, an assistant law professor at the University of Georgia and former assistant U.S. attorney. He said RICO cases allow prosecutors to talk about events that might not be criminal but fill out the picture.
The forgery and impersonation charges stem from the attempt to have an alternate set of pro-Trump electors ready to replace the state’s duly chosen Biden electors. Ms. Willis says the alternate electors were guilty of attempting to impersonate the real electors and engaged in forgery by signing documents claiming to be electors.
Charged alongside Mr. Trump are 18 others, including legal advisers Rudolph W. Giuliani and former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Some of the fake slate of electors assembled on behalf of Mr. Trump are also covered in the indictment, as are state-level political operatives who joined Mr. Trump’s post-election push to change the vote.
President Nixon signed the national RICO Act in 1970. The law was used as a tool to take down major criminal enterprises. One of the first targets was the Hells Angels motorcycle club, which beat the rap on a hung jury in a case prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller.