Roll, baby, roll
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As part of his deal, Mr. Chesebro agreed to “truthfully testify” against the remaining co-defendants, as had Ms. Powell and Scott Hall, an Atlanta bail bondsman who was the first to accept a plea deal in the case in late September. Mr. Chesebro also agreed to turn over documents and other evidence relevant to the case.
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The three folks who’ve pled guilty so far have all apparently avoided jail time and I think that’s an unmistakable signal to other defendants deciding whether or not they want to plead guilty and cooperate,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and senior F.B.I. official.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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McCarthy whistling past the graveyard?
my first impression of Sidney Powell’s guilty plea in the Fulton County election-interference case is: It signals that District Attorney Fani Willis’s much-heralded RICO indictment — in which 19 are charged, including Powell’s famous co-defendant Donald Trump — is a dud.
Powell is the second defendant in the case to be offered a misdemeanor plea to dispose of what was publicized as an indictment of the grand conspiracy to destroy American democracy.
Powell likewise pleaded guilty to intentional interference with the performance of election duties, as well as five other misdemeanors, without being required to plead guilty to the RICO charge — or even admit that she was guilty of it.
As I pointed out throughout the Mueller investigation, when prosecutors cut plea deals with cooperators early in the proceedings, they generally want the pleading defendants to admit guilt to the major charges in the indictment. That indicates to the public that the major conspiracy charged is real. It puts pressure on other defendants to plead guilty to serious charges and cooperate. And it shores up the case against the major culprits.
Here, to the contrary, Willis is not only abandoning the RICO charge; she’s not even getting felony guilty pleas of any kind.
If these were serious prosecutions, we would not be seeing probation sentences. If Willis truly believed in her ballyhooed RICO charge — the flaws of which I’ve discussed here, here, here, here, and here — she’d induce her cooperators to plead guilty to the RICO charge and explain, in the plea allocution, what they did, particularly in conjunction with Donald Trump, that makes them guilty.
Willis is not doing that.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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McCarthy whistling past the graveyard?
my first impression of Sidney Powell’s guilty plea in the Fulton County election-interference case is: It signals that District Attorney Fani Willis’s much-heralded RICO indictment — in which 19 are charged, including Powell’s famous co-defendant Donald Trump — is a dud.
Powell is the second defendant in the case to be offered a misdemeanor plea to dispose of what was publicized as an indictment of the grand conspiracy to destroy American democracy.
Powell likewise pleaded guilty to intentional interference with the performance of election duties, as well as five other misdemeanors, without being required to plead guilty to the RICO charge — or even admit that she was guilty of it.
As I pointed out throughout the Mueller investigation, when prosecutors cut plea deals with cooperators early in the proceedings, they generally want the pleading defendants to admit guilt to the major charges in the indictment. That indicates to the public that the major conspiracy charged is real. It puts pressure on other defendants to plead guilty to serious charges and cooperate. And it shores up the case against the major culprits.
Here, to the contrary, Willis is not only abandoning the RICO charge; she’s not even getting felony guilty pleas of any kind.
If these were serious prosecutions, we would not be seeing probation sentences. If Willis truly believed in her ballyhooed RICO charge — the flaws of which I’ve discussed here, here, here, here, and here — she’d induce her cooperators to plead guilty to the RICO charge and explain, in the plea allocution, what they did, particularly in conjunction with Donald Trump, that makes them guilty.
Willis is not doing that.
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The three folks who’ve pled guilty so far have all apparently avoided jail time and I think that’s an unmistakable signal to other defendants deciding whether or not they want to plead guilty and cooperate,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and senior F.B.I. official.
