Last month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office charged former President Donald Trump and 18 others as part of a “criminal organization” to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The 98-page indictment includes 41 counts alleging that Trump and his team attempted to lie, cheat and steal in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to override the will of the people. (All defendants have pleaded not guilty.)
As expected, Trump’s allies responded by accusing Willis, an elected Democrat, of playing politics. Prosecutors predictably said she was simply following the law wherever it led.
But for all intents and purposes, the case of Georgia v. Donald John Trump serves to shatter the myth that American justice can be separated from American democracy and that what happens in the courts should be insulated from the court of public opinion.
And the special grand jury’s final report, released Friday, further undermines this false dichotomy, both in the answers it provides and in the questions it raises.
Ultimately, we the people should be in charge here.
The report revealed that Trump won just a single vote of the 26 grand jurors chosen to represent their community to decide whether he should be indicted for violations of more than half a dozen Georgia criminal laws.
Was this a die-hard MAGA Republican who refused to acknowledge that Trump could do wrong under any circumstances? Or was it the only clear-sighted person among dozens of vengeful jurors who wanted to bend the law to get Trump? That’s not what the report says, but we know what happened: Willis followed the overwhelming will of the people, at least when it came to Trump and his co-defendants.
For critics like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the grand jury’s democratic nature is undermined by Atlanta’s Democratic makeup. Last month, Graham argued on Fox News that Trump’s fate “should be decided at the ballot box, not by a series of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in prison,” and accused elected Democratic prosecutors like Willis of “breaking the law on this one.” “Weaponizing land.” .”
Still, Willis declined to prosecute Graham himself, although jurors voted 13 to 7 (with one abstention) to indict the South Carolina resident based on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s comments that Graham had called him had to discuss a possible rejection of the ballot cast in heavily Democratic Atlanta.
Did Willis exercise her prosecutorial discretion because Graham’s grand jury vote was the closest of the votes disclosed in the final report? Was Willis hesitant to bring charges against elected officials, except in the case of Trump, because he either played a central role in the alleged conspiracy or was a uniquely polarizing political figure?
Finally, Willis also decided not to indict a former Georgia state senator and two former U.S. senators — all Republicans — even though the grand jury had recommended that they, like Graham, be indicted for “deference to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” focused on efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.” We may never know why Willis supported the grand jury recommendations for Trump and his 18 co-defendants (including private attorney Rudy Giuliani and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows) found it convincing, but not for the others.
But Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s order to release the final report, as well as Judge Scott McAfee’s decision to allow cameras in his courtroom, provide the American public with important information that we as citizens can use to inform our… to reach your own conclusions. Information that is critical for us to examine how the country holds people accountable—and to assess their fitness for office.
Because ultimately we, the people, should be in charge here.
Currently, the former president and the forces he represents are attempting to destroy this core American principle, both legally and politically.
Although courts will not save American democracy, the trial of the former president can inform voters about what is really at stake.
If one scratches the surface of the complaints against Willis’s prosecution, one finds the un-American view that Democrats and members of their coalition are unfit for self-government. Trump’s people (including Graham) specifically tried to disenfranchise black Democrats in Atlanta in the election, and now they say that the black Democrats elected by those voters cannot seek justice in court.
Compare that position to the all-Republican slate of attorneys general who, with the support of then-President Trump and more than half of Republican members of Congress, filed a lawsuit with the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in December 2020 to invalidate Biden’s ruling victories in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan due to false claims of widespread voter fraud largely concentrated in those states’ black population centers.
Zooming out a bit, it’s clear that the former president’s actions were the result of nearly 20 years of Republican efforts to suppress the votes of underrepresented minorities, young people and other groups that have historically given Democrats an edge among the country’s changing electorate country.
After all, the people did not elect the president in 2016. Trump lost the national popular vote but won the Electoral College thanks to his razor-thin majority in key swing states. And then, along with a Republican Senate majority that represented a minority of all Americans, he secured a conservative supermajority on a Supreme Court that had already spent a decade weakening voting rights and extreme partisan gerrymandering in congressional and state House districts to enable.
But when voter suppression and structural advantages weren’t enough for Trump to win reelection in 2020, he and his allies turned to subversion and, when that failed, insurrection.
And now Trump faces not only the possibility of insurrectionists running for office under the 14th Amendment, but also multiple criminal trials just as he seeks the Republican nomination for president in 2024. He is using his Fulton County mugshot to rally his supporters and play the martyr to promote his candidacy with his Republican base.
Willis’ prosecutors could present a strong case to the jury, but that doesn’t end the matter. The grand jury was able to overrule its only dissenting member on Trump’s allegations, but a single challenge in a jury trial could trigger a mistrial that would lead to the former president and his campaign allies demanding vindication. And if Trump is convicted, he can appeal to higher courts controlled by Republican judges rather than a heavily Democratic jury.
Trump understands that law and politics are inextricably linked, and American voters must understand this too. While courts won’t save American democracy, the trial of the former president can inform voters about what’s really at stake in 2024.
The special grand jury voted to put Trump on trial. But Trump doesn’t need to be convicted so that we, the voters in the court of public opinion, can follow our beliefs.
