It's not the legal part I'm worried about
I think a jury will convict Trump. People who *aren't* on the jury are the problem.
The latest indictment of Donald Trump is all well and good, but you still need to find twelve random people who will vote to convict him should the evidence prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
JVL wonders just how likely that may be, in the southern state of Georgia:
Do you think there is a 12-person jury in Georgia that will unanimously vote to convict Donald Trump of a crime? Yes, I realize that Fulton County went heavily for Biden. But this is still Georgia. Even if the prosecution’s case is a slam-dunk—and we won’t know that until the trial, which might not take place until after the election—I’d put the odds of a jury conviction at no better than 50-50.
It’s true that it only takes one juror to cause a mistrial, and in that part of the country there is a long, sad history of guilty people getting away with terrible crimes (for a while, at least) because of sympathizers on the jury.
That said, the trial of Donald Trump will be in Fulton County, near Atlanta. And to say that particular county went heavily for Biden is an understatement:
Georgia may have sent Marjorie Taylor Greene to the House of Representatives, but it also went for Biden and elected two Democratic Senators - one of them an African-American pastor - in 2020; re-elected Warnock to a full Senate term in 2022; and, most importantly, had a Republican Governor and Secretary of State who resisted Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which is why we’re here today.
And while I look askance at anyone who supported four more years of Trump, many of the people who backed him did so reluctantly because they somehow saw him as the “lesser of two evils” compared to notorious frothing extreme-left Communist revolutionary (checks notes) Joe Biden. Bless their hearts. But even many Republicans who voted Trump out of party loyalty were thoroughly sick of him in 2020 and even more sick of him today.
The state hasn’t completely escaped its dark past, as illustrated by the shocking murder of Ahmaud Arbery in February, 2020 (which resulted in all three perpetrators being convicted, in a county that went almost two-to-one for Trump a few months later). But so far, it’s been repeatedly tested by Trump, and it’s passed every time.
Obviously, we don’t know for sure what will happen at trial, or if this even goes to trial at all. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger did their jobs when it counted, but the state Republican party - which controls both houses of the state legislature - has an actual flat-earther in a key leadership position. If there is a way to legally derail this prosecution, even if the Republican Governor holds firm, I’m sure they will find it.
What worries me is that it only takes a small number of radicalized, cultish Trump acolytes - or even just one - to do whatever it takes, criminal laws be damned, to free their hero.
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