‘Racketeering acts’: Former prosecutor urges DOJ to investigate Trump under law ‘designed for mob bosses’

The Department of Justice should launch an investigation into whether former president Donald Trump violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, according to former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman.

Appearing on MSNBC, Goldman reacted to the latest bombshell report detailing efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Washington Post reported Thursday on a memo that called for Trump "to invoke the extraordinary powers of the National Security Agency and Defense Department to sift through raw electronic communications in an attempt to show that foreign powers had intervened in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden win."

Asked what the DOJ should do about the memo, Goldman said, "They should be including it with all of the other evidence that is now streaming out in the media and in the public about Donald Trump's conspiracy with a number of different people to try to overturn the election."

"This was even more wide-ranging than we could have ever imagined," Goldman said. "I'd be looking at a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the election, to defraud the United States. I'd also be looking at a potential racketeering indictment."

"As a former organized crime prosecutor, the RICO statute is really designed for someone — in this case like Donald Trump — who is orchestrating a wide-ranging enterprise engaged in multiple criminal acts — racketeering acts — designed to further the criminal objective of the enterprises," Goldman said. "And if you are charged with that, you do not have to be the one who's actually executing the plan. You just have to knowingly involve yourself in an enterprise that is trying to execute the plan."

"And it is designed for mob bosses for a reason, because they kept themselves insulated from the actual criminal behavior on the streets, and this is exactly the type of statute that has been applied well beyond mafia cases, and seems quite fitting for the evidence we're starting to see come out about the effort to overturn the election."

Watch below.

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