Trump Attorney Says Georgia Indictment ‘Quite Outrageous,’ Suggests Relocation to Federal Court Possible

Former President Donald Trump in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2022, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 14, 2023. Chandan Khanna, Christian Monterrosa/AFP via Getty Images

Christina Bobb, one of the lawyers representing former President Donald Trump, criticized the latest criminal indictment against her client but expressed confidence Mr. Trump will succeed.

This week, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis became the latest prosecutor to bring criminal charges against the former president, charging him with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in an alleged effort to unlawfully upend the state’s 2020 election results.

President Trump now faces four separate criminal indictments in four separate locales.

In an interview with ‘Capitol Report,“ Ms. Bobb said that of the indictments against the former president, this latest one is ”the strangest and the most radical” she’s seen yet.

The 41-count indictment includes 13 charges against President Trump and additional charges for at least 18 alleged co-conspirators.

In addition to the RICO violation, the former president faces another three counts of solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, two counts of conspiracy to commit filing of false documents, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, two counts of committing false statements and writings, and one count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer.

The indictment also alleges the RICO conspiracy operated at times in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C.

“The fact that you’ve got a little district attorney in one county that’s only part of Atlanta, doesn’t even cover the whole city, is bringing claims for racketeering in Arizona and Pennsylvania and Michigan, and she’s just greatly enlarged her jurisdiction by claiming racketeering. I think it’s quite outrageous,” Ms. Bobb said.

President Trump’s lawyer also took issue with the co-defendants Ms. Willis charged, a list that includes the former president’s lawyers and legal advisors, campaigners, and members of the Georgia Republican Party leadership.

“The fact that she specifically indicted the head of the GOP for Georgia, as well as all of the president’s attorneys, she’s effectively turned the Republican Party into a criminal organization, according to her. So she’s blatantly criminalized political opposition,” Ms. Bobb said.

NTD News reached out to Ms. Willis’s office for comment but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.

Trump May Get Case Moved

Ms. Willis’ case may face at least one legal hurdle in the form of a federal law that allows individuals who were federal officeholders at the time of an alleged criminal act to have the case go before a federal court.

Mark Meadows, who was also charged in the Georgia case and who was the White House chief of staff at the time, has already filed to have his case moved to federal court, and numerous legal experts have suggested President Trump might do the same.

Moving the case from the Fulton County Superior Court to the local federal court could alter the dynamics of the trial and prove advantageous to President Trump in the long run.

Former President Donald Trump arrives at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 12, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

As the former president is running to return to the White House in 2024, he could theoretically pardon himself of a conviction for a federal offense, though he has no such power at the state level. One of President Trump’s other attorneys, Alina Habba, went so far as to say she believed Ms. Willis intentionally brought her indictment “so that if [Trump] is president, he can’t pardon himself if he’s convicted.”

Legal scholar Paul Kamenar said if the former president moved his case to the federal side, it would also add a layer of complexity to the task before Ms. Willis because it would require at least two separate trials with one in state court and one on the federal side. “So, I mean, this is going to be a circus. It’s totally unwieldy,” said Mr. Kamenar.

Ms. Bobb said she expects her client will ultimately move to have the charges relocated to a federal venue.

“I think they probably will. I mean, that'll be a decision the trial team makes, but I would expect them to do the same thing. And I would expect it to get removed,” Ms. Bobb said. “This case is properly venued in federal court, to the extent it’s proper at all.”

Another Indictment?

Ms. Willis’ case focuses at points on efforts by President Trump’s 2020 camp to prepare alternate slates of electoral college votes in the various states he was contesting. Ms. Willis portrayed this alternate electors strategy as one to illegally cast false electoral votes “in order to unlawfully change the outcome of the November 3, 2020, presidential election.”

On Thursday, Democrat Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told Newsweek that her office is investigating whether a similar electoral votes scheme played out in her state in the 2020 election, though she did not specify that President Trump may be a focus of such an investigation.

In July, Democrat Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 individuals for allegedly presenting themselves as an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors in her state in 2020.

Kari Lake speaks at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at Hilton in Washington on June 24, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Former Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a close ally of President Trump, also suggested elected Democrats in Arizona may launch their own indictment against the former president to distract from Republican investigations into potential corruption involving President Joe Biden and his family members.

For her part, Ms. Bobb expressed doubt that another charge would come against the former president from Arizona.

“I’m not confident that something in Arizona is actually going to happen,” she said.

Ms. Bobb said the Arizona Attorney General would be on shaky ground to bring such charges because she only won her own 2022 election by less than 300 votes.

“In my opinion, she stole the election from Abe Hamadeh,” she said. “They did not count all of the votes; if they count all the votes, Abe Hamadeh won. And they’re still going through that litigation, so she’s on very precarious ground. We’re talking about a difference of a couple 100 votes that separated her from Abe Hamadeh.”

President Trump’s lawyer also argued that each new indictment bolsters her client’s 2024 campaign.

“Thousand percent, his campaign is only getting stronger,” Ms. Bobb said. “And Joe Biden can’t beat Donald Trump on the campaign trail. And so he’s forced the campaign trail into the courtroom and America is seeing that.”

From NTD News