fani willis or whether this grand jury here believe that these state laws or broken here. we know that the anticipation those witnesses, george chidi as well as jeff duncan, they were supposed to go before the grand jury tomorrow. but abruptly here this afternoon, fani willis s office ask them to come in and testify. both men have done so now. and now, apparently, their final witnesses intended to go before the grand jury, apparently they re not going to be brought in to testify. in fact, instead, she went straight to vote here, as a thunderstorm began here outside downtown atlanta. yeah, vaughn, you told us several things including every of the case, if charged, which is the vote we are waiting on. that could really stretch from early november out until 2021. that is certainly a wider calendar than the jack smith charge, but it may speak to what americans have learned on this process, that we actually take seriously the different laws and different places, and what happened in georg
i m curious what you think, again, just what the underlying facts might justify as this grand jury, we are told, does vote now for the first time? i think rico is perfectly appropriate for this case. you know, people tend to think of it as being used only in mafia cases. and that s how it originated. it s been years note of different kinds of cases, including fani willis. in my own district, we used it for street gangs, and we used it for corrupt public officials. and as roberts said, the beauty of it is it creates an umbrella. and you could bring all of these different predicate acts under that umbrella, so that the jury gets to hear the full scope of the criminal scheme, which maybe fast, and we have some very different schemes with different people doing different tasks. but it s all coming together for that same purpose. it would seem to me that this is really a perfect case for rico. the advantage of rico in addition to it being a fulsome picture of the trial is that unlike the
and the way they re going to be would on the indictment is as follows. it will stay, say the state of georgia versus the following defendants, maybe it s donald trump followed by several others. on the right side of the front page of the indictment, it will also show the charges that are being brought, that have been approved by the grand jury. and underneath each of those defendants names, you will see an identification of which number count applies to that particular defendant slash codefendant. but very, i think, key for us to think about at this time, considering the threats menacing that you have been seeing from the former president in this case, it s the fact that the jurors names will be revealed, ari, on that indictment. their names would be printed on a certain page of that indictment. those that were not present to vote, their names would be scratched out. but you can still see their names as they sat in service. so i think it s really important for people to realize, unlike
they just have to put sufficient evidence for what you are telling us. i d love for you to reflect on that, as i remind our viewers here joining us from the east coast, we are not following at least the beginning initiation of grand jury voting and that trump election case in georgia. yeah, so, ari, you raised some very important points. so, number one, you do not have to have a unanimous, quote, verdict reached by grand jurors. as i said, in the state of georgia, you need to have at least 12 of the 23 grand jurors that have sat through the presentment of the evidence to be able to put a charge through. number two, another critical point, the burden of proof in a criminal case when you go to a trial is beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. but the burden on the prosecution in this instance instanin the presentment of evidence and the grand jury, is just probable cause. as we know, probable cause is a much lower standard. and so, to your point, not only could not all
will be charged, whether it s tonight or tomorrow, or the next day, that he is certainly one of the people. the reason i am very focused on who else is because it s something that we have covered over and over again, which is state charges are not subject to a federal part pardon. meaning if donald trump or any other republican ally becomes president, ari, that it s not possible to get rid of those charges. so if you are a rudy giuliani or a mark meadows or a sydney powell, and you are now indicted in state court, you can be sitting there thinking, oh, i m going to get a federal pardon. that does not apply in this case. so the pressure on them to cooperate, you know, in the face and the teeth of these charges, depending on if they are charged, how strong they appear, it s going to be immense because that s going to be more like the normal process by which prosecutors obtain cooperating witnesses.