Trump opening himself up to witness intimidation complaints in Georgia: Legal analyst
Donald Trump is opening himself up to accusations of witness intimidation if he continues his public attacks on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, argued legal analyst Paul Butler on MSNBC Wednesday.
This comes as new reporting reveals that the former president could be hit with a fourth criminal case any day now as Willis is reportedly planning to seek more than a dozen indictments in the Georgia election interference probe, including potential racketeering charges.
"Can it be a defense for Donald Trump, if he is prosecuted in Georgia, that he just sincerely believed the looney-tune lawyers who told him there was election fraud, Giuliani said Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were drug dealers — he believed that but didn't believe [Secretary of State] Brad Raffensperger?" asked anchor Joy Reid.
"He could make that defense," said Butler. "If a belief is reasonable, it's much more likely to be seen as credible by jurors. But if Trump is specifically asking the Georgia Secretary of State to find him 11,780 votes because that's how much he needs to get the election overturned, that's not a search for truth. That's an attempt to try to stay in office by any means necessary."
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Furthermore, said Butler, "the problem with these insults to people like Fani Willis — and there are two legal problems — it might work with the political base, but the judge is likely to be concerned about witness intimidation and whether he's trying to infect the jury pool. The other problem, we know, including from our first segment, when Donald Trump threatens people, violence sometimes follows. He made threats on January 6th, and then an element of his supporters tried to murder. They were looking to murder the Vice President and the Speaker of the House at the Capitol."
Notably, Trump is already facing witness tampering charges, which form two of the counts in his indictment in the federal election plot case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
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