Photo: Washington Post/Getty Images Georgia prosecutors oppose plea deals for Trump, Meadows and Giuliani
Exclusive: Sources say that Fulton County prosecutors are unwilling to offer deals to the key trio, preferring instead to force them to trial.
Fulton County prosecutors do not intend to offer plea deals to Donald Trump and at a minimum two senior colleagues are accused of trying to overturn Georgia's 2020 elections, according to two sources familiar with the matter, preferring instead to force them to trial.
Ineligible individuals include Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
In addition to these three, the district attorney Fulton Fani Willis has begun plea negotiations or left open the possibility of negotiations with his remaining co-defendants in hopes they will eventually decide to become witnesses against the former president, the people said.
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The previously undisclosed decision has not been officially announced and could still change, for example if prosecutors change strategy. But it does signal who prosecutors see as their primary target and how they want to use the power of Georgia's racketeering laws to their advantage.
A spokesman for the district attorney's office declined to comment. .
Trump and 18 co-defendants initially pleaded not guilty in August to a sweeping indictment that charged them with violating the Rico statute in an attempt to reverse their 2020 election defeat in the state, including by promoting fake Trump voters and hacking machines. for voting.
In the weeks that followed, prosecutors quickly reached plea deals with former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, who all gave «suggestive» statements that were somewhat damaging to Trump, as well as with a local bail bondsman. Scott Hall.
The plea deals highlight a strategy that Willis has refined over Rico's successive prosecutions: extending offers to lower-level defendants in which they plead guilty to key crimes and face charges at higher levels. defendants level in the conspiracy pyramid.
As the figure at the head of the alleged conspiracy, Trump was always unlikely to be able to make a deal. But the inclusion of Meadows and Giuliani on this list, at least for now, provides the clearest road map to date of how prosecutors intend to bring the case to trial.
Preference The District Attorney's Office continues to shuffle through as many of Trump's co-defendants as possible, one of the sources said, and prosecutors have asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to set a deadline for plea deals as early as June 2024. .
At least some of the remaining co-defendants are likely to reach plea agreements if they fail in their pre-trial efforts to free themselves from Trump, including attempts to transfer them individual cases to federal court or have their individual charges dismissed entirely. .
Prosecutors in the Trump case appear confident they are close to bringing in more cooperating witnesses. In recent weeks, prosecutors have privately advised the judge to delay setting a trial date because some co-defendants may soon confess, one of the people said.
On Monday, Trump's former lawyer and co-defendant John Eastman asked a judge to allow him to stand trial separately from the former president and ahead of the August 2024 trial date prosecutors had set. Eastman also asked that the final plea agreement be rescheduled.
Eastman's lawsuit reflected obvious trepidation among the growing number of Trump allies accused in Fulton County of facing trial with Trump as Rico's top boss, a prospect widely seen as detrimental to everyone but Trump.
In a statement, Trump lawyer Steve Sadow suggested the former president was not interested in reaching an agreement. “Any comment from the Fulton County District Attorney's Office offering 'deals' to President Trump is ludicrous because we will accept nothing less than dismissal and possibly negotiate the terms of this office's apology to President Trump and the American people,” Sadow said. /p>
But the lack of a plea deal would be a blow to Meadows. The Guardian previously reported that Trump's former White House chief of staff was «hoping» for a deal in Georgia after he avoided charges in the 2020 federal election subversion case in Washington after testifying under qualified immunity.
It is unclear why prosecutors are opposing negotiations with Meadows, although the fact that he testified in Washington only after being ordered by the court suggests he may have been only a forced witness. Meadows' local lawyer did not respond to a request for comment Monday evening.
Giuliani's lawyers, meanwhile, have long said he never expected the plea offer. Giuliani's associates also suggested he wants to remain loyal to Trump, who is planning a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December to raise money to pay his mounting legal debts.
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