Leaked videos showing four Georgia defendants speaking to prosecutors in the racketeering case involving former President Trump are bringing into focus the ex-president’s desperate grab for power after losing the 2020 presidential race.

“The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances,” then-White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino told ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, according to Ellis’s testimony to Fulton County prosecutors a day before she entered her guilty plea.

“We are just going to stay in power,” he said. The videos, first reported by ABC News, place Trump at the top of the chain of command of efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia in his favor.

The defendants’ proffer statements bolster the narrative Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis laid out in her 98-page indictment charging Trump and 18 co-defendants with joining a criminal enterprise bent on keeping Trump in the White House.

  • DogMuffins
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    1 year ago

    A trial date has not yet been scheduled in Georgia, though Willis indicated Tuesday that a future trial could stretch into early 2025. Trump’s first criminal trial could get underway in just four months, with his federal case over efforts to overturn the election scheduled to begin on March 4.

    Won’t he be like… eternal supreme leader by then?

    • books@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, that will be interesting.

      Curious if any constitutional experts can weigh in on how that looks. I assume the sc would have to weigh in.

      Like he can’t pardon himself since it’s a state crime, but I can’t imagine a president sitting behind bars.

      • Telorand@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        Like he can’t pardon himself since it’s a state crime, but I can’t imagine a president sitting behind bars.

        Nobody can, because no president has done what he’s done. Even Nixon, the other obvious presidential criminal, didn’t try to cling to the presidency. We don’t have a clear law, precedent, or mechanism to guide what we’re supposed to do, so here we are, on the raggedy edge.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We do have several clear laws, including an amendment. People are just afraid to enforce them.

          • Telorand@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            The laws aren’t clear enough, unfortunately, because the powers that be are afraid to call what he did an insurrection or coup. They prefer to hem and haw over perceived nuances while pretending they were ignorant of his rhetoric and behavior years before Jan 6 and the 2020 election.

            • flipht@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I think everything is plenty clear. It’s just that half of our “leaders” are hoping he’ll drop dead before they have to make a stand, and the rest don’t want to make a stand because anything they do here can and will be used against them for frivolous reasons in the future, and they don’t want to draw fire or call attention to themselves.

              Something something tree of liberty

            • Maeve@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              While there is a point Fear can become complicity, this is just complicity.

          • Maeve@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            People in power have no reason to fear. It’s glaringly obvious it’s complicity, at this point.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        He can’t pardon himself anyway. Nobody can. He may say he’s doing it, and his followers and pet judges will accept it if he does, but please don’t normalize the notion that pardoning oneself is any more real than dividing by zero.

        • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          he will have the full United States army behind him.

          Not a chance. The military is sworn to the constitution, not the commander in chief.

            • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              People die when they refuse to follow orders.

              There’s so much wrong here. Firstly, the US military isn’t the Russian military. The worst that’s going to happen for refusal to follow orders is an article 15. When that order is basically a governmental purge or cracking down on protests? Jesus christ the paperwork would be insane. Nobody is going to do that shit. Not to mention the president is severely limited in how he can use federal troops in the country, so whatever he wants to do probably won’t be legal anyway. He can’t use the national guard without a request from the state’s governor, and I guaranfuckingtee they won’t be his brownshirts either.

      • Maeve@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Start imagining it. The only thing ever manifested began with “what if.” For example, what if we got as belligerent about demanding the laws be enforced on all corruption, rather than just poors doing whatever they do to survive and cope?