Aziz Huq Writes About the Difference Between Trump’s Indictments for Efforts to Overturn 2020 Election
Trump’s been indicted twice for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Here’s how the two cases differ.
The sweeping 41-count indictment brought this week by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is the second effort to hold former President Donald Trump to account for the assault upon American democracy that culminated in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Taking advantage of Georgia’s especially broad racketeering statute, or RICO, Willis is pursuing a very different prosecutorial approach than Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith: Don’t target Trump alone, but sweep in the whole grab bag of conspirators large and small.
But the scope and number of defendants in each indictment is only the beginning of the two cases’ important differences: On many other constitutional points, the two indictments are far apart. And ultimately, the consequences might be very different indeed.
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