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Donald Trump may face racketeering charges in Georgia under Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference investigation, a statute which is normally used to tackle organized crime.
It has been strongly suggested for weeks that Willis will soon seek an indictment against the former president as part of her long-running probe into election allegations.
Barricades have been set up outside the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta for days, amid speculation Trump could face his fourth criminal indictment this year, with The New York Times and The Guardian reporting that Willis will present evidence to a grand jury and ask them to bring forward an indictment against Trump and others to as early as Tuesday, August 15.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in connection to Willis' expansive probe, and accused it of being a politically motivated "witch hunt." Newsweek has contacted Trump's office and the office of the Fulton County district attorney for comment via email.
It has also been heavily rumored that Willis is attempting to bring charges against Trump and his inner circle using Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Racketeering charges are normally used in gang-related criminal investigations in order to bring forward charges against multiple defendants who are all accused of separate crimes while working towards a common goal.
High-profile names who have been convicted using RICO charges include John Gotti, head of the Gambino gang, and Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, mafia boss of the Genovese crime family.
Legal experts have suggested that Willis may want to bring RICO charges to hold Trump and his allies accountable for the allegations that they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to keep the former president in power after he lost the 2020 election.
Among some of the allegations the Republican and others are facing are pressuring election officials to overturn the results, trying to install fake electors to falsely state Trump had beaten President Joe Biden in the state, as well as alleged attempts to access voting machine data.
Norm Eisen, an attorney who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump's first impeachment trial, previously suggested that RICO charges against Trump and others would fit Willis' case "like a glove."
"That's because the attempted coup DA Willis is investigating was a comprehensive assault on our democracy, and doing a larger case under RICO would better get at that and would achieve broad accountability against those responsible," Eisen told Insider in March.
Willis herself is known to be a fan of bringing in RICO charges against alleged offenders, including a 56-count case against rapper Young Thug and 27 others accused of being part of the Young Slime Life street gang in May.
"The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent," Willis said at a news conference in 2022 about a separate gang-related indictment her office brought forward.
"They want to know what happened. They want to make an accurate decision about someone's life. And so RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor's office and law enforcement to tell the whole story."
As noted by Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and CNN's legal analyst, Georgia's RICO Act is more broad than the federal one, and can be geared toward any "enterprise."
"Generally speaking, under RICO laws, as a prosecutor, you have to show two things," Honig told CNN on Tuesday.
"First of all, the existence of what we call a 'racketeering enterprise,' meaning a group—doesn't have to have an official name—but a group that gets together in order to do the second thing, which is commit a pattern of racketeering, which means two or more crimes for some sort of common purpose."
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also explained why Willis' office may try to charge Trump and numerous others under RICO as part of her sprawling election probe.
"Charging a RICO offense kind of captures that this is a multifaceted, larger plan," Bookbinder told The Hill.
"I think that's part of why that kind of statute exists, and it's part of why prosecutors may charge it. It allows you to review lots of different conduct, but it also allows you to present a case and present evidence that this is a bigger scheme and not a couple of disparate events that could be dismissed as kind of small, individual actions."
Anyone found guilty in Georgia under a RICO charge can face between five and 20 years in jail.
It is unclear exactly who may also face charges alongside Trump if an indictment against the former president arrives in Georgia.
A special grand jury that had spent months hearing evidence and witnesses' testimonies as part of Willis' probe suggested earlier in the year that it would recommend that charges be brought forward for several people in the investigation.
Emily Kohers, who was part of the special grand jury and gave several media interviews discussing some aspects of its work, told The New York Times in February that there won't be "some giant plot twist," when asked if Trump was at risk of indictment.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more