“Georgia is the most dangerous prosecution for Trump”: Fani Willis declares she’s “ready to go”

Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis said she is “ready to go” in her ongoing grand jury probe into former president Donald Trump’s role in challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

“Some people may not be happy with the decisions that I’m making,” Willis told Atlanta news outlet 11Alive, speaking candidly about the potential indictment she could be handing Trump in upcoming weeks. “And sometimes, when people are unhappy, they act in a way that could create harm.” 

While Willis did not go into further detail, she observed that she and Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat have taken measures to increase security in the courthouse. 

“I think that the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe,” Willis said. “I’m not willing to put any of the employees or the constituents that come to the courthouse in harm’s way,” she added.

In regards to impending charges against the ex-president, which would tack onto Trump’s already swollen legal record in recent months, Willis stated that she would provide an answer by September 1. 

“The work is accomplished,” Willis said, “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”

Willis is reportedly considering charging Trump and his associates under Georgia’s RICO statute, which does not “require prosecutors to demonstrate an underlying criminal enterprise, only the commission of a range of illegal acts that furthered a single criminal goal,” The New Yorker noted.

Volkan Topalli, a professor of criminology at Georgia State, told the outlet that the breadth of the law can create a “whirlpool” effect in conspiracy cases.

“If you capture one person in the whirlpool, everyone else gets sucked in along with them,” he explained.

Norm Eisen, who served as Democratic counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, told the outlet that it’s “almost as if Trump and his alleged co-conspirators utilized Georgia’s RICO statute as a punch list for election interference in the state after the 2020 election.”

---

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

---

Eisen noted that Trump had a long list of allies helping his scheme, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman.

“Trump converted a political campaign into a criminal organization,” he said.

Topali said that Willis is stretching the RICO statute beyond its traditional applications but argued that “Georgia is the most dangerous prosecution for Trump” and will be boosted by parallel prosecutions in other jurisdictions.

“Every previous and ongoing prosecution provides evidence and data and strategy to the ones that follow,” Topalli said. “So Fani Willis is in a good position here.”