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.

  • Telorand@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      1 year ago

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

      • Telorand@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

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