Not an expert lawyer, but I discussed RICO charges with a County Attorney aide.
There are only 4(?) crimes that qualify for RICO charges. The statute was written to target Mafia crimes, so you can only bring RICO charges for those crimes.
trump family = Mafia?
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Word.
This might actually be one of those rare occasions that RICO is actually applicable; 45 has known mob ties, and heās been acting like the mafioso with his attempts to strong arm others to overturn the election.
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Indeed he does.
āThe common thread linking Salerno and Trump was Roy Cohnā
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Election crimes almost certainly wouldnāt qualify for the RICO statue, though.
He and his family have almost certainly commited myriad other crimes that would, but I donāt think we can get Ted Cruz on a RICO charge.
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Not an expert lawyer, but I discussed RICO charges with a County Attorney aide.
There are only 4(?) crimes that qualify for RICO charges. The statute was written to target Mafia crimes, so you can only bring RICO charges for those crimes.
RICO is pretty amazing; you can use it to freeze the assets of an organization that hasnāt been charged with any crimes. Before becoming mayor, Rudy Giuliani used it quite successfully on non-mafiosi. I would not rely on your County Attorney aide on this.
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I know it would be like dropping a road flare onto a pile of dynamite, but imagine if the government froze the assets of the GOP?
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Thatās a very lawyerly take. In that asked to comment for the press theyāre only going to comment on the one, already confirmed thing.
But given how obvious of a coordinated effort is going on. Cruz and his idiots. Everything else thatās happened. Confirmation of previous phone calls like this.
Thereās gonna be documentation of that coordinated effort. And thatās always how you prove this sort of right up to the line shit.
Itās a little more complicated than that.
The list of applicable crimes is a lot longer these days. And includes fraud, political corruption and some other that could apply here.
The thing is you need 2 or more to establish a pattern, and looking it up they must be related to each other in 4 specific ways. Iām not exactly sure exactly what those are, but seems theyāre related to the crimes and organization being tied together.
The idea was to allow groups of people, and especially insulated leadership to be charged for inter related crimes they benefited from or ordered. But werenāt directly involved with. A lot like conspiracy.
I know itās used a lot these days for shit like human trafficking, child porn, and online based fraud. Which is where a lot of your traditional organized crime gets itās money these days.
I dunno that a County Attorney aide is gonna be all that familiar. The people I know who were involved with it were operating as part of Federal task forces. And RICO is a Federal charge.
What understanding I have of a frankly, insanely complex thing. I think there usually needs to be financial ties between individuals to make it work.
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You canāt accidentally break the law. You either do or you donāt. If I accidentally walk out of a store with a piece of unpaid for merchandise, they can still prosecute me for shoplifting, if they so choose. Itās still breaking a law, if unintended.
Heās pretty clearly there telling Raffensperger to add votes he did not get. Thatās election fraud of the highest order.
But of course, thereās that, too.
Heās breaking election laws. Thatās enough.
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That depends on the specific act, and itās not neccisarily intent to break the law. But intent to commit the acts or cause the result. For most criminal things you do need to prove intent. So while you can be prosecuted for walking out of the store with stuff accidentally. They canāt convict if you can prove it was accidental. And thereās stuff where intent isnāt a factor, or doesnāt need to be established or specific.
For a lot of stuff Trump is pulling, and the multiple laws these phone calls break. It probably doesnāt matter if he really believes it, it certainly doesnāt matter if he realizes itās illegal.
Cause heās still going about it in illegal way. Even in some alternate universe where he was right, heās specifically doing an illegal thing.
And thatās intent. It might not be enough intent for RICO. But itās plenty intent to charge him directly.
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Of everyone here whinging about fucking RICO, itās sure as hell not me. I did not mention it. RICO is not the only set of laws on the books that can be aimed at Trump or the only laws that matter. It seems to me that people keep mentioning it primarily because they are trying to draw parallels with mobsters and Trump and it sounds dramatic and sexy, I guess.
At the end of the day, though, heās fucking us all over in his unlawful attempt to stay in power. We can either slice and dice here in the public sphere, in the court of public opinion, which has no legal power behind it, OR, we can actually note how dangerous and possibly illegal his actions are and let actual lawyers bring prosecution against him once heās finally out of office. For that, we have to push lawmakers and attorney generals to do their fucking jobs.
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Probably. It seems especially pointless when thereās something much more obvious right there. You go after people with RICO when you canāt charge them directly.
The intent is just the same sort of circle jerk. Cause itās not about if he thought he was justified, or even if he knew what he was doing. Itās about what he did, not why.
He asked the Georgia Secretary of State to āfindā votes. Thatās illegal regardless of what Trump thinks. That would be illegal even if there was a problem with the election.
And the motherfucker brought backup.
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Which is exactly what I said in my original comment, actually. 
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RICO has a 4 year statute of limitations.
Ah, thatās the one where 45 has the shed hair of a golden retriever on the top of his head and a goatee made of shiba inu hair.
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This is a detailed explanation of why illegal acts are almost never RICO.
The underlying issue is that RICO charges generally need to based on top of establishing a bunch of crimes. And that doesnāt mean things a prosecutor just says are crimes, but meet a very high standard of proof that can stand up in a court of law.
What these guys have done might reach that level some day, but everything involved in Trumpās crazed effort would be at the earliest stage of an investigation, if anything.
They need to get prosecutions up and running first and worry about RICO far in the future, if ever. Frankly, I suspect if by some luck a first wave of extensive prosecutions hits, the GOP has worse things to worry about than RICO.
I think Trump has a lot of exposure to prosecution in areas we arenāt even aware of, and rather than worrying about a case RICO prosecutors just need to start digging.
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Always such fun, aināt it?
Also, can a leader please split off all these RICO comments, mine included, to a new thread? Weāre getting off topicā¦
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