but not criminal, unless they knew they were untrue when they made the statements. That's why perjury is difficult to prosecute.
And, again, my understanding is the prosecutor believes they can prove they did not believe that Trump actually won the election. Again, it will be interesting to see what comes out at trial. However, since they can prove RICO violations (due to the fake Elector scheme) without the other claims of where the defendants lied, it likely won't matter.
That's not a very good analogy. Like I said, it sounds like most of the crimes are related to lying.
It's not lying if you believe it true. They aren't being charged with robbing banks.
Again, since the prosecutor appears to be able to prove at least three RICO violations with just the fake Electors, then it likely won't matter if they can't completely prove all the defendants lied. Instead, it might get a couple of the lesser defendants off.
Right....that's why it's a bad analogy.
Imagine that you did go through the proper channels and told everyone that the bank robbed you...including the police. If it's proven that the bank didn't rob you...you could be charged with perjury, or making false statements to the police, if you knew they were false when you made them.
Ok....were they selected by the state or not?
I was under the impression they weren't.
The Biden electors were the ones certified by the state.
I don't think the DOJ was working for Trump. Given the FBI agents who went around covering up the Biden laptop story, the number of feds that some witnesses claim were at January 6th, and other activities.
Those appear to be conspiracy theories that have no evidence to support them. Regardless, AG Barr definitely worked for Trump, he selected people in the DoJ/FBI that he trusted to investigate the election allegations and affidavits; those agents and Barr could find zero evidence of major election fraud.
This is another case where "lying" could seem to be proven -- the fact that the indictment alleges that Trump and others were pushing the DoJ to announce they had found election fraud should not require evidence that Trump did not actually believe in election fraud. Instead, it can be shown Trump did know the DoJ had found no evidence of fraud yet he was pushing them to make the false claim that they had.
True. Unfortunately, we don't have very tight fraud measures.
Or, at least that is the narrative being pushed by Republicans. The simple fact is that no actual evidence of major fraud, the type that can changed the election, has been found. This despite an investigation spearheaded by the AG, major investigations by various states (including those done by right-wing groups funded by states, such as in Arizona), at least two groups paid by Donald Trump to find election fraud, etc.
Do mean statements made testifying before the legislature?
Yes, it includes statements made before the Georgia House and Senate which were indicted.
If that's the case....I'd say Trump is in trouble, unless he gets elected from prison.
Well acknowledging that he is wrong now....isn't the same as saying he knew he was wrong then....but I don't know all the details of that case.
Since he's admitting it for the purposes of the lawsuit, he's saying he didn't believe the fraud claims at the time. Believing he was pointing out fraud at the time would be a defense to defamation, even if he has found out since that it was false. Apparently the plaintiffs can prove Giuliani was lying in his presentation to the Georgia legislature and in media comments, which has caused Giuliani to admit he knew the claims were false.
It's clearly a mistake but it's a pattern of this administration to leak info to the public and it could be seen the wrong way. It's not like I compared the list of indictments to the leaked list of charges so it could have differences.
The Atlanta DA's office and the Atlanta courts has zero to do with this administration. My guess as to what happened is that a preliminary list of charges was in the offices about 5 PM, when they would normally close for the day. I'm guessing, it being the end of the day, a person responsible for releasing indictments thought, since it was the normal end of day, that they had been voted on by the Grand Jury (knowing this was the final day for the Grand Jury) and could be released -- they made a bad assumption. As we know, they had not been voted on, that didn't occur until about 8 PM, well after courts usually finish for the day.
Again, I don't assume my version is correct, I would like to see a full investigation of what happened and who leaked it, and the appropriate steps taken -- including prosecution if it was leaked intentionally.
